M. H. Spielmann

Percival Leigh—His Medical Shrewdness—Unsuspected Wealth—His Ability and Work—His Decay—Kindness of the Proprietors to the Old Pensioner—Albert Smith—Inspires varied Sentiments—Jerrold's Hostility—"Lord Smith"—Parts Company—H. A. Kennedy—Dr. Maginn—John Oxenford—W. M. Thackeray—His First Contribution—"Miss Tickletoby" Fails to Please—He Withdraws—And Resumes—Rivalry with Jerrold—As an Illustrator—A Mysterious Picture—Thackeray's Contributions—And Pseudonyms—Quaint Orthography—"The Snobs of England"—He Tires of Punch—His Motives for Resignation—The Letter—Death of "Dear Old Thack"—Punch's Tribute to his Memory.

How Percival Leigh (otherwise called "Paul Prendergast" in those early days) was sought out by George Hodder, on the strength of the "Comic Latin Grammar," and how, after a judicious pause, he joined the Staff of Punch, has already been made known. He was twenty-four when, in 1835, he took his M.R.C.S. He had been a medical student of "Bart's," but had already abandoned, in great measure, the lancet for the pen. He sent in as his first contribution the article to accompany Leech's "Foreign Affairs;" and though he became best known as a humorist, as a doctor he was in his early days equally to be respected. Mr. Arthur À Beckett tells the following stories of his powers in the direction of diagnosis and surgery:—

Leigh had a philosopher's head and a fine face. In later life he was extremely careless in his person—so much so that when he died Mr. Bradbury, with his usual thoughtfulness, went to the funeral with a cheque-book in his pocket, intending, if necessary, to pay the undertaker's expenses. His surprise, therefore, was great when he learned that "the Professor" had died worth from ten to eleven thousand pounds. Leigh, who lived for some years in Hammersmith Road, in a house which, judged from its exterior, promised little comfort within, was a profound Shakespearean and a good classical scholar, and from these attainments he earned the sobriquet by which he was known. He vied with Jerrold himself in his knowledge of the Bard, and was fond of spouting the poets, classic and English, with the least possible excuse, breaking out into verse with a loud voice, utterly oblivious of his companions. It was he who introduced into the pages of Punch the assumption of scholarship in its readers, and so acquired at once for the paper a position never held by any other humorous journal in this country. His work, which for many years averaged a column and a half each week, included nearly every sort of contribution known to Punch, including, in 1845, his striking "Pauper Song"—the wail of the poor man who prefers the prison to the workhouse, the second stanza running thus:—

In 1843 Leigh began his effectively satirical "Punch's Labours of Hercules," and in 1849 "Mr. Pipps's Diary" appeared as the text accompanying Doyle's pictures of "Ye Manners and Customs of ye Englyshe." The extraordinary success of this admirable parody was, perhaps, the greatest he ever won, though he achieved many. He was essentially a "safe man" at his work, and for that reason he would act as locum tenens to Shirley Brooks when that Editor was away; and the only occasions on which he failed (so far as I can ascertain) except towards the end, was in May, 1847, when his wife died, and in April of the following year, when he lost his father. He always had a strong feeling for art, both in subject and treatment, and was always very fastidious about his work; he would touch up a poem over and over again, and take the utmost pains with metre and "swing" until he was satisfied.

But as he grew old it became evident that the "Professor" was beyond his work, and although he attended the Table with the utmost regularity up to the very end, the decay of nature robbed him of his value as a member of the Staff. Then came an example of the kindliness of spirit that has animated for so long the little cÔterie of humorists of Bouverie Street and the generosity of the men for whom they work. For a long while before his death "the Professor's" copy had been practically useless to the Editor; yet everything was done to spare him the pain of rejection. At first Mr. Burnand or Mr. Arthur À Beckett would rewrite the paragraphs; and Leigh's delight when they were printed was sad to see. But soon it was impossible to conceal the fact that they were utterly useless; and so for some years it was the practice to set his "copy" up in type and to send him proofs, which he duly corrected and returned. But they never appeared in the paper, nor was ever question asked nor explanation offered. Did the old gentleman forget all about them? Or was he hoping against hope that some day room might again be found for him in the pages to which he had contributed with so much applause? Or did he appreciate the real motive and kindly feeling of the proprietors, who, though they could not use his work, actually increased his salary? Whatever the cause, "the Professor" to the last maintained a pathetic silence. He died at Oak Cottage, King Street, Hammersmith, on October 24th, 1889, and was laid to rest in the Hammersmith Cemetery in the presence of a circle of old Punch friends. For one thing, at least, he had laid the paper under a deep debt of gratitude—he had introduced to it his hospital chum and life-long friend, John Leech, and that was a service which could never be forgotten.

