The History of "Punch" Part 26

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS HOOD _From an Engraving by W. Hole, after the Painting by Lewis._]

Thomas Hood had forgiven and forgotten the annoyance he had felt on seeing in the first number of _Punch_ a bogus advertis.e.m.e.nt ascribed to him under the t.i.tle of "Lessons in Punmanship," at which he "could only express his amazement that his name should be paraded with apparent authority in a paper of the very existence of which he was not aware;"

and within two years he became a fairly constant contributor, after writing to d.i.c.kens, "You will be glad to hear that I have made an arrangement with Bradbury to contribute to _Punch_, but that is a secret I cannot keep from you. It will be light occasional work for odd times."

So he began with a sketch re-drawn by H. G. Hine, accompanying a "Police Report of a Daring Robbery by a n.o.ble Lord"--the first of his stinging attacks on Lord William Lennox, one of _Punch's_ favourite and, it must be admitted, legitimate b.u.t.ts. Then followed at different times a score or more of conundrums in the true Hoodian vein under the t.i.tle of "Whys and Whens," fair specimens of which are these: "Why is killing bees like a confession? Because you unbuzz 'em." "Why is 'yes' the most ignorant word in the language? Because it doesn't no anything." "What's the difference between a soldier and a bomb-sh.e.l.l? One goes to wars, the other goes to peaces." "When is a clock on the stairs dangerous? When it runs down." A couple of sketches and "A Drop of Gin," an important poem of seventy-six lines somewhat in the manner of the latter portion of "Miss Kilmansegg" were followed--enclosed within a comic border!--by his greatest popular effort, "The Song of the Shirt." This appeared, not in the "Almanac," but in the "Christmas Number," on p. 261 of the second volume for 1843.

The particular incident by which this immortal poem was suggested was one which had called forth a powerful leading-article in the "Times." It was the "terrible fact" that a woman named Bidell, with a squalid, half-starved infant at the breast, was "charged at the Lambeth police-court with p.a.w.ning her master's goods, for which she had to give 2 security. Her husband had died by an accident, and had left her with two children to support, and she obtained by her needle for the maintenance of herself and family what her master called the 'good living' of _seven shillings a week_."

_Punch_ was at once aglow with red-hot indignation, and in an article ent.i.tled "Famine and Fashion!" proposed an advertis.e.m.e.nt such as this for the firm that employed her--

"_Holland coats_ from two-and-three are shown By Hunger's haggard fingers neatly sewn.

_Embroidered tunics_ for your infant made,-- The eyes are sightless now that worked the braid; _Rich vests of velvet_ at this mart appear, Each one bedimm'd by some poor widow's tear; And _riding habits_ formed for maid or wife, All cheap--aye, ladies, cheap as pauper-life.

For _mourning suits_ this is the fitting mart, For every garment help'd to break a heart."

The subject touched Hood more powerfully perhaps than others, for his nature was essentially grave and sympathetic. As he himself had said, it was only for his livelihood that he was a lively Hood--although he was always br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with comicalities; and he never felt more deeply the dignity of his profession and his own force and weight than when he was engaged on serious work. So Hood conjured up his "Song of the Shirt," moved by the revelations of poor seamstresses who received, as it appeared, five farthings a shirt, out of which sum they had to find their own needles! Mark Lemon told Mr. Joseph Hatton that Hood had "accompanied the poem with a few lines in which he expressed the fear that it was hardly suitable for _Punch_, and leaving it between his discretion and the waste-paper basket." It had, said Hood, already been rejected by three papers, and he was sick of the sight of it. Mark Lemon brought the poem up at the Table, where the majority of the Staff protested against its inclusion in a comic paper. But Lemon was determined; and, after all, was it not for a Christmas number that he destined it--a number in which something serious, pathetic, with a note of pity and love, was surely not out of place?

