The Game at Monte by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), May 1848. Steel-engraving. 10 cm high by 16 cm wide (4 by 6 ¼ inches), framed, full-page dark plate for Roland Cashel, Chapter I, "Don Pedro's Guests," facing p. 4. [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: Lever's Opening on the Pampas of Columbia
A broad alley, flanked by tall hedges of the prickly pear, led from the villa to a little mound, on which a chestnut-tree stood, the patriarch of the wood; a splendid tree it was, and worthy of a better destiny than it now fulfilled, as, lighted up by several lanterns suspended from the branches, it spread its shade over a large table where a party were playing at “Monte.”
Even without the suggestive aid of the large heaps of gold beside each player, and piled in the middle of the table, the grave and steadfast faces of some, the excited look of others, and the painful intensity of interest in all, showed that the play was high. Still, although such was the case, and while the players were men whose hot blood and reckless lives did but little dispose them to put the curb upon their tempers, not a word was spoken aloud; nor did a gesture or a look betray the terrible vacillations of hope and fear the changeful fortune of the game engendered. Standing near the table, but not mingling in the play, stood Don Pedro himself, his sallow and melancholy features fixed upon the game, with an expression that might mean sorrow or deep anxiety, it were difficult to say which.
Beside him, at a small table littered with papers and writing materials, sat his steward, or intendant, a German named Geizheimer, a beetle-browed, white-cheeked, thick-lipped fellow, whose aquiline features and guttural accents told that lending money at enormous interest was no uncongenial occupation. Such was his present, and indeed almost his only duty; for, while Don Pedro seldom or never played, gaming was the invariable occupation of the guests, whose means to support it were freely supplied by the steward; the borrowers either passing a simple note for repayment, or, when the sum was a heavy one, mortgaging their share in the next prize they should capture. Other contracts, it was rumored, were occasionally resorted to, but of such we shall speak anon.
At a short distance from the table, but sufficiently near to observe the game, stood one on whom nothing short of the passion of play could have prevented every eye being bent. [Chapter I, "Don Pedro's Guests," pp. 3-4]
Commentary: The Dark Plates of Roland Cashel (1848-49)
Browne displays his compositional abilities in A meeting under the Greenwood tree, where trunks and foliage form a design around the human figures. The artist has varied the texture very effectively by using several kinds of roulette. In some of the interior scenes, the mechanical tint adds a degree of depth uncharacteristic of most such subjects among Phiz's work, and at least some reviewers were impressed: Chapman and Hall's catalogue for November 1849 quotes the Edinburgh News on the topic of Roland Cashel to the effect that "the illustrations by Phiz are the finest we have ever seen anywhere, combining, in a new and noble style, line with etching, thus producing all the mellowness of mezzotint in the happiest manner." [Steig, pp. 307-308]
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
Lever, Charles. Roland Cashel. With 39 illustrations and engraved title-vignette by Phiz. London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.
Lever, Charles. Roland Cashel. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I and II. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.
Steig, Michael. Chapter One, "Illustration, Collaboration, and Iconography." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 1-23.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter X, "Onlooker in Florence, 1847-1850." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 165-183
Created 31 October 2022