M. H. Spielmann

William Harvey—Mr. Birket Foster—Kenny Meadows—His Joviality—Alfred "Crowquill"—Sir John Gilbert—Exit "Rubens"—HablÔt Knight Browne ("Phiz")—Henry Heath—Mr. R. J. Hamerton—W. Brown—Richard Doyle—Desires Pseudonymity—His Protest against Punch's "Papal Aggression" Campaign—Withdraws—His Art—Epitaph by Punch—Henry Doyle—T. Onwhyn—"Rob Roy" Macgregor—William McConnell—Sir John Tenniel—His Career—And Technique—His Early Work—Cartoons—His Art—His Memory and its Lapses—"Jackides"—Knighthood.

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

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

An unprecedented, and an unrepeated, incident occurred in 1842. In that year there appeared a number of drawings by Gavarni (apart from those re-drawn by Mr. Birket Foster), and something has been made by commentators of the early enterprise of the Editor in inviting the contributions of the eminent French master of caricature. But as a matter of fact Gavarni was not invited at all, nor did he ever draw for Punch. These blocks, and the one by Gagniet, had simply been bought up by the publishers, and used after they had appeared in "Les Parisiens peints par Eux-MÊmes" as well as in the English translation of 1840. The use of clichÉs, it should be stated, has never since been resorted to. When Gavarni did make a prudence-visit to England in 1847 he held aloof from Punch, perhaps on account of his former connection with "The Great Gun." His principal achievement here was to offend the Queen, Thackeray, Dickens, and others, by coolly ignoring their proffered hospitality and friendly advances.

In this same volume first appeared a notable quintet—Kenny Meadows, Alfred "Crowquill," W. M. Thackeray, Sir John Gilbert, and "Phiz" (HablÔt Knight Browne).

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

Kenny Meadows—he dropped the preliminary "Joseph" for reasons of "professional distinction"—had first met Douglas Jerrold, in company with Laman Blanchard, in Duncombe's shop, as early as 1828, and in due time was employed to illustrate "Heads of the People," which Jerrold edited in 1840, and for which he had secured the co-operation of Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, Samuel Lover, William Howitt, and other literary lights. Henry Vizetelly, who knew Meadows well, wrote to me but a few months before his death of his acquaintance with the artist. "He was," said he, "witty and epigrammatic in conversation. He was a singularly incorrect and feeble draughtsman, but abounded with clever and often highly poetic ideas. Like most of the members of the Mulberry and Shakespeare Clubs, he knew all the principal passages in Shakespeare by heart long before he became an illustrator of the plays. Like many artists and literary men of the period, he was always in financial straits. Every sixpence that he earned he handed over to his wife, a quiet thriftful woman, sister of Archibald Henning, and she used to give him a small sum whenever he spent his evenings abroad in company with Macready, Laman Blanchard, John Forster, Jerrold, and others, at the Shakespeare Club. He was a little man with a feeble frame, and much addicted to convivial society." He was, indeed, a boon-companion, generous and kind-hearted, and a delightful raconteur—"happy, conversational Meadows," as Blanchard Jerrold calls him—when at the club, and a jovial roystering Bohemian when he left it.

About the time that Punch was started, Kenny Meadows was living hard by College Place, Camden Town, and one night gave a rollicking dinner to the members of the newly-formed Staff; but Hine (from whom I had the story), as a sober man of peace and quiet, declined the invitation, as was his wont, and the next day, meeting Meadows, was surprised to receive a very penitent apology for their behaviour of the previous night. "What behaviour?" asked Mr. Hine, unconscious of any possible cause of offence. "What! didn't you hear us? Where do you sleep?" "In front. Why?" "Why? Because before breaking up at three this morning we said, 'Let's give Hine three cheers to finish up with;' which we did, with an unearthly noise, and danced a solemn dance on the pavement, and sang you songs fortissimo, and altogether made a diabolical uproar." "Never heard a sound," said Hine. Meadows turned sorrowfully on his heel without a word, and for some days could not get over his disappointment that, in spite of all their best endeavours, his young friend's rest had been unbroken.

When his first two drawings appeared in "Punch's Valentines"—"Young Loves to Sell" and "The Speculative Mamma"—Meadows was already fifty-one years old, with thirty-four more of conviviality before him; he was, therefore, the Nestor of Punch's Staff, as well as its most distinguished member. "Meadows was essentially valuable to Punch," says George Hodder, who by marriage had become his nephew, "for the thoughtfulness of his designs, which were intended to portray something more than a burlesque view of a current event or a popular abuse." His delight when he made a hit was like that of a prize-winning boy; and he used to pride himself that his drawing of a butterfly at the mouth of a cannon, typifying peace—published in Punch in February, 1844—inspired Landseer with his celebrated picture entitled "Peace," in which, however, the butterfly was superseded by a lamb.

