Passage Illustrated: A Stirring Military Action

“Once more, my lads, forward!” cried out our gallant leader, Sir Charles Stewart, as waving his sabre, he dashed into the thickest of the fray.

So sudden was our charge that we were upon them before they were prepared. And here ensued a terrific struggle; for as the cavalry of the enemy gave way before us, we came upon the close ranks of the infantry at half-pistol distance, who poured a withering volley into us as we approached. But what could arrest the sweeping torrent of our brave fellows, though every moment falling in numbers!

Harvey, our major, lost his arm near the shoulder. Scarcely an officer was not wounded. Power received a deep sabre-cut in the cheek from an aide-de-camp of General Foy, in return for a wound he gave the general; while I, in my endeavour to save General Laborde when unhorsed, was cut down through the helmet, and so stunned that I remembered no more around me. I kept my saddle, it is true, but I lost every sense of consciousness, my first glimmering of reason coming to my aid as I lay upon the river bank and felt my faithful follower Mike bathing my temples with water, as he kept up a running fire of lamentations for my being murthered so young. [Chapter XLV, "The Douro," 248]

Commentary: What O'Malley and His Readers Have Been Waiting for

Lever's translating his protagonist from studies in Dublin to military service in Portugal is now affording Phiz plenty of opportunity for depicting dynamic cavalry action. Aside from the cornet's leaping over a commercial vehicle in the plaza as he reports for inspection in Charles O'Malley topping a Mule Cart in Chapter XXXVII, "Lisbon," this is Phiz's first scene of combat on horseback. The illustrator responds to the text with genuine zest, showing two dragoons from opposing nations hacking away each other with sabres as the battles rages around them, and mounts and riders fall.

What is rare about this scene of battle is that Lever dates it specifically, and names actual historical personages involved, notably Sir arthur Wellesley. On 12 May 1809 the retreating French forces are amassed outside Oporto, on the far side of the Douro River. In delivering a message to Sir Arthur at the convent of Sierra, O'Malley has had his mount shot out from under him, and narrowly escapes a fatal musket-ball. Phiz actually provides a second illustration for this chapter which depicts O'Malley's meeting the Commander-in-chief, Vignette for title-page: Charley's Meeting with Sir Arthur. The cornet delivers his despatches as Wellesley finds sufficient transports to get his forces across the river, unseen by the French. While the French are retreating along Vallonga Road by the river, Sir George Murray orders the Fourteenth Dragoons to charge. O'Malley now sees action.

Complementing the fine historical writing Phiz must both add and subtract. First of all, despite Lever's stirring description of the cavalry encounter, he must add accurately depicted uniforms from four decades earlier, and insert wounded horses and soldiers to emphasize the central figures. But he must also subtract, so that he avoids entirely the death of Hixley, the large artillery pieces and the rattling volleys of small arms and the "swelling tide of musketry" (245) from both sides. We have no sense in this illustration that the French are in retreat from the nearby town, or even that the action occurs by a river. What Phiz does preserve is "the glorious enthusiasm of a fox-hunt" (246) — a Lever phrase that recalls Phiz's initial illustration of horses, The Sunk Fence in Chapter IV. Instead of panoramic and terrific carnage wrought by flying columns and damaging fire, Phiz uses salient details as metonymy as the Fourteenth suddenly engage with the fleeing rear-guard and meet with equal courage the stubborn resistance of squadrons of cuirassiers. To give context to the encounter Phiz includes a line of helmets and sabres (left rear), sketched in smoke to suggest the cannonades, a single infantryman with bearskin helmet and fixed bayonet (right), and a horseman (presumably O'Malley himself) without a helmet, slumping in the saddle (left).

Related Material

• Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
• Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882; A Brief Biography
• Cattermole and Phiz: The First illustrators of Barnaby Rudge: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
• Horses by "Phiz" for Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (Nov.-Dec. 1841, rpt., 1873)
• Phiz: 'A Good Hand at a Horse'" — A Gallery and Brief Overview of Phiz's Illustrations of Horses for Defoe, Dickens, Lever, and Ainsworth (1836-64)

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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12 March 2023