"Mr. Paul tastes Mrs. Fumbally's 'you know — you know'" — Phiz's thirty-third engraving for Charles Lever's "The Knight of Gwynne" (April 1847)

Mr. Paul tastes Mrs. Fumbally's "you know — you know"

Phiz

April 1847 (sixteenth) instalment: initial illustration

Steel-engraving

11.5 cm by 9.3 cm (4 ⅝ by 3 ⅝ inches), vignetted.

Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (March 1847), originally for Part 16, facing p. 484.

[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 person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Comfortably back at Mrs. Fumbally's Boarding-house

“You are not half careful enough about yourself, Mr. Dempsey, — never attend to changing your damp clothes, — and I assure you the climate here requires it; and when you come in cold and wet, you should always step in here, on your way upstairs, and take a little something warm and cordial. I don't know if you approve of this,” suiting the action to the words. Mrs. Fum had opened a small cupboard in the wall, and taken out a quaint-looking flask, and a very diminutive glass.

“Nectar, by Jove, — downright nectar!”

“Made with some white currants and ginger,” chimed in Mrs. Fum, simply, as if to imply, “See what skill can effect; behold the magic power of intelligence!”

“White currants and ginger!” echoed Paul, holding out the glass to be refilled.

“A trifle of spirits, of course.”

“Of course! couldn't be comforting without it.”

“That's what poor dear Fumbally always called, 'Ye know, ye know!' It was his droll way of saying 'Noyau!'” Here Mrs. F. displayed a conflict of smiles and tears, a perfect April landscape on her features. “He had such spirits!”

“I don't wonder, if he primed himself with this often,” said Dempsey, who at last relinquished his glass, but with evident unwillingness. [Chapter LVIII, "A Bit of 'By-play'," 484]

Commentary: Dempsey joyfully returns to Mrs. Fumbally's boarding-house

Having left The Corvy a second time, but having helped Lady Eleanor and Helen escape the noxious presence of Anthony Nickie and his agents, Paul Dempsey returns to Mrs. Fumbally's with the ladies. He is relieved to be Mrs. Fumbally's guest after his ordeal on the road and at Bagenal Daly's cottage, and luxuriates in several glasses of Mrs. Fumbally's invigorating spirits, whose properties are more than medicinal. It was, indeed, the custom of the late Mr. Fumbally to imbibe, and the ritual here smacks of Mrs. Fumbally's proposing that Paul should take his place. To underscore this element of middle-aged "courtship" and replacing the first husband with a second, Phiz has strategically situated a large-scale, head-and-torso portrait of the deceased husband above the mantelpiece. Mrs. Fumbally makes so bold as to compare the defunct Fumbally and the promising Dempsey:

“Kind — kind creature!” sobbed Mrs. Fum, as she poured out the last of the liquor. And Paul was sorely puzzled, whether the encomium applied to the defunct or himself. “Do you know, Mr. Dempsey,” here she gave a kind of hysterical giggle, that might take any turn, — hilarious, or the reverse, as events should dictate, — “do you know that as I see you there, standing before the fire, looking so pleasant and cheerful, so much at home, as a body might say, I can't help fancying a great resemblance between you and my poor dear Fum. He was older than you,” said she, rapidly, as a slight cloud passed over Paul's features. “Older and stouter, but he had the same jocose smile, the same merry voice, and even that little fidgety habit with the hands. I know you'll forgive me, even that was his.”

This was in all probability strictly correct, inasmuch as for several years before his demise the gifted individual had labored under a perpetual “delirium tremens.”

“He rather liked this kind of thing,” said Paul, pantomiming the action of drinking with his now empty glass. [485]

Everything within the frame suits this prevailing mood of domestic comedy, from the roaring coal-fire in the grate to the open liquor cabinet and the landlady's oversized hat and nose. The reader is struck by the physical resemblance between the middle-aged bourgeois in the oil portrait, presiding over the cluttered parlour, and Paul Dempsey, centre.

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
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
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 15 August 2023