"Daly bestows a helmet on 'Bully Dodd'" — Phiz's twentieth engraving for Charles Lever's "The Knight of Gwynne" (September 1846)

Daly bestows a helmet on "Bully Dodd"

Phiz

September 1846 (ninth) instalment

Steel-engraving

12.1 cm by 10.5 cm (4 ⅝ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted.

Charles Lever's The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union (September 1846), originally for Part 9, facing p. 240.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

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: Bagenal Daly's Chastisement of a Hickman O'Reilly Supporter

“'Where was the toast? He didn't say the words,' shouted the mob.

“'Off with his hat, and make him drink it,' cried out several others from a distance — they saved me one part of the trouble, for they knocked off my hat with a stone.

“'Here's health and long life to Hickman O'Reilly!' cried out Dodd, — 'that's the toast.'

“'And what have I to wish him either?' said I, while at the same time I tore open the pewter measure, and then with one strong dash of my band drove it down on the ruffian's head, down to the very brows. I lost no time afterwards, but, striking right and left, plunged forwards; the mob fled as I followed, and by good luck the carthorses, getting frightened, sprang forward also, and so I rode on with a few slight cuts; a stone or two struck me, nothing more; but they'll need a plumber to rid my friend Dodd of his helmet.” [Chapter XXXV, "Bagenal Daly's Return," 286]

Commentary: Daly as Secondary Protagonist Dominates the Central Instalments

At this point, Daly has deduced that the swindler Tom Gleeson and his devious butler, Jack Garrett (who seems to have absconded with his master's papers), were in league with the scurrilous miser, Dr. Hickman, to defraud and bankrupt the Knight of Gwynne so that his son, styled "Hickman O'Reilly," will control the Gwynne estate. Both Hickmans have already tried and failed to obtain Helen Darcy as the son's bride in exchange for remitting the debt. Daly has despatched Freney to hunt down the butler, and prove that Dr. Hickman has received not merely the interest but the principal on his bond.

The nationalist press has calumniated Darcy as a traitor who has sold out to English interests. In consequence, the populace regards his financial ruin at Gleeson's hands as mere poetic justice, and has lauded Hickman O'Reilly as a guardian of Ireland's rights in the same way that they once regarded Maurice Darcy, the Knight of Gwynne. Opposition journals are depicting Darcy in their "Gallery of Traitors" as they extol O'Reilly for selfless devotion to the nation. The illustration complements Bagenal Daly's account of how the villagers at Castlebar attempted to assault him under the leadership of the formerly transported felon and arsonist Bully Dodd. Without his pistols, Daly attempts to defend himself with a black thorn he has snatched up from a turf creel (right). He has accepted the pewter pot of porter from Dodd, but failed to drink the toast dictated by the mob — to the great "Patriot" Hickman O'Reilly.

The present illustration occurs only a few pages after another scene in which the indefatigable secondary protagonist, Bagenal Daly, also provides comic relief: Tate's tête-à-tête Interrupted (also for the September 1846 number). But in the previous engraving Daly was not the focus of the composition as he delivered Nemesis on a comic figure, the Darcy family's butler, Tate Sullivan. Here he is definitely in command, the local aristocrat on horseback, chastising a beefy "bully" before the characteristically Irish villagers.

Other Images of Bagenal Daly, The Determined Nationalist

6. Sandy M'Grane expedites the doctor (facing p. 56) February 1846
9. Daly stirs up the Post-boy (facing p. 115) April 1846
10. Daly surveying the robber's Imp (facing p. 122) April 1846
20. Tate's tête-à-tête Interupted (facing p. 274) September 1846
21. Daly visits Freney in Prison (facing p. 298) October 1846
40. "The Howling Wind" alias Bagenal Daly captures "Honest Tom" (facing p. 619) July 1847

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 Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union. London: Chapman and Hall, serialised January 1846 through July 1847.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.

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. Chapter IX, "Nomadic Patriarch, 1845-1847." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 146-164.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

Created 4 August 2023