The Cracked Pate or Balm of Gilead by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 151 in the fifth instalment (April 1855). Steel-engraving. 9.5 cm high by 13.7 cm wide (3 ¾ by 5 ⅜ inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, for Chapter XV, "A Ruined Fortune." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Jack Massingbred gets bandaged at Tom Magennis's lodge
“And he struck you?” broke in Magennis, violently.
“You shall see for yourself,” said Jack, smiling, as, untying the handkerchief, he exhibited a deep cut on his forehead, from which the blood still continued to ooze.
“Let Joan doctor you; she's wonderful at a cut. She has something they call Beggarman's Balsam. I'll fetch her.” And without waiting for a reply he left the room. The young woman speedily after appeared with some lint and a small pot of ointment, proceeding to her office with all the quiet assiduity of a practised hand, and a gentleness that few “regulars” could vie with. Her skill was more than recompensed by the few muttered words of praise Magennis bestowed, as he grumbled out, half to himself: “Old Cahill himself couldn't do it better. I'd back her for a bandage against the College of Surgeons. Ain't ye easier now? — to be sure you are. She's good for that if she is for nothing else!” And even this much of eulogy made her bosom heave proudly, and brought a flush of joy over her cheek that was ecstasy itself. [Chapter XV, "A Ruined Fortune," pp. 150-151]
Commentary: Jack, the supposed "poacher," recovers from Repton's attack
Joe has decided not to return home because his father's note about the unexpected visitor failed to mention Jack Massingbred. In a fit of pique Jack decides to accept the invitation of the local Radical, Tom Magennis, to spend a week as his guest to take in some shooting at his place on the Connemara estate. The mansion "in the mountains," it turns out, is little more than an ill-heated hunting lodge in a state of disrepair. The setting of the present illustration is Magennis's chaotic parlour.
Arriving home, Tom berates his peasant-wife out of ill humour, convinced that he receives so few social invitations because of young Joan's being a mere herder's daughter. When the guest returns from his day's hunting exhausted and famished, the upper-class Dublin university student praises Joan's Irish stew, mollifying Tom's discontent with Joan. When he sees Jack's injured forehead, his host puts Joan's first-aid skills to good use as she expertly bandages the wound. His host is incensed when he learns that the old Martin family attorney Valentine Repton assaulted Jack with his riding crop, and exhorts him to challenge the elderly lawyer to a duel. And, of course, Tom Magennis, the staunch advocate of Home Rule and the inveterate opponent of the Martins, is just the Irishman to plan and carry out such an affair of honour.
Phiz's view of the interior suggests the ramshackle nature of Tom Magennis's freehold, the lease on which expires shortly. The jumble of books, glasses, and decanters on the sideboard-cum-bookshelf in the background conveys precisely Lever's description of the rundown establishment. And the illustrator provides an admirable portrait of the abrasive, hard-drinking Radical.
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 Martins 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 16 September 2022