Passage Illustrated: Anglo-Irish High Society in Cork

Miss O'Dowd nodded a graceful assent, while a sharp-looking old dowager at the side of the table called out, "a rubber of four on, my Lord;" and now began an explanation from the whole party at once. Nicholas saw this was his time, and thought that in the melee, his hint might reach his mistress unobserved by the remainder of the company. He accordingly protruded his head into the room, and placing his finger upon the side of his nose, and shutting one eye knowingly, with an air of great secrecy, whispered out, "Miss Betty — Miss Betty, alanah!" For some minutes the hum of the voices drowned his admonitions — but as, by degrees waxing warmer in the cause, he called out more loudly, — every eye was turned to the spot from whence these extraordinary sounds proceeded; and certainly the appearance of Nicholas at the moment was well calculated to astonish the "elegans" of a drawing room. With his one eye fixed eagerly in the direction of his mistress, his red scratch wig pushed back off his forehead, in the eagerness of his endeavour to be heard, there he stood, perfectly unmindful of all around, save Miss O'Dowd herself. It may well be believed, that such an apparition could not be witnessed with gravity, and, accordingly a general titter ran through the room, the whist party still contending about odd tricks and honours, being the only persons insensible to the mirth around them — "Miss Betty, arrah, Miss Betty," said Nicholas with a sigh that converted the subdued laughter of the guests into a perfect burst of mirth.

"Eh," said his lordship, turning round; "what is this? We are losing something excellent, I fear."

At this moment, he caught a glimpse of Nicholas, and, throwing himself back in this chair, laughed immoderately. It was now Miss Betty's turn; she was about to rise from the table, when the well-known accents of Nicholas fell upon her ear. She fell back in her seat — there he was: the messenger of the foul fiend himself would have been more welcome at that moment. Her blood rushed to her face and temples; her hands tingled; she closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there stood the accursed Nicholas glowering at her still.

"Man — man!" said she at length; "what do you mean, what do you want here?"

Poor Nicholas, little guessing that the question was intended to throw a doubt upon her acquaintance with him, and conceiving that the hour for the announcement had come, hesitated for an instant how he should designate the conveyance. He could not call it a coach! It certainly was not a buggy—neither was it a jaunting car — what should he say — he looked earnestly, and even imploringly at his mistress, as if to convey some sense of his difficulty, and then, as it were, catching a sudden inspiration, winked once more — as he said: —

"Miss Betty — the — the — the —," and here he looked indescribably droll; "the thing, you know, is at the door."

All his Lordship's politeness was too little for the occasion, and Miss O'Dowd's tenantry were lost to the Callonby interest for ever. [Chapter III, "Life at Callonby — Love-Making — Miss O'Dowd's Adventure," 30]

Commentary: Nicholas the Bumpkin Struggles to Announce Miss O'Dowd's "Conveyance"

The elderly Miss Betty O'Dowd is having such a good time playing whist with her aristocratic neighbours, the Callonbys, that she fails to notice her servant, Nicholas. She had instructed him to call her when the wagon that is scheduled to transport her home near Ennistimon has arrived at the portcochere. Owing to the disastrous condition of the roads, Miss Betty has not been able to avail herself of a conventional carriage or the inside car, and has had to accept transportation via a "low-backed car," in other words, an agricultural cart with a feather bed. She arrives from her eight-mile journey a little the worse for wear. But the end of the delightful evening has come, and at eleven o'clock, as she had arranged, her servant slips into the drawing-room to report that her conveyance awaits. In such elevated company, Nicholas is too embarrassed to announce that her cart has arrived, and therefore describes it as "the thing." Harry Lorrequer, the Callonbys' frequent guest, however, notices both her servant's discomfiture and Miss Betty's being oblivious of his presence.

The chief characters in the illustration are therefore the "sharp-looking old dowager" (at the table, right); her whist partner, Lord Callonby (right); the haughty hostess, Lady Callonb (centre); and the comic Irish servant with the rugged Hibernian visage beckoning her from the door (left). The style is strictly caricatural, like so many of Phiz's Pickwick and Nickleby engravings dating from the same period.

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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13 April 2023