M. H. Spielmann

Origin and Growth of the Cartoon—Origin of its Name—Its Reflection of Popular Opinion—Source of Punch's Power—Punch's Downrightness offends France—Germany—And Russia—Lord Augustus Loftus's Fix—Lord John Russell and "No Popery"—Mr. Gladstone and Professor Ruskin on Punch's Cartoons—Their Effect on Mr. Disraeli—His Advances and Magnanimity—Rough Handling of Lord Brougham—Sir Robert Peel—Lord Palmerston's Straw—Mr. Bright's Eye-glass—Difficulties of Portraiture—John Bull alias Mark Lemon—Sir John Tenniel's Types.

Were you to ask the Editor, Staff, or Proprietors of Punch whether they regarded the political or the social section of the paper as the more important, from the public point of view and their own, the answer would probably be—that they could not tell you. Power and popularity, even in a newspaper—especially in a newspaper—are not synonymous terms, and a great circulation does not necessarily carry influence along with it. It may safely be taken that while the social section of Punch, artistic and literary combined, earned for him his vast popularity, his power, which at one time was great almost beyond present belief, was obtained chiefly by his political satires with pen and pencil. Nowadays, no doubt, their relative importance is more evenly balanced, and what preponderating interest the cartoon may have for "Pater" is equalled by the special fascination exercised by the social picture over "familias."

It has been the mission of Punch, as of many another great and original writer, to invent and import into the language words and expressions which are surely destined to remain. It has already been recorded how it was he who christened the great conservatory now at Sydenham "The Crystal Palace"—though he was not so complimentary until he had cultivated the personal friendship of Sir Joseph Paxton over the "Daily News" affair. It is he who, in his most laconic manner, has given his immortal counsel for all time to intending mariÉs; it is he who has crystallised the exaggerated idea of Scottish thrift and economy in "bang went saxpence"—to the circumstances of all of which I have already referred. Mr. Punch, in short, has left the English language richer than he found it, not only in word, but in idea. So, again, the present application of the word "cartoon" is in reality a creation of Punch's.

At the birth of the modern satirical print—that is to say, in the reign of Charles I.—we see it called "A Mad Designe;" eighty years later, when George II. was King, it was known as a "hieroglyphic;" and then onwards, through the caustic and venomous days of the mighty Gillray and Rowlandson, and even of George Cruikshank, and their contemporaries, "caricature" was the term applied to the separate copper-plate broadsides that were issued, crudely coloured, from the famous shops of Mrs. Humphreys, of Ackermann, of Fores, and of McLean, and displayed in their windows to the delight and savage applause of a laughing crowd. Then "HB" had followed, Dicky Doyle's clever father, whose political lithographs had begun to appear in 1830, and continued until 1851—ceased, that is to say, when Punch was ten years old. The wonder about them was that, even before the days of photography, the likenesses of his subjects were so admirable, and his thrusts so happy, while his art, criticised strictly, was so very poor and amateurish. But as exaggeration found no trace in his designs, and his compositions aimed at raising little more than a suspicion of a smile in the beholder (save in the subjects of them), the word "cartoon" was more applicable to them than to any that preceded or have followed them. Mr. Austin Dobson, it is true, speaks of them as "caricatures;" but their publisher more correctly defined them as "Political Sketches."

Then, after the little wood-cut "caricatures" by Robert Seymour, came Punch with his full-page designs. Announced also as "caricatures," for a long while they were known as "pencillings;" but it was some time before they became an invariable feature of the paper. For several consecutive weeks, indeed, in 1843 there was no full-page cut at all, until John Leech recommenced them with a series of "Social Miseries," the first of which represented "Thoughts during Pastorale." But the most successful and the best remembered was "The Pleasures of Folding Doors" when "The Battle of Prague" is being thumped out relentlessly on the other side.

Now in July of 1843 the first great exhibition of cartoons for the Houses of Parliament was held. These gigantic designs handled the loftiest subjects, executed in the most elevated spirit of the highest art, with a view to ultimate execution in fresco on the walls of the palace of Westminster. It was not in nature for Punch to allow so excellent an opportunity to pass by without taking sarcastic advantage of it. He—conformably with his rÔle of Sir Oracle, omniscient and omnifarious—must have his "cartoons" too; and so on p. 22 of the second volume for the same year (No. 105 of the journal) he appeared with No. 1 of his series. It was from Leech's pencil, entitled "Substance and Shadow," with the legend "The Poor ask for Bread, and the Philanthropy of the State accords—an Exhibition." The cartoon represents a humble crowd of needy visitors to the exhibition of pictures on a suggested "free day," in accordance with the recommendation of the Government. This design, a suggestion of Jerrold's, affords an excellent example of the warm-hearted, wrong-headed sympathy with the poor which led him so often cruelly to misjudge and misrepresent the acts and lives of persons in authority whose views were not, like his own, spontaneously, kindly, and impulsively unpractical. The series of six cartoons was directed against abuses, the last, dealing with the subject of duelling, being entitled "The Satisfaction of a Gentleman"—in which two duellists appear attended by seconds wearing caps and bells, while the hangman awaits the victor in one corner, and Death digs a grave for his victim in the other.

