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The Frontispiece
Phiz
July 1847 (nineteenth) instalment
Steel-engraving
14.2 cm by 11.4 cm (5 ½ by 4 ½ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (July 1847), originally for Part 19-20, facing title-page.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Of the period of which we have endeavored to picture some meagre resemblance, unhappily the few traces remaining are those most to be deplored. The poverty, the misery, and the anarchy survive; the genial hospitality, the warm attachment to country, the cordial generosity of Irish feeling, have sadly declined. Let us hope that from the depth of our present sufferings better days are about to dawn, and a period approaching when Ireland shall be "great" in the happiness of her people, "glorious" in the development of her inexhaustible resources, and "free" by that best of freedom, — free from the trammels of an unmeaning party warfare, which has ever subjected the welfare of the country to the miserable intrigues of a few adventurers.
THE END. [Chapter LXXV, "Conclusion," 628]
Note: The page numbers in the first edition correspond precisely to those in the continuously numbered monthly parts, which are typically thirty-two pages, plus two illustrations, and as many as half-a-dozen unnumbered pages of "The Knight of Gwynne Advertiser" (January 1846 through July 1847).
Although it appears first in the 1847 volume, the frontispiece and the somewhat allegorical vignette title-page were the last two illustrations issued, in the final, nineteenth number. Certainly, given the subject of the novel, Ireland's politicians voting to give up their own parliament, and therefore self-government, in favour of complete political union, would seem ironic in view of Phiz's quoting the final paragraph of the novel. Phiz emphasizes Great, Glorious, Free! (facing engraved title), July 1847. This late 1840s sentiment underscores the ongoing Repeal Movement, led by Daniel O'Connell; for Lever, the words what Lever hopes for Ireland's future, not the present state of things.
Indeed, the volume reader would have been at a loss to identify the source of the passage referenced because it occurs at the very end of the book; the serial reader would have been well aware of both the passage realised and the allegorical picture's essential irony. That we are looking at the Spirit of Ireland Phiz makes clear by such elements as the Irish harp and the many vignettes containing Irish labourers. The meaning of the scenes to either side of the young woman representing Ireland is less clear, for to the left is St. Paul's and the Thames, and to the right English ships off the Cliffs of Dover. Does Ireland's gesture suggest that Ireland will be all the richer for allying itself with English commerce, or is she suggesting the inevitability of the economic and political union?
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union. London: Chapman and Hall, serialised January 1846 through July 1847.
Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.
Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter IX, "Nomadic Patriarch, 1845-1847." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 146-164.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Created 13 July 2023