The effect on its publication was tremendous. The poem went through the land like wild-fire. Nearly every paper quoted it, headed by the "Times;" it was the talk of the hour, the talk of the country. It went straight to John Bull's kind, _bourgeois_, sympathetic heart, just as Carlyle declared that Ruskin's truths had "pierced like arrows" into his. The authorship, too, was vigorously canva.s.sed with intense interest. d.i.c.kens, with that keen insight and critical faculty which had enabled him almost alone among literary experts to detect the s.e.x of George Eliot, then an unknown writer (though doubtless he was helped in the case I now speak of by Hood's letter to him just quoted), was one of the few who at once named the writer of the verses. And it was well for Hood that he had proof positive of the authorship, for one of the most curious things connected with the poem was the number of persons who had the incomprehensible audacity to claim it. One young gentleman was mentioned by name, either by his friends or himself, and I find a letter in a volume of newspaper cuttings to this effect: "I have just read, to my great surprise, the announcement in your paper that Mr. Hood wrote 'The Song of the Shirt,' because _I know positively_ that what I before stated to you is the fact." So hard pressed, indeed, was Hood, that he wrote a private letter in February, 1845, in the following terms:--

"As I have publicly acknowledged the authorship of the '_Song of the Shirt_,' I can have no objection to satisfy you privately on the subject. My old friends Bradbury and Evans, the proprietors of _Punch_, could show you the doc.u.ment conclusive on the subject. But I trust my authority will be sufficient, especially as it comes from _a man on his death-bed_."

Had these literary vultures had their way, Hood would have been brazened out of his verses altogether.

_Punch_ shared handsomely in the glory of the poet, and its circulation _tripled_ on the strength of it. And Mrs. Hood, poor soul, triumphed in her prophecy; for had she not said, and maintained in spite of each successive rejection from foolish editors--"Now mind, Hood, mark my words; this will tell wonderfully! It is one of the best things you ever did!"

And so this song, which, in spite of its defects, still thrills you as you read, achieved such a popularity that for sudden and enthusiastic applause its reception has rarely been equalled. It was soon translated into every language of Europe--(Hood used to laugh as he wondered how they would render "Seam and gusset and band," into Dutch); it was printed and sold as catchpennies, printed on cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, it was ill.u.s.trated and parodied in a thousand ways; and the greatest triumph of all, which brought tears of joy to Hood's eyes, before a week was out a poor beggar-woman came singing it down the street, the words set to a simple air of her own. The greatest delight of Hood--"the darling of the English heart," as he was called, who was literally dying when he wrote the song, and so fulfilled the sole condition which Jerrold said was all that was needed to make him famous--was the conviction that the interest which the nation was taking in his lines would turn to the real advantage of those in whose cause he pleaded. He felt that he had touched not only the nation's heart but the nation's conscience, and he deeply appreciated Kenny Meadows' and Leech's efforts in the same direction, such as are to be seen in the cartoons of "Pin Money, Needle Money," and many more besides.

Speaking of the "Song of the Shirt," which brought letters to _Punch_ from every part of the globe, Mr. Ruskin declares it the most impressive example of the most perfect manifestation of the temper of the caricaturist, the highest development of which is to be found in Hood's poetry; and he compares it to Leech's "General Fevrier turned Traitor."

There certainly can be no doubt that its force is amazingly a.s.sisted by its plainness and simplicity of language.

It is a curious fact that one verse of the poem was not printed by Mark Lemon, although it appeared in the original ma.n.u.script; nor is it included in the reprinted "Works." I imagine that its omission was simply a matter of make-up, as it would be hard to compress the poem into the s.p.a.ce allotted to it, without using a much smaller type than was usual in _Punch_; and an odd number of verses is a serious matter for a sub-editor to wrestle with when he has to arrange a poem into double columns of a given depth. The missing verse, which, to do Mark Lemon justice, is the one most easily spared, runs as follows:--

"Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Work, work, work, Like an Engine that works by Steam!

A mere machine of iron and wood, That toils for Mammon's sake, Without a brain to ponder and craze, Or a heart to feel--and break!"