The third of the medical trio was Albert Smith, a writer who was not fortunate in making a good impression on the majority of his associates. With Leech, with whom he had shared rooms in his "sawbones days," he remained a steadfast friend; but it is probable that that friendship was maintained by the artist by reason of the other's good nature, and in spite of his manner. Henry Vizetelly, who evidently bore him no particular goodwill, wrote to me his recollections of the man in these words: "He was not the amiable person depicted by Yates in his 'Recollections.' He was vulgar and bumptious in manner until he became polished by concerting with 'swells' after the success of his entertainments. He always had a keen eye for the main chance, and never neglected an opportunity for self-advertisement. Jerrold and Thackeray detested him, though only Jerrold showed this openly—which he occasionally did to Smith's face, in the most offensive manner. Albert Smith retained his position on Punch for some time after Jerrold's animosity had declared itself—first, because his copy was always certain; and secondly, because he and Leech were great friends, and Leech was then a power—though not in the same degree as Jerrold, who was almost absolute." These strictures are repeated in Vizetelly's autobiography. Smith's "Physiologies," he says, which were some of them enlarged from the Punch sketches, brought him great popular favour, in spite of their slight intrinsic worth. Thackeray was invited by Vizetelly to produce similar sketches at a hundred pounds apiece—which was double the amount he was then receiving for the monthly parts of "Vanity Fair;" but he declined to do anything "in the Albert Smith line," and he similarly refused to write for "Gavarni in London," of which Smith was editor. "Pigmy as Jerrold physically was, Albert Smith quailed before him;" for Jerrold's stinging attacks and repartees were merciless. So Smith bought a toy-whip, which he playfully produced to his friends with the explanation that he intended to apply it to "Master Jerrold;" but he was never known to bring it out in his tormentor's presence. Jerrold's "skull" witticism has already been recorded; and of the same kind was his loud enquiry over the Punch dinner-table—when Smith's obtrusive foible of calling his acquaintances by their abbreviated Christian names became intolerable—"I say, Leech, how long is it necessary for a man to know you before he can call you 'Jack'?" When Jerrold first saw Smith's initials, he had said that he believed they were "only two-thirds of the truth"—and he continued to act upon the assumption until Smith left Punch and had become a successful "Entertainer." Then a truce was called, for his Mont Blanc ascent and the "Entertainment" he made out of it (of which Leech himself said, "It's only bad John Parry") had made of Smith one of the lions of the day, and of his St. Bernard, which had accompanied him, the most petted beast in the metropolis. But to the end he remained, generally speaking, the best-abused humorist of his day. He did not even succeed in escaping the quiet scorn of his occasional companion, Dickens, whose literary style it was reported he was trying to copy. The novelist, who much enjoyed Albert's sobriquet of "Lord Smith," simply shrugged his shoulders as he replied—"We all have our Smiths." It is believed by those who should know best that the cause of the final rupture between Smith and Punch was the discovery that some of his articles were simply adaptations from the French; and this belief is still current in the Punch office.

Smith's connection with Punch was through his engagement for the "Cosmorama," on which Landells and Last committed infanticide at the starting of Punch. He sent his first paper from his temporary rooms at Chertsey; it was the burlesque, "Transactions and Yearly Report of the Hookham-cum-Snivey Literary, Scientific, and Mechanics' Institute" (12th September, 1841). This was succeeded in the following month, with the opening of his "Physiology of a London Medical Student," which was rather laughable in itself, while displaying a wonderful intimacy with the rough and noisy world with which it dealt. The idea, however, had already been sketched by Percival Leigh in "The Heads of the People." Smith was now living at 14, Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, in an unpalatial lodging, where he nominally carried on the profession of surgeon-dentist; but his best energies were thrown into his literary work, and there is no doubt that that work was to the taste of the Punch readers. Mr. Walton Henning has told me how his father, A. S. Henning, calling upon Smith concerning his work, found him like a typical Bob Sawyer, with his heels upon the table, playing the cornet as a grand finale to his breakfast. Then he would don his French workman's blouse and scribble for dear life. The "Physiology of London Evening Parties," which was originally written by him in 1839 for the "Literary World," was illustrated by Newman, who was still a far more important man on Punch than Leech; and the series was followed by "Curiosities of Medical Experiences," the less successful "Side-scenes of Everyday Society," and "Physiology of a London Idler"—which, taken together, were voted the most entertaining descriptions of social life that Punch was publishing, even at a time when Punch was declared to be vastly entertaining. Verse, epigram, jokelets, and articles on current events came from Albert Smith's pen before the strained relations between the parties and the irresistible hostility of Jerrold bore him down, though it is probable that the practical joke on him described among the proceedings of the Punch Club had some part in bringing matters to a head; and on January 7th, 1844, his last contribution appeared—"Important and Telegraphic." Punch, in reply to a criticism of the "Boston Atlas," declared that Smith left in December, 1843; but Albert Smith himself wrote (November 20th, 1845) to Mr. James Silk Buckingham (who was protesting to him against Punch's attacks): "I have not written or suggested anything for Punch since January, 1844.... I withdrew in consequence of being unable to agree with Mr. Mark Lemon, the editor. Indeed, I have been attacked since then through my novel of 'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers' both in Punch and in 'Jerrold's Magazine,' for which I do not care a straw."

