A New Name! (January 1859) by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), thirty-seventh serial illustration for Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Time, Part 19 (January 1859), Chapter LXVIII, "Stunning Tidings," facing 580.
Bibliographical Note
This appeared as the thirty-eighth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Time, steel-plate etching; 4 ⅛ by 6 ⅛ inches (10.5 cm high by 15 cm wide), vignetted. This plate appeared after Travellers' Dust in the nineteenth monthly number, which included Chapters LXVIII through LXX, pages 577 through 608.
Passage Illustrated: Beecher Learns of His Good Fortune by Accident
“Won again!” cried out a number of voices; “the thirteenth pass! Who ever saw the like? It is fabulous, monstrous!” Amid the din of incessant commentaries, few of them uttered in the tone of felicitation, a very tall man stretched his arm towards the table, and began to gather in the gold, saying, in a pleasant but hurried voice: “A thousand pardons. I hope you'll excuse me; wouldn't inconvenience you for worlds. I think you said” — this was to the banker — “I think you said thirty-eight thousand francs in all; thank you, extremely obliged; a very great run of luck, indeed, — never saw the like before. Would you kindly exchange that note, it is a Frankfort one; quite distressed to give you the trouble; infinitely grateful;” and, bashfully sweeping the glittering coins into his hat, as if ashamed to have interrupted the game, he retired to a side table to count over his winnings. He had just completed a little avenue of gold columns, muttering to himself little congratulations, interspersed with “What fun!” when Beecher, stepping up, accosted him. “The old story, Twining! I never heard nor read of a fellow with such luck as yours!”
“Oh, very good luck, capital luck!” cried Twining, rubbing his lean hands, and then slapping them against his leaner legs. “As your Lordship observes, I do occasionally win; not always, not always, but occasionally. Charmed to see you here, — delighted, — what fun! Late, — somewhat late in the season, — but still lovely weather. Your Lordship only just arrived, I suppose?”
“I see you don't remember me, Twining,” said Beecher, smiling, and rather amused to mark how completely his good fortune had absorbed his attention.
“Oh, very good luck, capital luck!” cried Twining, rubbing his lean hands, and then slapping them against his leaner legs. “As your Lordship observes, I do occasionally win; not always, not always, but occasionally. Charmed to see you here, — delighted, — what fun! Late, — somewhat late in the season, — but still lovely weather. Your Lordship only just arrived, I suppose?”
“I see you don't remember me, Twining,” said Beecher, smiling, and rather amused to mark how completely his good fortune had absorbed his attention.
“Impossible, my Lord-! — never forget a face, — never!”
“Pardon me if I must correct you this once; but it is quite clear you have forgotten me. Come, for whom do you take me?”
“Take you, my Lord, — take you? Quite shocked if I could make a blunder; but really, I feel certain I am speaking with Lord Lackington.”
“There, I knew it!” cried Beecher, laughing out “I knew it, though, by Jove! I was not quite prepared to hear that I looked so old. You know he's about eighteen years my senior.”
“So he was, my Lord, — so he was,” said Twining, gathering up his gold. “And for a moment, I own, I was disposed to distrust my eyes, not seeing your Lordship in mourning.”
“In mourning? and for whom?”
“For the late Viscount, your Lordship's brother!”
“Lackington! Is Lackington dead?” [Chapter LXVIII, "Stunning Tidings," pp. 580-81]
Commentary: A Matter of Inheritance
As Annesley Beecher strolls across to the casino, he encounters Adderley Twining, one of Lord Lackington's hangers-on who has just had a phenomenal run of luck at the gaming tables. Even before readers recognize him in Phiz's illustration, readers conclude that the lucky gambler is Twining by his distinctive staccato manner of speaking. When he addresses Beecher as "My Lord," the new Viscount learns of his beloved brother's death some seven weeks earlier. Phiz's animated figure of Beecher in fashionable trousers and topcoat does not prepare readers for his genuine anguish at Grog Davis's deliberately having kept him in virtual isolation so that his sister-in-law's entreaties would not reach him at Holbach in the Palitinate.
Beecher's brother, eighteen years his senior, and the title-holder, has died seven weeks in Italy prior to Beecher's chance encounter with one of the Lake Como smart set, Alfred Twining, at the German casino. Since Beecher quickly comprehends Davis's devious motivations for keeping him in relative isolation in the little village of Holbach for nearly two months, readers wait in suspense for Beecher's confronting Lizzy Davis (now his wife) and his father-in-law about the deception. Then, too, serial readers must have wondered whether Beecher would actually inherit his brother's title and estates, or whether the Crimean hero, Charley Conway's lawsuit will ultimately deprive Beecher of his inheritance.
Although Phiz would have been familiar with continental casinos only second-hand, through the accounts of friends and his reading of contemporary novels, he effectively establishes the background for the conversation, with the gaming room in the rear and a rococo foyer in the foreground. Phiz effectively foils the angular young aristocrat dressed as a blade of the turf and his older, more formally attired interlocutor. These features of "Late Baroque" interior design and ornamentation — asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colors, and sculpted molding — Phiz will be using again for several of the French interiors in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859). These particular rooms belong to the fashionable watering place of Baden, in southwest Germany (Württemberg).
Above: Phis's November 1859 illustration of the re-arrest of Charles Darnay in Dickens's monthly serialisation of A Tale of Two Cities, The Knock at the Door. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image by Simon Cooke; colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary 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.] Click on the image to enlarge it.
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. Davenport Dunn: A Man of Our Day. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
Lever, Charles. Davenport Dunn: The Man of The Day. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, January 1859 (Part XIX).
Last modified 25 April 2019