Fighting their battles o'er again (facing p. 78 in vol. 2 of the 1844 edition, p. 120 in vol. 2 of the 1865 edition), horizontally-mounted, 9.3 cm high by 13.5 cm wide, (3 ⅝ by 5 ¼ inches), vignetted steel illustration for Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours,", Chapter LX, "A Good-by" (March 1844), in the William Curry, Jun. two-volume edition (Dublin, 1844); Chapter XVI, "A Good-by," in the second volume of the Chapman and Hall edition (London, 1869). [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: Minette's Entertaining the Wounded by Reading Aloud
Mingling unperceived with the crowd, who were far too highly interested in the recital to pay any attention to my approach, I listened patiently, and soon perceived that mademoiselle was reading some incident of the Egyptian campaign from one of those innumerable volumes which then formed the sole literature of the garrison.
“The redoubt,” continued Minette, “was strongly defended in front by stockades and a ditch, while twelve pieces of artillery and a force of seven hundred Mamelukes were within the works. [Chapter LX, "A Good-by," 78 in the second volume of the 1844 edition; pp. 120-121 in Chapter XVI, "A Good-by," in the second volume of the 1869 Chapman and Hall edition]
Commentary: An Affecting Post-Battlefield Scene of the Shattered Invalids
After the pomp of Napoleon's military review in the courtyard of the Tuileries in Minette receiving the "Cross of the Legion" in Chapter LVII, "The Return of the Wounded" (February 1844), the novelist and illustrator emphasize the human cost behind such glorious victories as that at Austerlitz, although the context is the veterans of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798-1801). In the previous plate, Phiz focussed on the presentation of the Cross of the Legion of Honour rather than the survivors' "Suffering and misery — wounds, ghastly and dreadful" (105). But here, at the Hộtel-Dieu, looking for his old friend Pioche, Tom remarks upon the walking wounded as suffering the consequences of the arrogance and sheer ambition of "the stern and pitiless Napoleon" (106). Again, the objective commentator, Captain Tom Burke, does not appear within the frame, so that readers see what he sees.
Phiz has depicted the crippled veterans before one of the three fireplaces in the veterans' dining hall; however, the assembly is in deep silence rather than chattering and laughing as the vivandière herself, the veteran of more recent battles, Minette (centre), reads to "le gros Pioche" (seated beside her in a grand, old-fashioned armchair) from the "literature of the garrison." The illustrator achieves his desired effect through the sheer accumulation of bandaged and distorted visages and assorted hats denoting all branches of the French military.
Further Information
- Phiz and Lever: A Fascination with Napoleon (1840-43; seven plates)
- Charles Lever's Fourth Novel, Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843 — September 1844)
- Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843)
- Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (March 1843)
- Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters for Tom Burke's Adventures in France in Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (April 1843 through June 1844)
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. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1869. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.
Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Created 20 November 2023