After this series Punch for a long while dropped the word "cartoon," but the public remembered it, and has clung to it ever since. It is a remarkable thing that while the "EncyclopÆdic Dictionary" entirely ignores the word in its modern application to satirical prints, Dr. Murray's monumental lexicon has as its earliest use of the word a reference made by Miss Braddon to Leech's cartoons in the year 1863—or twenty years after it was first coined!

But the very first number of Punch, as we have seen, rejoiced in a cartoon as we now understand it—that is to say, a large full-page or double-page block of a satirical nature, usually placed in the middle opening of the paper, and for the most part still further dignified by being "unbacked" by other printing. It has been stated that Henry Mayhew at the very beginning insisted on this being a special feature of the paper, defeating the opposition of "Daddy" Landells, who was all for a number of little "coots," as he pronounced them, sprinkled plentifully over the pages. But inasmuch as Landells was an engraver, who would have delighted in the opportunity offered to his apprentices by a "big cut," as he was anxious above all things to follow the Paris "Charivari" (the very raison d'Être of which was the large political cartoon), and as, moreover, the original "dummy" of the paper makes provision for such a cartoon, the statement is not to be accepted.

It was really a poor thing, that first cartoon—"Candidates under Different Phases;" but it possessed over the little "caricatures" by Robert Seymour in Gilbert À Beckett's "Figaro in London," that had gone before, the important advantage of size. It was smaller than the hideously vulgar cuts in the "Penny Satirist," but—in tone, at least—this harmless satire on Parliamentary candidates displayed a refreshing and a highly appreciated decency and moderation. And since that time, whether satirical or frankly funny, sarcastic or witty, compassionate or denunciatory, eulogistic, sympathetic, indignant, or merely expository, the cartoons have rarely overstepped the boundary of good taste, or done aught but express fearlessly, honestly, and so far as may be gracefully, the popular feeling of the moment.

It is just this happy ability of Punch's to reflect the opinion of the country that gave it the great power it attained and won it the respect of every successive Government. It is true that of late years Mr. Punch has rather followed public opinion than led it; and it is equally true that he now represents a higher stratum of society than at first, when Jerrold week after week pleaded the cause of the poor. Yet the Governments of the day might have applied to him Addison's words—

and esteemed themselves happy when Punch smiled upon them. "What Punch says" appears to be a good deal to the Great Ones of our world, thick-skinned though they be; for even outside politics, they have, generally speaking, accepted as an axiom "Vox Punchii, vox Populi;" while Cabinet Ministers, from the Premier downwards, have hoped from his benevolence and feared from his hostility! When Mr. Mundella publicly declared that "Punch is almost the most dangerous antagonist that a politician could have opposed to him—for myself I would rather have Punch at my back in any political or social undertaking than half the politicians of the House of Commons," he was merely expressing a conviction on the part of statesmen that many of them have given evidence of. It is another proof of the power of the caricaturist—a very proper respect for the smile which brings popularity and for the ridicule which kills.

We all know the effect of Gillray's, Rowlandson's, and George Cruikshank's etching-needles upon their victims—how these latter would writhe under a stab that was often virulent in its brutality, merciless, scurrilous, and cruel. We know how money passed—at least, in their earlier years—to influence the political opinions of the caricaturists, less in the hope of damaging "the other side" than with the view to diluting with a little milk of human kindness their etchers' aquafortis; and we know how Cruikshank's sudden abandonment of political caricature has been generally attributed (without drawing forth any denial) to a very special communication of a remunerative sort from Windsor Castle. That, however, was owing rather to his remorseless gibbeting of the follies and scandals of the Court than to political attack or personal persecution; but other circumstances of a more serious, because of an international, character have now and again attended the publication of a caricature. For example, like the Hi-Talleyrand episode, Leech's famous cartoon of "Cock-a-doodle-do!" (February 13th, 1858) promised at one time—less directly, it is true—to bring unpleasant consequences in its train. In the spirit of the Prince de Joinville, whose bombastic language towards England in 1848 had set an example not to be resisted, were the fire-eating words of a few French officers, who offered to "unsheathe their swords and place them at their sovereign's disposal," and so forth. Leech replied with a cartoon of a Gallic cock, capped and spurred, flapping its epaulettes and crowing its loudest, while Napoleon the Third curses the "Crowing Colonel" under his breath. "Diable!" he says, "the noisy bird will awake my neighbour;" and the point is emphasised by a quotation from the Moniteur. The hit, if not quite original (for Doyle had made a precisely similar sketch of "Le Coq Gaulois" twelve years before in "The Almanac of the Month") was, at any rate, a fair one. But some unscrupulous British patriot so took the matter into his own scurvy hands that the following advertisement was published in "The Times" of March 10th:—

