"The Salutation" by "Phiz" — Seventeenth Illustration for Charles Lever's for "Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon" (November 1840)

The Salutation

Phiz

Dalziel

November 1840

Steel-engraving

10.9 cm high by 10.5 cm wide (4 ¼ by 4 ⅛ inches), vignetted, in Chapter XLIV, "The Bivouac," facing p. 240.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Source: Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon.

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 photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Dickensian Street Scene Foregrounding Stolen Pears

“‘O’Grady,’ said I, ‘forgive the freedom, but I feel as if we were old acquaintances.’

“‘As Colonel M’Manus’s friend,’ said he, ‘you can take no liberty here to which you are not perfectly welcome.’

“‘Just what I expected,’ said I. ‘Mac and I,’ — I wish you saw his face when I called him Mac, — ‘Mac and I were schoolfellows five-and-thirty years ago; though he forgets me, I don’t forget him, — to be sure it would be hard for me. I’m just thinking of the day Bishop Oulahan came over to visit the college. Mac was coming in at the door of the refectory as the bishop was going out. “Take off your caubeen, you young scoundrel, and kneel down for his reverence to bless you,” said one of the masters, giving his hat a blow at the same moment that sent it flying to the other end of the room, and with it, about twenty ripe pears that Mac had just stolen in the orchard, and had in his hat. I wish you only saw the bishop; and Mac himself, he was a picture. Well, well, you forget it all now, but I remember it as if it was only yesterday. Any champagne, Mr. O’Grady? I’m mighty dry.’ [Chapter XLIV, "The Bivouac," pp. 240-241]

Commentary: An Entirely Made-up up Reminiscence of School Days

Compelling as Phiz's rather Dickensian scene of the discovery of the appropriated pears may be, O'Shaughnessy has fabricated story about Colonel MacManus's youth to make him the butt of a joke at the officers' mess. Quite plausibly, as in a stage adaptation of the anecdote, Bishop Oulahan has just exited the college when he encounters Mac as a schoolboy on his knees at the doorstep, his caubeem (cap) flying off, and seven pears in motion. The smirking lad, cap in hand to the left, is presumably the tale-teller, the delightfully dialectal O'Shaughnessy himself. The next illustration will be far more pertinent: a cavalry action between the French and British dragoons.

Necessary Background

Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)

Bibliography

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. "Edited by Harry Lorrequer." Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1841. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Published serially in The Dublin University Magazine from Vol. XV (March 1840) through XVIII (December 1841). Dublin: William Curry, March 1840 through December 1841. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1842; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 2 September 2016.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-50.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

Created 11 March 2023