It was after his retirement from Punch that, in conjunction with A. B. Reach, he started "The Man in the Moon," with the express purpose of making himself obnoxious to Punch in general and Jerrold in particular, in which laudable desire he in part, at least, succeeded; while at the same time he turned his attention to the publishers by bringing out a little Christmas volume entitled "A Bowl of Punch." But in time all bitterness disappeared; Albert the Great, as Smith was called, had "discovered" Mont Blanc and Chamonix, and peace prevailed, though to the end Smith had no further access to Punch's pages.

The last regular contributor of the year 1841 whose name has been preserved is H. A. Kennedy, whose parodies of Horace were as good as anything Leigh ever did of the kind. The parody of Horace's "Donec gratus" is worth preserving, and that (p. 20, Volume II.) of "Ad Lydiam"—becomingly rendered into a tender ode "To Judy"—is hardly less excellent.

Dr. Maginn's connection with Punch began with the first Almanac, while he was, with James Hannay, in residence in the "Fleet." The doctor, as one of the most versatile writers of the day, was looked upon by the "Punchites" as useful for their purpose as he was for any of the rival papers with which he was connected. "He would write a leader for the 'Standard' one evening," it is said in J. F. Clarke's "Auto-biographical Recollections," "answer it in the 'True Sun' the following day, and abuse both in the 'John Bull' on the ensuing Sunday." Such a man could not be without a sense of humour, especially with ample gin and water to enrich it and poverty to point it. He was the brilliant Morgan O'Doherty of "Fraser" and "Blackwood," and was nearly, but not quite, "Captain Shandon" in "Pendennis." Thackeray had an affectionate admiration for his talents. But the times and the doctor were out of gear; he lost sympathy through his persecution of "L.E.L.," and his misfortunes led him to follow a class of journalism out of all consonance with his powers and better feeling; he is credited with having been the forerunner of scurrilous society-journalism. But no hint of these defects is apparent in his work for Punch, in which, perhaps, he saw an opportunity for some degree of re-instatement; and he conveyed his gratitude in a five-stanza poem in praise of the paper (p. 131, Vol. II.), "Verses by a Bard—Much be-rhymed in Punch." But he was near his end; and when he died a year afterwards, Punch devoted to him the first of his little black-bordered obituaries.

The year 1842 was the stormiest and most threatening in Punch's history; so that, with an empty till and growing liabilities, there was no disposition towards introducing new contributors involving the principle of "cash down." Only three names belong to this year, but all were men of great importance, each in his own line—John Oxenford, W. M. Thackeray, and Horace Mayhew. In common with Coyne, Oxenford had a stronger sympathy for the stage than for periodical literature, so that after the tenth volume he ceased to be even an occasional contributor. His first paper was "Herr DÖbler and the Candle Counter." The popular conjurer had advertised that to begin his performance and illumine his stage he would light two hundred candles by a single pistol-shot. (This was in the very early days of practical electricity.) The "Times" had reported the entertainment, but complained that, having counted the number of candles, they found there were only eighty-seven!—whereupon Oxenford executed a literary dance upon the "Times" reporter. Thenceforward, he contributed with some degree of regularity. After his "Christmas Game" (January 6th, 1844) he was, on the 3rd of the following year, accounted upon the regular Staff, although from that time he did but little. Verse, clever and bright, burlesque, and the like, in the true spirit of Punch, came from time to time; but there was not enough of his work to place him in rank with the chief of the contributors. "There is one," Mr. Jabez Hogg reminds me, "whose name is rarely mentioned in connection with the early days of Punch and the 'Illustrated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good work in his day, and his contributions to Punch assisted greatly to increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water."

The same number that introduced John Oxenford to the Punch reader presented also William Makepeace Thackeray—a connection that did not immediately attract public notice, perhaps, though it soon bore the richest fruit for both author and publisher.

It was about seven years after the first abortive attempt to found a "London Charivari" that Thackeray—who had been one of the band—commenced that connection with Punch which was to be of equal advantage both to him and the paper. "It was a good day for himself, the journal, and the world," said Shirley Brooks, "when Thackeray found Punch. At first," continues his biographer, "I should gather that he had doubts as to the advisability of joining in the new and, so far, not very promising venture;" and on the 22nd of May, 1842, we find Fitzgerald uttering a warning note, and writing to a common friend: "Tell Thackeray not to go to Punch yet." But his friend paid little heed to the counsel, for within a month appeared what I am satisfied is Thackeray's first contribution to Punch—"The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee" (p. 254, first volume for 1842) with a sketch undoubtedly by his hand; and at the beginning of the very next volume, a fortnight later, was begun the series entitled "Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History." These, continued for a time, made no sort of hit, and in due course they were discontinued; but there seems to have been in them, and especially in the sketches, the germ of the idea, so perfectly worked out a little later by Gilbert À Beckett and Leech—though not for Punch: "The Comic History of England" and "The Comic History of Rome."

When Thackeray joined the Punch circle—or, rather, when he first wrote for it, for he was not on the Staff for some little time—he entered, with the credentials of "Fraser" and the "Irish Sketch Book," into a company of which several members were already his friends, who, knowing him as a humorist with both pen and pencil, were glad to secure so useful a man as contributor. "Very early in the work," writes Landells in his private papers, which lie before me, "Mr. Mayhew was desirous to secure his co-operation, and it was rather singular that the first paper which the great man contributed to Punch was rejected as unsuitable."