Although he was excellent as a "general utility" man, who took as naturally to tragedy as he did to farce, to subjects of squalor as to grace of beauty, to Shakespeare as to Punch, he is not to be credited with any great sense of humour, his vis comica running rather to grotesqueness than to real fun or wit. His intention was usually more admired than his achievement—in his press work, at least; and the symbolic treatment of his subjects in certain of the cartoons which he executed in 1842-3-4, such as his "Temperance Guy Fawkes," his Cruikshankian "Gin Drop" and "Water Drop," "The Irish Frankenstein," and "The Bull Frog," are to be included among Punch's early successes. But better than this sort of design he enjoyed work of a more decorative type, in which grace and humour, as he understood them, might be introduced. Of this class is his wrapper used throughout the fifth volume. (See p. 9.) But his "poetic fancy and inventive genius," which aroused the enthusiasm of many others besides the appreciative John Timbs, were not in harmony with Punch's character, nor was his fun sufficiently pointed and robust. Whilst he remained he illustrated Jerrold's "Punch's Letters to his Son" and "Complete Letter-writer," which duly received the honour of a reprint; but he left in 1844, and straightway betook himself to the hostile camp of "The Great Gun," which aspired to be Punch's chief rival, to "The Man in the Moon," and other of the Jester's numerous thorns—for of such is the spirit of caricaturists.

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

Passing over the name of Thackeray, who takes his place among the literary contributors, we come to Sir John Gilbert. His work, though slight, has spread over a longer period than that of any other Punch artist—save Sir John Tenniel, forty years later. His first contribution was the frontispiece to the second volume for 1842, which also constituted its wrapper, and was used as such for the monthly parts for many years. He continued with a few drawings to "The Natural History of Courtship" and "Punch's Letters to his Son," but his most ambitious effort was that representing the late Duke of Cambridge, coronet in hand, begging for public money as a marriage portion for his daughter. But when Jerrold's fiat went forth, "We don't want Rubens on Punch" young Gilbert turned his attention to the newly-started "Illustrated London News," on which his services were warmly welcomed and continuously employed, with such brilliant results to itself and to the black-and-white art in England. I was one day conversing with a distinguished foreign artist on the comparative merits of Gilbert and DorÉ, whose fecundity in their art was equal, and I ventured to assert the great artistic superiority of Gilbert. "You are right!" cried my enthusiastic friend, with more judgment of art than accuracy of English idiom; "Gilbert cocks DorÉ into a top-hat!"

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

In this same year of 1842 HablÔt Knight Browne, overcoming his former reluctance, began to draw for the paper. He drew its second wrapper (see p. 42)—an enormous improvement on Henning's—as well as some beautiful little comic cuts exquisitely engraved (used to illustrate "A Shillingsworth of Nonsense"), and a couple of "Punch's Valentines." In one of these—the Lawyer—the original of Mr. Squeers may be seen in the character of an orthodox pettifogging attorney perched upon a stool. But Punch could not support such twin stars as Leech and "Phiz," and the latter left in 1844 for "The Great Gun," whose leading draughtsman he became. In the pages of "The Great Gun" he illustrated Maxwell's "Memoirs of a London Latch-key;" and then, in 1850, he drew for "Life, the Mirror of the Million." In the Punch volumes for 1842, 1844, and 1852, his hand may be traced; and again in 1861, after his great illness, he turned once more to Punch. The brave worker, who would not admit his stroke of paralysis, but called it rheumatism, could still draw when the pencil was tied to his fingers and answered the swaying of his body. In 1861 are eleven of his sketches—initials, most of them; in 1862, but one or two; in the following year, sixteen; in 1864, eleven; in 1865, five; and again in 1866, 1867, 1868, seven cuts, and one in 1869; altogether, a little over three-score drawings, besides three full-page cuts in the Pocket-book of 1850. But, for all that, "Phiz" died more than half forgotten. His biographer, indeed, had never heard of his Punch work; and even the paper which had been so kind to him, and dedicated on July 22nd, 1882, two graceful obituary stanzas to "delightful Phiz—immortal Phiz," entirely forgot to mention that his facile pencil had been employed in Punch's service.

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

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

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

The Spirit is "The Comic Blackstone" (Gilbert À Beckett).
The Acid is "The Story of a Feather" (Douglas Jerrold).
The Sweet is The Great "Saxon Suggestor" (W. M. Thackeray).
The Spice is "The Sub" (Horace Mayhew).
The Water is The "Professor" (Percival Leigh).
And the Spoon is The "Editor" (Mark Lemon).

