The History of "Punch" Part 34

But these playful dislikes paled beside the hatred he bore to organ-grinders--a hatred as unrelenting as the organ-grinders themselves. For this he had only too sound a reason, for it was they who, grinding his overworked nerves, were destined literally to play him into his grave. As early as 1843 he began his campaign against them in _Punch_, and he never relaxed it until his death. Morbidly timid of all noise, he loved to stay at some quiet English seaside place, "where the door-knockers were dieted to three raps a day;" but he writhed most under the sound of the organ, and not Hogarth's Enraged Musician endured half the torture that Leech suffered in physical and nervous agony. He appealed with his pencil to the law; he ridiculed the barbarous persons, such as Lord Wilton, who "rather liked it;" he portrayed the effect of these tyrants of the street upon the sick and on the worker; and he never spared the offenders themselves. Once, indeed, he was goaded into showing one of these dirty persons leading a louse, like a monkey, by a string; but after a few copies had been struck off (and included in the parcel for Scotland), the printing-press was stopped, and the "realism"

was cut from the block. From the first contribution, in which an old lady was supposed to advertise for a professor of mesmerism--a discovery much talked about at that time--in order to mesmerise all the organs in her street, at so much per organ, down to the end, some scores of drawings were directed against his unnatural enemy, who literally drove him from house to house. Even when he took final refuge at his delightful residence, 6 The Terrace, Kensington--now, alas! removed to make way for showy shops--and fitted it with double windows, he still could get no rest. Standing with Mr. Silver under the tree beneath whose shade Thackeray, Keene, and Leech loved to foregather round his _al fresco_ dinner-table, I have hearkened to the pretty clink, clink, clink, of a far-distant smith as he smote his hammer upon the anvil, and, wondering that so sweet a sound could trouble any man, I have realised how shattered must have been the sufferer's nervous system as he neared his end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ASH-TREE IN THE GARDEN OF JOHN LEECH'S HOUSE, UNDER WHICH LEECH AND THACKERAY USED TO DINE.

(_Drawn by John Fulleylove, R.I._)]

When Mr. M. T. Ba.s.s, M.P., brought in his private Bill to regulate "street music," Mark Lemon sent him an eloquent letter of support, in which he touchingly dwelt on the torments suffered by his friend. "The effect," he wrote, "upon his health--produced, on my honour, by the causes I have named--is so serious that he is forbidden to take horse exercise, or indulge in fast walking, as a palpitation of the heart has been produced--a form of _angina pectoris_, I believe--and his friends are most anxiously concerned for his safety. He is ordered to Homburg, and I know that the expatriation will entail a loss of nearly 50 a week upon him just at present. I am sure I need not withhold from you the name of this poor gentleman--it is Mr. John Leech."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO ROSES.

(_From a Sketch for "Punch" by John Leech._)]

The artist only survived this appeal for half a year, and died before he could enjoy any relief from Mr. Ba.s.s's meagre Bill. But the public was loud in denunciation of the nuisance when they learned that he who had made their lives so much merrier for a quarter of a century had been hara.s.sed into the grave. "Carlyle," wrote Mr. Moncure Conway, "who suffered from the same fraternity, mingled with his sorrow for Leech some severe sermons against that kind of liberty which 'permitted Italian foreigners to invade London and kill John Leech, and no doubt hundreds of other nervous people who die and make no sign!'" Leech's last drawing appears on p. 188 (November 5th, 1864), in which an Irishman is shown thoroughly enjoying the after-effects of a fight, his face having been pummelled out of all recognition. It is full of fun and life and spirit, and gives no hint that he who drew it would delight the world no more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY LORD BROUGHAM AS SEEN AT MR. LUMLEY'S.

(_From a Sketch by John Leech. By Permission of Henry Silver, Esq._)]

And when the news went forth that John Leech was dead, a hush seemed to fall on the country, as it had done ten months before, when Thackeray died, and as it did again a few years after, on the death of d.i.c.kens.