This was hardly correct: it would be more accurate to say that the first extended series was suddenly cut short. The circumstances of the extinction of Miss Tickletoby are shown in the following letter by Thackeray, which has been placed at my disposal by Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew:—

Halverstown, Kildare,
Sept. 27, 1842.

Gentlemen,

Your letter, containing an enclosure of £25, has been forwarded to me, and I am obliged to you for the remittance. Mr. Lemon has previously written to me to explain the delay, and I had also received a letter from Mr. Landells, who told me, what I was sorry to learn, that you were dissatisfied with my contributions to "Punch." I wish that my writings had the good fortune to please everyone; but all I can do, however, is to do my best, which has been done in this case, just as much as if I had been writing for any more dignified periodical.

But I have no wish to continue the original agreement made between us, as it is dissatisfactory to you and, possibly, injurious to your work; and shall gladly cease Mrs. [sic] Tickletoby's Lectures, hoping that you will be able to supply her place with some more amusing and lively correspondent.

I shall pass the winter either in Paris or in London where, very probably, I may find some other matter more suitable to the paper, in which case I shall make another attempt upon "Punch."—Meanwhile, gentlemen, I remain, your very obedient Servant,

W. M. Thackeray.

Gradually, however, and by sure degrees, Thackeray fell into the spirit of the paper, and became known to the general public first as a "Punch man," and then as "the Punch man," and for some time recognised by that, rather than by his work in other directions. He became more and more highly appreciated as one of those who contributed to that speciality of humour for which Punch had already established a reputation while creating a demand. All the while, during the first ten years, he regarded the paper as a sort of stepping-stone to an independent literary position; and he was not very long in using his opportunity for making a reputation equal to that of Jerrold himself—but a literary, and in no sense a political one. Jerrold, whose influence was political quite as much as literary and dramatic, undoubtedly did a good deal of unconscious service in spurring Thackeray with the spirit of emulation. It has already been pointed out how little love was lost between the two men at the weekly Dinner, and how Jerrold sped his galling little shafts of clever personalities at Carlyle's "half-monstrous Cornish giant;" how, in short, they were, and remained to the end, the friendliest and most amiable of enemies.

Vizetelly has recorded how Thackeray would tear the postal-wrapper nervously from the newly-delivered Punch in order to "see what Master Douglas has to say this week"—(there is a world of dislike and scorn in that courtesy-title of "Master")—and how, when he gave a lunch in honour of the French humorous draughtsman "Cham," he invited "Big" Higgins, Tom Taylor, Richard Doyle, and Leech, all Punch men, to meet him, but neither Mark Lemon nor Jerrold, for "Young Douglas, if asked, would most likely not come; but if he did, he'd take especial care that his own effulgence should obscure all lesser lights." It was not Arcedeckne, I am assured by Mr. Cuthbert Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede's" son), but Jerrold, who, in Mark Lemon's hearing, crushingly criticised Thackeray's first public reading to the lecturer's face, with the laconic remark, "Wants a piano!" Thackeray, as we all know, was free enough himself in his criticisms of his own features, and his many sketches of his dear old broken nose are familiar enough to every lover of the man. Yet he was not best pleased when he entered the Punch dining-room a little late, apologising for his unpunctuality through having been detained at a christening, at which he had stood sponsor to his friend's boy, to be met with Jerrold's pungent exclamation—"Good Lord, Thackeray! I hope you didn't present the child with your own mug!" And still less was he flattered when he heard that, on its being reported in the Punch office that he was "turning Roman," simply because he defended Doyle's secession, Jerrold tartly remarked that "he'd best begin with his nose." (Jerrold, by the way, uses the same conceit in a letter to Sir Charles Dilke when repeating a rumour of the attempted conversion of the novelist by "Lady ——.") These and many more sardonic thrusts would amply account for Thackeray's dislike; yet that the men's relations were not half so disagreeable as has generally been believed is shown by the fact of Thackeray coming up specially to town from his lecturing tour in order to support Jerrold on the night of his election at the Reform Club, and delightedly exclaiming, when the result was known—"We've got the little man in!" Nor would he, perhaps, have shown himself and Jerrold, in the accompanying cut, listening in fraternal shame-facedness and disgust to a fellow-passenger declaiming against the wickedness and profanity of Punch.

From the beginning, one of Thackeray's strong points on the Staff was that he was a "pen-and-pencil man," that he worked indifferently as artist or as writer, and not only as a writer, but as a prose-and-poem man. It has been said, with authority, that Thackeray never illustrated any articles but his own; but that is wholly incorrect. If you open Volume VIII., at p. 266, you will find a drawing of his showing Jack Tar and his Poll waltzing an accompaniment to an article on the "Debate on the Navy," which was written by Gilbert À Beckett. To the same writer's chapter on "The Footman," in his series of "Punch's Guide to Servants" (p. 40, Volume IX.), is a characteristic illustration by Thackeray, and again on the following page to "The Gomersal Museum." A little farther on, on p. 56, is a clever cut of a lovers' tÊte-À-tÊte beside a tea-table, to accompany Percival Leigh's ballad of "The Lowly Bard to his Lady Love;" and many similar results will reward a more extended search.

