Grounsell brought to bay — twenty-sixth 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 353. 9.7 cm by 14.5 cm (3 ¾ by 5 ¾ inches) vignetted. This is the ninth vertically oriented plate in the two-volume novel, and one of just eight reproduced from the 1852 first edition for the 1859 Cheap Edition. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Dr. Grounsell Outmaneuvered
“What is it? — what's this?” cried he, in astonishment.
“Effraction by force in case of debt is punishable by the 127th section of the 'Code,'” said a dirty little man, who, with the air of a shoeblack, was still a leading member of the Florence “Bar.”
“I owe nothing here, —— not a farthing, sir; let me pass,” cried Grounsell.
“'Fathers for sons of nonage or over that period, domiciliated in the same house,'” began the Advocate, reading out of a volune in his hand, “'are also responsible.'”
“What balderdash, sir! I have no son; I never was married in my life; and as for this Mr. Jekyl, if you mean to father him on me, I'll resist to the last drop of my blood.”
“'Denunciation and menace, with show of arms or without,'” began the lawyer again, “'are punishable by fine and imprisonment.'”
Grounsell was now so worked up by fury that he attempted to force a passage by main strength; but a general brandishing of knives by all the family, from seven years of age upwards, warned him that the attempt might be too serious, while a wild chorus of abusive language arose from various sympathizers who poured in from the street to witness the scene. own inferences, not alone of their poverty, but of their unfitness to struggle with it. [Chapter XL, "A Morning of Misadventures," 354]
Commentary: Vertical, Dark, and Wash Effect Plates
In The Daltons (1852), Phiz relinquishes dark plates, and his illustrations revert to being easily recognisable. As always, he was sensitive to an author's effort; Lever was dashing off The Daltons with little struggle, so Phiz did the same. [Lester 124]
In other series, by this point the reader would have already encountered some vertically mounted plates emulating the stage, and one of these would likely have been a dark plate. But, as Valerie Browne Lester has noted, Lever was working at break-neck speed on the manuscript, and Phiz had to keep up with him. Moreover, throughout 1852, although he had no commission from Dickens, Phiz was working on illustrating five other titles: Ann Hawkshaw's Aunt Effie's Rhymes for Little Children, his own The Five Senses, Julia Maitland's The Doll and Her Friends; or Memoirs of the Lady Serafina, Harriet Myrtle's A Day of Pleasure, and F. E. Smedley's Lewis Arundel, as well as several frontispieces for reprints of the works of Sir Edward G. D. Bulwer-Lytton. Dark plates require far more preparation time than Phiz had available. As Buchanan-Browne remarks, Phiz occasionally resorts to a wash effect in The Daltons to create tonal effects and chiaroscuro, but "the wash effect tends to be wishy-washy" (24), as in the background of this plate and more effectively in such plates as Grounsell brought to bay (Chapter 40): "The line loses strength and, although Browne produced perfectly competent and decorative illustrations with this technique, they lack his old vigour" (24).
The Comic Situation: The English Doctor's Distrained for Somebody Else's Debts
Phiz finds the physician's discomfiture irresistible as material for a comic plate in which the self-important English physician temporarily meets his match in a bevy of Florentine legal officials who seem determined to distrain him for Jekyl's debts. His left arm in a sling, and his right hand clutching his umbrella as a potential weapon, the Englishman in the great-coat stares down a mob of over a dozen Italians, who range from the pompous, dignified uniformed official with his sword drawn (nearest to the physician) and the professionally attired attorney who presents the tradesmen's bill to mere street waifs and hangers-on.
The devious Jekyl has left Grounsell in his rooms while he has escaped with his luggage and joined Kate and Lady Hester in their carriage, rather than accompany Grounsell to prevent the duel between George Onslow and Count Guilmard. When the doctor discovers that the rogue has locked him in, he is furious. Forcing the door, Grounsell finds himself confronting a mob who mistakenly assume that he is responsible for Jekyl's paltry debts. Fortunately, Jekyl's debts do not amount to much, and Grounsell gains his freedom at a slight cost, leaving the doctor free to pursue George Onslow to Praolino. Phiz uses the statue behind Grounsell to imply Jekyl's tastes in expensive furniture and art.
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 16 May 2022