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Daly stirs up the Post-boy
Phiz
April 1846 (fourth) instalment
Steel-engraving
13.3 cm by 11.5 cm (5 ¼ by 4 ⅝ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (March 1846), originally for Part 4, facing p. 115.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"You hear me," cried Daly to the astonished postboy, who for the last two miles had spared neither whip nor spur, in the glad anticipation of a speedy shelter, — "you hear me. To Kilbeggan."
"Oh, begorra! that's impossible, yer honour. If it was the month of May, and the road was a bowling-green, the bastes couldn't do it."
"Go on!" cried Daly, shutting up the glass, and throwing himself back in the chaise.
But the postboy only buttoned up the collar of his coat around his face, thrust his whip into his boot, and, drawing his sleeves over his hands, sat a perfect picture of fatalism.
"I say, go on!" shouted Daly, as he lowered the front window of the chaise.
A low muttering from the driver, still impassive as before, was all the reply, and at the same instant a sharp report was heard, and a pistol bullet whizzed beside his hat.
"Will you go now?" cried Bagenal Daly, as he levelled another weapon on the window; but no second entreaty was necessary, and, with his bead bent down almost to the mane, and with a mingled cry for mercy and imprecation together, he drove the spurs into his jaded beast, and whipped with all his might through the almost deserted town. With the despairing energy of one who felt his life was in peril, the wretched postboy hurried madly forward, urging the tired animals up the hills, and caring neither for rut nor hollow on his onward course, till at length, blown and exhausted, the animals came to a dead stand, and, with heaving flanks and outstretched forelegs, refused to budge a step farther. [Chapter XVII, "Bagenal Daly's Journey to Dublin," pp. 113-114]
From the parlour conversations betweewn Lady Eleanor, Miss Helen Darcy, and Captain Forester, we can be reasonably sure that Bagenal Daly will exhort the Knight of Gwynne to vote against the Act of Union. Daly, fearing that the rumours of the government's having secured the vote of the Knight of Gwynne are true, determines to travel the one hundred and fifty miles from Westport to Dublin as quickly as possible. But post horses are in short supply because the government has moved up the vote on the Act of Union, and all the members in their private carriages require frequent change of horses. When his postboy tells him that no change of horses is possible, he furiously discharges a pistol at the gossoon to ensure his obedience. He must get to the next village, even though his horses are pLaying out. Fortunately for him, on the road he encounters a robber he once rescued from the Dublin police. This thief and his "imp" or cheeky factatum promise to secure Daly the horses he needs, but in the end secure only mounts, so that he is able to ride forward, but must trust his luggage to the "imp."
Phiz provides a high degree of realism in his depiuction of the carriage with its glass front-window and high, square body. And he applies consistency to the image of the determined, stern, and implacable Bagenal Daly. Lever and Phiz is this depiction of Daly's pique at being thwarted in his design make readers wonder how he will respond to the highly prtisan events about to transpire in the capital when he finally arrives.
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 13 July 2023