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"Scrutinizing the pieces carefully as he went."
William Newman
22 September 1860
8.6 cm high by 6.8 cm wide (3 ⅜ by 2 ⅝ inches)
Charles Lever's A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance,
Harper's Weekly, Vol. IV (22 September 1860): bottom of p. 605.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Scrutinizing the pieces carefully as he went. — staff artist William Newman's eighth composite woodblock engraving for Charles Lever's A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance, instalment 6, published on 22 September 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, Chapter VIII, "Imagination Stimulated by Brandy and Water," framed, bottom left, page 605. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
“Equally mistaken there,” said I, calmly; “bred in the midst of abundance, nurtured in affluence, and educated with all the solicitous care that a fond parent could bestow —”
“Gammon!” said he, bluntly. “You are one of the swell mob in distress!”
“Is this like distress?” said I, drawing forth my purse in which were seventy-five sovereigns, and handing it to him. “Count over that, and say how just and how generous are your suspicions.”
He gravely took the purse from me, and, stooping down to the binnacle light, counted over the money, scrutinizing carefully the pieces as he went.
“And who is to say this isn't 'swag'?” said he, as he closed the purse.
“The easiest answer to that,” said I, “is, would it be likely for a thief to show his booty, not merely to a stranger, but to a stranger who suspected him?”
“Well, that is something, I confess,” said he, slowly. [Chapter VIII, "Imagination Stimulated by Brandy and Water," 605; 63 in the Chapman and Hall edition]
The fellow-traveller with whom Potts strikes up a conversation on the aft-quarterdeck of the Waterford steamer, heading for Milford in England, erroneously regards Potts as a volunteer for the Crimean War. Although the obtuse traveller accuses Potts of being a mere vagabond when he announces that he is simply going abroad to seek his fortune, Potts maintains a cheerful demeanour. Their dialogue becomes amusing when the classically-read university student quotes a passage from Homer, and his interlocutor mistakes it for a sort of "high Dutch." The rude passenger then suggests that Potts must have just escaped from an insane asylum, so the foolish Potts tries to convince the skeptic that he is a child of privilege by letting the stranger scrutinize the contents of his purse.
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.
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