Читать книгу John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2] - Frith William Powell - Страница 4

It was at St. Bartholomew’s that Leech made acquaintance, which soon ripened into friendship, with Albert Smith, Percival Leigh (a future comrade on the Punch Staff, and author of the “Comic Latin Grammar,” “Pips’ Diary,” etc.), Gilbert à Beckett and many others, all or most of whom served as models for that unerring pencil.

The impecunious condition of Leech senior before John had reached his eighteenth year was such as to make his chances of getting a living by medicine or surgery, even if successful, so remote as to place them beyond consideration. No doubt the elder Leech’s misfortunes were “blessings in disguise,” for we owe to them the necessity that compelled the younger man to devote himself to art.

The art of drawing upon wood, to which Leech in his later years almost entirely confined himself, dates back from very early times. Lithography, or drawing upon stone, is a comparatively modern invention, and, until the introduction of photography, was used for varieties of artistic reproduction. It was to that process we owe the first published work of Leech. The artist was eighteen years old when “Etchings and Sketchings,” by A. Pen, Esq., price 2s. plain, 3s. coloured, was offered tremblingly to the public. The work was in the shape of four quarto sheets, which were covered with sketches, more or less caricatures, of cabmen, policemen, street musicians, hackney coachmen with their vehicles and the peculiar breed of animal attached to them, and other varieties of life and character common to the streets of London. This work is now very rarely to be met with; it consisted chiefly, I believe, of characteristic heads and half-length figures. To “Etchings and Sketchings” the young artist added some political caricatures, also in lithography, of considerable merit. With these, or, rather, with the heavy stones on which they were drawn, we may imagine the weary wanderings from publisher to publisher; the painful anxiety with which the verdict, on which so much depended, was waited for; the hopes that brightened at a word of commendation, only to be scattered by a few stereotyped phrases, such as, “Ah, very clever, but these sort of things are not in our way, you see; there is no demand,” and so on.

1836, when Leech was still a boy, saw the production of works called “The Boy’s Own Series,” “Studies from Nature,” “Amateur Originals,” “The Ups and Downs of Life; or, The Vicissitudes of a Swell,” etc.

The delicate touch and the grasp of character peculiar to the artist are recognised at once in many examples.

Leech’s struggle for bread for himself and others must have been terrible at this time; indeed, up to the establishment of Rowland Hill’s penny post, when, by what may be called a brilliant opportunity, Leech attracted for the first time the public attention, which never deserted him.

The title of this book is “The Life and Work of John Leech.” Of the former, as I have shown, there is little to tell; on the latter, volumes, critical, descriptive, appreciative, might be written. An artist is destined to immortality or speedy oblivion according to his work, and it was my earnest hope, on undertaking this memoir, that I should be able to prove, by the finest examples of Leech’s genius, that an indisputable claim to immortality was established for him. To a great extent I have been permitted to do so; but the law of copyright has debarred me from the selection of many brilliant pictures of life and character on which my, perhaps unreasonably covetous, eyes had rested. The proprietors of Punch and also of the copyright of most of Leech’s other works are, no doubt, properly careful of their interests, and I can imagine their surprise at the extent of my first demands upon their good-nature. In my ignorance I had thought that as my object was the honour and glory of John Leech – a feeling, no doubt, shared by them – the treasures of Punch would be spread before me, with a request that I would help myself. I do not in the least complain that I found myself mistaken. There are, no doubt, good reasons for the limits to which I was restricted, though I am unable to see them; and, granting the existence of those reasons, I should be ungrateful if I did not express my thanks for the small number of illustrations from Punch and other sources which I am allowed to use. I confess I was delighted to find that the first few years of the existence of Punch were free by lapse of time from copyright protection, and as some of Leech’s best work appears in the volumes between 1841 and 1849, I am able to show my readers further proofs of the justice of the artist’s claim to be remembered for all time.

Leech’s hatred of organ-grinding began very early in his career.

“Wanted, by an aged Lady of very Nervous Temperament, a Professor, who will undertake to mesmerize all the Organs in her Street. Salary, so much per Organ.”

