John Leech, His Life and Work Volume II Part 7

This delightful drawing reminds one of many a seaside sketch in "Pictures of Life and Character," leaving us wondering how a few pencil-lines can call up such visions of beauty.

Everyone knows of the tradition of Rome's being saved from the Gauls by the cackling of geese, and my readers are here presented with Leech's historical picture of the event.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"The Gauls," says Mr. a Beckett, "crept up, one by one, to the top of the rock, which was the summit of their wishes. Just as they had effected their object, a wakeful goose commenced a vehement cackle, and the solo of one old bird was soon followed by a chorus from a score of others. Marcus Manlius, who resided near the poultry, was so alarmed at the sound that he instantly jumped out of his skin--for in those days a sheep-skin was the usual bedding--and ran to the spot, where he caught hold of the first Gaul he came to, and, giving him a smart push, the whole pack behind fell like so many cards to the bottom."

CHAPTER XIII.

PERSONAL ANECDOTES.

The late Frederick Tayler, whose water-colour drawings are familiar to all lovers of art, was a guest for some days at the mansion of the Duke of Athole--an elderly gentleman thirty years ago, but how nearly connected with the present Duke I am unable to say. According to Tayler, the old Duke was a very eccentric person; one of his whims being an insistence upon all the male guests at his castle wearing the Scottish national dress. On my friend's pleading that he could not wear a costume that he didn't possess, he was supplied with the kilt and the rest of it, from a store kept for unprovided visitors--"and," said Tayler, "I was immediately compelled to ride about eighteen miles in a condition of discomfort that may be imagined." Another little peculiarity was scarcely less distressing, for dinner was never served till near midnight. Hungry guests were kept waiting till, folding-doors being thrown open, the major-domo appeared, holding a wand, and in solemn tones announced "His Grace!"

In 1850 this remarkable Duke "took it into his head" to close his beautiful Glen Tilt to tourists. I was fortunate enough to have pa.s.sed through it before this decree was issued; but mult.i.tudes--noisy mult.i.tudes, as they proved themselves--not having had my advantage, became clamorous for their right, as they believed, of un.o.bstructed pa.s.sage through the lovely glen. Many letters from indignant tourists appeared in the press, which almost universally condemned the Duke's action, _Punch's_ baton being brought into play in the tourists' cause; and to this weapon was added Leech's pencil, which, in a vigorous drawing, portrayed the old Duke as a dog in the manger, with a snarl on his face that portended a bite if his position was a.s.sailed. The drawing was ent.i.tled "A Scotch Dog in the Manger," and was immediately followed by another blow, happily paraphrasing Scott's lines in the "Lady of the Lake," and supposed to apply to "a scene from the burlesque recently performed at Glen Tilt":

"These are Clan Athole's warriors true, And, Saxons, I'm the regular Doo."

How far these drawings were the means of causing the Duke to reverse his decision I know not; but it was reversed, and that he took Leech's somewhat severe treatment good-humouredly is shown by his treatment of the artist, whom he met near the glen soon after the drawings appeared.

Leech was alone, sketch-book in hand, no doubt noting, by pencil and observation, for future use, some of the beauties around him, when a horseman approached, attended by a groom. Leech was probably on forbidden ground, for the rider, who was the Duke of Athole, immediately asked his name and "what he was doing there." Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Leech would have said, "What is _your_ name?" for the matter of that, "and what do you want to do with mine if I give it to you?"; but whether the manner of his questioner impressed him, or conscious guilt shook him, I cannot say. It is certain, however, that he replied he was an artist, and that his name was Leech.

"Not John Leech?" said the Duke.

"Yes, John," was the reply.

And Leech now, feeling sure that he was in the presence of the Duke, and that he was about to hear some strong language about his daring to caricature so august a personage for merely a.s.serting his rights, proceeded to explain that he would not intrude further, but return at once to his inn, where he intended to pa.s.s the night.

The Duke turned to his groom, and told him to dismount, and called to Leech to take the servant's place.

Leech obeyed, when the Duke said, "No, sir; no inn for you to-night: you must dine and sleep at my house. I am the Duke of Athole." Further hesitation on Leech's part was met by a warmer and more pressing invitation.

Leech yielded, and the two rode off together. The road to the castle lay through some rather perilous country, culminating in a narrow and broken path, with cliff on one side and a precipice on the other. The artist hesitated; the Duke called upon him to come on. "Has he brought me here to revenge himself by breaking my neck?" thought Leech. He timidly advanced, and reached the Duke, who had stopped for him at a point where the path was most dangerous.

"Are you, sir, the man who has maligned me in _Punch_?" fiercely demanded the Duke.

The fearful position in which Leech found himself, terrible to anyone, but to a nervous man especially frightful, extorted from him an apologetic confession, excusable under the circ.u.mstances.

"Your Grace," said he, "we--we--that is, nearly everyone--has done something that he--he--regrets having done. I am very sorry I have---- I regret very much that anything I have done should have given you any annoyance."

The Duke's affected fierceness was exchanged for the jovial manner said to be peculiar to him, and the pair rode off pleasantly together.

The castle was reached, and Leech was shown to a dressing-room, where he made himself as presentable as he could under the circ.u.mstances, in antic.i.p.ation of the usual announcement that dinner was served. I can imagine my friend's feelings as he waited in hungry expectation. "As he could not manage to break my neck," thought Leech, as hour after hour pa.s.sed without a summons to dinner, "he means to starve me."

At last, thinking that perhaps his room was too far off for the sound of the gong to reach him, he rang the bell. A servant appeared.

"I am afraid," said Leech, "that I did not hear the dinner-bell; is dinner ready?"