Thackeray's own opinion of his powers as a draughtsman is not easy to determine. We know, of course, from his own lips, his (? affected) surprise at Dickens not finding his art good enough to illustrate "Pickwick" vice Seymour, deceased. But in the interval between this application in 1836 and his later work he probably came to a more critical estimate of the real value of his draughtsmanship—that work which had been so laboriously and earnestly evolved from his studies in the Louvre and elsewhere. When Vizetelly was engraving Thackeray's designs to "Mrs. Perkin's Ball," which on account of their unsophisticated artistic character, were re-touched by a clever young draughtsman, the artist wrote that there was a "je ne sais quoi" in his "vile drawing" which was worth retaining. "Somehow," he said, "I prefer my Nuremberg dolls to Mr. Thwaites's superfine wax models." After Edmund Yates had started that brilliant little journal or magazine, which was not destined, however, to live as long as it deserved, Thackeray wrote to him: "You have a new artist on 'The Train,' I see, my dear Yates. I have been looking at his work, and I have solved a problem. I find there is a man alive who draws worse than myself!" Yet he continued to draw for Punch with zeal; but when an acquaintance told him, probably in all sincerity, "but you can draw," Thackeray brusquely put down the compliment to the toadyism of a "snob." Trollope declares that Thackeray "never learned to draw—perhaps, never could have learned;" but he did not see that in the art of illustration, especially of a humorous character, there is something more important than academic correctness and technical mastery. He moved his pencil slowly, with a deliberate broad touch, without haste, and with no more attempt at refinement than was natural to him. Yet his hand was capable of astonishing delicacy of touch; and I have seen the Lord's Prayer written by him one day at the Punch Table, within the space of a threepenny-piece, which is a marvel of legibility. There is a character about Thackeray's work—his "je ne sais quoi"—that makes us forgive him his glaring faults—indeed, we almost come to love him for them—when once we have frankly recognised that it was in great measure his facility in drawing that was his artistic ruin. There is always something of the caricaturist in his most serious and important sketches—most of all, perhaps, in his etchings. It is in his smallest cuts that he is seen to the best advantage, and in them he occasionally challenges comparison with Doyle and Leech himself.

In the execution of his Punch sketches, in nearly all the three hundred and eighty of them, Thackeray was as summary as in the turning of a ballad, and I describe elsewhere how he would make a drawing on the wood while the engraver waited and chatted over a cigar. It was clearly not his opinion that, as is nowadays adjudged to be the proper course, elaborate studies should first be made from the life-model, even for the execution of a simple Punch picture. He preferred, when possible, to confine his pencil to the illustration of his own text; but on occasion he would produce a "social" cut—a drawing, that is to say, with a joke printed beneath. Sometimes it would be in the manner of Leech, as in the joke in Volume IX. (p. 3) called "The Ascot Cup Day," wherein a hot-potato-seller asks a small boy with a broom, "Why are you on the crossing, James? Is your father Hill?" and is informed "No. He's drove mother down to Hascot." More personal was such work as "The Stags, a Drama of To-day," in which a retired thimblerigger and an unfortunate costermonger, under a magnificent alias, take advantage of the railway mania to make their application for shares—for which they could not pay, of course, if things went wrong—in accordance with the game of "heads I win, tails I vanish," at that time extensively played throughout the country. Later on (in Volume XV.), following "The Heavies," he gave, in seven scenes, a panorama of an "Author's Miseries." In 1847 (Volume XII., p. 59) Thackeray contributed a "social" picture which is to this day a wonder to all beholders. It is entitled "Horrid Tragedy in Private Life," and represents a room in which two ladies, or a lady and a servant, are in a state of the greatest alarm. What the meaning of it all is there is nothing whatever to indicate (unless it be that something has fallen on the taller lady's dress); and on its appearance the "Man in the Moon" offered a reward of £500 and a free pardon to anyone who would publish an explanation. The reward was never claimed; and Thackeray's contribution remains one of Punch's Prize Puzzles, unsolved, and, apparently, unsolvable.

It was in No. 137—that notable part which contained "The Song of the Shirt"—that Thackeray appeared in his own right, as belonging not only to the Staff, but to the Table. The contribution was a "Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain;" and with it Thackeray took his place at the Dinner as an excellent substitute for Albert Smith. That writer, who had found his successor "a very jolly fellow with no High Art about him," and a charming companion at "the Cider Cellars," a month later disappeared for ever from Punch as a contributor, refiguring only in its pages from time to time as an object of attack.