In the same number that contained the "Song of the Shirt" was another impressive poem by Hood, "The Pauper's Christmas Carol," in seven stanzas; but it was entirely overshadowed and eclipsed by its fellow-song, so that it lay, as it has done for the most part since, almost unknown, unhonoured, and unsung. Yet it was as ringing and true as any of Jerrold's most stirring efforts in his championship of the poor. But the two friends were essentially different in their treatment and methods. Hood's satire was never personal, as Jerrold's was; and, unlike Jerrold, Hood would never tolerate the idea, much less practise it, of placing "a wide moral gulf between Rich and Poor, with Hate on one side and Fear on the other." He sought to help the poor by awakening the love and sympathy of Society, and for that reason he selected his epitaph in reference to his poem, for he would never have chosen this as technically his finest work. He was altogether out of harmony with Jerrold's policy of stinging the rich into charity and justice by biting satire and illogical sarcasm, warm-hearted and well-meant though it was.

At this time Hood was fast approaching his end; and he wrote for _Punch_ on his death-bed. Though still young, he was becoming more and more afflicted with physical ailments. Amongst other troubles, he was getting stone deaf, he said; but consoled himself with the reflection that his friend Charles Landseer was _two stone deafer_. And all the while his rollicking fun, and quaintly sudden turn of word and idea were transporting his readers, as he somewhere says, "from Dull-age to Grin-age." His humour was effervescent, continuous, and effortless--not like Jerrold's wit, intermittent flashes called up at need--but overflowing in a rich stream of joke, pun, hit, crank, and quip, covering a field far wider than Jerrold's, and more genial.

The next contribution was his poem "The Drama," apropos of the State trials in Ireland, and the Fair Maid of Perth, with allusion to the Fighting Smith in either case--a poem of 108 lines. Then followed "Reflections on New Year's Day" (January 6th, 1844), from which a couple of specimen verses may well be quoted:--

"Yes, yes, it's very true and very clear!

By way of compliment and common chat, It's very well to wish me a New Year; But wish me a New Hat.

"Oh, yes, 'tis very pleasant, though I'm poor, To hear the steeple make that merry din; Except I wish one bell were at the door To ring new trowsers in."

After a column on "The Awful State of Ireland" Hood was, on the 3rd of March, 1844, editorially reckoned on the Staff. But the decree of Fate was against him, and he only contributed two more pieces altogether.

_Punch_, as he acknowledged, was the one bright meteor that had flashed across his milk-and-watery way in his latter years, and gave him, together with Sir Robert Peel's tactful and charming bestowal of a pension, his last delight. But already death, he said, had thrown open wide its door to him, and he was "so near to it that he could almost hear the hinges creak." And when he died, there were engraved upon his tombstone, at his own desire, the simple words, "He Sang the Song of the Shirt."

The first arrival of 1844 was Dr. Edward Vaughan Kenealy, who, many years after, acted for and defended the historic "Claimant," the self-confessed Orton, _alias_ Castro, _alias_ "Sir Roger Tichborne,"

with so much violent ability, lost his balance and came to utter grief.

In his youth one of his scholarly relaxations was to translate English verse of various sorts into various languages--Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindustani, and the like, for he was a remarkable linguist. His unique _Punch_ contribution was the rendering of "The King of the Cannibal Islands" into Greek, and very good Greek too. The _jeu d'esprit_ is to be found on p. 79, Volume VI., as well as in his volume of verse dedicated to Lord Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn, whom he was destined afterwards to waste his life in vilifying, while shattering his own career in his savage and ineffective a.s.saults.

In the following month T. J. Serle struck up an ephemeral connection. He had been Macready's secretary, and acting manager of Drury Lane, and had written "The Shadow on the Wall," and other successful plays; and Jerrold's eldest son was named Thomas Serle, after him. His first paper was "A Fine Lady," on the 10th of March; but after one further contribution, two months later, he appeared no more. About the same time there was printed "The Magnitia," by Frank Moir (May 3rd, No. 199).

J. W. Ferguson was a far more important and more useful contributor, whose work was full of talent, whose versification was clever and pointed, and whose topical "_Punch's_ Fairy Tales" (with obtrusively obvious morals) are models of their kind. His "Little Frenchman's First Lesson" (May 18th, 1844) purports to be a translation of a French poem with which patriots are supposed to implant hatred of England in the minds and hearts of their children the refrain being "Car ce sont la des perfides Albionnais!"--and the "Second Lesson," which replies to a French attack, were important efforts. His "Lays of the Amphitheatre (Royal), by T. B. Macaulay," "Cyinon and Iphigeneia," and similar contributions justified his inclusion in the Staff (April, 1845); but after the autumn of 1846, by which time he was represented by a score of columns, he disappeared from _Punch's_ scene.

