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A Farewell Canter
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel engraving
13.9 cm by 11 cm (5 ½ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted
January 1845
Charles Lever's The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago, Chapter IV, "Kerry O'Leary," facing p. 31.
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Mark turned an elated look on the others, and then surveyed the noble animal beside him with all the pride and admiration of a master regarding his handiwork. She was, indeed, a model of symmetry, and well worthy of all the praise bestowed on her.
For a moment or two the youth gazed on her, with a flashing eye and quivering lip, while the mare, catching excitement from the free air of the morning, and the spring she had made, stood with swelled veins and trembling limbs, his counterpart in eagerness. One spirit seemed to animate both. So Mark appeared to feel it, as with a bound he sprung into the saddle, and with a wild cheer dashed forward. With lightning's speed they went, and in a moment disappeared from view. Kerry jumped up on a broken gate-pier, and strained his eyes to catch them, while Lanty, muttering maledictions to himself, on the hair-brained boy, turned everywhere for a spot where he might view the scene.
“There he goes,” shouted Kerry; “look at him now; he's coming to the furze ditch into the big field: see! see! she does not see the fence; her head's in the air. Whew — elegant, by the mortial — never touched a hoof to it! — murther! murther! how she gallops in the deep ground, and the wide gripe that's before her! Ah, he won't take it; he's turning away.”
“I wish to the Lord he'd break a stirrup-leather,” muttered Lanty.
“Oh, Joseph!” screamed Kerry, “there was a jump — twenty feet as sure as I'm living. Where is he now? — I don't see him.”
“May you never,” growled Lanty, whose indignant anger had burst all bounds: “that's not treatment for another man's horse.” [Chapter IV, "Kerry O'Leary," pp. 30-31]
Phiz has chosen a fence-jumping scene to solidify readers' impressions of the O'Donoghue in the opening instalment. In the background is the family retainer Kerry O'Leary, the once-proud jockey and now a mere stablehand; as in Lever's letterpress, he is distinguished by his wearing the smock-frock without his arms in the sleeves (standing upon a ruined pillar, upper left). Beside him is the horse-dealer, Lanty Lawler, enthusiastically watching Mark O'Donoghue, an experienced rider, take the mare which Lanty bought the night before over the dilapidated fence. If the crumbling masonry suggests the present state of the noble house, the stern-faced young equestrian and the thoroughbred Mark O'Donoghue bestrides both suggest the family's continuing but ill-founded aristocratic arrogance. To quote the indignant horse-dealer, "Is there an acre of the estate their own now?" (28). What prompts Mark's angry outburst and his leaping onto the saddle is Lanty's revelation that he has already sold the horse ("Kittane") on speculation. At the moment realised, rather than check his career, Mark broken the fence "to flitters" as Kittane has destroyed its rotten timbers. Mark returns the mare to the indignant dealer with drops of blood on her chest.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. With 26 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1845.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Originally published by William Curry, Jun., Dublin: 1845. In One Vol. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: May 11, 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VIII, "Heretic Among Tories, 1844-1845." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 128-145.
Sutherland, John A. "Lever, Charles." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 372-374.
Created 13 December 2023