John Leech, His Life and Work Volume II Part 12

Spirit-rapping, table-turning, and the rest of it, fare badly at the hands of Leech. Happy was the thought that possessed him when, by a touch of his magic pencil, he changed the heads of a seance-party into those of geese. And how admirably humorous is the drawing in which furniture starts into life at the bidding of a medium, to the astonishment and dismay of the housemaid! Hats were supposed to "turn about and wheel about" under the influence of encircled hands round the brims. It would be a mistake to suppose that the handsome Guardsman who, with the a.s.sistance of the fingers of those pretty creatures, so patiently waits for the hat to move, has either the expectation or the desire that the experiment will be successful. No, he greatly enjoys the situation, and is eager to prolong it for any unreasonable time.

Here I cannot resist interposing a little anecdote of an experience of which I should like to have an explanation by the spiritualists. The incident took place on one of the many occasions when I served as a member of the dreaded Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy. As is well known, the Academicians have a vast variety of works of art offered for exhibition, perpetrated, as a rule, by human hands. But there is no rule without an exception, and it was my fate to witness the exception in the form of pictures painted by spirits, and sent for exhibition by their thrice-blessed proprietor. These were very striking works indeed. At first sight they looked like ma.s.ses of many-coloured weeds, very weird vegetation, unlike anything "in heaven above or on the earth beneath."

On nearer inspection, some childishly-drawn, half-naked figures were discernible amongst the weeds, intended to represent spiritual forms of departed friends, probably, who had been changed into these unfortunate figures. These works received our most careful examination, created laughter, and were rejected. Now, I respectfully ask what the spirits were about thus to subject themselves and their doings to the ignorant ribaldry of the Academicians? They must have known that we were in a state of darkest unbelief, and the least they could have done was to warn the owner of these works of their certain fate at our hands, and thus have saved him the trouble of sending them to Burlington House, to say nothing of the expense of the handsome frames in which they were enshrined. "I pause for a reply."

Archery and croquet afforded Leech opportunities for the display of beauty in many forms. His lady-archers are bewitching creatures, their male compet.i.tors always manly, graceful gentlemen. The pursuit of both amus.e.m.e.nts offered chances of love-making and flirtation, of which full advantage is sometimes taken; indeed, in one instance we see a game of croquet stopped altogether by a couple who find an interchange of--shall we say vows?--more interesting than the game; a feeling which, judging from the other players, is by no means shared.

Leech seems to have left no phase of human life and character untouched: whether he deals with the aristocrat or the plebeian, the d.u.c.h.ess or the beggar, the very poor or the very rich, the beautiful or the ugly, he is ever true to Nature; turning away from our vices, dealing lovingly with us in all ways, touching our follies lightly, humorously, and always good-naturedly--in short, invariably reflecting in his work his own disposition to what is pure, manly, and true.

CHAPTER XIX.

THOMAS HOOD AND LEECH.

The difficulty of gauging public taste in matters literary and artistic can be proved by numberless examples. How often does the manager of a theatre place in trembling anxiety a piece before his audience which afterwards runs for hundreds of nights! "Our Boys" has had a long life upon the stage; but so doubtful was everyone connected with its production of its living for one night even, that another play was held in readiness to take the place of the d.a.m.ned one. Books that have made reputations for their authors have been refused by publisher after publisher. Engravings run the same perilous course. Print-sellers, from long experience of public wants, should know what will satisfy them; but they seem to find the difficulty that befalls publishers and the managers of theatres.

Many years ago a very pretty servant-maid became a part of my household. I induced her to sit for me, having noticed the graceful way in which her various duties were performed; and I made a half-length figure of her carrying a silver salver, on which was a decanter, thinking that the contrast between the silver, gla.s.s, and a pretty gray dress would make an effective scheme of colour. The picture was beautifully engraved by Holl, and offered for publication by a friend, who bought it, to one of the most experienced print-sellers in London.

To please my friend, to whom the print-seller was under great obligation, he bought the right of publication; but having no faith in its success, my pretty servant was pa.s.sed on--at a sacrifice--to another print-seller, and she afterwards found great favour with the public, and was highly remunerative to her proprietor, under the name and t.i.tle of "Sherry, sir?" This t.i.tle was the "happy thought" of the print-seller, who, on my remonstrating with him for vulgarizing my picture, informed me that the t.i.tle had been the sole cause of the success of the engraving.

A print was published many years ago of three chorister boys in surplice and ca.s.sock, who, with open mouths and upturned eyes, are supposed to be singing. In a moment of inspiration the artist, who, I believe, was also the engraver, christened his subject, "We praise Thee, O Lord!" and then offered it at most of the princ.i.p.al print-shops in London, where it was invariably refused. The artist published "We praise Thee," etc., himself, and, I was told, made more than two thousand pounds by it.

All this is introductory to the most astonishing example that could be conceived of the fallacy of what I may call expert opinion, on literary merit and public taste.

I am not sure of the precise date, but I think it was about 1848 or 1849 that Hood's "Song of the Shirt" appeared in _Punch_. There is, or was, a letter in existence from Hood to Mark Lemon, then editor of _Punch_, in which the writer tells his friend he has enclosed a poem that he may publish in _Punch_ if he likes; but he "most likely won't like," and refuse it, as the publishers, one and all, to whom it has been offered, had done without hesitation. "In that case," said Hood, "tear it up, and put it in the waste-paper-basket; for I am sick of the sight of it."

This was the "Song of the Shirt," one of the most powerful, touching, and pathetic poems in the English language.

