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Long Tim
Phiz
February 1842 instalment
Wood-engraving
7.6 cm by 5.3 cm (3 by 2 inches), vignetted
Initial wood-cut: third illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (February 1842), embedded on page 29.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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“I say, O'Grady, do come here for a minute. What the deuce can that be?”
Here an immoderate fit of laughter from his Lordship brought us both to the window. The figure to which his attention was directed was certainly not a little remarkable. Mounted upon an animal of the smallest possible dimensions, sat, or rather stood, the figure of a tall, gaunt, raw-boned looking man, in a livery of the gaudiest blue and yellow, his hat garnished with silver lace, while long tags of the same material were festooned gracefully from his shoulder to his breast; his feet nearly touched the ground, and gave him rather the appearance of one progressing with a pony between his legs, than of a figure on horseback; he carried under one arm a leather pocket, like a despatch bag; and, as he sauntered slowly about, with his eyes directed hither and thither, seemed like some one in search of an unknown locality.
The roar of laughter which issued from our window drew his attention to that quarter, and he immediately touched his hat, while a look of pleased recognition played across his countenance. “Holloa, Tim!” cried O'Grady, “what's in the wind now?”
The dress of this strange figure was a suit of very gorgeous light brown livery, with orange facings, a green plush waistcoat and shorts, frogged, flapped, and embroidered most lavishly with gold lace, silk stockings, with shoes, whose enormous buckles covered nearly the entire foot, and rivalled, in their paste brilliancy, the piercing brightness of the wearer's eye. [Chapter IV, "The Breakfast," pp. 28-29]
Following up on his caricature of the quirky misanthrope Corny Delany, also in servant's livery, Phiz provides a woodcut thumbnail, dropped into the letterpress, of Long Tim at precisely the moment that we encounter him in Lever's prose narrative. The whimsical character counterpoints the witty, sophisticated but often sarcastic table talk of the Viceroy and his minions at dinner the night before and of the breakfasters in Phil O'Grady's room in the Castle. The physical and visual comedy is not exactly novel here: tall messenger rides small horse. This is definitely an earlier style of nineteenth-century wood-engraving rather than the more elaborate and detailed composition possible after innovations in the 1850s. Here Phiz gives just enough background information to suggest that Long Tim is riding beneath the Phil O'Grady's window in the courtyard. What Tim produces from his leather pouch and hands over to Corny Delany is an invitation card for Captain O'Grady. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Rooney are inviting him to dinner on Friday night and half-past-seven. After discussing the merits of accepting or not with the foppish Lord Dudley, O'Grady and Hinton mount their horses and join the rest of the Viceregal party, making for a field-day in Phoenix Park by way of Parliament Street.
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, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.
Sutherland, John A. "Jack Hinton The Guardsman." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 323.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 21 May 2023