And so the affair was amicably settled, but not before correspondence of a lively character had passed between both the insulted parties, and it was feared that the matter might be taken up as "an insult to the French Army."

Many a time has Punch been excluded from France—beginning as early as February 11th, 1843—by reason of his political cuts. In the first half-volume for that year a cartoon entitled "Punch turned out of France"—showing a very sea-sick puppet received on Boulogne quay at the point of a bayonet—first made public the severity of his struggle with Louis Philippe. There is no doubt that his denunciations approached about as near to scurrility as ever he was guilty of; and it is equally true that the French King winced under the attacks made with such acerbity upon his well-known parsimony. In due time, on April 7th, the embargo was lifted, but again in the following year an article by Thackeray, entitled "A Case of Real Distress," in which Punch offers to open a subscription for the poor beggar, with a cut by the same hand representing the King as a "Pauvre Malheureux," had the effect of a fresh exclusion. Punch responded vigorously, his first proceeding being to advertise, "Wanted—A Few Bold Smugglers" in order that he "may continue to disseminate the civilisation of his pages throughout benighted France."

And so on several occasions, especially during the period of his long hostility to Napoleon III., was Punch turned back from the French frontier, though later on the authorities permitted him to enter, on the condition that, like a Mahometan who leaves his slippers at the temple door, he tore out his cartoon before he passed inside. Of late years, however, Punch has on the whole been on excellent terms with "Mme. la Republique," chiefly through his own forbearance during the period of what promised to be the Anglo-Congolese Difficulty. It is true that the cartoon of November, 1894, showing the French Wolf about to spring upon the Madagascar Lamb, aroused fine indignation in Paris at this English version of the methods of French colonial expansion; and that the famous picture of Marshal MacMahon of a score of years before, in which the President was shown stuck fast in the political mud, obstinately satisfied with his impossible position ("J'y suis!—J'y reste!"?), gave equal offence on the boulevards; and although in the latter case the fairness of the hit was acknowledged, Punch was again, as he had several times recently been, placed under ban. Again, at the time of the Franco-Russian rapprochement and consequent fÊtes, the drawing of the Bear and Republic in cordial tÊte-À-tÊte, the former disclosing the true source and object of his new-found affection by hinting, with a sly wink and a smirk, about a "little loan," gave rise to real anger, and was deeply resented—probably with the more annoyance that the cutting truth with which Punch had hit off the situation was secretly and unwillingly recognised. But save on one occasion no official expulsion or repulse has in recent times been Punch's lot. Moreover, his splendid series of cartoons, nobly conceived and full of generous sympathy, which he published towards the close of the Franco-Prussian War, are still remembered with some approach to gratitude in a country which has rarely, if ever, returned us the compliment of kindliness or friendship, or even of courtesy, in its satiric press.

Even in Germany, though Punch has not often been denied admittance, he has had at least one distinguished door closed against him. This was when in March, 1892 (p. 110 in the first half-yearly volume), Mr. Linley Sambourne's "cartoon junior" was published, satirising the German Emperor in "The Modern Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Sound"—

The German Army Bill agitation—the struggle between Emperor and Reichstag, which was followed with so much interest in England—was then at its height; and the monarch had no mind for trivialities. Punch's candour in illustrating the title given him in this country of "The Shouting Emperor," so it is alleged, annoyed him. "For nearly forty years," said one authority, "Punch has been regularly taken in at the Prussian royal palaces in Berlin and Potsdam. The Emperor William has just issued a private order that Punch is to be struck off the list of journals which are supplied to him; and the Empress Frederick, Prince Henry of Prussia, and all the members of the Royal Family who are in the habit of reading English journals, have been desired by their aristocratic relation to discontinue the obnoxious periodical. It is understood at Berlin that the Emperor's wrath has been excited by some jocular allusions to his Majesty's oratorical indiscretions which recently appeared in Punch." If the members of the Imperial Family scrupulously obeyed the alleged command, they lost the enjoyment of a hearty laugh over Punch's retort—for it is Punch's habit always to retort in matters of this sort when his fun is misunderstood or his irony, in his opinion, taken in ill-part. This was the much-talked-of "Wilful Wilhelm"—representing the Emperor, À la Struuwelpeter, as a passionate fractious child, screaming amid his toy soldiers and drums:

