"The Four-in-Hand" — Phiz's twenty-second steel-engraving for Charles Lever's "Jack Hinton, The Guardsman" (November 1842)

The Four-in-Hand, twenty-second steel-engraving and thirty-first serial illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman, Part 11 (November 1842), Chapter LV, "The Four-in-Hand." 10.2 by 14 cm (4 by 5 ½ inches), vignetted, facing p. 348. [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: O'Grady's Turnout Carries off the Obstructionist Gendarmes

With some difficulty the four dashing nags were reined in as we came up to the barrière; and the commissaire, bursting with passion, appeared at the door of the lodge, and directed us to get down.

"Your passports will avail little on the present occasion," said he insolently, as we produced our papers. "Your carriage and horses are confiscated. St. Omer has now privilege as a fortified town. The fortresses of France enforce a penalty of forty thousand ——"

A burst of laughter from the bystanders at our rueful faces prevented us hearing the remainder of the explanation. Meanwhile, to our horror and disgust, some half-dozen gendarmes, with their long caps and heavy boots, were crawling up the sides of the drag, and taking their seats upon the top. Some crept into the interior, and showed their grinning faces at the windows; others mounted into the rumble; and two more aspiring spirits ascended to the box, by one of whom O'Grady was rudely ordered to get down, a summons enforced by the commissaire himself in a tone of considerable insolence. O'Grady's face for a minute or two seemed working with a secret impulse of fun and devilment which I could not account for at such a moment, as he asked, in a voice of much humility —

"Does Monsieur the Commissaire require me to come down?"

"Instantly," roared the Frenchman, whose passion was now boiling over.

"In that case, gentlemen, take charge of the team." So saying, he handed the reins to the passive gendarmes, who took them, without well knowing why. "I have only a piece of advice," continued Phil, as he slowly descended the side — "keep a steady hand on the near-side leader, and don't let the bar strike her; and now, good-bye."

He flourished his four-in-hand whip as he spoke, and with one tremendous cut came down on the team, from leader to wheeler, accompanying the stroke with a yell there was no mistaking. The heavy carriage bounded from the earth as the infuriated cattle broke away at full gallop. A narrow street and a sharp angle lay straight in front; but few of those on the drag waited for the turn, as at every step some bearskin shako shot into the air, followed by a tall figure, whose heavy boots seemed ill-adapted for flying in. The corporal himself had abandoned the reins, and held on manfully by the rail of the box. On every side they fell, in every attitude of distress. But already the leaders had reached the corner; round went the swingle-bars, the wheelers followed, the coach rocked to one side, sprang clean off the pavement, came down with a crash, and then fell right over, while the maddened horses, breaking away, dashed through the town, the harness in fragments behind them, and the pavement flying at every step. [Chapter LV, "The Four-in-Hand," pp. 347-348]

Commentary: The "Four-in-Hand" — More than Just a Carriage

The chapter takes its title from a fast, light carriage drawn by two teams of matched horses with the reins configured for a single driver. Typically, a four-in-hand such as a landau, as we see in a number of Phiz illustrations for Lever's novels, would be driven by a single, experienced sportsman who would knot the reins asymmetrically for ease of handling. Here, Phil O'Grady has used his four-in-hand whip to set the steeds in motion after he and his party have been challenged at the barrière or check-point. Owning such a vehicle privately and maintaining the horses needed to pull it would be indicative of considerable wealth and social status; for example, in Lever's The Martins of Cro' Martin young attorney and political fixer Maurice Scanlan fancies himself an avid and skilled sportsman, and displays his superior attitude and affluence by driving such a turnout at speed through a built-up area.

After Months of Captivity, Liberation and the Bourbon Restoration

The illustration marks a significant milestone in the career of the protagonist as it signifies that, after months of captivity, he has rejoined the Eighteenth as part of the army of occupation of France. The old royalist militaires of the restored Louis XVIII, jealous of the British victory, headed in St. Omer by the crusty commissaire de police, attempt to obstruct the free movement of the occupying army at the barrière by demanding to see their passports and interrogating them. Thus, O'Grady proposes that the officers use a four-in-hand carriage drawn by "four dashing thoroughbred chestnuts" (whom Phiz has beautifully realised) to charge the obnoxious town barrière to show their unmitigated scorn for the police commissioner and his dull-witted minions. Even the corporal who has taken charge of the carriage abandons the reins, and holds onto the rail of the box as his fellows shoot into the air. As a result of the affair, O'Grady is summoned to Paris, and Hinton accompanies him.

Phiz's illustration admirably depicts the madly careening carriage with nobody in control. St. Omer's elaborately uniformed officers who have attempted the seizure of the vehicle are losing their grip on the coach, and are flying off the vehicle on all sides as the horses seem to enjoy the opportunity for a vigorous gallop through the cobblestone streets. One of the gendarmes is already flat on his back in the narrow street (upper right). This is the humorous culmination of the sometimes lamentable wartime chapters in which Hinton has been a prisoner of the French at Vittoria, where he has witnessed the exciting escape of a Spanish guerilla from the firing squad, the pellmell retreat of the undisciplined French forces with wagonloads of plunder from Spanish churches, the wholesale abandonment of artillery, and the unceremonious exit of Joseph Bonaparte towards Bayonne. Hinton then skips months of captivity to describe events at St. Omer in 1814, lamenting his having "done nothing as a soldier" as his captors were pursued across the Pyrenees and through the south of France. The allies take possession of Paris, and force the abdication of Napoleon and the restoration of Louis XVIII. And Hinton is at last reunited with "les Cossaques d'Angleterre" (in fact an Irish regiment led by the much-decorated Colonel Phil O'Grady).

Two relevant Phiz carriage illustrations from a later Lever work, The Martins of Cro' Martin: Maurice Scanlan, Attorney-at-Law (January 1855), and A Spill (November 1855).

Related Material

Scanned image and commentary 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.]

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Hablot Knight Browne: A Good Hand at a Horse." Illustration, 73 (Autumn 2022): 36-40.

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 VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.

Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.

Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.

Created 10 June 2023