Thackeray's work on Punch covered every corner of Punch's field. Burlesques of history and parodies of literature, ballads and songs, stories and jokes, papers and paragraphs, pleasantry and pathos, criticisms and conundrums, travels in the East and raillery in the West, political skits and social satire—from a column to a single line—such was the sum of Thackeray's contribution to Punch. Less prolific than either Jerrold or Gilbert À Beckett, he produced, nevertheless, an enormous amount of "copy" that was always readable, even when it was not his best. He wrote from Paris to his friend, Mrs. Brookfield (September 2nd, 1849): "I won't give you an historical disquisition in the Titmarsh manner upon this, but reserve it for Punch—for whom, on Thursday [I have written] an article that I think is quite unexampled for dulness, even in that Journal, and that beats the dullest Jerrold. What a jaunty, offhand, satiric rogue I am, to be sure—and a gay young dog!" But he did not think his work half so uninteresting as he pretended; he even regarded with satisfaction that which he produced when greatly out of the vein. "It is but a hasty letter I send you, my dear lady," he wrote to the same correspondent, in 1850, "but my hand is weary with writing 'Pendennis'—and my head boiling up with some nonsense that I must do after dinner for Punch. Isn't it strange that, in the midst of all the selfishness, that of doing one's business is the strongest of all. What funny songs I've written when fit to hang myself!"

His first contributions to Punch, after those already mentioned, were "Mr. Spec's Remonstrance," Volume IV., p. 70 (omitting "Assumption of Aristocracy," which has hitherto been credited to him, but was really sent in by Gilbert À Beckett), "Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain," with the three amusing cuts of sailors who, having found a bottle at sea, speculate as to its contents as they open it—"Sherry, perhaps," "Rum, I hope!" "Tracts, by Jove!!" Then, to select the chief and longest series, came "The History of the Next French Revolution," in nine parts (Volume VI.), contributions which were leavened by pleasant attacks levelled at Lytton, and at "Jenkins" of the "Morning Post." Then followed, in Volumes VII. and VIII., "Travelling Notes, by our Fat Contributor" (for Thackeray loved to call himself so, or "Our Stout Commissioner," or "Titmarsh," "Policeman X," "Jeames," "Paul Pindar," or other whimsical pseudonym), and "Punch in the East"—the record of a journey undertaken by Thackeray at the invitation of the P. and O. Company, who offered him a free passage to Egypt.

At this time the railway mania was at its height, and Thackeray took his share in Punch in stemming the fatal tide, so far as ridicule could be used to do so. One of his first papers on the subject was the "Letter from Jeames, of Buckly Square," signed by "Fitz-Jeames de la Pluche"—the famous Jeames who, first created by Thackeray in the pages of "The Britannia" in 1841, under the title of "Mr. Yellowplush, my lord's body-servant," began in the same Vol. IX. (1845) his immortal "Diary." One of the successes of this epistle was what, to Thackeray's delight, was seriously complained of as the "deplorable" inaccurate orthography of the illiterate flunkey. Thackeray was certainly not the first to use the device, but he was the first to achieve great success with it, and Arthur Sketchley, Artemus Ward, Mr. Deputy Bedford ("Robert"), and all the American humorists who have adopted the same idea, are but followers where the great Titmarsh led. Jeames's weakness became a strength in Thackeray's hands, and at one time was turned with effect upon Sir Isaac Pitman's "Spelling Reform," which was then a novel butt for the satirist. The incident has been thus gravely recorded in the pages of the "Phonetic Journal":—

There is little wonder that Thackeray seized on the comic side of this movement, for whimsical spelling always delighted him. On one occasion, indeed, he was so proud of an uncompromising cold that had "sat down" in his head that he wrote to a friend in these terms:—"Br. Lettsob (attachÉ to the Egglish Legatiob at Washigtol) has beel kild elough to probise to dile with be ol Bulday lext at 6 o'clock—if you would joil hib aid take a portiol of a plail joilt ald a puddl, it wd. give great pleasure."

"The Snobs of England" began in the tenth volume, and continued through fifty-one numbers well into the twelfth. The effect of these papers was remarkable; the sensation they caused was profound. It may be compared to that of Jerrold's "Caudle Lectures," save that they appealed to a more cultivated and less demonstrative class, and were appreciated in proportion to their superior merits. The circulation of Punch rose surprisingly under their benign influence, and Thackeray did not leave the subject until he had handled it from every point of view and even carried it abroad. He was, naturally, not a little proud of his first great success, and in his unaffected manner was tempted to speak about it in Society—where more than in any other quarter the papers were appreciated. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Gordon Hake's memoirs, Thackeray broached the subject to George Borrow. He had been trying to make conversation with that strangely crotchety man, but had completely failed. So, being somewhat embarrassed, he asked him abruptly, "Have you read my 'Snob Papers' in Punch?" Borrow seemed to thaw. "In Punch," he repeated sweetly. "It is a periodical I never look at." This was as bad as the Oxford University magnate when Thackeray called upon him in 1857 in reference to his lecturing-tour and mentioned his connection with Punch, the fame of which was great in the land, as a sort of certificate of character—"Punch—Punch?" repeated the ignorant scholar, "is that not a ribald publication?" Thackeray, I may add, in order to impart local colour to his chapters on the Club Snob, with characteristic shrewdness obtained an introduction from Mr. Hampton, the secretary of the Conservative Club, to the Secretaries of the Reform and the AthenÆum, and begged their permission to inspect their complaint-books—a fact which has not before been recorded; and from them he gained such an insight into the failings of the snobbish clubman, that that portion of the work is unsurpassed for its truth to life. It is generally understood that he took Mr. Stephen Price, of the Garrick Club, as the model for Captain Shandy, and that his type of the sporting snob was Mr. Wyndham Smith.