Nor would he leave him alone for a while; but returning a year later to the charge, and taking as a text the Emperor's words—

Punch promptly produced his cartoon a third time, by Mr. Sambourne's pencil, of "Nana would not give me a bow-wow!—A Pretty Little Song for Pettish Little Emperors," as the latest Teutonic version of the music-hall ditty then in vogue. And later on there was Sir John Tenniel's contribution to the pretty little quarrel, in which in "Alexander and Diogenes" (October, 1893) the Emperor asks, "Is there anything I can do for you? Castle? or anything of that sort?" and Bismarck Diogenes grunts his reply, "No—only leave me to my tub!" But the Emperor's anger did not last long—if it ever existed at all—for it was announced that he again received his Punch regularly, but, to save appearances, it arrived from London every week in an official-looking envelope, which was opened by the Kaiser's own hands, and by him duly stowed away in his library.

If Punch, by his outspoken criticism, has succeeded in raising the ire of two of the most civilised of the Great Powers, it was not to be expected that he should escape the blacking-roller of the Russian censor of the press. The touchiness of that official does credit rather to his zeal than to his judgment—and, besides, he is obviously no humorist. The Russians have had little opportunity of learning what is thought of them and their governors at 85, Fleet Street. Time after time has the cartoon been destroyed; and Mr. Sambourne, journeying in the country, learned by personal experience that Moscow and St. Petersburg were not as London and Paris. "Should it happen," he writes, "that any cartoon or cut at all trenched on Russian subjects, and especially his Majesty the Tsar, the page was either torn out or erased in the blackest manner by the Bear's paw. I have seen some of Mr. Tenniel's cartoons so maltreated, and have myself been frequently honoured in the same way." It is therefore rather amusing that while such drawings as Sir John Tenniel produced when the great Nihilistic wave was sweeping over Russia, just before the renewed application of the repressive system during the reign of Alexander III. and during the horrors of the Jewish persecutions, Punch would appear on the Tsar's table with cartoons far more severe and humiliating than the majority of those which appealed to the censor's sense of despotism. Of this Lord Augustus Loftus gives a remarkable example—remarkable, too, for the Ambassador's diplomatic ingenuity—his story referring to a period on the eve of the Russo-Turkish War.

"The Emperor had a favourite dog called Milord, which never left him. We were dining at the palace, and it being a small party (there were only the Imperial Family and Court attendants), we retired after dinner to the Empress's private apartments. I suddenly heard the Emperor calling 'Milord!' and supposed that he was calling for me; but it was his dog that was wanted, to receive the biscuits which his Majesty was in the daily habit of bestowing on his favourite. I immediately hastened to his Majesty, and learnt the explanation from the Emperor, who was highly amused at the incident.

"At the time his Majesty was seated in an inner saloon (a sort of alcove), and placed near him was a small table, on which was a number of Punch, with a cartoon representing the Sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Germany at a whist table, the Emperor of Russia holding down his hand with a card. The Emperor put the paper in my hand, and said, 'Expliquez-moi cela.' I felt the difficulty of the situation, and to collect my thoughts asked to be permitted to study it. After a short time I said—

"'Oh, sire, it is quite clear. The political European position is here represented by a whist party, and your Majesty is represented apparently as hesitating whether to continue the game.'

"It was a perplexing question, and I felt very much as Daniel may have felt when called upon to explain 'Nebuchadnezzar's dream!'"

I was suggesting just now that to Cabinet Ministers the attitude of Punch is often a matter of very real concern—at least, that they seem usually to have attached more importance to the matter than we who stand outside would think to be reasonable; though, from a proper sense of the ridiculous doubtless, Ministers have rarely turned upon Punch to rend him, for all they may have suffered at his hands.

There is a pretty story of Lord John Russell that is at once a charming proof to the statesman's magnanimity and of the paper's influence. When the excitement, already referred to, of the so-called "Papal Aggression" was at its height, in consequence of the action of the Pope in creating Roman Catholic Archbishops and Bishops with English territorial titles, Lord John, who was then in power, took an active part in the House of Commons on the side of the scaremongers, by introducing the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill—in respect to which he was strenuously opposed by both Bright and Cobden—not in order to put repressive measures into force against the Catholics, he assured the House, but simply "to insist upon our ascendency." Or, as he explained in 1874, "The object of that Bill was merely to assert the supremacy of the Crown. It was never intended to prosecute. Accordingly, a very clever artist represented me, in a caricature, as a boy who had chalked up 'No Popery' upon a wall[17] and then ran away. This was a very fair joke.... When my object had been gained, I had no objection to the repeal of the Bill." This gave Leech his chance, and he executed his famous cartoon of 'No Popery!' (March 22nd, 1851), which was among the greatest popular successes ever published by Punch—even his smart young rival, the "Man in the Moon," declaring that Punch had with his cut "wakened up those whom his letterpress had sent to sleep."