The drawing which appeared in Punch in 1843, with the above title, was the first of the humorous series that continued almost unbroken for more than twenty years. It is pitiable to think of the long martyrdom that Leech suffered from an abnormal nervous organization, which ultimately made street-noises absolute agony to him. In the illustration the singular difference of dress in the organ-grinder of fifty years ago and him of the present time is noticeable, as also are the perfect expressions of the small audience. Leech’s chief contributions to Punch at this time were the large cuts, in which Peel, Brougham, the great Duke of Wellington, and others, play political parts in matters that would be of little interest to the reader of to-day, nor are the drawings of exceptional merit.

In 1844 there appeared an irresistible little cut, the precursor of so many admirable variations of skating and sliding incidents.

“Now, Lobster, keep the Pot a-biling.”

What could surpass the impudence of the vigorous youngster, or the expression of the guardsman of amused wonder as he looks down upon the audacious imp, as Goliath might have looked upon David?

The sensation created by the first appearance of the dwarf Tom Thumb remains vividly in my memory. I saw him in all his impersonations; that of Napoleon, in which he was dressed in exact imitation of the Emperor, was very droll. The little creature was at Waterloo, taking quantities of snuff from his waistcoat pocket, giving his orders for the final charge which decided his fate; and when he saw that all was lost, his distress was terrible: he wrung his little hands and wept copiously, amidst the uproarious applause and laughter of the audience. Then he was at St. Helena, and, standing on an imaginary rock, he folded his arms, and gazed wistfully in the direction of his beloved France. After a long, lingering look, he shook his little head, and with a sigh so loud as to astonish us, he dashed the tears from his eyes, and made his bow to the audience, some of whom affected to be shocked by the laughter of the unthinking, and loudly expressed their sympathy with the great man in his fall. I well remember the great Duke going to see the amusing dwarf, but why Leech should have represented him in the dancing attitude, as shown in the illustration, seems strange. Surely a more serious imitation of a Napoleonic attitude would have been more telling and more comic.

The next print illustrates a paper in Punch called “Physicians and General Practitioners.”

“The physician almost invariably dresses in black,” says the writer, “and wears a white neck-cloth. He also often affects smalls and gaiters, likewise shirt-frills” (fancy a physician in these days thus dressed!). He appears, no doubt very properly, in perpetual mourning. The general practitioner more frequently sports coloured clothes, as drab trousers and a figured waistcoat. With respect to features, the Roman nose, we think, is more characteristic of physicians; while among general practitioners, we should say, the more common of the two was the snub.

The general practitioner and the physician often meet professionally, on which occasion their interests as well as their opinions are very apt to clash; whereupon an altercation ensues, which ends by the physician telling the general practitioner that he is an “impudent quack,” and the general practitioner’s replying to the physician that he is “a contemptible humbug.”

How perfectly Leech has realized the scene for us the drawing abundantly shows. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that he never surpassed in drawing, expression, and character, these two admirable figures; full of contempt for each other, the emotion is expressed naturally, and with due regard to the peculiarities, widely varying, of each of the disputants.

More years ago than I care to remember, I met at dinner Mr. Gibson, the Newgate surgeon. At that time an agitation was afoot respecting public executions, the advocates maintaining that the sight of a fellow-creature done to death acted as a deterrent on any of the sight-seers who were disposed to risk a similar fate, the objectors declaring that the exhibition only made brutes more brutal, and was in no way a deterrent. As Mr. Gibson had had a long experience of criminals and their ways, it was thought worth while to ask his opinion of the matter in dispute. The surgeon said that, feeling strongly on the subject of public hanging, he had made a point of asking persons under sentence of death if they had ever attended executions, and he found that over three-fourths – he told us the exact number, but I cannot trust my memory on the point – had witnessed the finishing of the law. So much for the deterrent effect. The disgraceful scenes that took place at the execution of the Mannings produced a powerful letter to the press from Dickens, and an equally powerful article in the Daily News, by Mr. Parkinson. Parliament was aroused, and public executions ceased.

