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Mrs. Paul Rooney
Evans
Phiz
February 1842 instalment
Wood-engraving
8.4 cm by 5.5 cm (3 ¼ by 2 ⅛ inches), vignetted
Third wood-cut: sixth illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (February 1842), embedded on page 48.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Mrs. Rooney — or, as she wrote herself upon her card, Mrs. Paul Rooney (there seemed something distinctive in the prenom.) — was a being of a very different order. Perfectly unconscious of the ridicule that attaches to vulgar profusion, she believed herself the great source of attraction of her crowded staircase and besieged drawing-room. True it was, she was a large and very handsome woman. Her deep, dark, brown eyes, and brilliant complexion, would have been beautiful, had not her mouth somewhat marred their effect, by that coarse expression which high living and a voluptuous life is sure to impress upon those not born to be great. There is no doubt of it, the mouth is your thorough-bred feature. You will meet eyes as softly beaming, as brightly speaking, among the lofty cliffs of the wild Tyrol, or in the deep valleys of the far west; I have seen, too, a brow as fairly pencilled, a nose no Grecian statue could surpass, a skin whose tint was fair and transparent as the downy rose-leaf, amid the humble peasants of a poor and barren land; but never have I seen the mouth whose clean-cut lip and chiselled arch betokened birth. No; that feature would seem the prerogative of the highly born; fashioned to the expression of high and holy thoughts; moulded to the utterance of ennobling sentiment, or proud desire. Its every lineament tells of birth and blood.
Now, Mrs. Rooney's mouth was a large and handsome one, her teeth white and regular withal, and, when at rest, there was nothing to find fault with; but let her speak — was it her accent? — was it the awful provincialism of her native city? — was it that strange habit of contortion any patois is sure to impress upon the speaker? — I cannot tell, but certainly it lent to features of very considerable attraction a vulgarising character of expression.
It was truly provoking to see so handsome a person mar every effect of her beauty by some extravagant display. Dramatising every trivial incident in life, she rolled her eyes, looked horror-struck or happy, sweet or sarcastic, lofty or languishing, all in one minute. There was an eternal play of feature of one kind or other; there was no rest, no repose. Her arms — and they were round, and fair, and well-fashioned — were also enlisted in the service; and to a distant observer Mrs. Rooney's animated conversation appeared like a priest performing mass. [Chapter VII, "The Rooneys," pp. 47-48]
From Hinton's perspective, Mrs. Rooney is a social-climbing provincial, an ostentatiously dressed poser who enjoys being a big fish in a little pond, the social milieu of provincial Dublin. And any account that the narrator gives of her speech conveys a lilting Irish brogue and an underlying sense of self-importance. Phiz complements Lever's text by giving her a knowing, direct gaze, as if she is appraising the reader, and flamboyant Regency dress and hat. She is a larger-than-life middle-aged beauty. Phiz has given her a serious gaze and a refined if not thoroughly "beautiful head, whose fair and classic proportions were balanced so equally upon her white and swelling throat" (48). He does not hint at her vulgar tastes, her indulgence in "contemptible rivalries," or her glorying in "insignificant triumphs" (48).
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 22 May 2023