"Mr. Blake's Dressing-Room." "Come in — it's only Charley, my darling" by "Phiz" — Second illustration for Charles Lever's "Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon" (March 1840, rpt., 1873)

"Come in — it's only Charley, my darling."

Phiz

Dalziel

March 1840

Steel-engraving

11.6 cm high by 10.4 cm wide (4 ½ by 4 ⅛ inches), vignetted, in Chapter VI, "The Dinner."

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Sources: Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Caricature and Grotesques

Snatching up the letter, therefore, I resolved to lose no more time, and proceeded at once to Mr. Blake’s room, expecting that I should, as the event proved, find him engaged in the very laborious duty of making his toilet.

“Come in, Charley,” said he, as I tapped gently at the door. “It’s only Charley, my darling. Mrs. B. won’t mind you.”

“Not the least in life,” responded Mrs. B., disposing at the same time a pair of her husband’s corduroys tippet fashion across her ample shoulders, which before were displayed in the plenitude and breadth of coloring we find in a Rubens. “Sit down, Charley, and tell us what’s the matter.”

As until this moment I was in perfect ignorance of the Adam-and-Eve-like simplicity in which the private economy of Mr. Blake’s household was conducted, I would have gladly retired from what I found to be a mutual territory of dressing-room had not Mr. Blake’s injunctions been issued somewhat like an order to remain. [Chapter V, "The Drawing-Room," 25]

Commentary on Marriage-behind-the-Scenes in Mr. Blake's Dressing-Room

You must also persuade old Blake to write a few lines to Simon Mallock, about the Coolamuck mortgages. We can give him no satisfaction at present, at least such as he looks for. . . . [25]

Young Charles, still regarding himself as a mere adolescent cog in his uncle's election machinery and economic machinations in Galway, drops by Mr. Philip Blake's bedroom at Gurt-na-Morra, the Blake ancestral estate. His two-fold mission is to enlist Blake's good offices among the local squirearchy for the securing the nomination for the riding of O'Malley Castle. Charles is a bit diffident here as he peeks in the room since Mrs. Blake, her Rubenesque curves on partial display, is still getting dressed as her husband,not yet dressed either, shaves. Charles has the uncomfortable feeling that he has just interrupted the aftermath of a sexual intimacy, and is embarrassed by the sight of so much middle-aged, voluptuous, feminine flesh, although the lady in question has attempted to cover her bare shoulders with her husband's corduroy breeches.Here Phiz enjoys the opportunity to offer a peek at "marriage behind the scenes," and the youth's embarrassment.

Necessary Background

Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)

Bibliography

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, 2 vols. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1840; 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.

5 March 2023