[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Charles Lever —> Charles O'Malley —> Next]
Mickey's Joy upon finding his Master
Phiz
February 1841: frontispiece in the first (Dublin) 1841 edition.
Steel-engraving
13.7 cm by 11.2 cm (5 ¼ by 4 ½ inches), in Chapter LXVII, "The Outpost," facing p. 335, vignetted.
Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
“Well, Mr. O’Mealey,” said he, as he seated himself before the blaze, “What is the state of the larder? Anything savory, — anything drink-inspiring to be had?”
“I fear, Doctor, my fare is of the very humblest; still —”
“What are the fluids, Charley?” cried the major; “the cruel performance I have been enacting on that cursed beast has left me in a fever.”
“This was a pigeon-pie, formerly,” said Dr. Quill, investigating the ruined walls of a pasty; “and, — but come, here’s a duck; and if my nose deceive me not, a very tolerable ham. Peter — Larry — Patsy — What’s the name of your familiar there?”
“Mickey — Mickey Free.”
“Mickey Free, then; come here, avick! Devise a little drink, my son, — none of the weakest — no lemon — hot! You understand, hot! That chap has an eye for punch; there’s no mistaking an Irish fellow, Nature has endowed them richly, — fine features and a beautiful absorbent system! That’s the gift! Just look at him, blowing up the fire, — isn’t he a picture? Well, O’Mealey, I was fretting that we hadn’t you up at Torrijos; we were enjoying life very respectably, — we established a little system of small tithes upon fowl, sheep, pigs’ heads, and wine skins that throve remarkably for the time. Here’s the lush! Put it down there, Mickey, in the middle; that’s right. Your health, Shaugh. [Chapter LXVII, "The Outpost," pp. 332-333]
Although the engraving is juxtaposed against the opening page of "The Doctor's Tale" (Chapter LXVIII), it has absolutely nothing to do with the pseudo-reminiscence of Dr. Maurice Quill, the genial Irish surgeon of the forty-eighth. We may in this illustration readily recognize Sir Arthur Wellesley from his distinctive hat, so that, since he arrives at the close of Chapter LXVII, "The Outpost," Phiz's scene suggests an incident in that chapter. Unfortunately, although we recognize Mickey and the officers in Phiz's illustration, there is no precise passage in Chapter LXVII that corresponds to the title of the illustration, which seems to be Phiz's invention. It is not a realisation of a textual moment after the bloody Battle of Talavera, 27-28 July 1809, the first of Sir Arthur's great victories in the six-year Peninsula Campaign. Sir Arthur for his performances over the six years on the battlefield was accorded the title "Baron Douro and Viscount Wellington of Talavera." In the previous chapters dealing with Talavera, Lever consistently speaks of the enemy commander as "Victor," by whom he means Marshal Claude-Victor Perrin.
Among the officers is Major O'Shaughnessy, commander of the Twenty-third Light Dragoons, and we must deduce that the town in the background is Torrijos, O'Malley's destination at the beginning of the chapter. The large man, seated and speaking in the foreground, is likely the regimental surgeon, Dr. Quill, who narrates the battle reminiscence and all of the following chapter ("The Doctor's Tale"), a spoof of ghost story, set in Ireland.
In fact, this plate should be juxtaposed against the passage in which O'Malley returns from Waterloo and is reunited with his comic valet. Clearly Mickey's Joy upon finding his Master realizes Mickey's renion with his master at the close of Chapter CXXI in Brussels. As Major Monsoon recounts how he ransacked Napoleon's carriage, Mickey, his uniform in tatters, elbows his way past a sergeant who tries to arrest him, and is reunited with his benevolent master:
“Tear and ages! don’t howld me — that’s himself, — devil a one else!”
This exclamation came from Mickey Free, who, with his dress torn and dishevelled, his eyes bloodshot and strained, was upsetting and elbowing all before him, as he made his way towards me through the crowd.
“Take that fellow to the guard-house! Lay hold of him, Sergeant! Knock him down! Who is the scoundrel?”
Such were the greetings he met with on every side. Regardless of everything and everybody, he burst his way through the dense mass.
“Oh, murther! oh, Mary! oh, Moses! Is he safe here after all?”
The poor fellow could say no more, but burst into a torrent of tears. A roar of laughter around him soon, however, turned the current of his emotions; when, dashing the scalding drops from his eyelids, he glared fiercely like a tiger on every side.
“Ye’re laughing at me, are ye,” cried he, “bekase I love the hand that fed me, and the master that stood to me? But let us see now which of us two has the stoutest heart, — you with your grin on you, or myself with the salt tears on my face.”
As he spoke, he sprang upon them like a madman, striking right and left at everything before him. Down they went beneath his blows, levelled with the united strength of energy and passion, till at length, rushing upon him in numbers, he was overpowered and thrown to the ground. It was with some difficulty I accomplished his rescue; for his enemies felt by no means assured how far his amicable propensities for the future could be relied upon; and, indeed, Mike himself had a most constitutional antipathy to binding himself by any pledge. With some persuasion, however, I reconciled all parties; and having, by the kindness of a brother officer, provided myself with a couple of troop horses, I mounted, and set out for Brussels, followed by Mickey, who had effectually cured his auditory of any tendency to laughter at his cost. [658]
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
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.
Created 19 March 2023
Last modified 8 April 2023