"Dodd and Dempsey at the Review" — Phiz's twenty-fourth engraving for Charles Lever's "The Knight of Gwynne" (November 1846)

Dodd and Dempsey at the Review

Phiz

November 1846 (eleventh) instalment

Steel-engraving

12.5 cm by 11 cm (4 ⅞ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted.

Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (November 1846), originally for Part 11, facing p. 325.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: More Horse-racious Action as a Dempsey Reminiscence

“When my grandfather reached the Park again, he was, as you may well believe, a tired and a weary man; and, indeed, for that matter, the beast didn't seem much fresher than himself, for he lashed his sides more rarely, and he condescended to go straight, and he didn't carry his head higher than his rider's. At last they wound their way up through the fir copse at the end of the field, and caught sight of the review, and, to be sure, if poor D. and D. left the ground before under a grand salute of artillery and small arms, another of the same kind welcomed him back again. It was an honour he'd have been right glad to have dispensed with, for when 176 heard it, he looked about him to see which way he'd take, gave a loud neigh, and, with a shake that my grandfather said he'd never forget, he plunged forward, and went straight at the thick of the crowd; it must have been a cruel sight to have seen the people running for their lives. The soldiers that kept the line laughed heartily at the mob; but they hadn't the joke long to themselves, for my grandfather went slap at them into the middle of the field; and he did that day what I hear has been very seldom done by cavalry, — he broke a square of the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, and scattered them over the field. [Chapter XXXIX, "A Tale of Mr. Dempsey's Grandfather," 338]

Commentary: An injection of Comic Relief and Situational Comedy

Feeling perhaps that he had exhausted possibilities for dramatizing the political chicanery behind the 1801 Act of Union, Lever nevertheless must now engage readers with something other than the financial difficulties of the Knight of Gwynne, which eventually the novelist resolves by the discovery that Darcy's financial wizard, Tom Gleeson, is not dead at all. Meantime, then, Lever requires a distraction, and hence introduces the voluble and indefatigable Paul Dempsey of Mrs. Fumbaly's boarding-house at the nearby seaside reside of Port Ballintray near the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. His tale of his grandfather, a gullible Dublin wine-merchant who is shamelessly exploited by the Lord-Lieutenant and his aide-de-camp, both Englishmen, furnishes Phiz with the material for this delightful engraving in an inept rider ploughing through spectators at a military review in Phoenix Park. Hanging on for dear life, Dempsey's grandfather tramples spectators and a refreshment stand as he makes toward the Viceroy and his staff.

Dempsey tells an extended anecdote about his grandfather, a prosperous wine merchant who was determined to impress the Duke of ______, the Viceroy. The picture serves as a culmination of Mr. Dempsey's futile attempts to become a court favourite by lending the Viceroy and his chief aide-de-camp vast sums over the course of a year. Since "Dodd and Dempsey" (as the grandfather was inclined to call himself as if, like Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge, he has absorbed the identity of his dead business partner) is determined to come to the official's public notice, he takes the advice of the aide, Captain M'Claverty of the Scots Greys, and purchases thoroughbred 176 from the local hostler, Tom Dycer, for an exorbitant sum so that he can cut a figure on horseback before the Viceroy at a review in Phoenix Park. Although he is no horseman, Dempsey rides in before an assembled crowd of fifty-thousand, a line of infantry two miles in length, supplemented by artillery and cavalry (all of which Phiz has sketched in the background). In the upper left we see the Viceroy's mounted Staff. The discharge of artillery and musketry sends 176 into a gallop, with Dempsey barely able to keep his seat, let alone control the beast. Suddenly he finds himself in Lucan, five miles from the review in Phoenix Park. Taking a pint of porter to refresh himself, Dempsey returns to the Park, thoroughly worn out. With another discharge of artillery, 176 plunges into the crowd, sending spectators running for their lives. To cap off his career through the staff, the Duke himself recognizes Dempsey, who must go home in a carriage because the horse has broken his neck in the sand-quarry. The tale ends with the Lord-Lieutenant decamping, leaving D. and D. ruined and nine thousand in debt: "it was a taste for grandeur ruined the Dempseys" (343).

The "Seventy-ninth Highlanders": An Anachronism

Perhaps his reference text was faulty or perhaps he simply erred, but the Highland regiment that Colonel Darcy would have seen in action on the Plains of Abraham before the Quebec citadel would have been the 78th Highland Regiment (otherwise known as Fraser's Highlanders, 1757-1763). The regiment known as the 79th (the Queen's Own Cameron) Highlanders were not raised until 1793, whereas Dempsey's narrative concerns his grandfather's exploits at least a generation prior to the passage of the Act of Union in 1801. In that year, the 79th Foot saw action at the Battle of Abukir, and forced the surrender of French forces in Egypt at Cairo, and subsequently saw considerable action in the Peninsular Campaign (1810-14), with which Lever dealt in such novels as Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843) and Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1841).

Further Illustrations Featuring the Comedic Paul Dempsey and his landlady, Mrs. Fumbally

23. Mr. Dempsey's visit to the Corvy (facing p. 325) November 1846
26. Mr. Dempsey's Newspaper creates a sensation (facing p. 375) December 1846
27. A Commotion in Miss Fumbally's establishment (facing p. 396) January 1847
29. Mr. Dempsey finds out "something to his advantage" (facing p. 422) February 1847
31. Mr. Dempsey catches a Lawyer asleep (facing p. 465) March 1847
32. Paul discovers a "pose plastique (facing p. 466) March 1847
33. Mr. Paul tastes Mrs. Fumbally's "you know — you know" (facing p. 484) April 1847
34. A Drawing-room disunion at Mrs. Fumbally's (facing p. 492) April 1847
37. Mr. Dempsey in My Lady's Boudoir (facing p. 557) June 1847
39. Mr. Dempsey's last appearance and last request (facing p. 607) July 1847

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 8 August 2023