There is not much doubt that Thackeray was a little—if ever so little—of a snob himself, and Jerrold's suspicion of him was to that extent justified. He did not show it so much by going into Society, for, as he said to a friend, "If I don't go out and mingle in Society, I can't write"—just as Mr. du Maurier goes out in order to study his world, and as Leech rode to hounds for the sake of his health and work. But Thackeray, who was the writer of some of the most caustic articles on "Jenkins"—(under which name Punch habitually attacked the "Morning Post," the aristocratic airs of which were to him a perpetual provocation)—seemed to take a little more interest in Society than mere curiosity or policy required; and was once thrown heavily in an encounter with the "Post's" reporter. Henry Vizetelly retells the story well in his "Looking Back through Seventy Years":—

In another version of the same story it is recorded that when Thackeray pronounced his name to Rumsey Forster, the latter dramatically retorted, "And I, sir, am Mr. Jenkins"—an account far more artistic, if somewhat less faithful.

After the "Snobs" were finished and the evergreen "Mahogany Tree," in Volume XII., "Punch's Prize Novelists" were begun in April, 1847. In their way these parodies have never been excelled, and the fourth of the series—"Phil Fogarty," by "Harry Rollicker"—was so excellent a burlesque that Charles Lever, on reading this story of the hero of "the fighting onety-oneth," good-humouredly declared that he "might as well shut up shop;" and he actually did change, thenceforward, the manner of his books. These "Prize Novels" continued into the following volume, in which "Travels in London" were begun. These ran into Volume XIV., 1848, in which year their author received from Edinburgh a testimonial from eighty of his Scottish admirers. This took the shape of a silver inkstand in the form of Mr. Punch's person, and greatly resembled that which a similar subscription had already procured for Mark Lemon. It drew from Thackeray a charming letter in acknowledgment. Then followed "A Dinner at Timmins's" (Volumes XIV.-XV.) and "Bow Street Ballads" (Volume XV.), 1848, "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Man about Town" (Volume XVI.), and "Mr. Brown's Letters to his Son" (Volume XVII.), 1849; "The Proser" (Volumes XVIII.-XIX.), 1850, and "Important from the Seat of War" (Volumes XXVI.-XXVII.), 1854. These papers, with the exception of "Mr. Punch to an Eminent Personage" (Volume XXVII., p. 110) and "A Second Letter to an Eminent Personage" (Volume XXVII., p. 113), were the last Thackeray ever wrote for Punch. The statement of his biographers that in the year 1850, "If we except one later flicker in 1854, Thackeray's long connection with Punch died out," is totally incorrect, for in 1851 there are forty-one literary items and a dozen cuts to his credit. But from that time until 1854 he only contributed "The Organ Boy's Appeal" (Volume XXV., p. 144), and thenceforward we hear no more of "Policeman X," of Maloney and his Irish humour, of the Frenchman on whom, in spite of himself, he was always so severe, no more of Jeames, Jenkins, or the rest of the puppets who lived for us under his manipulation.[40]

The labour of producing his Punch work was often irksome to him in the extreme, and many a time would he put Mark Lemon off—now, because he was so well in the swim with his novel then in hand that he begged hard to be let off, and again, because the Muse was coy and would not on any account be wooed. On one occasion he wrote explaining with what weariness he had been battening rhymes for three hours in his head, and could get nothing out: "I must beg you to excuse me," he ingeniously added, "for I've worked just as much for you as though I had done something." At other times he would break away from the company he was in, in order to complete his regulation number of columns. His godson, afterwards the Rev. Francis Thackeray, has told us how the great man once took him to a conjuring entertainment and, having secured him a good place, explained "Now, I must leave you awhile, and go and make a five-pound note." And in such a manner, in haste and with disinclination, was often produced what James Hannay calls "the inimitable, wise, easy, playful, worldly, social sketch of Thackeray."

Although, as a rule, Thackeray preferred social to political satire, he would sometimes point an epigram with sharp effect. For example, in 1845, the disclosure in the "Freeman" of J. Young's letter, to the discomfiture of the Whigs and Lord Melbourne, suggested to Thackeray the line: "Young's Night Thought—Wish I hadn't franked that letter!" Its appearance in Punch caused Mr. Sparkes to buttonhole the writer at the Reform Club, and excitedly dilate on the mischief that was being done to the Party by such very public and sarcastic means. Thackeray burst out laughing—"the mountain shook," says the historian—but felt a little genuine pleasure at the circumstance all the same.