The Leech drawing which follows appeared in 1845, some years before the Manning murder, and a considerable time previous to the agitation on the subject of hanging in public. If ever a moral lesson was inculcated by a work of art, this powerful drawing is an example. Who knows how much it may have done towards hastening the time when those horrible exhibitions ceased?

Is this squalid group, with debauchery and criminality in evidence in each figure, likely to be morally impressed by the sight of a public hanging? What are they but types of a class that always frequented such scenes? The dreadful woman has carried her child with her; the little creature’s attenuated limbs point to the neglect and ill-usage sure to be met with from such parents.

To those unacquainted with the “Caudle Lectures” by Douglas Jerrold, which appeared at this time in Punch, I recommend the perusal of those inimitable papers. One of their merits is their having given occasion for an admirable drawing by Leech. Lord Brougham was, in the eyes of Punch and many others, a firebrand in the House of Lords. He was irrepressible, contentious, and brilliant on all occasions, quarrelsome in the extreme, and a thorn in the side of whatever Government was in power unless he was a member of it. The Woolsack, more especially the object of his ambition, was made a very uneasy seat to any occupant. Behold him, then, as Mrs. Caudle – an excellent likeness – making night hideous for the unhappy Caudle, whose part is played by the Lord Chancellor – Lyndhurst – while the Caudle pillow is changed into the Woolsack.

“The Mrs. Caudle of the House of Lords.”

“What do you say? Thank heaven! you are going to enjoy the recess, and you’ll be rid of me for some months? Never mind. Depend upon it, when you come back, you shall have it again. No, I don’t raise the House and set everybody by the ears; but I’m not going to give up every little privilege, though it’s seldom I open my lips, goodness knows!” – “Caudle Lectures” (improved).

Whether such a scene as the following ever took place may be doubted; but that it might have happened, and may happen again, there is no doubt. One meets with strange seaside objects, and to bathe at the same time as one’s tailor is within the bounds of possibility. Leech evidently thought so, hence this delightful little cut, wherein we see the creditor – evidently a tailor – improving the occasion to remind his fellow-swimmer of his little bill. See the businesslike aspect of the one and the astonishment and alarm of the other, who in the next few vigorous strokes will place himself beyond the reach of his creditor.

Full of sympathy, as Leech was, for human suffering, and frequently as he dealt with sea-sickness, he certainly never showed the least pity for the sufferers by that miserable malady. Its ludicrous aspect was irresistible to him, as numbers of illustrations sufficiently prove, and none more perfectly than the one introduced in this place, with the title of “Love on the Ocean,” representing a couple evidently married on the morning of this tempestuous day. “Why, oh why,” I can hear the unhappy bridegroom say to himself, “did we not arrange to pass our honeymoon in some pleasant place in England, and so have avoided crossing this dreadful sea?” To be ill in the dear presence of – oh, horror! And the lady is so unconscious, so serenely unconscious, of the impending catastrophe! She enjoys the sea, and, being of a poetical turn, she thus improves the occasion:

“Oh, is there not something, dear Augustus, truly sublime in the warring of the elements?”

Let anyone who suffers at sea fancy what it is to be spoken to at all, when the fearful sensations, the awful precursors of the inevitable, have full possession of him, and then to suffer in the very presence of the dear creature from whom every human weakness has been hitherto carefully hidden! The drawing is followed by a poem, in which the position of the unhappy Augustus is described. He could not speak in reply to his bride’s appeal; in the words of the poet:

Poor miserable Augustus! his face is pale as death, his treasured locks blown out of shape; his eyeglass swings in the wind; the distant steamer is making mad plunges into the heaving wave; the rain falls, and let us hope the romantic bride turns away as her young husband “leans o’er the ocean.”

