Passage Illustrated: The Double Misapprehension

It was just at this critical moment that a sudden gleam of light from a window fell upon the disordered mass, and to my astonishment, I need not say to my delight, I perceived that they were Portuguese troops. Before I had well time to halt my party, my convictions were pretty well strengthened by hearing a well-known voice in the rear of the mass call out, —

“Charge, ye devils! charge, will ye? Illustrious Hidalgos! cut them down; los infidelos, sacrificados los: scatter them like chaff!”

One roar of laughter was my only answer to this energetic appeal for my destruction, and the moment after the dry features and pleasant face of old Monsoon beamed on me by the light of a pine-torch he carried in his right hand.

“Are they prisoners? Have they surrendered?” inquired he, riding up. “It is well for them; we’d have made mince-meat of them otherwise; now they shall be well treated, and ransomed if they prefer.”

“Gracios excellenze!” said I, in a feigned voice. [Chapter LIII, "Alvas," 278]

Commentary: All's Well That Ends Well

With the comic illustration of Major Monsoon at the head of his Portuguese cavalry Phiz underscores the night meeting of the blustery officer and O'Malley at the head of his column, who have covered the distance from Oporto to Alvas on the border With Spain in only a day — a distance of fourteen leagues. Whereas O'Malley has learned from the townspeople fleeing Alvas that the French are occupying the town, Monsoon has been led to believe that the force ahead of his are French cavalry. O'Malley has just given the order to attack. Both commanders misapprehend the situation, and believe that the French are upon them. Phiz tries to capture the nuances of discord in Lever's description of the scene in the marketplace: "For some minutes the din and uproar were terrific — the clatter of horses' feet, the braying of trumpets, the yelling of the mob, all mingling in one frightful concert" (277) in the driving rain. Both leaders are incorrect; the French cavalry under Marshal Victor have fled before the British artillery and Don Asturias Y'Hajos' cavalry brigade. The reunion ends appropriately with Monsoon treating O'Malley to supper at the inn, and then has the temerity to have him write the despatches to be forwarded to headquarters indicating that O'Malley's reinforcements have rendezvoused with Monsoon's Portuguese forces on June 26.

Phiz foregrounds Monsoon with his torch, but has carefully sketched in O'Malley commanding his unit of Irish Dragoons, left rear. The illustration has unfortunately been mounted facing the last page of the preceding chapter, which concludes St. Croix's narrative of his experiences as a page to Napoleon at the Tuileries in Paris.

Related Material

• Major Monsoon and Donna Maria
• Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
• Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882; A Brief Biography
• Cattermole and Phiz: The First illustrators of Barnaby Rudge: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
• Horses by "Phiz" for Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (Nov.-Dec. 1841, rpt., 1873)
• 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)

Bibliography

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. "Edited by Harry Lorrequer." Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1841. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Published serially in The Dublin University Magazine from Vol. XV (March 1840) through XVIII (December 1841). Dublin: William Curry, March 1840 through December 1841. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1842; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 2 September 2016.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-50.

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

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Created 15 February 2023