In his Reminiscences the Rev. William Rogers, Rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, tells the delightful sequel. When he called on Lord John, the Minister began to talk about the Charterhouse. "He said that he had lost his interest in the latter since his patronage had been taken away. I thought this pretty good for Whig doctrine. 'No,' he went on, 'I never abused my patronage. Do you remember a cartoon in Punch where I was represented as a little boy writing 'No Popery' on a wall and running away?' I said that I did. 'Well,' he continued, 'that was very severe, and did my Government a great deal of harm; but I was so convinced that it was not maliciously meant that I sent for John Leech, and asked him what I could do for him. He said he should like a nomination for his son to Charterhouse, and I gave it him." This, surely, if it be true—for Mr. Silver has a very different story—was a "retort courteous" that would prove how deeply the cartoon went home. Were it true, it would show how the independence of Leech could be in no wise affected—though, going to the House one day, he was greatly struck with the extraordinary dignity of the Minister during his speech in the great debate on foreign policy (February 17th, 1854), when the Crimean War with Russia threatened.

In Mr. Gladstone's "great Edinburgh speech" of the autumn of 1893 the veteran Premier said that Punch, "whenever it can, manifests the Liberal sentiments by which it was governed from the first." And naturally, as a consistent Liberal supporter, it as consistently attacked the Tory party. Says Mr. Ruskin in one of his lectures on "The Art of England:" "You must be clear about Punch's politics. He is a polite Whig, with a sentimental respect for the Crown, and a practical respect for property. He steadily flatters Lord Palmerston, from his heart adores Mr. Gladstone. Steadily, but not virulently, caricatures Mr. D'Israeli; violently and virulently castigates assault upon property in any kind, and holds up for the general idea of perfection, to be aimed at by all the children of heaven and earth, the British Hunting Squire, the British Colonel, and the British sailor."

This persistent opposition to Disraeli throughout his whole career—an hostility more bitter than perhaps might have been expected from Ruskin's "polite Whig"—was esteemed at its full importance by the object of it, though it was accepted by him, as similar attacks are accepted by all great minds, in excellent part. Nevertheless, after only three or four years of attack, he made a determined though unsuccessful attempt to conciliate his pungent critic. Vizetelly, in his "Glances Back through Seventy Years," tells the story with all the interest belonging to a personal recollection.

"In the summer of 1845," he says, "Mr. Disraeli took the chair at the annual dinner of the 'Printers' Pension Society,' when the stewards, of whom I was one, received him in the drawing-room of the 'Albion,' in Aldersgate Street. Immediately after his entrance he posted himself in a nonchalant fashion with his back to the mantelpiece, and his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, an attitude Thackeray was fond of assuming, and began to chat familiarly with those near him. In a minute or two he asked if Mr. Leech was present (Leech was one of the stewards), as if he would like to make his acquaintance. The famous Punch caricaturist thereupon stepped forward, and was duly introduced. Disraeli showed himself particularly gracious, and warmly congratulated the artist, whose pencil had lately been employed in satirising him in a disparaging fashion, depicting him as a nice young man for a small party, i.e. the Young England party, as a Jew dealer in cast-off notions, and as a young Gulliver before the Brobdingnag Minister (Sir R. Peel). Disraeli tried his hardest to ingratiate himself with the distinguished caricaturist, but Leech, proof against the wiles of the charmer, rejoined some months afterwards with the famous cartoon wherein Disraeli, who had lately proclaimed that, although the cause was lost, there should be some retribution for those who betrayed it, figured as a spiteful ringletted viper, and Peel as a smiling unconcerned old file.

"During the dinner the chairman did his best to make himself pleasant, and hobbed and nobbed unreservedly with his immediate neighbours.... When the toasts had been drunk and the secretary had read out the list of subscriptions and the quiet family-men had hurried off to catch the last suburban omnibus, Mr. Disraeli showed no disposition to vacate the chair. Seeing this, the remaining guests drew up to his end of the table, and a lively discourse ensued, in which a casual allusion to Punch was made. Disraeli profited by this by rising to his feet, and in a clever and amusing speech proposed the health of Mr. Punch, towards whom, he protested, he felt no kind of malice on account of any strictures, pictorial or verbal, which that individual might have passed upon him. Everybody entered into the spirit of the joke, and after the toasts had been drunk, calls were made indifferently upon Lemon and À Beckett, both of whom were present, to respond. Mark, however, rose, and in a brief and witty speech returned thanks for the honour that had been done, as he neatly put it, to an absent friend.

