John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 22

"'The devil d.a.m.n thee black, thou cream-faced loon!

Where got's thou that goose? Look!'"

Here we have the fault of _hardness_ that I speak of, and something of feeble drawing, but the humour is perfect.

After the publication of the "Comic Grammar," written by Gilbert a Beckett, one of the _Punch_ staff, a somewhat similar experiment upon the public and on a larger scale was tried by the same author in the issue of a "Comic History of England." This venture was warmly opposed at its inception by Jerrold, whose wrath at the idea of burlesquing historical personages was expressed with vehemence. Gilbert a Beckett persisted, however, and the history appeared, with over three hundred ill.u.s.trations on wood and steel by John Leech. The book is, as might be expected, very light reading, containing many puns and much play upon words. Leech's work seems to me to be slight, hurried, and even careless, compared with that of his later time; but the spirit of rollicking fun with which grave historical incidents are treated, and the humorous satire that the princ.i.p.al personages receive at the hands of the ill.u.s.trator, make the "Comic History of England" amusing enough.

The following extract, with the drawing that ill.u.s.trates it, will show the truth of my estimate of both.

"A story is told of a certain Fair Rosamond, and, though there is no doubt of its being a story from beginning to end, it is impossible to pa.s.s it over in English history. Henry, it was alleged, was enamoured of a certain Miss Clifford--if she can be called a certain Miss Clifford, when she was really a very doubtful character. She was the daughter of a baron on the banks of the Wye, when, without a why or a wherefore, the King took her away, and transplanted the Flower of Hereford, as she well deserved to be called, to the Bower of Woodstock. In this bower he constructed a labyrinth something like the Maze at Rosherville, and as there was no man stationed on an elevation in the centre to direct the sovereign which way to go, nor exclaim, 'Right, if you please!'

'Straight on!' 'You're right now, sir!' 'Left!' 'Right again!' etc., etc., his Majesty had adopted the plan of dragging one of Rosamond's reels of silk along with him when he left the spot, so that it formed a guide for him on his way back again. This tale of silk is indeed a most precious piece of entanglement, but it was perhaps necessary for the winding up of the story. While we cannot receive it as part of the thread of history, we accept it as a means of accounting for Eleanor's having got a clue to the retreat of Rosamond.

"The Queen, hearing of the silk, resolved naturally enough to unravel it. She accordingly started for Woodstock one afternoon, and, suspecting something wrong, took a large bowl of poison in one hand and a stout dagger in the other. Having found Fair Rosamond, she held the poniard to the heart and the bowl to the lips of that unfortunate young person, who, it is said, preferred the black draught to the steel medicine."

Later on in the history we have another good example of Leech's humour.

King Edward, having subdued the Welsh, "endeavoured to propitiate his newly acquired subjects by becoming a resident in the conquered country.

His wife Eleanor gave birth to a son in the castle of Caernarvon, and he availed himself of the circ.u.mstance to introduce the infant as a native production, giving him the t.i.tle of Prince of Wales, which has ever since been held by the eldest son of the British sovereign."

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN ELEANOR AND FAIR ROSAMOND.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: KING EDWARD INTRODUCING HIS SON AS PRINCE OF WALES TO HIS NEWLY-ACQUIRED SUBJECTS.]

A well-known historical scene is parodied as follows: Henry IV. being ill, "the Prince of Wales was sitting up with him in the temporary capacity of nurse," says Mr. a Becket. "The son, however, seemed rather to be waiting for his father's death than hoping for the prolongation of his life; and the King having gone off in a fit, the Prince, instead of calling for a.s.sistance or giving any aid himself, heartlessly took that opportunity to see how he should look in the crown, which always hung on a peg in the royal bedchamber. Young Henry was figuring away before a cheval gla.s.s with the regal bauble on his head, and was exclaiming, 'Just the thing, upon my honour!' when the elder Henry, happening to recover, sat up in bed and saw the conduct of his offspring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNSEEMLY CONDUCT OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER GOES INTO MOURNING FOR HIS LITTLE NEPHEWS.]

"'Hallo!' cried the King, 'who gave you leave to put that on? I think you might have left it alone till I've done with it.'"

The savage and hypocritical character of Richard III. afforded Leech an opportunity for satire in his design of that monarch, when still Duke of Gloucester, in the shape of a crocodile shedding tears for the death of the two Princes in the Tower.

"Richard," says the chronicler, "by whom the outward decencies of life were very scrupulously observed, in order to make up for the inner deficiencies of his mind, determined to go into mourning for the young Princes, and repaired to the same _maison de deuil_ which he had honoured with his presence on a former occasion when requiring the 'trappings of woe' for himself and his retainers on the death of his dear brother."

With the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots, I must close the extracts from the "Comic History of England."

"When the Queen was imprisoned at Lochleven, a certain George Douglas,"

says the historian, "with the sentimentality peculiar to seventeen, fell sheepishly in love with the handsome Mary. She gave some encouragement to the gawky youth, but rather with a view of getting him to aid her in her escape than out of any regard to the over-sensitive stripling. Going to his brother's bedroom in the night, the boy took the keys from the basket in which they were deposited, and, letting Mary out, he handed her to a skiff and took her for a row, without thinking of the row his conduct was leading to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARY'S ELOPEMENT.]

A considerable interval of time elapsed between the publication of a Beckett's "Comic English Grammar" and the same writer's "Comic History of England," the former being produced in 1840, and the latter seven years afterwards; but as there is little or no appreciable difference between the two works, either as regards the literary or artistic merit, I have thought it well to introduce them in this place.

These efforts show but one side of Leech's many-sided power. It was in "The Children of the _Mo_bility," a satire on a production just then published, in which the children of the _no_bility were put before the world in all the splendour of their aristocratic surroundings, that Leech's genius had full play, the little Duke affording an instructive contrast to the street arab, and the shivering, half-naked beggar-girl becoming infinitely pathetic in her rags. This work was executed in lithography, consisting of seven prints; and though, as works of art, they bear no comparison to the wood-drawings of a later time--they are not even so good as the "Fly-Leaves" published at the _Punch_ Office later on--still, comparatively imperfectly as they are rendered, they show the artist's intense sympathy with suffering childhood, as well as enjoyment in the games and "larks" by which the sufferings are for a time at least forgotten.

I now approach the period when the establishment of a comic newspaper was destined to afford Leech opportunities for the display of his powers, opportunities of which he availed himself with a prodigality almost as marvellous as the powers.

END OF VOL. I.