"The Rescue" by "Phiz" — Sixth illustration for Charles Lever's "Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon" (May 1840, rpt., 1873)

The Rescue

Phiz

Dalziel

May 1840

Steel-engraving

15.4 cm high by 12 cm wide (6 by 4 ¾ inches), vignetted, in Chapter XI, "An Adventure," facing p. 56.

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Source: Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: The Chaotic Rescue of the Heroine

He had by this time got firmly planted on the hind seat, and held the drooping form on one arm with all the ease of a giant’s grasp.

“For the love of God!” said I, “pull up. I know him well; he’ll do it to a certainty if you press on.”

“And we know you, too,” said a ruffianly fellow, with a dark whisker meeting beneath his chin, “and have some scores to settle ere we part ——”

But I heard no more. With one tremendous effort I dashed my horse forward. The carriage turned an angle of the road, for an instant was out of sight, another moment I was behind it.

“Stop!” I shouted, with a last effort, but in vain. The horses, maddened and infuriated, sprang forward, and heedless of all efforts to turn them the leaders sprang over the low parapet of the bridge, and hanging for a second by the traces, fell with a crash into the swollen torrent beneath. By this time I was beside the carriage. Finucane had now clambered to the box, and regardless of the death and ruin around, bent upon his murderous object, he lifted the light and girlish form above his head, bent backwards as if to give greater impulse to his effort, when, twining my lash around my wrist, I levelled my heavy and loaded hunting-whip at his head. The weighted ball of lead struck him exactly beneath his hat; he staggered, his hands relaxed, and he fell lifeless to the ground; the same instant I was felled to the earth by a blow from behind, and saw no more. [Chapter XI, "An Adventure," 56]

Commentary: Showcasing O'Malley's Heroism

One must read O'Malley's commentary carefully to determine the identities of the various figures and the nature of the rescue of the damsel in distress on the bridge. The ardent youth on horseback about to strike the villain standing on the remnants of the carriage is the protagonist, Charles O'Malley himself. The melodramatic villain, holding aloft in the unconscious form of Miss Dashwood (O'Malley's romantic interest) is the ruffian Tim Finucane, dominating the lofty, one-arched bridge through the mountains of Galway and over the River Lurra. Phiz provides all of the necessary details, but does not telegraph the outcome, for which the reader will have to wait in suspense until next month's serial instalment. As yet, O'Malley has not caught Tim with his whip, but already the carriage horses are careening over the parapet. Sketched lightly in, the ruffian immediately behind O'Malley is about to knock the protagonist senseless at the curtain of the instalment.

And now, with eleven chapters delivered, Lever introduces the book's second-most-important character, the comic valent, Mickey Free, whom Sir George Dashwood, in gratitude for O'Malley's recusing his daughter, sends to look in on the youth, recuperating from concussion.

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)
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. 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, 2 vols. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1840; 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.

5 March 2023