Where, then, was the art?

Mr. Hamerton was one of the few Irishmen who have worked on the paper. He had begun to teach drawing at a school in Co. Longford when he was but fourteen, and came to London to draw upon stone under the eye of Charles Hullmandel, the father of the lithographic art in England. With the exception of occasional incursions into oil and water colour—he was a popular member of the British Artists half-a-century ago—and a few years' book-illustration for the London publishers, "it was stone, stone, stone, till 1891, when the drawing on the huge stones became too much for my old back." Like his life-long friend and contemporary, Hine, he was not of Punch Punchy—at least, in respect to conviviality; and after a record of Staff service extending to 1844, with fitful contributions up to 1848, he deserted the precincts of Whitefriars, and soon after renounced wood-drawing in favour of his more lucrative employment. He had, however, already contributed ten cartoons—striking for their handling, if not at first for their finish. The majority of his subjects were Irish—such as the "Irish Ogre Fattening on the 'Finest Pisintry,'" "The Shadow Dance," "King O'Connell at Tara," "Bagging the Wild Irish Goose," and so forth—and terribly severe he was, as only an Irishman could be, on Daniel O'Connell and Lord Brougham. He illustrated À Beckett's "Comic Blackstone;" but his masterpiece in wood-draughtsmanship was his illustration of John Forster's "Life of Goldsmith" for Bradbury and Evans. Then after a couple of contributions from "W. B."—W. Brown, whose "Comic Album" was deservedly popular in its day, and whose "Statue to Jenkins" pleased Punch's readers greatly—and the cut signed "B," attributed to Thomas Hood, and another anonymous contribution by "S," there came Richard Doyle, one of the most notable acquisitions of the decade. He was the second son of the famous "[HB]," and had done capital comic work of an amateur character while still a boy. His "Comic English Histories," executed when he was only fifteen years of age, were published after his death; but he was still young when he first became known to the public. He was possessed of an extraordinary power of fanciful draughtsmanship; and his precocity is sufficiently proved by his comic illustrations to Homer, wrought at the tender age of twelve, with real humour, wealth of invention, and excellence of expression. His uncle, Mr. Conan, dramatic critic of the "Morning Herald," showed his work to his friend Mark Lemon, and Lemon forthwith requested Mr. Swain to instruct the youth in wood-draughtsmanship. So the engraver set forth with blocks and pencils to this "certain clever young son" of the once mighty "HB," who was now in a fair way of falling out of public notice. Arrived at Cambridge Terrace, he endeavoured to impart to Richard Doyle the art and mystery of drawing on the wood—how to prepare his blocks, and so forth, and to give such further information as might be required. But so nervous was the youth, who was small and thin in person, and greatly agitated in mind and manner, that he persisted in keeping his distance out of simple shyness, and literally dodged around the dining-room table, altogether too excited to lend the slightest attention to the words of his mentor. In due course, Mr. Swain tells me, the first drawing was delivered, "and a bad, smudgy thing it was, too, altogether different from the work he almost immediately contributed for the Almanac of that year." Doyle's first work in Punch consisted of the clever comic borders to the Christmas number, one of which enclosed Hood's "Song of the Shirt;" but with the illustration to the rhymed version of "Don Pasquale" he made his actual dÉbut.

He was not promoted at once to the position of cartoonist; for the first six months he contributed only one big cut to five of Leech's, and his proportion during several years that followed did not exceed one in three. His first cartoon, entitled "The Modern Sisyphus"—representing Sir Robert Peel, as the tormented one, engaged in rolling the stone (O'Connell) up the hill, with Lord John Russell and others, as the Furies, looking on—appeared on March 16th, 1844; and from that time onwards his work rapidly increased in volume. His initial-letters—an invention further developed later on by C. H. Bennett, Mr. Ernest Griset, and Mr. Linley Sambourne—and his cartoons were reinforced by the famous series of "Brown, Jones, and Robinson," "Mr. Pips hys Diary," "Bird's-eye Views of English Society," and "Ye Manners and Customs of Ye Englyshe," their manner of presentation having been created by the artist, who was forthwith dubbed by his comrades "Professor of MediÆval Design." When Doyle was first called to the Table, his punctilious father did not show any enthusiasm, being in some doubts, apparently, as to the supposed wild recklessness of those savage orgies. He wrote to the Proprietors, hoping that they would not insist upon it for a time, as his son's health was not robust. A little later Doyle himself wrote stiffly to protest against his real name having been printed on the cover of Punch contrary to his distinct request to Mark Lemon, who had promised to retain the name by which he was already known to the public—"Dick Kitcat"—as in the etched plates to Maxwell's "Hector O'Halloran." But the demand was not persisted in.