Only those who have passed from the tableland of life can recollect the passion for speculation in railways that took possession of the public in 1845 and the two or three following years. I myself caught the disease, and, acting on the advice of “one who knew,” I bought a number of shares in one of the new lines; these were £25 shares, on which £8 each had been paid. I was assured by my adviser that I should receive interest at the rate of eight per cent. till the year 1850; after that time the line would pay ten. I awoke one morning to find that a panic was in full blast, and all railway property depreciated. My feelings may be imagined, for I certainly cannot describe them, when I found, on reference to the Times, that my £8 shares – £17 being still due upon each – were quoted at half a crown apiece! My friend had the courage of his opinions, for he had invested the whole of his property in railway stocks. He was completely ruined in mind and body, and died miserably before the panic was over.

Multiply these examples by thousands, and you will arrive at a clear idea of the nature of a panic, which seems to mystify the young gentleman immortalized by Leech in the drawing illustrating the following dialogue:

“I say, Jim, what’s a Panic?”

“Blowed if I know; but there is von to be seen in the City.”

It has been my fate in the course of a long life to attend several fancy-dress balls, but I can scarcely call to mind a single example of the successful assumption of an historical character, or, indeed, of any character that could disguise the very modern young lady or gentleman who was masquerading in it. My first acquaintance with Mark Lemon, so long the esteemed editor of Punch, began in the Hanover Square Rooms, at a fancy-dress ball given by a society – chiefly, I think, composed of the better class of tradespeople – called the Gothics. On that occasion might have been seen a young gentleman in the dress of one of Charles II.’s courtiers, and looking about as unlike his prototype as possible – in earnest conversation with another courtier, of the time of George II. I was of the Charles’ period, Lemon of that of the Georges. Those who remember Lemon’s figure later in life would have been surprised by the change that time had made in it, if they could have witnessed the interview between the two young men, one scarcely stouter than the other. In proof of my idea that the greater number of guests were in trade, I might give scraps of conversation between Mary Queen of Scots and Guy Fawkes, or between Henry VIII. and Edward the Black Prince, that would leave no doubt on the subject; nay, later in the evening I had convincing proof of the correctness of my surmise, as you shall hear. I danced with a Marie Antoinette of surpassing beauty, with whom I fell incontinently in love. More than once I danced with her, and when supper was announced, my earnest appeal to be allowed to conduct her to the banquet was successful. My lovely friend was full of the curiosity peculiar to her sex, which showed itself in her anxiety to know who and what I was. To tell the truth, I was equally curious to know who she was, and what her friends were.

“Well,” said I, “if you will tell me who you are, I will tell you who I am and what I am.”

“Oh,” was the reply, “I think I know what you are; but what’s your name?”

“You know what I am?” said I, surprised; “what am I?”

“Well, you are in the same line that we are, I fancy.”

“And what line is that?”

“The army tailoring. Am I right?”

In the illustration that accompanies these remarks Leech has succeeded in presenting to us a Norman knight completely characteristic, a Crusader more real, I think, than any modern could have rendered him. The lady he escorts, in a dress a few hundred years after Crusading times, is very lovely. The capital little Marchioness, with the big door-key, the four-wheeler, and the laughing crowd, make up a scene of inimitable humour.

We now come to the first of those precocious youths in whose mannish ways, whose delightful impertinence to their elders, whose early susceptibility to the passion of love for ladies three times older than themselves, are shown by Leech in many a scene I should have given to my readers, but over them the Copyright Act stands guard. “’Tis true, ’tis pity, pity ’tis, ’tis true,” that in a book intended solely to do honour to Leech’s genius, so many of the most perfect examples of it are denied to us.

Well may the governor stare with open-mouthed astonishment at such a proposal from such a creature! Look at him as he throws his little arm over his chair in the swaggering attitude he has so often observed in his elders, and raises a full glass of claret! “Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined;” but that we know that in this instance the twig is indulging in a harmless freak, one might be inclined to dread the tree’s inclining.