"Disraeli's amiable advances availed him nothing. For a long time afterwards Punch gave no quarter to the 'Red Indian of debate' who, as Sir James Graham pithily phrased it, 'cut his way to power with a tomahawk.' The time came, however, when Disraeli could show his magnanimity. Leech, who had satirised him weekly, and so familiarised everyone with his face and figure that an aristocratic little damsel, on being presented to him, exclaimed, 'I know you! I've seen you in Punch!'—Leech had had a pension given to him by the Liberals, and when he died the pension would have died with him, had not Disraeli, who had at last risen to power, interposed and secured it to the family." And so Leech, who apparently could not make an enemy, was indebted to the generosity of his victims for two of the greatest services that were rendered to him and his.

Lord Beaconsfield himself acknowledged in his latest book, "Endymion," his respect for Punch's influence at that time, as well as his desire to temper the ardour of its attacks if not to secure its silence, for he there explains how the hero, who to some degree at least is to be considered an autobiographical study, "flattered himself that 'Scaramouche'" would regard him in a more friendly spirit. Punch, with pardonable pride, devoted a cartoon to this pointed reference, but merely remarking, "H'm—he did flatter himself," abated not one jot of his caustic criticism.

But for all the failure of his advances, and for all his sensitiveness—so far as he could be said to be sensitive at all—Beaconsfield kept a close eye on Punch, and kept many, if not all, of the cartoons in which he figured. Similarly did Napoleon III. love to collect all those of himself which he could obtain, and pore over them at intervals, even in those sadly fallen times he spent at Chislehurst. And he had material for reflection enough, for in no way, I take it, can a public man learn what a world of savagery, hatred, cruelty, and uncharitableness lies, not so much in man's mind, but in that corner of it which we euphemistically term his "humour," as in following the handiwork of the political caricaturist of France. Mr. Spurgeon, too, used to keep all the cartoons and caricatures that sought to turn him to ridicule; and Lord Beaconsfield, like the Prince Consort, Lord Randolph Churchill (who possessed several of the original Punch drawings into which he had been introduced), among other politicians of the day, kept these artistic instruments of political torture before him, as a man treasures in his locket the hair of the dog that bit him. A visitor to Hughenden gave, in the "Dublin Mail," an interesting illustration of this tribute to the comic press. He was waiting in an ante-chamber, "and while passing the time my attention was attracted to a clever sketch of the then Prime Minister, depicted as Hamlet, seated at a table covered with innumerable documents, the text quotation being, 'The time is out of joint. O Cursed spite, That [ever] I was born to set it right!' I was smiling at the picture, which, I may add, was a cut out of Punch, and framed, when the Prime Minister entered with the gentleman who was to present me, and finding me gazing at the sketch Lord Beaconsfield said, 'Yes, that is one of the best caricatures of me that has yet appeared, and, strange to say, the artist has neither presented me with donkey's ears nor cloven hoofs. I feel very much flattered!' Lord Beaconsfield took an interest in all the caricatures that appeared of him, and at the time he died he had several hundreds in his possession."

Mr. Gladstone, who, we have often been assured, has not the gift of humour, has at least enjoyed Punch's good-natured yet occasionally severe raillery, and in the same Edinburgh speech to which reference has already been made, he recalled with much relish how, in connection with the rejection of the Paper Duty Bill, he was represented in a cartoon as being decorated by the triumphant Lord Derby—the Lord Derby of that day, who led the House of Lords—with an immense sheet of paper made into a fool's-cap, which he dropped upon his head. Mr. Goschen took a still more exalted view of Punch's prestige when he declared (at Rugby, November, 1881) that "he had since attained to the highest ambition which a statesman can reach—namely, to have a cartoon in Punch all to himself."

