Modirideroo by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), twelfth steel-engraving and eighteenth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman, Part 6 (June 1842), Chapter XXV, "The Steeple-Chase." 8.9 by 15.5 cm (3 ½ by 6 ⅛ inches), vignetted, p. 173. [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: The Culminating Scene in the Steeple-chase at Loughrea
For about thirty yards we cantered side by side — the grey horse keeping stroke with the other, and not betraying the slightest evidence of bad temper. Whatever my own surprise, the amazement of Burke was beyond all bounds. He turned completely round in his saddle to look, and I could see, in the workings of his features, the distrustful expression of one who suspected he had been duped. Meanwhile, the cheers of the vast multitude pealed high on every side; and, as the thought flashed across me that I might still acquit myself with credit, my courage rose, and I gripped my saddle with double energy.
At the foot of the slope there was, as I have already mentioned, a small fence; towards this we were now approaching at the easy sling of a hand-gallop, when suddenly Burke's features — which I watched from time to time with intense anxiety — changed their expression of doubt and suspicion for a look of triumphant malice. Putting spurs to his horse, he sprang a couple of lengths in advance, and rode madly at the fence; the grey stretched out to follow, and already was I preparing for the leap, when Burke, who had now reached the fence, suddenly swerved his horse round, and, affecting to baulk, cantered back towards the hill. The manoeuvre was perfectly successful. My horse, who up to that moment was going on well, threw his forelegs far out, and came to a dead stop. In an instant the trick was palpable to my senses; and, in the heat of my passion, I dashed in both spurs, and endeavoured to lift him by the rein. Scarcely had I done so, when, as if the very ground beneath had jerked us upwards, he sprang into the air, dashing his head forward between the forelegs, and throwing up his haunches behind, till I thought we should come clean over in the somersault. I kept my seat, however; and thinking that boldness alone could do at such a moment, I only waited till he reached the ground, when I again drove the spurs up to the rowels in his flanks. With a snort of passion he bounded madly up, and pawing the air for some moments with his forelegs, lit upon the earth, panting with rage, and trembling in every limb. [Chapter XXV, "The Steeple-Chase," pp. 172-173]
Commentary: A Grudge Match with an Older, More Experienced Rider
Mr. Ulick Burke — for I need not say it was he — was a well looking man, of about eight-and-twenty or thirty years of age. Although his height was below the middle size, he was powerfully and strongly made; his features would have been handsome were it not for a certain expression of vulgar suspicion that played about the eyes. . . . [Ch. XXI, "Loughrea."]
This sort of horse-racing scene in which the riders bear some animus towards each other is very much Lever's forté, and Phiz was ever a good hand at a horse, and seems to have taken any opportunity in illustrating Lever's fiction to show horses both standing still for grooming or in vigorous action. Here two thoroughbreds and their skilled riders are competing not merely for a prize purse, but for a number of ancillary wagers that may break the fortunes and career of Captain Philip O'Grady, already posted to England for overseas service. Nineteen-year-old Jack Hinton, very much the outsider, is outclassed by the devious and ruthless Burke, a highly experienced cross-country rider who is native to the place — and a morally repugnant Irishman unworthy of the title "gentleman," although he very much appears the "gentleman rider."
Burke (background, left) is riding a local favourite, "Jug of Punch," while Hinton is astride O'Grady's fractious but powerful gray, Modirideroo (foreground, right, with onlookers cheering). Phiz has elected to illustrate the moment when the competitors face their first challenge, a small fence at foot of the first slope. Burke's ruse to upset Modirideroo has resulted in Hinton's being rolled to the ground, "bruised, stunned, and senseless" (173), but only temporarily. In the scene depicted, Burke has just leapt the fence, and Hinton is struggling to turn Modirideroo, and catch up. Shortly Burke surmounts the second fence as the dazed Hinton speeds past the stunned Burke to take on the chief obstacle of the course, a five-foot hedge. Just as it seems that Burke is to leap the last hurdle and win, Tipperary Joe leaps up from the ditch and grabs Burke's reins. He cries foul, but Hinton is acclaimed the winner. The inset woodcut four pages later, one of Phiz's most complicated, Tipperary Joe (p. 177), depicts the wounded Joe carried off the course by the peasantry in triumph on a door, his thigh-bone fractured.
Related Material
- "Phiz" — artist, wood-engraver, etcher, and printer — and the new reproductive processes
- "Phiz: 'A Good Hand at a Horse'" — A Gallery and Brief Overview of Phiz's Illustrations of Horses for Defoe, Dickens, Lever, and Ainsworth (1836-64)
- The Novels of Charles Lever, 1839-72
- Phiz's Forty-four Illustrations for Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
- Phiz's Forty Illustrations for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44)
Scanned image and commentary 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
Allingham, Philip V. "Hablot Knight Browne: A Good Hand at a Horse." Illustration, 73 (Autumn 2022): 36-40.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.
Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 25 May 2023