My old friend, Willert Beale, whose recently-published "Light of Other Days" has charmed so many readers, sends me the following account of the introduction of the "Song of the Shirt" into _Punch_:

"Mark Lemon" (then editor of _Punch_) "was looking over the immense heap of _Punch_ letters on his desk, when he opened one enclosing a poem, which the writer said had been rejected by three contemporaries, and if unavailable for _Punch_, he begged the editor, whom he knew but slightly, to consign the paper to his waste-basket, as he was sick of the sight of it. The poem was signed 'Tom Hood,' and ent.i.tled 'The Song of the Shirt,' now so famous among us all. Of a totally different character to anything that had previously appeared in the pages of _Punch_, most of the staff were dead set against the insertion of it; but Mark Lemon, whose quick appreciation of its merits made him unwilling to let so valuable a prize slip from his grasp, over-ruled all objections with quiet though firm determination, and brought it before the public through the medium of _Punch_. The insertion _trebled_ the sale of the number. Mark Lemon was always very proud of this success, which was certainly attributable to his efforts.

"'Hood wants but one thing to make him famous,' he used to say, 'and that is death.'

"His words were verified, for in poverty and comparative obscurity died one of England's cleverest men."

In 1849 some very painful disclosures were made in the Metropolitan police-courts, when it appeared "that numbers of poor sempstresses were paid by the slop-sellers only three-halfpence for making a shirt, and in proportion for other articles of ready-made clothing." In all probability these disclosures suggested the "Song of the Shirt," as they a.s.suredly did the charming designs by Leech, called "Pin-Money" and "Needle-Money." It seems to me almost an impertinence for a commentator on such admirable designs as these to point out the beauties so palpable to all who look at them. We sympathize with each of these cla.s.ses of beings, for they are both the results of conditions that they have done nothing to create. It is certain that one of them is miserable, and it is by no means sure that the lovely girl's pin-money brings happiness with it.

There was everything in the shape of similarity of thought and feeling to have brought Leech and Hood into intimacy, but I doubt if they ever saw much of each other. Hood's comparatively premature death, preceded by much sickness and seclusion, took place while Leech was far from the position in public estimation that he afterwards reached. In proof of similarity of humour I give the following note from Hood to d.i.c.kens:

"17, Elm Tree Road, 1841, _Sat.u.r.day_.

"DEAR d.i.c.kENS,

"As you are going to America, and have kindly offered to execute any little commission for me, pray, if it be not too much trouble, try to get me an autograph of Sandy Hook's. I have Theodore's.

"Yours very truly,

"THOS. HOOD.

"My boy does _not_ wait for an answer."

"Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg: a Golden Legend," is perhaps one of the best, as it is certainly the longest, of Hood's poems, remarkable, indeed, for its puns and ingenious play upon words, its felicitous rhyming, and its underlying moral. Miss Kilmansegg was born with a golden spoon in her mouth, and her condition is shown in the charming drawing with which Leech ill.u.s.trates the following lines:

"What wide reverses of fate are there!

Whilst Margaret, charmed by the Bulbul rare, In a Garden of Gull reposes, Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street, Till--think of that, who find life so sweet!-- She hates the smell of roses!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT WIDE REVERSES OF FATE ARE THERE!"]

"Not so with the infant Kilmansegg-- She was not born to steal or beg, Or gather cresses in ditches; To plait the straw, or bind the shoe, Or sit all day to hem and sew, As females must--and not a few!-- To fill their insides with st.i.tches."

The christening of the golden child was an affair so splendid as to tax the poet's invention for tropes and figures worthy of the occasion:

"Gold! and gold! and nothing but gold!

The same auriferous shine behold Wherever the eye could settle!

On the walls--the sideboard--the ceiling--sky--, On the gorgeous footmen standing by, In coats to delight a miner's eye With seams of precious metal.

"Gold! and gold! and besides the gold, The very robe of the infant told A tale of wealth in every fold-- It lapped her like a vapour!

So fine! so thin! the mind at a loss, Could compare it to nothing except a cross Of cobweb with banknote paper."

Powerful as the poet's imagination shows in these glittering rhymes, it fails him in his endeavour to find a prefix in the form of a name worthy of accompanying Kilmansegg. He says:

"Then the babe was crossed and blessed amain, But instead of Kate, or Ann, or Jane, Which the humbler female endorses-- Instead of one name, as some people prefix, Kilmansegg went at the tails of six, Like a carriage of state with its horses."

The names, therefore, are left to the imagination of the reader, who may learn, if he will, some particulars of the nameless Kilmansegg's childhood:

"Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg, Cutting her first little toothy-peg With a fifty-guinea coral-- A peg upon which About poor and rich Reflection might hang on a moral.

"Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed, Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd, and lapp'd from the first On the knees of Prodigality, Her childhood was one eternal round Of the game of going on Tiddler's ground, Picking up gold in reality.

"Gold! and gold! 'twas the burden still!

To gain the heiress's early goodwill There was much corruption and bribery.

The yearly cost of her golden toys Would have given half London's charity boys And charity girls the annual joys Of a holiday dinner at Highbury."

The kind of education permitted to this unfortunate heiress may be gathered from the following extracts:

"Long before her A B and C They had taught her by heart her s. d., And as how she was born a great heiress; And as sure as London was made of bricks My Lord would ask her the day to fix To ride in a fine gilt coach and six, Like her Worship the Lady Mayoress.

"The very metal of merit they told, And praised her for being as 'good as gold'!

Till she grew as a peac.o.c.k haughty; Of money they talked the whole day round, And weighed desert like grapes, by the pound, Till she had an idea from the very sound That people with naught were naughty.

"Gold! still gold....

Gold ran in her thoughts and filled her brain, She was golden-headed, like Peter's cane, With which he walked behind her."

[Ill.u.s.tration]