Passage Illustrated: Harry Recalls Being Inundated by Old Metal for Recycling

For which of us this fate was destined, I stopped not to consider, but amid a very sufficient patting upon the back, and thumping between the shoulders, bestowed by members of the company who approved of my proceedings. The three fiddles, the flute, and bassoon, that formed our band, being by this time sufficiently drunk, played after a fashion of their own, which by one of those strange sympathies of our nature, imparted its influence to our legs, and a country dance was performed in a style of free and easy gesticulation that defies description. At the end of eighteen couple, tired of my exertions — and they were not slight — I leaned my back against the wall of the room, which I now, for the first time, perceived was covered with a very peculiar and novel species of hanging — no less than a kind of rough, green baize cloth, that moved and floated at every motion of the air. I paid little attention to this, till suddenly turning my head, something gave way behind it. I felt myself struck upon the back of the neck, and fell forward into the room, covered by a perfect avalanche of fenders, fire-irons, frying-pans, and copper kettles, mingled with the lesser artillery of small nails, door keys, and holdfasts. There I lay amid the most vociferous mirth I ever listened to, under the confounded torrent of ironmongery that half-stunned me. The laughter over, I was assisted to rise, and having drank about a pint of vinegar, and had my face and temples washed in strong whiskey punch — the allocation of the fluids being mistaken — I learned that our host, the high sheriff, was a celebrated tin and iron man, and that his salles de reception were no other than his magazine of metals, and that to conceal the well filled shelves from the gaze of his aristocratic guests, they were clothed in the manner related; which my unhappy head, by some misfortune, displaced, and thus brought on a calamity scarcely less afflicting to him than to myself. I should scarcely have stopped to mention this here, were it not that Mary Anne's gentle nursing of me in my misery went far to complete what her fascination had begun; and although she could not help laughing at the occurrence, I forgave her readily for her kindness.

"Remember," said I, trying to ogle through a black eye, painted by the angle of a register grate — "remember, Mary Anne, I am to see you home." [Ch. XXXIX, "A Reminiscence," 267]

Commentary: The Romance Plot Slowly Advances, Despite Further Interruptions

Despite the novel's highly episodic structure and the prominence that Lever accords to both interpolated tales such as O'Leary's and Lorrequer's "reminiscences" such as the one realised in this present illustration, Lever is gradually advancing the plot of the romance between Harry and the Callonbys' daughter. From Captain Trevanion shortly before the duel in Chapter XXXIV the protagonist has learned that Lady Jane Callonby has given Sir Hugh, Harry's cousin, his dismissal as a prospective suitor. She has rightly assessed his motivations for proposing as primarily mercenary. Captain Trevanion assures Harry that he still enjoys a prominent position in her affections, and will eventually succeed in his marriage proposal. Complicating the Callonby romance is Harry's continuing interest in Emily Bingham — and her parents' interest in acquiring Harry as a rich son-in-law.

However, just as Harry is about to let us know whether he proposed to Miss Bingham or whether, as we expect, she broke off her relationship with Harry on account of a prior attachment, the narrator launches into another flashback. He and the members of his own regiment of infantry, just arrived from Liverpool, and a company of Dragoons (who have already suppressed the riots that were the occasion of the transfer) find themselves at a ball thrown the High Sheriff at his townhouse in Sackville Street. The lady mayoress had introduced a Miss Mary Anne Moriarity, sister-in-law to a quarrelsome and litigious Dubliner named Mark Antony Fitzpatrick. After sharing supper off the same plate, Harry rather fancies his chances with the girl. But the accident with the curtain and suffering a concussion from the avalanche of domestic metal objects disorients Harry somewhat, so that in leaving he mistakes the caped and muffled Mrs. Fitzpatrick (for it is a raw, cold evening in February in Dublin) for her unmarried sister. Only Mark Antony's being taken up for debt forestalls a duel between Harry and the husband.

In Phiz's illustration, the unpleasant, ugly fellow dancing below the tipsy pair of musicians (just a fiddler and a flautist, although Lever specifies two other fiddles and a bassoon) is likely Fitzpatrick, whom Lever describes "a tall, raw-boned, black-whiskered, ill-looking dog." The dancers seem to be a mixture of uniformed soldiers, civilians, and women, although what they are footing does not appear to be an orderly country dance, nor do there appear to be eighteen couples. Although we cannot see Harry, who is buried under the avalanche, the bewitching little colleen "with a pair of laughing blue eyes and dark eyelashes" (right) who has miraculously avoided the metallic cascade must be Miss Mary Anne.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1839.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-85.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Seven: "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and a Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 2 May 2023