Mr. Ricketts's "Evening at Home" disturbed — twenty-seventh 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 XLII, "A Last Scene. One last glance at the Mazzarini Palace, and we leave it forever," facing 370, vignetted. This is the tenth vertically oriented plate in the two-volume novel. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Another Soiree
But before the Jew could finish his request the door was flung wide, and the great Midchekoff entered, with his hands in his coat-pockets, and his glass in one eye. He sauntered into the room with a most profound unconsciousness that there were people in it. Not a glance did he even bestow on the living figures of the scene, nor did a trait of his manner evince any knowledge of their presence. Ranging his eyes over the walls and the ceilings, he neither noticed the martial attitude of Haggerstone, nor the graceful undulations by which Mrs. Ricketts was, as it were, rehearsing a courtesy before him.
“Originals, but all poor things, Morlache,” said the Prince. And really the observation seemed as though uttered of the company rather than the pictures.
“Mrs. Ricketts has been good enough, your Highness—” began the Jew.
“Give her a Napoleon,” said he, listlessly, and turned away.
“My sister, Mrs. Ricketts — Mrs. M-M-Montague Ricketts,” began Scroope, whose habitual timidity gave way under the extremity of provocation. And the Prince turned slowly round, and surveyed the speaker and the imposing form that loomed behind him.
“Tell them that I don't mean to keep any establishment here, Morlache.” And with this he strolled on, and passed into another room, while, like as in a tableau, the others stood speechless with rage and indignation.
“He took you for the housekeeper, ma'am,” said Haggerstone, standing up with his back to the fire —— “and a housekeeper out of place!”
“Martha, where's the General? Where is he, I say?” cried Mrs. Ricketts, furious with passion. [Chapter XLII, "A Last Scene. One last glance at the Mazzarini Palace, and we leave it forever," 370]
Commentary
These group scenes set in fashionable drawing-rooms are common in the forty-eight plate series for The Daltons, although rarely does the nominal protagonist, Peter Dalton, appear in them. This is the fashionable Austrian, German, and Italian society in which Lever himself mingled after his consular appointment, and they reveal his perfect ear for the superficial dialogue of the Continental aristocracy. Phiz differentiates the characters not merely facially, but by their clothing and postures, and again comments upon the nature of Lever's narrative and dialogue by inserting a classically-themed, large-scale oil painting, centre rear. The composition shows the messenger of the Olympian deities, Mercury (left) arriving in a forest glade, the haunt of the goddess Diana and her entourage of woodland nymphs. The scene underscores Zoe Ricketts' pretentions to be the Queen of the British expatriate community in Florence.
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. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]
_______. 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 7 April 2022