Daly visits Freney in Prison
Phiz
October 1846 (tenth) instalment
Steel-engraving
11.3 cm by 9.5 cm (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅝ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (October 1846), originally for Part 9, facing p. 298.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Illustrated: Bagenal Daly Acts to Solve the Mystery of the Bond
“One word, Mr. Daly, one word in your ear.”
The robber drew Daly towards him, and whispered eagerly for some seconds.
A violent exclamation burst from Daly as he listened, and then he cried out, “What! are you sure of this? Don't deceive me, man!”
“May I never, but it's true.”
“Why, then, not have told it before?”
“Because” — here he faltered — “because — faix, I'll tell the truth — I thought that young gentleman was Hickman's grandson, and I couldn't bring myself to do him a spite after what I had seen.”
“The time is up, gentlemen,” said the turnkey, who, out of the delicacy of his official feeling, was slowly pacing the corridor up and down while they talked together. [Chapter XXXVI, "The Law and Its Chances," pp. 299-300]
Commentary: Daly Continues to Dominate the Central Instalments
Here is an added complication for Daly's using the underworld connections of the notorious robber Freney to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Tom Gleeson's butler, Jack Garrett (who seems to have vanished with his master's papers, if they have not, as Darcy's attorney, Bicknell, believes, been destroyed): the newspaper account of Freney's arrest for stealing a horse at the Doncaster races. When Daly arrives to visit him at Newgate, Dunn, the turnkey, tells Daly: “Freney is in the very same cell you occupied for four months.”
Lever's text makes clear that there are two other characters present: the turnkey (whose hand appears, left) and Captain Lionel Darcy, whom Freney had mistaken for Hickman O'Reilly on the day of the hunt because O'Reilly had loaned Darcy the use of his thoroughbred, Matchlock. Lever tantalizes readers at the curtain of the eighth instalment with an incomplete account of Freney's search for Gleeson's butler and the missing papers and hundreds of thousands of pounds. Whatever Freney has whispered to Daly at the conclusion of the chapter we have yet to ascertain, but Daly seems hopeful that Freney is "the only chance of victory" (300).
Although we have already encountered the jovial Freney several times, including in Lionel left aground in Chapter XXIX, "The Hunt," this Phiz interpretation of the character seems more accurate. Even though Daly sympathizes with the prisoner, as the illustration suggests, he can hardly accede to Freney's request to arrange a gaol break. When Daly agrees to find Freney a criminal attorney, Freney nominates Hosey M'Garry, whose "office" is in a cellar in Charles Street. He apparently specializes in smuggling chisels into the cells of prisoners.
Other Images of Bagenal Daly, The Determined Nationalist, in the Year 1801
- 6. Sandy M'Grane expedites the doctor (facing p. 56) February 1846
- 9. Daly stirs up the Post-boy (facing p. 115) April 1846
- 10. Daly surveying the robber's Imp (facing p. 122) April 1846
- 20. Tate's tête-à-tête Interupted (facing p. 274) September 1846
- 21. Daly bestows a helmet on "Bully Dodd" (facing p. 286) September 1846
- 40. "The Howling Wind" alias Bagenal Daly captures "Honest Tom" (facing p. 619) July 1847
Related Material: Newgate Gaol
- A Visit to Newgate (1865) by F. O. C. Darley for Dickens's Sketches by 'Boz' (1836)
- Fagin in the condemned cell (November 1838) by George Cruikshank for Dickens's Oliver Twist, Chapter LII
- Newgate Gaol (c. 1895)
- Newgate, Committed for Trial by Frank Holl (1878)
Relevant Newgate Scenes from Dickens's Oliver Twist and Sketches by 'Boz' (1836-1912)
Left: George Cruikshank's initial depiction of Fagin in Newgate, Fagin in the Condemned Cell (1838). Centre: Cruikshank's depiction of Fagin in prison, detail from the wrapper (1846). Right: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Visit to Newgate (1862). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Charles Pears' Fagin (1912). Centre: James Mahoney's Household Edition illustration He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door (1871). Right: Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition illustration Fagin in the Condemned Cell (1910). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Bibliography
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 5 August 2023