“What do you mean?” cried I, jumping up in my bed. — staff artist William Newman's second composite woodblock engraving for Charles Lever's A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance, instalment 3, published on 25 August 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, Chapter IV, "Pleasant Reflections upon Awakening," 3 ¼ by 3 ½ inches (8 cm by 8.8 cm), framed, bottom of page 541. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Father Dyke makes off with Blondel after winning him at Backgammon
“About me, — what was it?”
“Well, indeed, sir,” replied the waiter, with a hesitating and confused manner, “I didn't rightly understand it; but as well as I could catch the words, it was something about hoping your honor had more of that wonderful breed of horses the Emperor of Roosia gave you.”
“Oh, yes! I understand,” said I, stopping him abruptly. “By the way, how is Blondel — that is, my horse — this morning?”
“Well, he looked fresh and hearty, when he went off this morning at daybreak —”
“What do you mean?” cried I, jumping up in my bed. “Went off? where to?”
“With Father Dyke on his back; and a neater hand he couldn't wish over him. 'Tim,' says he, to the ostler, as he mounted, 'there's a five-shilling piece for you, for hansel, for I won this baste last night, and you must drink my health and wish me luck with him.'”
I heard no more, but, sinking back into the bed, I covered my face with my hands, overcome with shame and misery. [Chapter IV, "Pleasant Reflections upon Awakening," 541; page 28 in the Chapman and Hall edition)]
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 photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Commentary: Constantly Misrepresenting Himself
Throughout his adventures in Ireland, in England, and on the Continent, Potts is constantly posing and borrowing identities to make himself seem more knowledgable and aristocratic. In this opening adventure only a day's ride out of Dublin, the callow youth in the fourth chapter, "Pleasant Reflections on Awkening," Potts has massively overslept in after a night's intemperate drinking. The waiter, alarmed, has finally awakened him at 5:00 P. M., and the narrator feels disoriented, especially when he learns that Lord Keldrum and his suite departed from the inn after breakfast. Improbably, Potts represents himself to the wondering waiter as "a very old friend" of the nobleman he met for the first time the day before. And Father Dyke has absconded with Blondel, the horse Potts rented! This news prompts Potts to follow the priest to the village of Inistioge, coincidentally an important setting in the final chapters of The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life (1852).
Bibliography
Brown, Jane E., and Richard Samuel West. "William Newman (1817—1870): A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York." American Periodicals, 17, 2: "Periodical Comics and Cartoons." (Ohio State University Press, 2007), 143-183. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20770984.
Garvey, Dana M. "William Newman: A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York." (Review) Victorian Periodicals Review, 42(4): 417-418. DOI:10.1353/vpr.0.0097
Lever, Charles. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by William Newman. Vols. IV-V (13 April 1860 through 23 March 1861) in thirty-five weekly parts. Only a dozen of these weekly instalments were illustrated: p. 541 (one), 549 (two), 573, 589, 605, 621, 637, 649, 661, 678, 701, and 714.
_______. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1863, rpt. Routledge, 1882.
_______. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles James. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32692/32692-h/32692-h.htm
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.
Sutherland, John. "Charles Lever." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. Pp. 372-374.
Created 25 May 2022