The three men all died sudden deaths, and Leech felt and declared that Thackeray's was the knell of his own. "I saw the remains of the poor dear fellow," he said, "and, I a.s.sure you, I can hardly get over it. A happy or merry Christmas is out of the question." What wonder, then, that on hearing that Leech had followed, Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie should have exclaimed, "How happy my father will be to meet him!"

"I fancy Thackeray was tired of life," said Leech in his deep ba.s.s voice to his _Punch_ colleague Mr. Henry Silver. "At these words I wondered much," says the latter gentleman, "as any young man might who failed to see beneath the surface of a loved and prospering life. 'I feel somehow I sha'n't survive him long,' he added rather wearily; 'and I shouldn't much care either, if it were not for my family.' Then, after a pause, he said more cheerfully, 'But I can do some work yet. And at any rate, thank Heaven! they needn't send the hat round.'" But they _had_ need, and they did. After his death _Punch_ made st.u.r.dy, repeated, and successful efforts, not only to collect a fund for the artist's family, but also to make known the facts of his death-sale.

_Punch's_ tribute to his mighty servant befitted the occasion: "The simplest words are best where all words are vain. Ten days ago a great artist in the noon of life, and with his glorious mental faculties in full power, but with the shade of physical infirmity darkening upon him, took his accustomed place among friends who have this day held his pall.

Some of them had been fellow-workers with him for a quarter of a century, others for fewer years; but to know him well was to love him dearly, and all in whose name these lines are written mourn for him as a brother. His monument is in the volumes of which this is one sad leaf, and in a hundred works which, at this hour, few will not remember more easily than those who have just left his grave. While Society, whose every phase he has ill.u.s.trated with a truth, a grace, and a tenderness heretofore unknown to satiric art, gladly and proudly takes charge of his fame, they, whose pride in the genius of a great a.s.sociate was equalled by their affection for an attached friend, would leave on record that they have known no kindlier, more refined, or more generous nature than that of him who has been thus early called to his rest."

He was taken to the cemetery in the same hea.r.s.e that had carried Douglas Jerrold to his last abode. Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, Horace Mayhew, F. M. Evans, John Tenniel, Henry Silver, F. C. Burnand, J. E. Millais, and Samuel Lucas were the pall-bearers; around his grave, close to where Thackeray lay, stood the whole _Punch_ Staff and many friends who loved him; and Dean Hole completed the Burial Service in sad and broken tones.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] See _Punch_, p. 237, Vol. I.

CHAPTER XIX.

_PUNCH'S_ ARTISTS: 1841-50.

William Harvey--Mr. Birket Foster--Kenny Meadows--His Joviality--Alfred "Crowquill"--Sir John Gilbert--Exit "Rubens"--Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz")--Henry Heath--Mr. R. J.

Hamerton--W. Brown--Richard Doyle--Desires Pseudonymity--His Protest against _Punch's_ "Papal Aggression"

Campaign--Withdraws--His Art--Epitaph by _Punch_--Henry Doyle--T.

Onwhyn--"Rob Roy" Macgregor--William McConnell--Sir John Tenniel--His Career--And Technique--His Early Work--Cartoons--His Art--His Memory and its Lapses--"Jack[=i]d[=e]s"--Knighthood.

