Purvis caught prying — twenty-fifth illustration engraved by the Dalziels for the 1852 Chapman and Hall edition of The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). Chapter XL, "A Morning of Misadventures," facing p. 346. 9.7 cm by 15 cm (3 ¾ by 5 ⅞ inches), vignetted. This is the eighth vertically oriented plate in the two-volume novel. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: A Outdoor Interlude in a Neoclassical Garden
A hearty sneeze suddenly startled him as he spoke; he turned hastily about, but could see no one, and yet his hearing was not to be deceived! He searched the spot eagerly; he examined the little boat-shed, the copse, the underwood, — everything, in fact, — but not a trace of living being was to be seen; at last a slight rustling sound seemed to issue from a piece of rustic shell-work, representing a river god reclining on his urn, and, on approaching, he distinctly detected the glitter of a pair of eyes within the sockets of the figure.
“Here goes for a brace of balls into him,” cried Norwood, adjusting a cap on his pistol. “A piece of stonework that sneezes is far too like a man to be trusted.”
Scarcely was the threat uttered, when a tremulous scream issued from within, and a voice, broken with terror, called out, ——
“D-don't fire, my Lord. You'll m-m-murder me. I'm Purvis—Sc-Sc-Scroope Purvis.”
“How did you come to be there, then?” asked Norwood, half angrily.
“I'll tell you when I g-get out!” was the answer; and he disappeared from the loophole at which he carried on the conversation for some seconds. Norwood began to fancy that the whole was some mystification of his brain, for no trace of him was to be had; when he emerged from the boat-house with his hat stripped of the brim, and his clothes in tatters, his scratched face and hands attesting that his transit had not been of the easiest. “It's like a r-r-rat-hole,” cried he, puffing for breath.
“And what the devil brought you there?” asked Norwood, rudely.
“I ca-came out to see the fight!” cried he; “and when you're inside there you have a view of the whole park, and are quite safe, too.” [Chapter XL, "A Morning of Misadventures," 346]
With a plethora of melodramatic scenes to choose from, Phiz chooses comedy
Lever ratchets up the plot in Chapters 38 and 39, although few of these sensational developments are reflected in Phiz’s illustrations. Owing to his bank’s over extending itself in railway investments, Sir Stafford Onslow’s firm is facing bankruptcy, which suggests that this part of the story is set in 1845-46, the height of the British Railway Mania. Sir Stafford has undoubtedly pounced on the opportunity created by 263 Acts of Parliament to invest in the new technology since these acts proposed 9,500 miles of new routes. However, most of these were not viable as the ventures companies either collapsed as a result of poor financial planning, were bought out by the larger, well-established railway companies, or turned out to be fraudulent. In any event, we learn that Sir Stafford's bank is about to go under, compelling him to liquidate all his assets. Although Lady Hester's separate maintenance is not in jeopardy, George may have to take a commission in an Indian regiment.
The rich English banker is in such ill health that his physician, Dr. Grounsell, just arrived from Genoa, fears the worst. And now his son, Captain George Onslow, embarks upon a journey into the mountains to face on the field of honour a French crack-shot duellist, Monsieur Guilmard, whom he had insulted when he rescued Kate Dalton from his advances in Florence, as depicted in A Floorer. Suddenly catching sight of Kate in Count Midchekoff’s coach, George abandons his second, Lord Norwood, to pursue the rapidly descending carriage, a hasty decision that leads to an apparently fatal fall from a cliff at the close of Chapter 39.
Deserted by George, Viscount Norwood suddenly finds himself in need of a second in his own affair of honour with one of the noblemen in Guilmard’s party. Searching the boat-shed nearby, he discovers the cowardly Scroope Purvis in hiding; he had passed himself off as a physician in order to be a spectator at George Onslow’s duel at 6:00 a.m. The farce continues as Norwood enlists the reluctant Purvis to serve as his second in the duel with the French Count, Trouville. We therefore confront Phiz's depiction of Purvis's cowering behind a neoclassical statue of a river god in the park where the duel between Onslow and Guilmard was appointed to occur. Norwood, his pistol drawn, looks to the left. In the background, Phiz employs a skiff to identify the spot near the boat-house. Phiz has brilliantly rendered "a piece of rustic shell-work, representing a river god reclining on his urn," using it to separate the cowardly Purvis from the well-dressed aristocrat who threatens to discharge his pistol upon the unknown intruder whom, he discovers, appropriated the attending physician's carriage.
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 the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
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. 1859, and 1872.
_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]
Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-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.
Last modified 6 April 2022