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Polly Dill
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel engraving
12.2 cm high by 11 cm wide (4 ¾ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted
March 1862
Fourth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Barrington; Tales of the Trains, Chapter VI, "The Doctor's Daughter," facing p. 50
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Left: Frontispiece (February 1863) and Tom Dill at His Studies (June 1862), both by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). Middle: The Wager (May 1862). Right: Polly Dill Takes Leave of Conyers (May 1862). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Polly Dill rode very well and very fearlessly, and occasionally was assisted to “a mount” by some country gentleman, who combined gallantry with profit, and knew that the horse he lent could never be seen to greater advantage. Yet, even in this, she avoided display, quite satisfied, as it seemed, to enjoy herself thoroughly, and not attract any notice that could be avoided. Indeed, she never tried for “a place,” but rather attached herself to some of the older and heavier weights, who grew to believe that they were especially in charge of her, and nothing was more common, at the end of a hard run, than to hear such self-gratulations as, “I think I took great care of you, Miss Dill?” “Eh, Miss Polly! you see I'm not such a bad leader!” and so on. [Chapter VI, "The Doctor's Daughter," 50]
Self-assured and highly competent, Polly seems to have avoided her father's flummery and her brother's lassitude — indeed, one might argue that Lever has taken a proto-feminist stance in his characterisation of the young woman since it is clearly she and not her brother who should qualify as a physician. Here, despite the disadvantage of riding side-saddle, she engages enthusiastically in the local hunt; having taken out the post and rail of a neighbour's fence, she waves her handkerchief to indicate to a more cautious (male) rider named Ambrose Bushe who was afraid of "staking" his mount that the ground was good. Phiz was from his earliest efforts a good hand at drawing horses.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Barrington; Tales of the Trains. Illustrated by 'Phiz'. London: Chapman and Hall, 1863.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
Sutherland, John A. "Barrington." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 48-49.
Created 17 January 2024
Last modified 12 October 2026