Three other names belong to the year 1841: Ashley, William Harvey, and Mr. Birket Foster--the second distinguished landscape artist who may be said to have been raised upon _Punch_. Of the first-named, nothing need be said, but that he contributed a single sketch and no more. William Harvey, however, stands on a different footing, yet his employment on _Punch_ is inexplicable. He had no real humour, and, what is perhaps more to his credit, he pretended to none; nor did he take pains, as so many do, to prove it. Kenny Meadows, we are told, used to rally him on his excessive sense of gracefulness, which stood in the way of anything like truthful representation. "Beauty," he would say, "is Harvey's evil genius, and grace his d.a.m.nation." It hardly required the couple of initials ("A" and "E" on pp. 144 and 146 of the first vol.), conceived and carried out in the Birket Foster manner, with landscape backgrounds and field-sport symbols, to prove that Nature had not intended the artist for a _Punch_ draughtsman. He was far better fitted for the ill.u.s.tration of "Knight's Pictorial Shakespeare" than for comic draughtsmanship. And when he had spread consternation in the office by sending in a charge of twelve guineas for the third wrapper, which he had been commissioned to design--money never being scarcer than at that moment--the proprietors immediately became equally convinced that such was not his vocation, and his connection with the paper ceased forthwith.

I said he drew "in the Birket Foster manner," for that young draughtsman, who was at the time one of Landells' apprentices, had already begun to draw initials on p. 85 of _Punch's_ first volume--an "O," consisting of a laurel wreath with a Lifeguardsman charging through. These initials--there were thirteen in 1841, eleven in the following year, and two in 1843--were remarkable work for a boy of seventeen; and still more remarkable was the fact that he should be entrusted, even at a pinch, with the execution of a cartoon. It is true that this was only an adaptation of Cruikshank's plate of "Jack Sheppard cutting his name on the Beam"--a design highly appreciated at a moment when the fortunes of Harrison Ainsworth's young housebreaker were being followed with breathless interest by every section of society; and it is not less a fact that the head of Lord John Russell was touched up by Henning. Still the achievement is as remarkable as coming from an artist of Mr. Birket Foster's temperament, as those other cartoons, executed in "The Censor" at a later period, by Professor Herkomer. But this was not all he did, for to him are to be credited also a few miscellaneous ill.u.s.trations, as well as those extremely French-looking designs which he imitated, by order, from drawings by Gavarni for a novelette by Lecourt (pp. 262, 263 and 275, Vol. I.). As an artist he was entirely untaught, save for Brine's quaint advice, and for the counsel of Crowquill that in figure-drawing he should make dots first for the head and chief joints, as an a.s.sistance. For a time he followed these strange indications on the royal road to drawing, and on them, perhaps, he based to some extent the ill.u.s.trations which he made for book-covers, together with Charles Keene, for Mr. Edmund Evans--who, it may not be out of place here to repeat, now so well known as the engraver and publisher of Miss Kate Greenaway's picture books, was a fellow-pupil of Birket Foster's with "Daddy" Landells. He, too, made a couple of drawings for _Punch_ in 1842, when he was no more than sixteen: the first a "blackie," ent.i.tled "Train'd Animals"--representing a trainful of wild beasts (p. 108, Vol. III.), and the other an initial; and his name appears as well as the engraver of one of "Phiz's" designs in "Punch's Valentines." It occurred to him a little later on to buy up "remainders"

of unsaleable novels, to employ clever artists to ill.u.s.trate some stirring scene of love, adventure, or revenge, and with this design on the boards to place the book for sale on the railway bookstalls. His shrewdness met with a rich reward; the picture sold the book; and it often happened that a book that had failed egregiously on its first appearance, would run into two or three editions when presented as a railway novel with a cover sufficiently startling or absorbing in its interest.

An unprecedented, and an unrepeated, incident occurred in 1842. In that year there appeared a number of drawings by Gavarni (apart from those re-drawn by Mr. Birket Foster), and something has been made by commentators of the early enterprise of the Editor in inviting the contributions of the eminent French master of caricature. But as a matter of fact Gavarni was not invited at all, nor did he ever draw for _Punch_. These blocks, and the one by Gagniet, had simply been bought up by the publishers, and used after they had appeared in "Les Parisiens peints par Eux-Memes" as well as in the English translation of 1840. The use of _cliches_, it should be stated, has never since been resorted to.

When Gavarni did make a prudence-visit to England in 1847 he held aloof from _Punch_, perhaps on account of his former connection with "The Great Gun." His princ.i.p.al achievement here was to offend the Queen, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens, and others, by coolly ignoring their proffered hospitality and friendly advances.

