A Doleful Ditty by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 93 in the fourth instalment (March 1855). Steel-engraving. 9.8 cm high by 17.8 cm wide (3 ⅞ by 7 inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, for the opening of Chapter X, "A Dinner Party." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: The Local Homerule Coterie welcomes Jack Massingbred
“I am fond of 'The Meeting of the Waters,' sir,” said Hayes, meekly, and like a man who was confessing to a weakness.
“And here's the man to sing it!” cried Brierley, clapping the priest familiarly on the shoulder; a proposal that was at once hailed with acclamation.
“'T is many a long day I haven't sung a note,” said Father Neal, modestly.
“Come, come, Father Neal; we'll not let you off that way. It's not under this roof that you can make such an excuse!”
“He'd rather give us something more to his own taste,” said Brierley. “'To Ladies' eyes around, boys,' — eh, Father Rafferty?”
“That's my favorite of all the songs he sings,” broke in Magennis.
“Let it be, 'To Ladies' eyes!'” cried Massingbred; “and we'll drink 'Miss Martin's.' 'I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.'” And he sang the line with such a mellow cadence that the whole table cheered him.
To the priest's song, given with considerable taste and no mean musical skill, there followed, in due course, others, not exactly so successful, by Brierley and Magennis, and, at last, by old Peter himself, who warbled out a wonderful ditty, in a tone so doleful that two of the company fell fast asleep under it, and Brierley's nerves were so affected that, to support himself, he got most completely drunk, and in a very peremptory tone told the singer to desist!
“Don't you perceive,” cried he, “that there's a stranger present, — a young English cub, — come down to laugh at us? Have you no discretion, — have you no decency, Peter Hayes, but you must go on with your stupid old 'croniawn' about dimples and the devil knows what?”
“Another tumbler, Mr. Massingbred, — one more?” said the host, with the air, however, of one who did not exact compliance.
“Not for the world,” said Jack, rising from table. “Have I your permission to light a cigar?” [Chapter Ten, "A Dinner Party," 93]
Commentary: Jack Massingbred accommodates the Proponents of Home Rule
Surely one of the upshots of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 was a greater reciprocity of feeling and warmer relations between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Phiz's including Jack Massingbred among the group of imbibing male singers cuts across the former lines that separated the two groups in Ireland. Here, at Nelligan's table, this Catholic coterie in the Borough of Oughterard welcomes the amiable young Dublin Protestant visitor, and yet he is initially regarded as "a stranger . . . an English cub — come down to laugh at us?" (93).
Jack Massingbred, son of a notorious Anglo-Irish Conservative, has outdone himself in his powers of adaptation. He has presented himself to Joe's father, a local merchant and quasi-banker, as the son's intimate college friend. As Dan Nelligan's house-guest, Jack is affability itself, drinking poteen and singing with Dan's Liberal cronies. Jack is the son of an inveterate Irish Conservative known to them all by reputation as Colonel Moore Massingbred, a Lord of the Treasury. Jack here puts on a brave face even with the most radical member of Nelligan's party of six, Tom Magennis, a devoted supporter of Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell, who had just stood for re-election to Parliament after the passage of the Irish Emancipation Act.
The other Nelligan guests are likewise advocates of Home Rule, on the opposite side of the political spectrum from Jack and his father: Mat Brierley, owner of the poteen (upon which no excise tax has been paid); old Peter Hayes of the Priory; and the musical Catholic priest, Father Neal Rafferty. The reader may have difficulty distinguishing one guest from the other around the table in the Phiz plate, but Jack is the youth who is lighting the cigar (centre), with his stout host in the black wig (right). The singer at the extreme left must be Father Rafferty, and the hairy Irishman at the far right Mat Brierley, whom Lever introduced in the previous chapter as "a red-faced man, with large white whiskers" (84). In short, Phiz has taken pains to distinguish the restrained revellers by realising the elements of description that Lever has provided. In the subsequent discussion, when Jack steps out to smoke his cigar, the gathering proposes that Dan Nelligan back the self-assured Anglo-Irish Protestant as their parliamentary candidate since he seems to have come down on their side in the Home Rule question.
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 person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
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 Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.
Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.
Created 11 September 2022