The political opinions of the writer of this book are of no consequence to himself or anybody else. It would perhaps be pretty near the truth if he were to admit that he had no political opinions worth speaking of. To those, however, who were interested in the struggle for Free Trade, which in the year 1846 raged with great fury, the question was, and still is, one of vital interest. The landed interest, headed by most of the aristocracy on the one side, and the manufacturing interest, championed by Cobden and Bright, on the other, raised a storm in which language the reverse of parliamentary was tossed from side to side. Peel was Prime Minister, and his ultimate conversion to the principles of Free Trade, and consequent advocacy of the repeal of the Corn Laws, horrified his supporters – by whom, notably by Disraeli, he became the object of envenomed attack – but led to a settlement of the question, and gave Leech an opportunity for the production of drawings of the victor and the vanquished, entitled, Cobden’s “Bee’s Wing” and Richmond’s “Black Draught,” two of the most successful of the political cartoons.

“The Brook Green Volunteer” gave Leech the opportunity for many illustrations which, to my mind, are nearer approaching caricature than most of his work; nor have they, as a rule, the beauty or human interest that so many of his drawings show. I fear I must charge the volunteer himself with being in possession of an impossible face and a no less impossible figure; his action also is exaggerated. In compensation we have a delightful family group. The mother with that naked baby perambulating her person is beyond all praise. Women do strange things, but I deny the possibility of such a woman as Leech has drawn ever finding it in her heart to marry that volunteer. The little thing standing on tip-toe to dabble in baby’s basin for the benefit of her doll, the delighted lookers-on, not forgetting the warrior riding his umbrella into action, are invested with the charm that Leech, and Leech only, could give them.

The year 1846 gave birth to the first fruit from a field in which Leech found such a bountiful harvest. The racecourse gave opportunities for the exhibition of life and character of which the great artist took advantage in numberless delightful examples. Pen and pencil record adventures by road and rail. Whether the excursionist is going to the Derby or returning from it, whether he is high or low, a Duke or a costermonger, that unerring hand is ready to note his follies or his excesses, always with a kindly touch, or to point a moral if a graver opportunity presents itself.

A madman, they say, thinks all the world mad but himself; and it is not uncommon for a drunken man to imagine himself to be the only sober person in the company. That some feeling of this kind possesses the rider in the drawing opposite, as he addresses the stolid postboy, is evident enough; his drunken smile, his battered hat, and his dishevelled dress, are eloquent of his proceedings on the course; and if his return from the Derby is not signalized by a fall from his horse, he will be more fortunate than he deserves to be. In works of art the value of contrast is well known, and a better example than the face of the postboy offers to that of his questioner could not be imagined. He drunk, indeed! not a bit of it.

A pretty creature in the background must not be overlooked. She is a perfect specimen of Leech’s power of creating beauty by a few pencil-marks. Her beauty has evidently attracted notice, and caused complimentary remarks from passers-by, which are resented by the old lady in charge, who tells the speaker to “go on with his imperdence!”

Smith: “Hollo! Poster, ain’t you precious drunk, rather?”

Postboy: “Drunk! not a bit of it!”

I cannot resist presenting my readers with another Derby sketch. It is more than probable that if either of these young gentlemen had asked for leave of absence from his official duties for the purpose of going to the Derby, he would have met with stern denial. The attraction, however, is irresistible, and though the subterfuge by which it is achieved is not to be defended, who is there that is not glad that the wicked boy is penning that audacious letter, as it is the cause of our having a picture that is a joy for ever? As a work of art, whether as a composition of lines and light and shadow, in addition to perfect character and expression, this drawing takes rank amongst the best of Leech’s works. Note the admirable action of the youth who is putting on his coat – a momentary movement caught with consummate skill.

“Gentlemen,

“Owing to sudden and very severe indisposition, I regret to say that I shall not be able to attend the office to-day. I hope, however, to be able to resume my duties to-morrow.

“I am, gentlemen,

“Yours very obediently,

“Phillip Cox.”

Doctors differ, as everybody knows; and in no opinion do they differ more than in the way children should be treated. One of the faculty will tell you that a healthy child should be allowed to eat as much as he or she likes; another advises that as grown-up people are disposed to eat a great deal more than is good for them, a boy is pretty sure to do the same unless a wholesome check is imposed upon his unruly appetite. A great authority is reported to have said that as many people are killed by over-eating as by over-drinking; “in fact,” said he, “they dig their graves with their teeth.” If that be so, the young gentleman in “Something like a Holiday” is destined for an early tomb.

