"The Pic-nic" by "Phiz" — Fourteenth Illustration for Charles Lever's for "Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon" (September 1840)

The Pic-nic

Phiz

Dalziel

September 1840

Steel-engraving

12.4 cm high by 11.3 cm wide (5 by 4 ½ inches), vignetted, in Chapter XXXII, "Mr. Sparks' Story," facing p. 177.

[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: The Insane Asylum takes a Picnic

“‘Are you, or are you not, sir?’ said Isabella, fixing her deep and languid eyes upon me; ‘answer, as you are honest, are you the ace of spades?

“‘He is the King of Tuscarora. Look at his war paint!’ cried an elderly gentleman, putting a streak of mustard across my nose and cheek.

“‘Then am I deceived,’ said Isabella. And flying at me, she plucked a handful of hair out of my whiskers.

“‘Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ shouted one; ‘Bow-wow-wow!’ roared another; ‘Phiz!’ went a third; and in an instant, such a scene of commotion and riot ensued. Plates, dishes, knives, forks, and decanters flew right and left; every one pitched into his neighbor with the most fearful cries, and hell itself seemed broke loose. The hour-glass and the Moulah of Oude had got me down and were pummelling me to death, when a short, thickset man came on all fours slap down upon them shouting out, ‘Way, make way for the royal Bengal tiger!’ at which they both fled like lightning, leaving me to the encounter single-handed. Fortunately, however, this was not of very long duration, for some well-disposed Christians pulled him from off me; not, however, before he had seized me in his grasp, and bitten off a portion of my left ear, leaving me, as you see, thus mutilated for the rest of my days.”

“What an extraordinary club,” broke in the doctor. [Chapter XXXII, "Mr. Sparks' Story," 177]

Commentary: The Lunatics’ Picnic

Regarding the second illustration for the September 1840 instalment, the serial reader would have puzzled over what was amiss at the picnic outside Barmouth in Wales. Here Sparks, the narrator of the interpolated tale, had been staying when he fell in love with the beautiful but somewhat elusive Isabella. When he encounters her unexpectedly on the road, she invites him to a family picnic beneath a noble peak in Snowdonia (which dominates the backdrop in the illustration) in the vale of Llanberris — with some very peculiar characters. Thus, the reader eagerly awaits an explanation which the chaotic picture and the odd dialogue of the picnickers require: the "club" members are in fact inmates of a lunatic asylum. And thus Sparks came to lose a portion of his right ear, a feature upon which his fellow officers had just remarked. His beloved Isabella, confesses Sparks as he departs the mess, had been driven insane by a card-playing aunt in Bath.

The first person whom the reader attempts to identify in the illustration is Sparks himself; he may be the well-dressed young man under the basket, a scenario which Phiz has invented. We can make this determination because a young female with ringlets is pointing at him, and that well-dressed but addled beauty is probably Isabella. The corpulent lunatic grasping the hand of the man under the basket is likely "the royal Bengal tiger," otherwise "a Liverpool merchant, and the most vicious madman in England" (177). In short, Phiz has attempted to give an impression of chaos and deranged behaviour that Sparks has described without realizing all of Lever's particulars.

Related Material

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 8 March 2023