But hardly less important, in many a public man's opinion, than the sardonic significance of Punch's treatment of him in the cartoon, is the degree of facial resemblance achieved by the artist. It is undeniable that a likeness which is only half a likeness will often rob an otherwise admirable cartoon of half its success, just as it was oftentimes the excellence of the portraiture which more than counterbalanced the weakness of HB's sketches. Lord Brougham always flattered himself that Punch's portraits of him did not do him justice, and John Forster, in his "Life of Dickens," bears witness to it. "Lord Carlisle repeated what the good old Brougham had said to him of 'those Punch people,' expressing what was really his fixed belief, 'They never get my face, and are obliged to put up with my plaid trousers.'" But another writer, on the contrary, states that Lord Brougham "himself admits that the Punch likenesses are the best. Of course, they are a little exaggerated, but not so much so as many with whom I have chatted on the subject are apt to suppose;" while Motley, the American Minister, declared, after an official meeting with the grim old lord, "He is exactly like the pictures in Punch, only Punch flatters him. The common pictures of Palmerston and Lord John Russell are not at all like, to my mind; but Brougham is always hit exactly." Leech, indeed, enjoyed nothing more than caricaturing him, one of the most precious butts Punch ever took to himself, until he was twitted in the "Puppet-Show" at the liberties he took: "The proprietors will be compelled to widen the columns of their journal ... to show, as far as space will admit, to what lengths a nose may go in the hands of an unprincipled illustrator." But it was not only that Punch delighted in toying with Lord Brougham's cantankerousness and his peculiarities of manner and diction—as in the famous cartoon of Lord Brougham as Mrs. Caudle, of the original sketch for which a reproduction is given opposite—but he steadily carried into execution his threat of earlier days, to drag Lord Brougham "in the mire." He has been as good as his word ever since the day when Dicky Doyle drew the famous cover which is familiar to us all—that is to say, in 1849—for, as you will see if you will refer to last week's Punch, a young faun in the grand procession that appears as a relievo upon the podium or base draws along the mask of Brougham by a string. But without doubt one of the most successful cartoons Leech ever drew, and the most humorous portrait of Brougham, represented him as a clown at Astley's, going up to the splendid ring-master, the Duke of Wellington (as Mr. Widdicomb of Astley's Amphitheatre) and saying "Well, Mr. Wellington, is there anything I can do for you—for to run, for to fetch, for to carry, for to borrow, for to steal?" As Lord Brougham was suspected of undue complaisance towards the Duke at the time, the neatness of the political allusion was received with extraordinary favour by the public.

Another admirable portrait, consistently good, was that of Sir Robert Peel: so good, indeed, that when it was proposed to erect a statue to the statesman, and the best of all likenesses was sought as a guide to the sculptor—a resemblance truthful in feature and natural expression—the choice fell on a cartoon by Leech, and according to that drawing the head was modelled. Palmerston, too, was not a little impressed when in Wales a postman spoke to him as though he knew him, and replied, when questioned as to the recognition, "Seen your picture in Punch, my lord."

"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 in it 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).
Mrs. Caudle, Lord Brougham; Mr. Caudle, Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. (From the original Sketch for the Cartoon drawn by John Leech at Thackeray's suggestion.)

But Punch, it must be admitted, has often departed from the solemn truth, both unintentionally and of malice aforethought. It was his common practice to put a straw into Lord Palmerston's mouth. Palmerston, of course, never did chew straws; but one was adopted as a symbol to show his cool and sportive nature. Many a time has that straw formed the topic of serious discussion by serious writers. Some have pretended that it was designed to typify an expression used by one of his admiring followers in the House—a tribute to his "stable character;" others have said that it became his attribute from the time that he described himself as "playing the part of judicious Bottle-Holder to the pugnacious Powers of Europe;" and Mark Lemon declared that it was simply used as a sort of trade-mark whereby he might be known again, just as Mr. Harry Furniss invented Mr. Gladstone's collars, Lord Randolph Churchill's diminutiveness, and exaggerated those complacent smiles and oily rippling chins of Sir William Harcourt, continuing them long after the time when Sir William could boast the local portliness no more. However, it is certain that the sprig of straw, which really referred only to his pure devotion to the Turf, from 1815 onwards, was first used in 1851, just after the whimsical "Judicious Bottle-Holder" declaration, and, as a matter of fact, added not a little to Palmerston's popularity, as not only representing the Turf, but a Sam Weller-like calmness, alertness, and good-humour.

Similarly both Leech and Tenniel were in the habit of giving Bright an eye-glass. "Some of us remember seeing him wear a coat with a stand-up collar in the House of Commons," said a writer in the "Daily Telegraph," "and a broad-brimmed hat; but 'why,' he used to ask with a merry face, 'did Punch always put an eye-glass in my eye? I never wore a single eye-glass!'" That was just the point; for no doubt the simple reason was that the addition of a monocle was supposed to lend a sort of rakish appearance to the solemn Quaker, and belonged to the same genus of perverse jocularity as that which suggested three hats as the humorous covering for young Disraeli's head. Mr. W. H. Smith in like manner genially protested at a complimentary dinner in 1877 against the liberties taken with his person. "As to Punch," he said, "whose remarks have been mentioned, I beg leave to say that I do not go to sea in uniform, or exhibit those very queer expressions of face depicted by Punch's artists."