In this same volume first appeared a notable quintet--Kenny Meadows, Alfred "Crowquill," W. M. Thackeray, Sir John Gilbert, and "Phiz"

(Hablot Knight Browne).

Few men of his day enjoyed so great a vogue as Kenny Meadows. His pencil was for many years in extraordinary demand; and although as an artist he could not stand against his great contemporary George Cruikshank, his popularity--among publishers, at least--if not as great, was nearly as extensive. His work is more than half forgotten now, but the memory of his name survives; and to speak of "Kenny Meadows" is to recall the typical art of the ill.u.s.trator and (such as it was) of the comic draughtsman of the first half of the century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KENNY MEADOWS.

(_From a Water-Colour by Mrs. L. Bentley Smith._)]

Kenny Meadows--he dropped the preliminary "Joseph" for reasons of "professional distinction"--had first met Douglas Jerrold, in company with Laman Blanchard, in Duncombe's shop, as early as 1828, and in due time was employed to ill.u.s.trate "Heads of the People," which Jerrold edited in 1840, and for which he had secured the co-operation of Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, Samuel Lover, William Howitt, and other literary lights. Henry Vizetelly, who knew Meadows well, wrote to me but a few months before his death of his acquaintance with the artist. "He was,"

said he, "witty and epigrammatic in conversation. He was a singularly incorrect and feeble draughtsman, but abounded with clever and often highly poetic ideas. Like most of the members of the Mulberry and Shakespeare Clubs, he knew all the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sages in Shakespeare by heart long before he became an ill.u.s.trator of the plays. Like many artists and literary men of the period, he was always in financial straits. Every sixpence that he earned he handed over to his wife, a quiet thriftful woman, sister of Archibald Henning, and she used to give him a small sum whenever he spent his evenings abroad in company with Macready, Laman Blanchard, John Forster, Jerrold, and others, at the Shakespeare Club. He was a little man with a feeble frame, and much addicted to convivial society." He was, indeed, a boon-companion, generous and kind-hearted, and a delightful _raconteur_--"happy, conversational Meadows," as Blanchard Jerrold calls him--when at the club, and a jovial roystering Bohemian when he left it.

About the time that _Punch_ was started, Kenny Meadows was living hard by College Place, Camden Town, and one night gave a rollicking dinner to the members of the newly-formed Staff; but Hine (from whom I had the story), as a sober man of peace and quiet, declined the invitation, as was his wont, and the next day, meeting Meadows, was surprised to receive a very penitent apology for their behaviour of the previous night. "What behaviour?" asked Mr. Hine, unconscious of any possible cause of offence. "What! didn't you hear us? Where do you sleep?" "In front. Why?" "Why? Because before breaking up at three this morning we said, 'Let's give Hine three cheers to finish up with;' which we did, with an unearthly noise, and danced a solemn dance on the pavement, and sang you songs _fortissimo_, and altogether made a diabolical uproar."

"Never heard a sound," said Hine. Meadows turned sorrowfully on his heel without a word, and for some days could not get over his disappointment that, in spite of all their best endeavours, his young friend's rest had been unbroken.

When his first two drawings appeared in "Punch's Valentines"--"Young Loves to Sell" and "The Speculative Mamma"--Meadows was already fifty-one years old, with thirty-four more of conviviality before him; he was, therefore, the Nestor of _Punch's_ Staff, as well as its most distinguished member. "Meadows was essentially valuable to _Punch_,"

says George Hodder, who by marriage had become his nephew, "for the thoughtfulness of his designs, which were intended to portray something more than a burlesque view of a current event or a popular abuse." His delight when he made a hit was like that of a prize-winning boy; and he used to pride himself that his drawing of a b.u.t.terfly at the mouth of a cannon, typifying peace--published in _Punch_ in February, 1844--inspired Landseer with his celebrated picture ent.i.tled "Peace," in which, however, the b.u.t.terfly was superseded by a lamb.

Although he was excellent as a "general utility" man, who took as naturally to tragedy as he did to farce, to subjects of squalor as to grace of beauty, to Shakespeare as to _Punch_, he is not to be credited with any great sense of humour, his _vis comica_ running rather to grotesqueness than to real fun or wit. His intention was usually more admired than his achievement--in his press work, at least; and the symbolic treatment of his subjects in certain of the cartoons which he executed in 1842-3-4, such as his "Temperance Guy Fawkes," his Cruikshankian "Gin Drop" and "Water Drop," "The Irish Frankenstein," and "The Bull Frog," are to be included among _Punch's_ early successes. But better than this sort of design he enjoyed work of a more decorative type, in which grace and humour, as he understood them, might be introduced. Of this cla.s.s is his wrapper used throughout the fifth volume. (_See_ p. 46.) But his "poetic fancy and inventive genius,"

which aroused the enthusiasm of many others besides the appreciative John Timbs, were not in harmony with _Punch's_ character, nor was his fun sufficiently pointed and robust. Whilst he remained he ill.u.s.trated Jerrold's "Punch's Letters to his Son" and "Complete Letter-writer,"

which duly received the honour of a reprint; but he left in 1844, and straightway betook himself to the hostile camp of "The Great Gun," which aspired to be _Punch's_ chief rival, to "The Man in the Moon," and other of the Jester's numerous thorns--for of such is the spirit of caricaturists.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRED "CROWQUILL."

(_From a Photograph by Clarkington and Co._)]

The period of Alfred "Crowquill's" work corresponded with that of Meadows. Although a versatile man, using his pen and pencil with equal facility and ability--the former, perhaps, more successfully than the latter--Forrester (for that was his real name) was but an indifferent humorist. He was of those who thought that fun could be imparted to a drawing by the simple expedient of grotesque exaggeration of expression; and as a great admirer of Seymour's "c.o.c.kney humour," he was frequently pointless and stilted. Personally he was highly popular with the Staff, for he was philosophically happy and jovial, and sang good songs, and was, moreover, greatly sought after at a time when comic artists were few. He was cartoonist, too, in a small way, in the second, third, and fourth volumes of _Punch_; but his chief merit lay in his _jeux de mots_, for he was a good punster. Yet even his pictorial puns, good as they were, const.i.tuted little claim on a paper which was steadily improving its Staff; and when he left, in 1844, his place was easily and advantageously filled.

Pa.s.sing over the name of Thackeray, who takes his place among the literary contributors, we come to Sir John Gilbert. His work, though slight, has spread over a longer period than that of any other _Punch_ artist--save Sir John Tenniel, forty years later. His first contribution was the frontispiece to the second volume for 1842, which also const.i.tuted its wrapper, and was used as such for the monthly parts for many years. He continued with a few drawings to "The Natural History of Courtship" and "Punch's Letters to his Son," but his most ambitious effort was that representing the late Duke of Cambridge, coronet in hand, begging for public money as a marriage portion for his daughter.

But when Jerrold's fiat went forth, "We don't want Rubens on _Punch_"

young Gilbert turned his attention to the newly-started "Ill.u.s.trated London News," on which his services were warmly welcomed and continuously employed, with such brilliant results to itself and to the black-and-white art in England. I was one day conversing with a distinguished foreign artist on the comparative merits of Gilbert and Dore, whose fecundity in their art was equal, and I ventured to a.s.sert the great artistic superiority of Gilbert. "You are right!" cried my enthusiastic friend, with more judgment of art than accuracy of English idiom; "Gilbert c.o.c.ks Dore into a top-hat!"