A letter from Charles Lever (6th June, 1844), under the t.i.tle of "A Familiar Epistle," and over the signature "Archy Delany," for a moment brought that distinguished novelist into contact with Thackeray--a circ.u.mstance that was not forgotten by either writer, when the latter paid his rather stiff Dublin visit some time afterwards to the "Harry Rollicker" whom he so brilliantly parodied in his "Prize Novelists."

Then Mr. W. P. Bull, of Nuneaton, sent in half a column of mock-heroic verse--"A Soliloquy"--which purported to be the commencement of a scene from an unpublished drama ent.i.tled "The Chemist," a contribution of which Lemon thought very highly. No further items, however, came from that quarter.

Three recruits appeared with the month of October. A writer named Jackson forwarded a couple of pieces ("Irish Intelligence" and "The Polka Pest"--the latter well describing the craze with which the new dance inoculated the whole country); and then Laman Blanchard, Jerrold's life-long friend and fellow-worker from the beginning, made a debut that was almost coincident with his death. His "Royal Civic Function"

showed what a hand had been lost to _Punch_; but it was his delightful "New Year's Ode: To the Winner of the St. Nisbett--Season, 1844," that was the best of his rare contributions. It was at once an elegy of Mrs.

Nisbett, and a prayer and prophecy that she might again be seen on the boards. The last verse runs:--

"Who weds a mere beauty, dooms dozens to grieve; Who marries an heiress, leaves hundreds undone; Who bears off an actress (she never took leave), Deprives a whole city of rational fun.

But farewell the glances and nods of St. Nisbett; We list for her short ringing laughter in vain, And yet--bereaved London!--What think you of _this_ bet?

A hundred to one we shall see her again!"

The prophecy was only partly fulfilled; Mrs. Nisbett was certainly seen again upon the stage, but Blanchard was not there to enjoy the sight. He died within the same year, to the pa.s.sionate grief of Douglas Jerrold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOM TAYLOR.

(_From a Photograph by Ba.s.sano._)]

The last and most important accession of the year was Tom Taylor, for six-and-thirty years a Staff officer of _Punch_, and for the last six of them commander-in-chief. He was twenty-seven years old when he sent in his first two contributions--"_Punch_ to Messieurs les Redacteurs of the French Press" and "Startling and most Important Intelligence" (October 19th, 1844). According to John Timbs, "Landells in one of his artistic visits to Cambridge met with Mr. T. Taylor, who, having completed his University studies, came to London to embark in the profession of letters, his first contribution being to Douglas Jerrold's 'Illuminated Magazine,'" just at the time when Landells ceased his connection.

Bristed, in his record of English University life, foretold of "Travis," generally accepted as a literary portrait of Taylor, "perhaps he will be a nominal barrister and an actual writer for _Punch_ and the magazines. Perhaps he will go quite mad and write a tragedy:" a capital example of a prophecy after the event, so far as it goes--for "Five Years" was published in 1851.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN LEECH, TOM TAYLOR, AND PART OF HORACE MAYHEW.

(_Drawn by R. Doyle._)]

Tom Taylor prided himself on the cla.s.sic verve of his prose and verse, and undoubtedly a.s.sisted in maintaining _Punch's_ literary standard. His work for the paper went on increasing--from six columns in Vol. VII., to forty-two in Vol. XIII.--and soon won him his seat at the Table. For a long while, however, he did not shine as a cartoon-suggestor, the first being "Peel's Farewell" (July 14th, 1849), and the second in the following May, the extremely happy burlesque on the picture in the National Gallery--"Leeds Mercury instructing Young England." As time went on and he became known as a writer of taste and versatility, as a dramatist and adaptor of plays, French and English; art critic of the "Times;" artist biographer; and Civil Servant (he attained to the secretaryship of the Local Government Board), the weight of his increasing responsibility and influence seemed to get into what should have been his humorous work. To counteract it, Thackeray, up to the time of his resignation, struggled to maintain the spirit of jollity and the lightness of touch which had formerly been _Punch's_ true note. But in 1874, when Shirley Brooks died, Tom Taylor, who had been identified with the paper ten years before Brooks had joined it, was promoted, as by right of service, to the supreme command.