Comment on this wonderful youth is needless. We can only share the alarm and astonishment so admirably expressed in the pastrycook’s face. That this awful juvenile’s memory should serve him so perfectly when he has taken such pains to cloud it, as well as every other faculty, is also surprising.

Pastrycook: “What have you had, sir?”

Boy: “I’ve had two jellies; seven of those, and eleven of these; and six of those, and four bath-buns; a sausage-roll, ten almond-cakes, and a bottle of ginger-beer.”

Little Boy: “Oh lor, ma! I feel just exactly as if my jacket was buttoned.”

If “a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind,” the boy in the following drawing would have delighted in the society of the gourmet at the pastrycook’s. Boiled beef and gooseberry-pie are good things enough in their way, but one may have too much of a good thing, with the inevitable result of the tightening of the jacket. This greedy-boy drawing appeared in 1846, and created a great sensation in the youth of that day, and many days since. Careful parents have been known to use this terrible example of over-eating as a warning to their offspring that a fit of apoplexy frequently followed the tightening of the jacket.

I think my married reader of the rougher sex will agree with me when I say that there are few more uncomfortable, not to say alarming, moments than those spent in the awful interview with the parents of his beloved, during which he has to prove beyond all doubt that he is in every respect an individual to whom the happiness of a “dear child” can be safely entrusted. What a bad quarter of an hour that is before the meeting, when he has grave doubts as to the sufficiency of his income! Will it, with other future possibilities, be considered sufficient to assure to “my daughter, sir, the comforts to which she has been accustomed”? This he will have to answer satisfactorily, together with a few score more questions more or less agonizing. Leech drew a scene of common application when he produced the picture that follows, which he calls “Rather Alarming” – “On Horror’s Head, Horrors accumulate.” Look at that terrible female and prospective mother-in-law! – think of satisfying such a woman that you are worthy of admission into her family! How sincerely one pities that poor little Corydon, and how heartily one wishes him success!

“Rather Alarming.”

Lady: “You wished, sir, I believe, to see me respecting the state of my daughter’s affections with a view to a matrimonial alliance with that young lady. If you will walk into the library, my husband and I will discuss the matter with you.”

Young Corydon: “Oh, gracious!”

Leech treats – how admirably! – another greedy boy, or, rather, two greedy boys.

Jacky: “Hallo, Tommy! what ’ave you got there?”

Tommy: “Hoyster!”

Jacky: “Oh, give us a bit!”

A Calais oyster, no doubt – large enough for both; but Tommy will not share his happiness. Intensity of expression pervades him from his open mouth to his fingers’ ends. Jacky’s face and figure are no less expressive of eagerness to join in the banquet.

If ever man suffered from embarras de richesse, I am that individual in making a selection from the early drawings of Leech; where all, or nearly all, are so perfect, choice becomes difficult indeed. I cannot resist, however, the one that follows this remark. For perfection of character and richness of humour, it seems to me unsurpassable. The doctor’s attitude as he contemplates his victim – who seems to have brought with her the huge empty physic-bottles to prove that she has taken all her “stuff” – to say nothing of his startling individuality, is Nature itself; and that immortal pupil with the big knife, smiling in anticipation of the operation “to-morrow about eleven”! One can read on the face of the patient a dull realization of the doctor’s announcement that only a seton in the back of her neck – whatever that may mean to her – will be of any service now; and to render the operation successful, she must have her head shaved.

The statue of the Duke of Wellington, which so long disgraced Hyde Park Corner, has disappeared, to the satisfaction of the world in general, though there were, I believe, a few dissentients who saw, or said they saw, beauty in one of the most hideous objects ever perpetrated by the hand of man; yet the “ayes had it,” and the monster has departed.

The effigy was manufactured in a studio near Paddington Green, and it was on its journey through the Edgware Road to the arch now on Constitution Hill that the gentleman in Leech’s cartoon was startled by a very remarkable object, to say the least of it.