Not for twenty-one years did he reappear in the pages of the London Charivari, until after an interval in which he built up his reputation as the greatest draughtsman on wood that England, and perhaps any country, has produced. Then he contributed the first ill.u.s.tration, in an admirable spirit of caricature, to Mr. Burnand's "Mokeanna," and then again, after another nineteen years, he made a full-page drawing for the Almanac of 1882, representing the unhappy plight of a knight who, summoned hastily to the wars, cannot induce his new suit of armour to come together over his fattened frame, even with the combined a.s.sistance of female relations and muscular retainers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HABLoT K. BROWNE.]

In this same year of 1842 Hablot Knight Browne, overcoming his former reluctance, began to draw for the paper. He drew its second wrapper (_see_ p. 42)--an enormous improvement on Henning's--as well as some beautiful little comic cuts exquisitely engraved (used to ill.u.s.trate "A Shillingsworth of Nonsense"), and a couple of "Punch's Valentines." In one of these--the Lawyer--the original of Mr. Squeers may be seen in the character of an orthodox pettifogging attorney perched upon a stool. But _Punch_ could not support such twin stars as Leech and "Phiz," and the latter left in 1844 for "The Great Gun," whose leading draughtsman he became. In the pages of "The Great Gun" he ill.u.s.trated Maxwell's "Memoirs of a London Latch-key;" and then, in 1850, he drew for "Life, the Mirror of the Million." In the _Punch_ volumes for 1842, 1844, and 1852, his hand may be traced; and again in 1861, after his great illness, he turned once more to _Punch_. The brave worker, who would not admit his stroke of paralysis, but called it rheumatism, could still draw when the pencil was tied to his fingers and answered the swaying of his body. In 1861 are eleven of his sketches--initials, most of them; in 1862, but one or two; in the following year, sixteen; in 1864, eleven; in 1865, five; and again in 1866, 1867, 1868, seven cuts, and one in 1869; altogether, a little over three-score drawings, besides three full-page cuts in the Pocket-book of 1850. But, for all that, "Phiz"

died more than half forgotten. His biographer, indeed, had never heard of his _Punch_ work; and even the paper which had been so kind to him, and dedicated on July 22nd, 1882, two graceful obituary stanzas to "delightful Phiz--immortal Phiz," entirely forgot to mention that his facile pencil had been employed in _Punch's_ service.

A single cartoon came from Henry Heath (Vol. III.), who was well enough known as a political caricaturist through having made many such plates for Spooner, the publisher, in the Strand. Heath emigrated to Australia, and Mr. R. J. Hamerton, who was soon to become a notable member of the _Punch_ corps, filled the place he left, signing his "B. H." (Bob Hamerton) to resemble as closely as might be the initials of the old favourite. But when, later on, _Punch_ work came to Mr. Hamerton, the Spooner caricatures were dropped. A couple of unimportant contributions sent in under the initials "J. R." complete the record for 1842.

It was through Jerrold's and Lemon's friend, Joe Allen, to whom he handed some of his pen-and-ink drawings, that Mr. R. J. Hamerton secured his footing on _Punch_. This was in the middle of the year, and in the opening number of the new volume appear his first contributions. For some weeks they were signed "Shallaballa"--the itinerant Punch's first cry on his jumping up before the public in his show, and apparently an appropriate pseudonym; but when the artist was reminded by Mark Lemon of the real significance of the objectionable word, he abandoned it for the better-known picture-rebus of his name--a Hammer on the side of a Tun.

The only meeting of the _Punch_ men which he attended was that at the "Whistling Oyster," next door to the "Crown," at the time when the musical bivalve, as narrated in the description of the "Punch Club," was the talk of the town. Mr. Hamerton, who was introduced by Mark Lemon, and who made the fantastic portrait of it which was published in the following number of _Punch_, remembers Douglas Jerrold reciting on that occasion his version of the ingredients and const.i.tution of _Punch_, which was worked up and contributed by Horace Mayhew to the next volume, but, of course, without the names attached, as here given:--

The Spirit is "The Comic Blackstone" (Gilbert a Beckett).