It cannot be said that his editorship was a success. His fun was too scholarly and well-ordered, too veiled, deliberate, and ponderous; and under him _Punch_ touched its lowest point of popularity.

"In humour slow, though sharp and keen his mind; His hand was heavy, though his heart was kind."

His popularity among the outsiders was great, as I have learnt from many of his old contributors; for he loved to extend his hospitality to young men at his house, Lavender Sweep, at Wandsworth, and to send kindly notes of encouragement and promises of future help. Nevertheless, he was ever the b.u.t.t of rival publications. In one of them a cartoon, ent.i.tled "An Editor Abroad," was published, showing Mr. Burnand and Mr. du Maurier helping him and his _Punch_ Show out of the mud in which he had stuck; in another he was represented as "The Trumpet Blower;" while in an article in "The Mask" (April, 1868), before he had a.s.sumed his sway, Mr. Punch is supposed to point to "Mark Lemon's Triumphal Car" and, referring to Taylor, to say: "He is our seraph.... His adaptations, I a.s.sure you, are delightful. You must be well up in Michel Levy's _repertoire_ to find him out. He is so very artful."

A peculiar feature of Tom Taylor's editorship was the hieroglyphical character of his handwriting. His missives of instructions to artists and writers came as a terror to the receivers, who could make little of them. "Mr. Tom Taylor's letters," Mr. Swain informs me, "were often very difficult to decipher. His writing was peculiar, and he would also continue the letter if necessary in any odd corner that was vacant. I remember his writing some instructions to an artist one day in this fashion, while I stood at his table, and, while blotting it, saying, 'You can send it off, but I don't think he'll be able to make it out.'"

To this experience may be added my own--that I have been the first to decipher one of these notes addressed to an unattached artist, now understood for the first time, nearly twenty years after it was written.

To the compositors he was a perpetual tribulation; and it is doubtful if he could not have given points to Horace Greeley. That his son helped him, towards the end, in a secretarial sort of way, was no doubt a saving mercy.

His was one of the busiest literary and journalistic careers of the day; and when he died he left a void--great, it is true, yet in one respect easily enough filled. But it was little to his friends that his humour was not of the brightest and lightest, for his heart was of the warmest, as Mr. George Meredith set forth in the October number of the "Cornhill Magazine," to which he contributed a n.o.ble tribute--"To a Friend Recently Lost, T. T."--a sonnet beginning:--

"When I remember, Friend, whom lost I call Because a man beloved is taken hence, The tender humour and the fire of sense In your good eyes: how full of heart for all; And chiefly for the weaker by the wall, You bore that light of sane benevolence:"

The _Punch_ men, themselves, in a whole-page obituary (July 24th, 1880), bore graceful testimony to his personal worth. "That he is not with us,"

they said, "is hard to imagine.... A cultivated man of letters, an admirable scholar, he was as free from pedantry as he was incapable of idleness. From first to last he was, in the highest and best sense, 'Thorough.' ... Quick to detect and appreciate talent, he was ready in every way and on all occasions to hold out a helping hand to a beginner." Thus feelingly they spoke of "the dear friend" they had lost.

For in his death they forgot the little annoyances they had suffered from the tampering with their lines and spoiling their points, of which they had sometimes had occasion to complain; with other drawbacks belonging to an essentially fidgety nature. It may safely be said, that if he left a hard task to his successor to work up the reputation of _Punch_ as a comic paper, he did not at least render it difficult for him to make his mark by comparison.

No new humorist appeared in the volumes for 1845, although a poet of eminence found expression on a single occasion. To one Kelly is to be credited some humorous verses on "Dunsinane;" to J. Rigby, an Irish Song; to Leech, his Harlequinade verses (which do not aspire even to the dignity of a "trifle" or doggerel); to Watts Phillips, a few articles of little importance; and to J. King, the verses in which an "Exiled Londoner" (p. 147, Vol. IX.) apostrophises his beloved Babylon. The one contribution of importance was that of Mr. Coventry Patmore.