John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 21

"With kindest regards, old fellow,

"Believe me always yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH.

"C. F. ADAMS, ESQ."

"Sat.u.r.day, December 22, 1855.

"MY DEAR CHARLEY,

"How is the country? I suppose no hunting as yet, for I have not received any card. The weather here to-day is mild and wet. I am working away in the hope of getting a day or two by-and-by comfortably. In the meantime, if there is anything going on, give my horse a turn across country, that's a good fellow.

"With kindest regards, believe me,

"Yours faithfully, "J. L.

"If you can't spare time to hunt the mare, would it not be a good thing to send her to Patmore, and make him ride her? But do you attend to her if you can manage it."

"8, St. Nicholas Cliff, Scarbro', "August 30, 1858.

"MY DEAR CHARLEY,

"Your note was forwarded here, and I only found it on my return from Ireland, where I have been for the last three weeks. The consequence is that I am, of course, in rather a muddle with my work, and I am afraid I must forego the pleasure of shooting with you--at any rate, for the early part of the season; so pray do not deprive other friends of sport on my account. I shall hope to have a day or two with you before the season is over. I am not a very greedy sportsman, you know, and as long as I get a good walk am pretty well satisfied. I am sorry you have been so unwell--you should really give yourself a holiday. The bow should be unstrung sometimes. I know I find it must. I wish you could have seen me catch a _salmon_ in Ireland--a regular salmon! When I say catch, I should say hook, rather, for he was too much for me, and after ten minutes' struggle he bolted with my tackle. It was really a tremendous sensation....

"Believe me always, "Yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH.

"C. F. ADAMS, ESQ."

"White Horse, Baldock, "Friday evening, ----, 1858.

"MY DEAR CHARLEY,

"For the present I have arranged with Little to make this place my headquarters, it is so handy to the train, and I can come so much quicker and later to Hitchin. The slow railway journeys take it out of me, so that my pleasure is almost destroyed by the fatigue of travelling and bother to get off. I hope, nevertheless, that we shall have many evenings together to talk over the _tremendous runs_ that we hope to have. I have bought a horse and brought it down here. I hope you will be out to-morrow to see it. I like it very much; it is a most excellent hackney, and sufficiently good-looking, although not perfect, I suppose; and it is represented to me as being a temperate hunter in addition to his other qualities. Well, we shall see. The black mare I shall send to Tattersall's next week. She was as fresh as could be last Sat.u.r.day, and I was quite glad I had not sold her; but, alas! she was as lame in the afternoon as possible, and next morning was a pretty spectacle! She would not do at all. So much for horseflesh.

"With kindest regards, "Yours always, "J. L."

"32, Brunswick Square, W.C., "November 20, 1862.

"MY DEAR CHARLEY,

"If you _ever_ have the time--which I never have--I should feel so glad if you would go some day and see how the 'party' at Kensington has done his work. I suppose 'that little form' of paying the bill must very soon be gone through, and I should like to know from a competent authority that the work has been well and properly done.

"How about the hunting? I am continually tormented here by n.o.ble sportsmen going by my window in full fig.

"Yours always, "J. L."

"6, The Terrace, Kensington, "November 27, 1862.

"MY DEAR CHARLEY,

"I am obliged to go to St. Leonards to-night, but I should be very glad if you would to-morrow, Friday (as you propose), look at my new house.

In the corner of one of the new rooms I see it looks a little damp, although they considered it dry before they papered. I must say I am pleased with the new residence, and I think by degrees I shall be able to make it pretty comfortable. We shall hardly get in here, I expect, much before Christmas. There is yet so much to do. I shall be very glad of any hints about improvements that may occur to you.

"Kind regards, and believe me, "Always yours, "J. L."

There is amongst the pictures of "Life and Character" a drawing of a sportsman who has been thrown from his horse. He has fallen upon his head, and as he raises it, stunned and bewildered, and but half conscious, the sensations that must have possessed him are realized for us in a manner so marvellous, so wonderful in its originality and truth, as to convince one that the accident must have happened to the man who drew the picture; and this was the case, for the fallen man was Leech himself, says Mr. Adams, who in charging a fence was thrown, his horse falling at the same time. If I had been told that the sensations inevitable under the circ.u.mstances were required to be reproduced by pencil and paper, I should have said such a feat was beyond the reach of art; but there they are! As the prostrate man looks up, he sees sparks of fire, horse's head, legs, hoofs mingled together in a whirl of confusion round his prostrate figure.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

No doubt the work he undertook for _Bell's Life in London_, a long-established and long-discontinued paper, in which sport of all kinds was the most prominent feature--and which occupied much of Leech's time in his youthful days--contributed to the creation of a taste and love for field sports that always distinguished him. Quite a band of comic artists, including Cruikshank, Kenny Meadows, "Phiz," Seymour, and Leech, contributed sketches ill.u.s.trative of a variety of subjects by a variety of authors; Leech's work being easily distinguishable from that of his brethren of the pencil.

CHAPTER XIII.

"COMIC GRAMMAR" AND "COMIC HISTORY."

The friendship, begun in their student-days at St. Bartholomew's, between Leech and Percival Leigh flourished in renewed strength by the discovery of similarity of taste--Leigh unable to draw, but possessing a truly humorous pen; so the friends "laid their heads together," the result being the production of the "Comic Latin Grammar," letter-press by Leigh, ill.u.s.trations by Leech. The first intention of the authors was that this should be a mere skit, a trifling brochure, consisting of a few pages; but, as so often happens, the work grew under their hands, and when published in 1840 it had a.s.sumed somewhat formidable proportions, and was followed by a work of similar character, with the t.i.tle of "The Comic English Grammar."

The "Comic English Grammar" was a work full of pleasant humour, charmingly ill.u.s.trated by Leech "with upwards of fifty characteristic woodcuts." It is curious to observe in these drawings the contrast that they afford to the artist's later and more perfect work. There is a timidity, and what we call a hardness, from which the sketches in "Pictures of Life and Character" are entirely free; the general drawing, too, is faulty, but the humour and character are all there.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The first ill.u.s.tration, given above, is from a ballad called "Billy Taylor," popular in my young days, in which Billy's true love--with the reluctance to part from him common to persons suffering from that pa.s.sion--disguises herself as a man before the mast, and shares the dangers of the sea with her sailor-lover:

"Ven as the Captain comed for to hear on't, Wery much applauded vot she'd done."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The verb "applauded" has here no nominative case, whereas it ought to have been governed by the p.r.o.noun "he." "He very much applauded," etc., says the writer of the "Comic Grammar" for our instruction. The second example, given above, seems to me capital fooling, and an excellent proof of the necessity for care in punctuation and accent.

"Imagine," says the writer, "an actor commencing Hamlet's famous soliloquy thus:

"'To be or not to be; that is. The question,' etc.

Or saying, in the person of Duncan in 'Macbeth':

"'This castle hath a pleasant seat, the air.'

Or, as the usurper himself, exclaiming: