Passage Illustrated: O'Malley is lionized throughout England — Thanks to Mickey

However astonished I had been at the warmth by which I was treated in London, I was still less prepared for the enthusiasm which greeted me in every town through which I passed. There was not a village where we stopped to change horses whose inhabitants did not simultaneously pour forth to welcome me with every demonstration of delight. That the fact of four horses and a yellow chaise should have elicited such testimonies of satisfaction, was somewhat difficult to conceive; and even had the important news that I was the bearer of despatches been telegraphed from London by successive postboys, still the extraordinary excitement was unaccountable. It was only on reaching Bristol that I learned to what circumstance my popularity was owing. My friend Mike, in humble imitation of election practices, had posted a large placard on the back of the chaise, announcing, in letters of portentous length, something like the following: —

“Bloody news! Fall of Ciudad Rodrigo! Five thousand prisoners and two hundred pieces of cannon taken!”

This veracious and satisfactory statement, aided by Mike’s personal exertions, and an unwearied performance on the trumpet he had taken from the French dragoon, had roused the population of every hamlet, and made our journey from London to Bristol one scene of uproar, noise, and confusion. All my attempts to suppress Mike’s oratory or music were perfectly unavailing. In fact, he had pledged my health so many times during the day; he had drunk so many toasts to the success of the British arms — so many to the English nation, so many in honour of Ireland, — and so many in honour of Mickey Free himself, — that all respect for my authority was lost in his enthusiasm for my greatness, and his shouts became wilder, and the blasts from the trumpet more fearful and incoherent; and finally, on the last stage of our journey, having exhausted as it were every tribute of his lungs, he seemed (if I were to judge by the evidence of my ears) to be performing something very like a hornpipe on the roof of the chaise. [Chapter CVII, "The Bell at Bristol," pp. 548-549]

Commentary: On the Road from London to Bristol

As the September 1841 (seventeenth) number opens, O'Malley has been wounded by a Polish lancer and O'Shaughnessy has suffered a serious wound in the side. The French with their vastly superior numbers seem to be overwhelming the British on the plain near Ciudad Rodrigo in December 1811. We now jump ahead to 19 January 1812, when the besieged city became the scene of one of Wellington's greatest victories in the Peninsular campaign as his forces broke through the ramparts to close the Second Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The illustration at the head of the monthly instalment alerted serial readers to the outcome of the siege before Lever describes it. But the illustration does not reveal Lever's maneuvering so that Captain O'Malley, in a jacket borrowed from jovial Irish raconteur Dr. Maurice Quill, can join Dennis O'Shaughnessy's infantry in storming the Spanish city instead of staying in the rear with the Fourteenth Dragoons.

Partly in compensation for his personal valour in the storming of the breach at Ciudad Rodrigo, General Picton arranges with the Duke of Wellington that O'Malley be the officer charged with the delivery of despatches dated 20th January 1812, outlining the nature of the recent victory. He will deliver the account to the Commander-in-Chief, Prince Regent (later, George IV), in London, and then proceed across country by carriage to Bristol, where he will take ship in order to deliver the Regent's despatches to Sir Henry Howard in Cork, and then spend his three months' leave with his uncle, who is facing financial ruin after a disastrous lawsuit (little does he know that his uncle is dying). Twelve hours after arriving in England, O'Malley arrives in London and makes for Carlton House, the Prince Regent's London residence from 1783 through 1826.

The present illustration captures the flavour of O'Malley's reception at every town and village between London and the port of Bristol. Apparently Mike's alerting the places en route to his master's role in the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and then his putting a placard on the back of the carriage have made O'Malley something of an instant celebrity. Phiz has supplied such salient details as the boys' waving their caps as they chase the carriage and the enthusiastic villagers (right), as well as the village beauty at her second-storey window above a barbershop.

The illustration, then, telegraphs not only the British-Portuguese victory at the Spanish city, but strongly suggests O'Malley's heroism when, replacing the severely wounded young officer Beauclerc, the novel's protagonist leads an infantry column through a breach in the walls as British howitzers blast the masonry, and one of the French powder magazines blows up. Exciting as the action of these chapters may be, Phiz focuses instead on Mickey Free's comic antics on O'Malley's carriage when he returns to England. The reader immediately wonders if this trumpet he is playing is the one that he seized from the French trumpeter in Mike capturing the Trumpeter in Chapter XCVIII.

Necessary Background

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

Bibliography

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.

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Created 3 April 2023