"Not yet, sir; you will be informed when it is."

Another hour pa.s.sed. Leech became desperate; starvation seemed to stare him in the face. Again he rang the bell; again the servant answered it, and the reply was again, "Not yet."

The clock had struck ten before the welcome sound of the gong reached the famished man. If Mr. Frederick Tayler is to be believed, the Leech dinner with the Duke was an _early_ one. No explanation was ever given to Tayler of these abnormal dinner-hours, but Leech was told that "his Grace" always took a nap after his rides, and his guests were fed when he awoke.

Leech was fond of telling of this adventure with the Duke, whose likeness can be seen in more than one of Landseer's pictures.

CHAPTER XIV.

PERSONAL ANECDOTES (_continued_).

At the time when the troop of artists and literary men were stumping the country with their theatrical performances, Leech lived in Alfred Place, which he soon left for a charming little house in Notting Hill Terrace.

d.i.c.kens wrote an amusing account of one of the amateur excursions, which the immortal Mrs. Gamp is supposed to join, and about which she discourses to her friend Mrs. Harris, not forgetting her opinion of the artists, Cruikshank and Leech:

"If you'll believe me, Mrs. Harris, I turns my head, and sees the very man" (George Cruikshank) "a-making pictures of me on his thumb-nail at the window; while another of 'em" (John Leech), "a tall, slim, melancolly gent, with dark hair and a bage voice, looks over his shoulder, and with his head o' one side, as if he understood the subject, and coolly he says:

"'I've drawed her several times in _Punch_,' he says, too. The owdacious wretch!

"'Which I never touches, Mr. Wilson,' I says out loud--I couldn't have helped it, Mrs. Harris, if you'd took my life for it--'which I never touches, Mr. Wilson, on account of the lemon!'"

From the nature of Leech's work, he was never able to take a holiday in the true sense of the word. To say nothing of the numberless works which he had engaged himself to ill.u.s.trate, the inevitable _Punch_ must appear every week, and almost equally inevitable was the appearance of one or two of Leech's drawings in it. Proof is abundant of the rapidity with which those inimitable works were executed; but it must be borne in mind that they were the outcome of a sensitive organization--a power of seeing and seizing the humorous and the beautiful in the everyday incidents of life; in short, of a mind always on the watch for subjects for ill.u.s.tration.

When one thinks of the constant wear and tear of such a life, it is scarcely a matter for wonder that it was so lamentably short.

The localities of Leech's so-called holidays can easily be recognised by his drawings, or rather by their backgrounds, which showed, in admirable truthfulness, whether the artist was at Scarborough or Broadstairs, at Folkestone, Dover, Lowestoft, or Ramsgate, or, by their unfamiliarity to us, at some less frequented place.

It was in 1848, and while Mr. and Mrs. Leech were staying with the d.i.c.kens family at Brighton, that a very unpleasant incident of the visit took place: no less than the sudden insanity of the landlord of the house in which the party lodged, resulting in as sudden an exeunt of the lodgers. But before the people still in their senses could take themselves off, there was a duty to be done. A doctor must be fetched; and no sooner did he appear than the madman attacked him, and would very soon have made a vacancy in the list of M.D.'s if d.i.c.kens and Leech had not rushed to the rescue. In a letter to Forster, d.i.c.kens gives a humorous description of Mrs. Leech and Mrs. d.i.c.kens doing their best--in their fear for their husbands' safety--to a.s.sist the maniac in his murderous endeavours by pulling their husbands back just as the doctor had fainted from fear. More a.s.sistance, however, arrived, and the mad landlord was soon rendered harmless.

I vividly recollect the alarm that the news of an accident to Leech--in which it was rumoured that he had been seriously, even dangerously, injured--caused to everyone, and acutely to his friends. A huge wave was said to have struck him while bathing--killing him on the spot, according to some reports; fracturing his skull, or producing concussion of the brain, from which recovery was hopeless, according to others.

These alarming accounts came to us from the Isle of Wight, where Leech was staying with d.i.c.kens in the autumn of 1849. The fact was, that one of the tremendous waves that, under certain atmospheric conditions, roll in upon the sh.o.r.e at Bonchurch, struck Leech on the forehead, and rendered him senseless.

"He was put to bed," said d.i.c.kens, "with twenty of his namesakes upon his temples."

The day following, congestion of the brain became unmistakable, accompanied by great pain; ice was applied to the head, and bleeding again was thought necessary, this time in the arm. For some days Leech was in great danger, d.i.c.kens sitting up with him all night on more than one alarming occasion. He says, in a letter to Forster:

"My plans are all unsettled by Leech's illness, as of course I do not like to leave this place so long as I can be of any service to him and his good little wife. Ever since I wrote to you he has been seriously worse, and again very heavily bled. The night before last he was in such an alarming state of restlessness, which nothing could relieve, that I proposed to Mrs. Leech to try magnetism. Accordingly, in the middle of the night, I fell to, and, after a very fatiguing bout of it, put him to sleep for an hour and thirty-five minutes. A change came on in his sleep, and he is decidedly better. I talked to the astounded Mrs.

Leech across him, when he was asleep, as if he had been a truss of hay."

Whether from d.i.c.kens' magnetic efforts or the efforts of Nature, Leech gradually, but very slowly, recovered. On being questioned about his accident, Leech is reported to have said that he remembered an enormous angry, white-topped wave coming at him, and, in what seemed to him the next moment, he found himself in bed in great pain--the interval having been some days.

In corroboration of this, I may mention an accident that happened to Mr.

Elmore (brother of the R.A. and great friend of Leech), who was terribly injured by a blow on the head in a railway accident on the Ma.r.s.eilles line.