Speaking from my own experience, I have always found a difficulty in giving the effect of wind in a picture; the action of it on drapery, trees, skies, etc., is – from the almost momentary nature of the gusts – far from an easy task. No one who ever handled a brush or a pencil has been so successful as Leech in conveying the action of wind on every object, and never did he succeed more completely than in an “Awful Scene on the Chain Pier at Brighton,” which is, no doubt, somewhat farcical; but how intensely funny! Master Charley has gone, and his ma’s parasol has accompanied him. The horror-struck nursemaid is almost blown off her feet; and Charley’s brother, also terror-stricken, will be down on his back in a moment; whilst his little sister maintains her equilibrium with great difficulty. The flying hat, and the couple staggering against the blast in the distance, all help to realize for us the exact effect of a wind-storm.

Nursemaid: “Lawk! there goes Charley, and he’s took his ma’s parasol! What will missus say?”

Waiter: “Gent in No. 4 likes a holder and a thinner wine, does he? I wonder how he’ll like this bin!”

As there is no condition in life that has not proved food for Leech’s pencil, that of the waiter was fruitful in many never-to-be-forgotten scenes. I introduce one which is very humorous, and scarcely an exaggeration. It is called “How to Suit the Taste.” A guest seems to have found his port too new and strong.

One of the peculiarities of Leech’s art is that “time cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety.” I defy the most serious Scotchman to look at the sketch below without laughing at it. As the gentleman who is on the highroad to being parboiled is in one of the sketches of 1846, many of my readers may see him for the first time. I envy that man; but though I am very familiar with the wonderful little drawing, a renewed acquaintance is always a delight to me. We know the bather can jump out of the scalding water when he likes, but there he is, with clouds of steam rising about him, screaming in deadly terror for “somebody” to come to his rescue.

Better-Half (loq.): “Is this what you call sitting up with a sick friend, Mr. Wilkins?”

Here follows a drawing of a different character, opening up very appreciable possibilities, and not very pleasant consequences for the hero of the piece. Mr. Wilkins left the domestic hearth to sit up with a sick friend. “Yes, my dear,” I can hear him say to his spouse, “I may be late; for if I find I can comfort the poor fellow by my conversation, I cannot find it in my heart to hurry away from him.” Wicked Mr. Wilkins! What was there wrong in going to a masquerade? and if it was criminal to do so, why leave the evidence of your guilt where Mrs. W. could find it? Was that a lady’s mask? In the eyes of the outraged wife I dare say it was, though it may only have been used to cover the homely features of the deceiver, whose pale face and empty soda-water bottle plainly prove that the evening’s entertainment will not bear the morning’s reflections.

Juvenile: “I say, Charley, that’s a jeuced fine gurl talking to young Fipps! I should like to catch her under the mistletoe.”

The first drawings of “The Rising Generation,” in which are portrayed the premature affections and the amusing affectations of the manners and sayings of their elders that, according to Leech, distinguished the jeunesse doré of England, appeared in 1846, and have been so admirably described by Dickens elsewhere as to leave me only the task of placing some of the drawings before the reader, carefully avoiding those the great writer has noticed so felicitously. The young gentleman in the drawing introduced here would like to catch the pretty creature talking to the fascinating young man under the mistletoe, no doubt! We know his wicked intentions; but how would he carry them out? He is not tall enough to reach the lady’s elbow; but love in such passionate natures laughs at difficulties, and he will find a way; and he calls a man old enough to be his father young Fipps! Delightful little dog! and no less delightful is his friend Charley, who smiles encouragement, and would do likewise. These works of Leech possess what it is not too much to call an historical interest, as they chronicle truly the dresses of the time. In the object of our young friend’s admiration, I fancy I see the approach of crinoline, while her ringlets afford a striking contrast to the fringes of the present day. An old lady would now create a sensation indeed if she appeared in a turban like that which bedecks the sitting figure.

Juvenile: “Uncle!”

Uncle: “Now, then, what is it? This is the fourth time you’ve woke me up, sir.”

Juvenile: “Oh! just put a few coals on the fire and pass the wine, that’s a good old chap!”

