Catching a Poacher! by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 141 in the fifth instalment (April 1855). Steel-engraving. 9 cm high by 14.4 cm wide (3 ½ by 5 ½ inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, for Chapter XIV, "A Fine Old Irish Barrister." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Jack Massingbred encounters Valentine Repton
Estrangement at first, next distrust, and finally dislike, will separate the gentry from the peasantry, and then—I tremble to think of what then!”
As Repton had uttered these words, the sharp bang of a gun startled him, and at the same instant a young fellow sprang from the copse in front of him into the alley. His coarse fustian shooting-jacket, low-crowned oil-skin hat, and leather gaiters seemed to bespeak the professional poacher, and Repton dashed forward with his heavy riding-whip upraised towards him.
“Take care, old gentleman,” said the young man, facing about; “my second barrel is loaded, and if you dare —”
“By Heaven! I'll thrash you, you scoundrel!” said Repton, whose passion was now boiling over by a sudden bound of the cob, which had nearly thrown him from the saddle, — a mischance greeted by a hearty burst of laughter from the stranger.
“I fancy you have quite enough to do at this moment!” cried he, still laughing.
Half mad with anger, Repton pressed his spurs to the cob's flanks, while he gave him a vigorous cut of the whip on the shoulder. The animal was little accustomed to such usage, and reared up wildly, and would inevitably have fallen back with his rider, had not the stranger, springing forward, seized the bridle, and pulled him down by main force. Whether indifferent to his own safety, or so blinded by passion as not to recognize to what he owed it, the old man struck the other a heavy blow with his whip over the head, cutting through his hat, and covering his face with blood. [Chapter XIV, "A Fine Old Irish Barrister," 141]
Commentary: The Old Attorney confronts a supposed "poacher."
We have heard Mr. Godfrey Martin mention that he had invited his attorney, Repton, down to the Osprey's Nest; now Phiz and Lever bring him on stage, and give us yet another view of the dapper, self-assured Jack Massingbred. We also now encounter in illustration a significant character whom Lever introduced in the previous chapter: a witty, aphoristic Dublin attorney in his late sixties, Valentine Repton: "he was then the Father of the Bar — was Valentine Repton, a man whose abilities might have won for him the very highest distinctions, but who, partly through indolence, and partly through a sturdy desire to be independent of all party, had all his life rejected every offer of advancement, and had seen his juniors pass on to the highest ranks of the profession, while he still wore his stuff-gown, and rose to address the Court from the outer benches" (129-130). In his fashion sense as in his political views, Repton is something of a throwback to the Ireland that existed before the 1801 Act of Union:
Martin was very far from satisfied about the arrangement for his friend's equitation; nor did the aspect of Repton himself, as attired for the road, allay that sense of alarm; the old lawyer's costume being a correct copy of the colored prints of those worthies who figured in the early years of George the Third's reign, — a gray cloth spencer being drawn over his coat, fur-collared and cuffed, high riding-boots of black polished leather, reaching above the knee, and large gauntlets of bright yellow doeskin, completing an equipment which Martin had seen nothing resembling for forty years back.
“A perfect cavalier, Repton!” exclaimed he, smiling. [136]
This, then, is the natty figure on the cob whom Phiz has the young sportsman, Jack Massingbred (readily identifiable in the illustration by the shotgun under his arm) here confront. Repton has undertaken to inspect the Quarries of the Connemara estate, as well as the many other costly improvements that his friend Martin's niece has effected over the past three years. Although he is initially doubtful about the huge costs involved (Martin has had to budget ten thousand pounds a year), Repton is impressed by Mary's grasp of these modernizing initiatives and of the reception the workers give her. And then comes the blast of the shotgun, announcing, thinks Reston, the presence of a poacher, a species of felon for whom Reston over his years in court has developed an inveterate dislike. At the second discharge of a fowling-piece the old attorney rides off to confront the varlet, leaving Mary to explore another alley through the woods before they rendezvous at the lower end of the road. Mary believes that no special precautions against poaching here are needed because their Oughterard neighbours simply would never take such a "liberty."
The frequency with which authorities laid charges of poaching in rural districts of Ireland was one indication of widespread poverty in the early nineteenth century. Impoverished Irish peasants typically engaged in poaching game birds and salmon to supplement their meagre incomes and diets, particularly during the winter months. It was sometimes regarded as a form of protest against the hunting privileges of the local gentry. Thus, the attorney for the Martin estate, Reston, is outraged to see a well-dressed youth wielding a double-barrelled shotgun and bagging partridges on his clients' estate. Since Phiz has dressed the affluent and politically-connected Trinity College student Jack Massingbred in fashionable shooting attire, the attorney seems to be interpreting the shooter's presence on the estate as some sort of affront to the rights of the Martins rather than a labourer's attempting to alleviate agrarian subsistence.
Related Material: Phiz's Passion for Horses, as Reflected Here
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'"Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Marttins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.
Osborne, Harvey. "The Seasonality of Nineteenth-century Poaching." The Agricultural History Review 48, I, pp. 27-41. https://bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/48n1a2.pdf accessed 14 September 2022.
Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.
Created 13 September 2022