As success and public recognition came to him for his novels—the success for which he had worked so hard—his disinclination to work for Punch increased. No doubt the policy of the paper had something to do with it; but there can be little question that the great fame and reward he derived from novel writing made more occasional work distasteful to him, and in 1854—the year of "The Newcomes"—Thackeray corrected his last proof for Punch. He had foreseen it for some time, for in 1849 he had written to Mrs. Brookfield from Paris, "What brought me to this place? Well, I am glad I came; it will give me a subject for at least six weeks in Punch" ["Paris Revisited," &c.], "of which I was getting so weary that I thought I must have done with it." Five years afterwards he wrote to the same lady: "What do you think I have done to-day? I have sent in my resignation to Punch. There appears in next Punch an article so wicked, I think, by poor —— [? Jerrold] that upon my word I don't think I ought to pull any longer in the same boat with such a savage little Robespierre. The appearance of this incendiary article put me in such a rage that I could only cool myself with a ride in the park." Writing a long while afterwards for the public eye, he said, "Another member of Punch's Cabinet, the biographer of Jeames, the author of the 'Snob papers,' resigned his functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger he thought it was unpatriotic to arouse"—being thus in Punchian policy, if not in motive, in entire accord with Mr. Ruskin.

A more complete and emphatic statement of the facts, as Thackeray viewed them, will be found in the subjoined letter from the novelist to one of the Punch proprietors, which, by their courtesy, is here printed for the first time:—

"March 24th, 1855.
"36, Onslow Sqre.

"My Dear Evans,

"I find a note of yours dated Feb. 5, in wh. F.M.E.[41] states that my account shall be prepared directly. F.M.E. has a great deal to do and pay and think of, but W. M. T. has also his engagements.

"I hope your 'Poetry of Punch' will not be published before my collected Ballads—Now remember (you wrote me a letter expressly on the subject) that the Copyright of all articles in 'Punch' were mine, by stipulation—and my book would be very much hurt by the appearance of another containing 3/4 of its contents.

"I met Murray the publisher the other day, and cannot help fancying from his manner to me that there is a screw loose with him too about that unlucky Leech article. Lemon, answering one of my letters, said that he personally complained that my account of leaving 'Punch' was not correct.

"There was such a row at the time, and I was so annoyed at the wrong that I had done, that I thought I had best leave Lemon's remonstrance for a while and right it on some future occasion. I recall now to you and beg you to show to him and to any other persons who may have received a different version of the story—what the facts were. I had had some serious public differences with the Conduct of 'Punch'—about the abuse of Prince Albert and the Chrystal [sic] Palace at wh. I very nearly resigned, about abuse of Lord Palmerston, about abuse finally of L. Napoleon—in all which 'Punch' followed the 'Times,' wh. I think and thought was writing unjustly at that time, and dangerously for the welfare and peace of the Country.

"Coming from Edinburgh I bought a 'Punch' containing the picture of a Beggar on Horseback, in wh. the Emperor was represented galloping to hell with a sword reeking with blood. As soon as ever I could after my return (a day or 2 days after), I went to Bouverie St., saw you and gave in my resignation.

"I mention this because I know the cause of my resignation has been questioned at 'Punch'—because this was the cause of it. I talked it over with you in, and Leech saw me coming out of your room, and I told him of my retirement.

"No engagement afterwards took place between us; nor have I ever been since a member of 'Punch's' Cabinet, so to speak. Wishing you all heartily well, I wrote a few occasional papers last year—and not liking the rate of remuneration, wh. was less than that to wh. I had been accustomed in my time, I wrote no more.

"And you can say for me as a reason why I should feel hurt at your changing the old rates of payment made to me—that I am not a man who quarrels about a guinea or two except as a point of honour; and that when I could have had a much larger sum than that wh. you gave me for my last novel—I preferred to remain with old friends, who had acted honourably and kindly by me.

"I reproach myself with having written 1/2 a line regarding my old 'Punch' Companions—which was perfectly true, wh. I have often said—but which I ought not to have written. No other wrong that I know of have I done. And I think it is now about time that my old friends and publishers should set me right.

"Yours very faithfully, dear Evans,

"W. M. Thackeray.

"F. M. Evans, Esq."

Yet, though he resigned, he would still from time to time attend the Dinners, at which he was always made welcome by the publishers and his late colleagues. When, during this period, he was pleading for assistance for the family of one of the Staff who had passed away, he took pleasure in admitting that—"It is through my connection with Punch that I owe the good chances that have lately befallen me, and have had so many kind offers of help in my own days of trouble that I would thankfully aid a friend whom death has called away." So, although he was no longer to be identified with the paper, Thackeray—"the great Thackeray" he had become—was bound to it and to several members of the Staff by ties of intimate affection, and his sudden death came with stunning force upon them all. To Leech it was as his own death-knell; and when he, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, Horace Mayhew, "Jacob Omnium," and John Tenniel stood round his grave, they felt, I have been told, as if the glory of Punch had been irremediably dimmed. No verses ever penned by Punch's poets to the memory of one of their dead brethren ever breathed more love or more beauty of thought than those in which Thackeray was mourned, and defended against the charge of cynicism—" ... a brave, true, honest gentleman, whom no pen but his own could depict as those who knew him could desire":—