"Mr. Dempsey finds out 'something to his advantage'" — Phiz's twenty-ninth engraving for Charles Lever's "The Knight of Gwynne" (February 1847)

Mr. Dempsey finds out "something to his advantage"

Phiz

February 1847 (fourteenth) instalment

Steel-engraving

11.7 cm by 10.4 cm (4 ½ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted.

Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (February 1847), originally for Part 14, facing p. 423.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

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 photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: A Disturbing Discovery for Paul Delaney

Here was a most provoking mystery for Mr. Dempsey. The very allusion to a matter of importance, in this dubious half-light, was something more than human nature should be tried with; and if the patient burned with the fever of the body, Mr. Dempsey suffered under the less tolerable agony of mental torment, — imagining every possible contingency that should bring a stranger down into a lonely neighbourhood, and canvassing every imaginable inducement, from seduction to highway robbery. Whether the sick man's sleep was merely the heavy debt of exhausted nature, or whether Mr. Dempsey aided his repose by adding a few drops to the laudanum prescribed by the doctor, true it is, he lay in a deep slumber, and never awoke till late the following day; meanwhile Mr. Dempsey recompensed his Samaritanism by a careful inspection of the stranger's trunk and its contents, and, in particular, made a patient examination of two parchment documents, which, fortunately for his curiosity, were not sealed, but simply tied with red tape.

Great was his surprise to discover that one of these was a writ to arrest a certain Paul Dempsey, and the other directed against the resident of 'The Corvy,' whom he now, for the first time, learned was the Knight of Gwynne. [Chapter L, "An Unceremonious Visit," pp. 421-422]

Commentary: Paul Delaney, Detective and Retailer of Vital Information

The misadventures and misperceptions of the fatuous but indefatigable Paul Delaney of Port Ballintray constitute almost a comic subplot in Lever's study of Irish society at the time of the Act of Union, half-a-century before the novel's publication. However, the scene does not occur at Mrs. Fumbally's boarding-house, which, as the messenger to Lady Eleanor and Helen Darcy, Miss Daly notes when she arrives at The Corvy on horseback during a fall downpour, has broken up at the close of the season. Rather, Dempsey and Miss Daly have taken up winter residence at a village near Glenarm, somewhat inland. A sole traveller, exhausted from his journey and feverous, puts up at the same inn, and, before committing himself to rest, asks Dempsey to write his friends in Dublin about "his sudden indisposition." While the traveller is asleep, Dempsey discovers the papers that constitute arrest warrants for the Knight of Gwynne and himself. He immediately acquaints Miss Daly, an ardent horsewoman in all weathers, with this intelligence so that the Darcys might receive the unfortunate news as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the Knight himself is already far from Ireland, sailing south in a military expedition under General Ambercrombie, precise destination unknown.

In Phiz's illustration, Dempsey is thoroughly searching the traveller's trunk while the traveller sleeps, and is shocked to discover the arrest warrant with his name on it. Above the fireplace is a small painting or engraving of a biblical scene, probably the poor traveller being ministered to by the Good Samaritan in the Christian parable given in Luke 10: 25-37 in the New Testament. In this highly pertinent imbedded picture, Phiz may intend the Samaritan's donkey or ass to suggest Dempsey, who (although somewhat fatuous or asinine) has intervened to save the Darcys.

Other Comic Illustrations Featuring Paul Dempsey and Mrs. Fumbally

22. Mr. Paul Dempsey does the honours of Ballintray (facing p. 312) October 1846
23. Mr. Dempsey's visit to the Corvy (facing p. 325) November 1846
24. Dodd and Dempsey at the Review (facing p. 337) 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
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 11 August 2023