Again the irrepressible juvenile, under different conditions. Behold him practising upon a very testy old gentleman, who has been so rude, in the estimation of his young nephew, as to go to sleep after dinner.

Juvenile: “Ah, it’s all very well! Love may do for boys and gals; but we, as men of the world, know ’ow ’ollow it is.”

In his notices of the freaks of the rising generation Leech did not confine himself to juveniles of the higher and middle ranks, but occasionally he shows us the young snob, of whom he makes – with modifications – the same mannish and amusingly vain creature as his confrères, the little swells. As an illustration, I present my reader with a scene in a coffee-house, in which two friends are refreshing themselves, and exchanging philosophical reflections on the vanities of human life. These lads look like shop-boys, but – in their own estimation – with souls far above their positions in life. The spokesman has found the truth of the poet’s description of the course of true love in the conduct of some barmaid who has jilted him, hence his bitterness.

In the year 1847 Leech produced much of his best work, and in justification of this dictum I advise the study of a drawing full of character, humour, and beauty. Thousands of heads of households could vouch for the truth of the situation depicted there, and where is the mistress whose mind has not misgiven her when a request from her pretty servant has been urged that she might “go to chapel this evening”? “Chapel, indeed!” one can hear her mutter to herself; “I’ve not the least doubt the baker’s man is waiting for her round the corner!” I am loath to find fault with such a work as this, but I do think that perfect maid deserved a more presentable lover than the pudding-faced, knock-kneed soldier who is personating the “bit of ribbin.” The artist appears to me to charge his story-telling maid with very bad taste indeed. Would the drawing have lost, or gained, if Leech had given us a handsome young guardsman instead of this ugly fellow? He would, at any rate, have made the little fib a little more pardonable. The other figures deserve careful attention – notably, the youth absorbed in the study of natural history.

Servant-Maid: “If you please, mem, could I go out for half an hour to buy a bit of ribbin, mem?”

If there be amongst my readers any who are unfamiliar with Cruikshank’s illustrations of “Oliver Twist,” I advise them to turn to them, where they will find a drawing of Fagin in the condemned cell at Newgate, one of the most awful renderings of agonized despair ever depicted by the hand of an artist. This great work is travestied by Leech in a manner so admirable as to make the travesty take rank with the original. Instead of Fagin, see King Louis Philippe smarting under the failure of his schemes and the impending fall of his dynasty. By the Spanish marriages the veteran trickster destroyed the power which he sought to consolidate.

Domestic troubles and misadventures were represented by Leech in many examples, with a sympathetic humour that never wearies. A party may be assembled for a dinner which is strangely delayed; conversation flags into silence. The host and hostess become uneasy, when a button-boy appears with the ominous “Oh, if you please, ’m, cook’s very sorry, ’m, could she speak to you for a moment?” Something has happened; but we are left in uncertainty as to what it was.

Or the dinner is served, when an alarming announcement is made:

Servant (rushing in): “Oh, goodness gracious, master! There’s the kitchen chimley afire, and two parish ingins a-knocking at the street door.”

One of the happiest of the servant-gal-isms appears this year – the precursor of many excellent tunes on the same string – delightfully illustrative of the vanity which we all share, more or less, with our maids. In the picture that follows, the sight of the old lady’s new bonnet and a convenient looking-glass have provided an opportunity that the pretty servant could not resist. She must see how she looks in it – and behold the result!

Domestic (soliloquizing): “Well, I’m sure, missis had better give this new bonnet to me, instead of sticking such a young-looking thing upon her old shoulders.” (The impudent minx has immediate warning.)

I must refer my readers to Punch’s almanac for 1848, copiously illustrated by Leech, for many admirable examples of his many-sided powers. Alas! my space forbids the reproduction of any of them. Amongst the rest there is one of a gentleman suffering from influenza, which, by the way, seems to have been as prevalent in 1848 as it has been recently, though not so fatal in its effects. Our sufferer is visited by a condoling friend: he sits with his feet in hot water, and, with his hand on the bell-pull, he says, “This is really very kind of you to call. Can I offer you anything? A basin of gruel, or a glass of cough mixture? Don’t say no!”