Passage Illustrated: Peter Dalton Compounds a Potent Punch

“If you'll mix me a very small glass of that punch, I'd like to propose a toast,” said Foglass.

“There, now, that's spoke like a sensible man; pleasant company and social enjoyment are the greatest enemies to the gout. Make your mind easy, and keep your heart light, and the devil a fear but your knees will get limber, and the swellin' will leave your ankles; but weak punch and tiresome people would undermine the best constitution in the world. Taste that.”

To judge from Mr. Foglass's face, Dalton had at least provided one element of health for his companion.

“It is very strong — very strong, indeed!” said he, puckering up his eyes.

“It's the fault of the water hereabouts,” said Dalton. “It doesn't mix right with the spirits; so that one-half — the first, generally — of your liquor tastes stiff, but the bottom is mild as milk.” [Chapter XXXI, "A Convivial Evening," 253]

Commentary: Streaky-Bacon Plot Construction

Lever here is practising what Dickens termed "streaky-bacon" plot construction, alternating serious and ligher scenes. At the end of the previous chapter, Mrs. Ricketts, Lady Hester's envious neighbour outside Florence, maneuvers to have Kate Dalton visit her at the Villino Zoe in order to introduce her to the fortune-hunting Viscount Lord Norwood. Meanwhile back in Baden, in a manifestly comic drinking scene Peter Dalton pays a visit to Mrs. Rickett's friend Foglass, who had intended to leave Baden, but feigns an attack of gout in order to delay setting out for Florence, apparently to ingratiate himself with Kate's father. Foglass is laid up in bed with his pseudo-affliction at the Hotel Russie. A particularly comedic touch is Foglass's affecting an "ear-trumpet" because his many years as a diplomat in Constantinople have rendered him deaf from the perpetual cries of the muezzins at the Turkish capital's legion of mosques.

Phiz conceives of Dalton as a bibulous codger, and Foglass as a nightgown-wearing humbug, the lit tapers on the bedside table implying a night-time scene. Dalton seems to have enjoyed rather too much of his own concoction, whereas Foglass has barely tasted his portion.

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. london; William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1872.

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32061/32061-h/32061-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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