Passage Illustrated: The Romantic Major Reminisces

“‘Ah, General!’ said she, with a sigh, ‘you are such a flatterer.’

“‘Who could flatter,’ said I, with enthusiasm, ‘when there are not words enough to express what he feels?’ This was true, for my Portuguese was fast failing me, ‘But if I ever was happy, it is now.’

“I took another pull at the port.

“‘If I only thought,’ said I, ‘that my presence here was not thought unwelcome —’

“‘Fie, General,’ said she, ‘how could you say such a thing?’

“‘If I only thought I was not hated,’ said I, tremblingly.

“‘Oh!’ said she, again.

“‘Despised.’

“‘Oh!’

“‘Loathed.’

“She pressed my hand, I kissed hers; she hurriedly snatched it from me, and pointed towards a lime-tree near, beneath which, in the cool enjoyment of his cigar, sat the spare and detested figure of Don Emanuel [her elderly, husband, a miser].

“‘Yes,’ thought I, ‘there he is, — the only bar to my good fortune; were it not for him, I should not be long before I became possessor of this excellent old château, with a most indiscretionary power over the cellar. Don Mauricius Monsoon would speedily assume his place among the grandees of Portugal.’

“I know not how long this reverie last, nor indeed, how the evening passed; but I remember well the moon was up, and a sky bright with a thousand stars was shining as I sat beside the fair Donna Maria, endeavouring, with such Portuguese as it had pleased fate to bestow on me, to instruct her touching my warlike services and deeds of arms. [Chapter XXXVI, "The Landing," pp. 205-206]

Commentary: Amorous and Bibulous, Monsoon Narrates a Previous Romance in Portugal.

The October 1840 illustrations, appearing at the head of the monthly instalment, indicate that the Irish Dragoons have finally arrived in Lisbon, ready for the Peninsular Campaign. The bower in which Phiz has placed the Portuguese lady in a mantilla (and smoking a Manillo cigar!) and the middle-aged British Major suitably establishes the new setting, and a new phase of the novel, which actually opens when O'Malley's transport arrives off the Tagus at the close of Chapter XXXIV, "The Land."

In the next chapter, Lever elaborates on the booze-loving comic soldier, Major Monsoon, who, as his name suggests, is something of a blowhard. A lover of fine cuisine and Portuguese vintages, Monsoon has a lengthy record of military service from the East Indies to Canada, and is a veteran provisioner of horse, foot, and dragoon regiments. Monsoon each evening at the mess shows off his prowess as a five-bottle man. As he himself remarks, the Major "would have been an excellent officer if Providence had not made him such a confounded drunken old scoundrel" (194). Lever offers a detailed physical description in Chapter XXXV, "Major Monsoon":

The major had begun life a two-bottle man; but by a studious cultivation of his natural gifts, and a steady determination to succeed, he had, at the time I knew him, attained to his fifth. It need not be wondered at, then, that his countenance bore some traces of his habits. It was of a deep sunset-purple, which, becoming tropical, at the tip of the nose verged almost upon a plum-colour; his mouth was large, thick-lipped, and good-humored; his voice rich, mellow, and racy, and contributed, with the aid of a certain dry, chuckling laugh, greatly to increase the effect of the stories which he was ever ready to recount; and as they most frequently bore in some degree against some of what he called his little failings, they were ever well received, no man being so popular with the world as he who flatters its vanity at his own expense. [193]

The illustration realizes yet another flashback, this time set in Lisbon just a few years earlier, when Monsoon (the teller of the anecdote) was "Acting Commissary General to the Portuguese forces" (Chapter XXXVI, "The Landing," 203), charged with supplying a British artillery and cavalry during the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. Taking advantage of her husband's comatose condition ("a kind of luxation of the lower jaw"), Monsoon makes love to Donna Maria in the little arbor off the main patio of the hacienda of Don Emanuel Selvio de Tormes. He contemplates marrying her and retiring to this "delicious retreat" after Don Emanuel's demise, which now (apparently) occurs. Monsoon seizes the opportunity that Providence has presented ere the husband's corpse is cold. However, when she dashes over to her apparently dead husband, he sits bolt upright, and begins to curse the overly-eager Monsoon. Eventually, Don Emanuel laughs off the incident, and invites the Commmisary-General back as his house guest.

Phiz realizes the romantic idyll with the pliable married woman exquisitely, emphasizing both Donna Maria's cigar and Monsoon's red nose, which together complement the decanters and bottles on the little table, centre. Just beyond the table, lightly sketched in, is the paralyzed husband.

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.

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Created 11 March 2023