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Mrs. Paul taking a little snack
Phiz
February 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
15.3 cm by 11.4 cm (6 ⅛ by 4 ½ inches), vignetted
Third steel engraving for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 41.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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“Wherever you like, Sir Charles; wherever you like. Would to Heaven that some good Samaritan could afford me a little brandy-and-water from his canteen. I say, Hinton, they seem at luncheon yonder in that carriage: do you think your diplomacy could negotiate a glass of sherry for me?”
“If you'll permit me, my Lord, I'll try,” said I, as, disengaging myself from the crowd, I set off in the direction he pointed.
As I drew near the carriage — from which the horses had been taken — drawn up beside a clump of beech-trees for the sake of shelter — I was not long in perceiving that it was the same equipage I had so gallantly rescued in the morning from the sabres of the horse police. Had I entertained any fears for the effects of the nervous shock upon the tender sensibilities of Mrs. Paul Rooney, the scene before me must completely have dispelled my uneasiness. Never did a merrier peal of laughter ring from female lungs than hers as I rode forward. Seated in the back of the carriage, the front cushion of which served as a kind of table, sat the lady in question. One hand, resting upon her knee, held a formidable carving-fork, on the summit of which vibrated the short leg of a chicken; in the other she grasped a silver vessel, which, were I to predicate from the froth, I fear I should pronounce to be porter. A luncheon on the most liberal scale, displayed, in all the confusion and disorder inseparable from such a situation, a veal-pie, cold lamb, tongue, chickens, and sandwiches; drinking vessels of every shape and material; a smelling bottle full of mustard, and a newspaper paragraph full of salt. Abundant as were the viands, the guests were not wanting: crowds of infantry officers, flushed with victory or undismayed by defeat, hob-nobbed from the rumble to the box; the steps, the springs, the very splinter-bar had its occupant; and, truly, a merrier party, or a more convivial, it were difficult to conceive.
So environed was Mrs. Rooney by her friends, that I was enabled to observe them some time, myself unseen.
“Captain Mitchell, another wing? Well, the least taste in life of the breast? Bob Dwyer, will ye never have done drawing that cork?” [Chapter VI, "The Sham Battle," pp. 40-41]
This and the following pair of illustrations, spanning the February and March serial instalments, satirize the social-climbing Mrs. Paul Rooney, pillar of Dublin society, an ornament at any Castle levee and reception, and a wife firmly in control of her husband. We have already encountered her before the mock battle in Phoenix Park, upset that the horse-police have prevented her from joining the viceregal party. Now, after all the mirth that Hinton's bungling the orders to the various military units has engendered among the Duke and his aides, Hinton is directed by the Duke to beg a glass of sherry from Mrs. Rooney in this comic scene. As Bob Dwyer has yet to announce Hinton's arrival, the officers are still ravenously consuming their lunches. Phiz has notably not included Mrs. Rooney's companion, Miss Bellew, vastly amused by the afternoon's events and laughing at everything around her. But he has included six uniformed officers and three liveried servants, so that it is not unreasonable to assume that our perspective is that of young Hinton himself as he rides up to request refreshment for the Duke.
As Phiz's realisation of Mrs. Rooney's fête champêtre suggests, her lavish luncheon and many bottles of champagne, as well sherry, shrub, cold punch, and bottled porter have attracted a crowd of officers, who were lately engaged in the highly confused mock battle. She ridiculously refers to our narrator as "Mr. Stilton" as she refers to "taking a little snack . . . after the fatigues of the day" (41). Of the two early interpretations of Mrs. Rooney, the thumbnail portrait is the more compelling, despite the absence of background detail. She is a vacuous, almost silly figure in the picnic, whereas her penetrating look in the portrait seems to suggest that she is appraising the reader.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.]
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 73-93.
Sutherland, John A. "Jack Hinton The Guardsman." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 323.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 19 May 2023