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Mr. Dempsey's last appearance and last request
Phiz
July 1847 (final) instalment: initial illustration
Steel-engraving
12.3 cm by 10.6 cm (4 ⅞ by 4 ¼ 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 p. 607.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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“Well,” exclaimed he, as Lady Eleanor concluded, “it's clear I wasn't the man. Only think of my precious journey to London, and the interview with that terrible old Countess, — all for nothing! No matter, — it's all past and over. As for the loan, I've arranged it all; you shall have the money when you like.”
“I must decline your generous offer, not without feeling your debtor for it; but I have determined to abandon these proceedings. The Government have promised me some staff appointment, quite sufficient for my wishes and wants; and I will neither burden my friends nor wear out myself by tiresome litigation.”
“That's the worst of all,” exclaimed Dempsey; “I thought you would not refuse me this.”
“Nor would I, my dear Dempsey, but that I have no occasion for the sum. To-morrow I set out to witness the last suit I shall ever engage in; and as I believe there is little doubt of the issue, I have nothing of sanguine feeling to suffer by disappointment.”
“Well, then, to-morrow I'll start for Dempsey's Grove,” said Paul, sorrowfully. “With very different expectations I quitted it a few days ago. Good-bye, Lady Eleanor; good-bye, Miss Helen. I suppose there's no use in guessing?”
Mr. Dempsey's leave-taking was far more rueful than his wont, and woe seemed to have absorbed all other feeling; but when he reached the door, he turned round and said, —
“Now I am going, — never like to see him again; do tell me the name.”
A shake of the head, and a merry burst of laughter, was all the answer; and Paul departed. [Chapter LXXIII, "An Unexpected Proposa1," pp. 606-607]
We have been prepared for the return of Maurice Darcy for some chapters as Forester (now, more properly, Lord Wallincourt) had encountered him quite by accident at a coaching inn on the road north from Dublin. The present illustration finally brings together the book's moral and intellectual protagonist, veteran of the Battle of Abukir, and the continuing comic butt, the Lever "original," Mr. Paul Dempsey, who has just come into his uncle's estate, and therefore approaches the Knight of Gwynne on something of an equal social footing.
The comedy of misdirection and misperception becomes intense as Paul Dempsey confesses to having eavesdropped on Lady Eleanor and Helen at The Corby. The Knight and the reader are both aware of the extreme irony of Paul's having misidentified himself as the subject of their discussion, which was, of course, Richard Forester, now Lord Wallincourt. The Knight very urbanely thanks Dempsey for having arranged a loan with the Netherbys so that he can continue to prosecute his case against the Hickmans, when, in fact, all Dempsey's remarks about the haughty Lady Netherby have been made in the presence of her son! Neither Wallincourt nor the lawyer, Bicknell, the Darcys' other dinner guests, are in the frame, for they have just left. Oddly enough, however, Phiz has also omitted Helen Darcy, who is in fact [present. The engraving captures well Dempsey's self-assured, confident, and confidential mood as he fails to appreciate fully what an ass he has made of himself. And he is amazingly cheerful for a rejected suitor as he leaves the Darcys' ornately furnished rooms at their old-fashioned family hotel "selected by Bicknell, in a quiet, unpretending street" (599) in Dublin.
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 21 August 2023