There are some men whose physiognomies defy the deftest pencils. Such a one was Cobden, whose views Punch represented far more faithfully and sympathetically than his face. At the Cobden dinner of 1884 Lord Carlingford drew fresh attention to the point: "Cobden's was, for some reason which I never heard explained, a most difficult face to sketch, and Punch was in despair at the impossibility of producing a caricature that could be recognised without explanatory text. Many of the artists tried Cobden, and were floored over him. Leech and Tenniel both confessed that they could not hit the familiar expression. Somehow, they never did hit it, though photography came by-and-by to their aid." The statement is perfectly true, but the reason is not hard to find: simply that a shaven face, without well-marked features or strong lines of character, and, above all, without angularities, gives the artist extremely little to "take hold of." For that reason such faces as those of Lord Rosebery, Mr. Asquith, and Mr. John Morley (of the latter of whom Mr. Furniss used to say the true characteristic expression is only to be found in his red cravat) are as often failures as successes, in even the skilfullest hands. It is the fault of neither the artist nor the person misrepresented; according to Mr. Lucy—it is "the act of God."

Before the days of photography the work of the caricaturist was harder than it is now. Draughtsmen had to be familiar with the faces of the leading men of the day—even as Leech was, by "getting them" into their sketch-books by hook or by crook, or else they would accept the portrait already published by a brother-artist. Even to-day it sometimes occurs that a man of importance has not been photographed. In that case he must be sketched or remembered, or his portrait "faked up" on the block until it bears some resemblance to the person required. But, passing from mere portraiture to the realisation of ideas, the artist feels his liberty, and gives his genius full rein. Thus it is that Punch has always been happy and successful in his "types." It is thoroughly in the spirit of caricature that types should be established and adhered to in order to express, in symbolic form, nations and even ideas. Not only is it poetical, it is convenient; and has perforce been adopted in every country where political caricature is employed, though with standards and notions very different from our own. In Italy, for example, and in a minor degree in Germany, John Bull, as the symbol of Great Britain, is usually represented by a travesty of Punch's, with a brutal head and bandy legs, and the whole figure bent in body to suggest a bull, horns sometimes protruding beside the hat; while Russia is courteously represented as a frantic Cossack of terrific mien, brandishing a knout with violent and savage intent. We may claim that our types, as invented by Punch, are of immeasurable superiority, whether of conception or of realisation. Our John Bull—a lineal descendant probably of Gillray's favourite representation of George the Third as "Farmer Gearge"—is a fine noble fellow enough as drawn by Leech and developed by Tenniel; indeed, in the drawings of the latter may often be seen the idealised face of Mark Lemon, his jovial Editor.

This view of the type of England has attracted the attention of Ruskin. "Is it not surely," he asks, "some overruling power in the nature of things, quite other than the desire of his readers, which compels Mr. Punch, when the squire, the colonel, and the admiral are to be at once expressed, together with all that they legislate or fight for, in the symbolic figure of the nation, to present the incarnate Mr. Bull always as a farmer—never as a manufacturer or shopkeeper—and to conceive and exhibit him rather as paymaster for the faults of his neighbours than as watching for opportunity of gain out of their follies?" And again, ".... considering Punch as the expression of the popular voice, which he virtually is, and even somewhat obsequiously, is it not wonderful that he has never a word to say for the British manufacturer, and that the true citizen of his own city is represented by him only under the types either of Sir Pompey Bedell or of the more tranquil magnate and potentate, the bulwark of British constitutional principles and initiator of British private enterprise, Mr. John Smith?"

It is true that Punch has imposed upon a nation a character which, as depicted, is unknown in the land, and placed him in a line of business notoriously dissimilar from that in which he really engages; and the sum-total of it all is greatly to the credit of Mr. Punch's influence. He has, in fact, "educated" a nation. For to this day, no sooner does each succeeding Wednesday spread the new issue over the country than a mass of newspapers, both in England and in the colonies, immediately describe and discuss "This week's cartoon" for the edification of their readers. And so we have come to accept these types until they have almost grown into concrete ideas—conventions which have been given to us chiefly by Sir John Tenniel—Britannia and Father Time, the New Year and the Old, Cousin Jonathan (or Uncle Sam) and Columbia, Death and Crime, Starvation and Disease, Peace and War, Justice and Anarchy, the British Lion (might not the symbol nowadays be more appropriately the British Racehorse?), the Bengal Tiger, the Russian Bear, the Eagle, and all the rest. And could they well be bettered?