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"Would I do?"
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel engraving
13.3 cm high by 9.9 cm wide (5 ¼ by 4 inches), vignetted
October 1862
Seventeenth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Barrington (Chapter 34, “A Move in Advance,” facing p. 278).
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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 person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
“No,” said he, half aloud to himself, “that old woman is not one easily to be dealt with; and the younger one, too, would have a will of her own if she had but the way to use it. If Polly had been in her place, — the clever, quickwitted Polly, — she would have gone with me in my plans, associated herself in all my projects, and assured their success. Oh for a good colleague just to keep the boat's head straight when one is weary of rowing!”
“Would I do?” said a low voice near. And, on looking up, he saw Josephine standing over him, with an arch smile on her face as though she had surprised him in a confession.
“How long have you been there?” asked he, hurriedly.
“A few seconds.”
“And what have you heard me say?”
“That you wanted a colleague, or a companion of some sort; and as I was the only useless person here, I offered myself.”
“In good faith?”
“In good faith! — why not? I am more likely to gain by the association than you are; at least, if you can only be as pleasant of a morning as you were yesterday at dinner.”
“I'll try,” said he, springing to his feet; “and as a success in these efforts is mainly owing to the amount of zeal that animates them, I am hopeful.”
“Which means a flattery at the outset,” said she, smiling. [Chapter XXXIV, “A Move in Advance,” 278]
The meaning of Phiz's plate is plainer than the text it accompanies, for the artist quite correctly implies that Stapylton is attempting to supplant Conyers as Josephine's suitor, despite the vast differences in age and experience. Although Lever indicates that the major's face has been burnt to mahogany by the tropic sun, Phiz has elected to show him as thoroughly white (thereby failing to prepare us for the disclosure that Stapylton is in fact the son of the half-cast Edwardes from George Barrington's letters).
In fact, in the letter-press, "Would I do" (278) is asked by Josephine, not the major. She is responding to his wish "for a good colleague just to keep the boat's head straight when one is weary of rowing" (278). How much she has heard of what he has been saying to himself aloud about his "projects" neither he nor we are permitted to know.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Barrington. With 25 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. 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 10 August 2002 Last updated 12 October 2026