The Manolo by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), May 1848. Steel-engraving. 9.5 cm high by 14.3 cm wide (3 ¾ by 5 ½ inches), framed, full-page illustration for Roland Cashel, Chapter VI, "A Fracas at the Betting Ring," facing p. 44. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Lever Rapidly Moves the Action to Ireland
Whatever the interest, and occasionally it rose to a high pitch, that attended his narratives of danger and daring, the little sketches he gave from time to time of the domestic life of these far-away people, seemed to attract the most delighted attention of his fair hearers, particularly where his narrative touched upon the traits, whether of beauty, dress, or demeanor, that distinguish the belles of New Spain.
“How difficult,” said Miss Kennyfeck, “I could almost say, how impossible, to leave a land so abounding in the romance of life, for all the dull and commonplace realities of European existence.”
“How hard to do so without leaving behind the heart that could feel such ecstasies,” murmured Olivia, with a half-raised eyelid, and a glance that made Cashel flush with delight.
“How shall we ever make Ireland compensate you for quitting so lovely a country!” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, with a smile rarely accorded to anything lower than a viscount.
“We have a Mexican proverb, madam,” said Cashel, gayly, “which says, 'Wherever the sun shines, bright eyes shine also.' But enough of these tiresome memories, in which my egotism will always involve me. Shall we have a Fandango?”
“I don't know it; I never saw it danced.”
“Well, the Manolo, then.”
“Nor that either,” said both girls, laughing.
“Well, will you learn? I'll teach you the Manolo. It's very simple. If you'll play the air, Miss Kennyfeck, — it runs thus.” Here he opened the pianoforte, and, after a few chords, struck with a masterly finger, he played a little Spanish dance; but with a spirit of execution, and in such an exciting character of time and measure, that a general exclamation of delight broke from the whole room, Mr. Jones himself forgetting all rivalry, and Mr. Softly laying down his newspaper to listen, and for a moment carried away by the fascination of the spirit-stirring melody.
“That is the Manolo; come, now, and let me teach you, first the air, and then the dance.” [Chapter VI, "A Fracas at the Betting Ring," 44]
Commentary: Cashel Transformed by An Irish Inheritance
Roland's translation to the European setting begins at the end of Chapter Two, "A Challenge — And How it Ended." Just when affairs look grim for the protagonist, fate steps in. Among Don Pedro Rica's guests is a decidedly odd little Englishman, Simms, a middle-aged traveller evidently associated with the practice of law in both London and Dublin. In the second chapter in a private audience with the much travelled "Caballero," Don Roland, and his would-be father-in-law, Don Pedro, Simms reveals that Roland is in fact the long-lost heir to vast estates in Ireland, "the rightful owner of the whole of the Godfrey and Godfrey Browne estates, and lands of Ben Currig, Tulough Callaghan, Knock Swinery, Kildallooran, Tullimeoran, Ballycanderigan, with all the manorial rights, privileges, and perquisites appertaining to" (Chapter II, p. 19). This sudden inheritance will free him from service in the Columbian navy, and precipitate his return to Europe. Of course he has to free himself of his engagement to Don Pedro's daughter, but with thousands of pounds now suddenly at his disposal Roland can undoubtedly buy his way out of the marriage contract since he commands a huge bank balance in London:
“Check-book of the bank of Fordyce and Grange, Lombard Street,” replied Simms; “and here, the authority by which you are at liberty to draw on the firm for the balance already in their hands, amounting to — let me see “— here he rapidly set down certain figures on the corner of a piece of paper, and with the speed of lightning performed a sum in arithmetic — “the sum of one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds seven and elevenpence, errors excepted.”
“This sum is mine!” cried Cashel, as his eyes flashed fire, and his dark cheek grew darker with excitement.
“It is only a moiety of your funded property,” said Simms. “Castellan and Biggen, the notaries, certify to a much larger amount in the Three per Cents.”
“And I am at liberty to draw at once for whatever amount I require?” [20]
The sudden good news frees him from marital obligations to Maritaña, and gives him all the more reason not to fight the appointed duel with his erstwhile friend Enrique. Thus, in subsequent illustrations Roland Cashel appears in scenes from the Anglo-Irish society that Charles Lever understood so well. At the conclusion of Chapter Three, we break off in Columbia, at Don Pedro Rico’s villa overlooking the Pampas as Roland contemplates simply deserting from the naval service rather than going through the necessary paperwork — and bribery of petty officials. The third chapter whisks readers without transition to an autumn evening in a townhouse in Merrion Square, Dublin. Thus, Lever translates his hero back across the Atlantic for scenes of Anglo-Irish society such as the fourth regular engraving, The Manolo, in Chapter Six, when Cashel tries the impress the company with tales drawn from his Latin American adventures and the slave trade.
Young Cashel arrives from London, where he and his attorney, Mr. Kennyfeck, have been dealing with the legal implications of this sizeable inheritance through the Court of Chancery. However, Kennyfeck, sporting a black eye, does not linger to play the host at his own board. Rather, he leaves his lawyer companions Jones and Softly to entertain the young adventurer. Cashel explains that Kennyfeck's condition is the result of the wild youth's having bribed the postboy to take them to the races outside Coventry instead of directly to Liverpool to take ship for Dublin. Although young Cashel acquitted himself well in an altercation with some aristocratic swells over a bet, Kennyfeck got the worst of it.
Having entertained the male dinner guests with the anecdote of the Coventry "scrimmage," Cashel now entertains the female contingent with a description of the young beauties of "New Spain" (Cuba, Mexico, and Columbia). The Kennyfeck daughters, Olivia and Greax, cannot believe that Roland has given up the romance of the Spanish Main for the comparative boredom of "dull and common-place" provincial Ireland. He now enlivens the after-dinner talk by offering to teach the young Irish belles either the Fandango or the Manolo, much to the chagrin of Softly and Jones. Phiz has seized this moment as the inspiration for his fourth illustration, set in the candle-lit dining-room of the Kennyfeck mansion, and focussing on Livy dancing, her sister at the pianoforte, and their mother (right of centre), looking on. All three fashionably dressed women look very much like Phiz's young women in other books by Lever and Dickens. But the dashing youth who bows before Olivia Kennyfeck is far more angular and animated than a Martin Chuzzlewit or Walter Gay, for example.
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 5 December 2022