"Dicky" Doyle continued to work regularly for the paper, and his monogram signature, with a "dicky" either perched upon the top or pecking on the ground close by, was rarely absent from a single number, when the Popery scare—which had seized the popular mind towards the end of 1849—infected Punch with extraordinary virulence. So long as Mark Lemon confined his cartoons and his text to the general question of "Papal Aggression," Doyle, who was a devout Irish Catholic, held his peace; but when the very doctrine of the faith was attacked, and the Pope himself personally insulted, he severed himself regretfully but determinedly from the paper. Anterior to this, Doyle had remonstrated, but had been reminded that he himself had been permitted to caricature Exeter Hall and all its ways, so that he could not complain if the tables were turned upon his own party. Jerrold and Thackeray, says Mr. Everitt, sought to dissuade him in vain. "Look at the 'Times,'" they argued; "its language has been most violent, but the Catholic writers on its Staff do not, for that reason, resign. They understand, and the world at large understands, that the individual contributor is not responsible for the opinions expressed by other contributors in articles with which they have nothing to do.' 'That is all very well in the "Times,"' was Doyle's answer, 'but not in Punch. For the "Times" is a monarchy [I believe, these were his very words], whereas Punch is a republic.' So when a week or so later an article, attributed to Jerrold himself, jeeringly advised the Pope to 'feed his flock on the wafer of the Vatican,' it was too much for Doyle.... So he wrote to resign his connection with Punch, stating his reasons plainly and simply."

But when Doyle resigned, for reasons which earned him the respect of all who heard of them, it was not realised how strong was the undercurrent of feeling within the Punch office. It is true that at the bottom of what I may call the "Punch Aggression" were Jerrold and the Proprietors; and that the onslaught of the one, with the encouragement of the others, so profoundly wounded Doyle as to force him into sacrificing lucrative employment, and condemning him in the result to a life of toil. But for once in his career Doyle was guilty of behaviour which, if not inexcusable in the circumstances, was certainly indefensible. He left the paper in the lurch. His letter of resignation was sent in on November 27th, he having allowed the Editor to think that the blocks for the Almanac, already overdue, had all been completed; and when it was discovered that they had not been done, and that nothing was forthcoming, consternation reigned in the office. No doubt the revenge was sweet, but it was ill-judged; for while no Catholic member of the Staff has ever raised his voice in its justification, Doyle's conduct served but to increase the bitterness of the anti-Catholic feeling in Punch's Cabinet, and perhaps to produce attacks more intemperate than any that had gone before. And, moreover, it rendered more difficult the position of others of the same faith who became members of the Staff.

So Doyle quitted the paper at the close of 1850, yet his hand was seen in its pages in 1857, 1862 (four cuts), and 1864. This was a question of "old stock"—a matter which often crops up in Punch: it is not a unique circumstance to see a sketch appear many years after it was drawn, and even when the hand that has drawn it has turned to dust. In 1883 there appeared a cut by Mr. Sambourne which was made fifteen years before; and in 1894 there was published a sketch by R. B. Wallace (of the late Lord Beaconsfield) a year after the artist died and fourteen years after he had ceased to draw for the paper.

But when Doyle left Punch he would draw for none of its rivals. With the exception of the single lapse already alluded to, his conduct was always high-minded and generous; and his virtue and nobility of character have been testified to by all his friends. He declined the offer of a large sum to draw for a well-known periodical as he disapproved of the principles of its conductors; and on similar grounds he refused to illustrate a new edition of Swift. Mr. Holman Hunt has recorded his testimony as to his sterling worth. "Dicky Doyle," he tells me, "I knew affectionately. John Leech and Doyle were never very cordial, Doyle's staunch Romanism separating them. While so rigid and consistent a religionist, he was one of the most charitable of men, and would never be a party to any scandal, however much it had been provoked. I am afraid that no portrait was ever painted of him, certainly none showing his delightfully amusing laugh, which always seemed to be indulged apologetically—with the face bent into the cravat and the double chin pressed forward."

Doyle's great misfortune as an artist was that his father, cultivating the son's fancy at the expense of his training, not only would allow him no regular teaching, but would not permit him to draw from the model—nothing but "observance of Nature" and memory-drawing. The result was that Doyle remained an amateur to the end—an extremely skilful one, whose shortcomings were concealed in his charming illustrations and imaginative designs, but were startlingly revealed in his larger work and in his figure-drawing. As a draughtsman he was usually feeble, though graceful; his effects, technically speaking, were constantly false, and his drawing often as poor as Thackeray's. He was saved by his charm and sweetness, his inexhaustible fun and humour,[51] his delightful though superficial realisation of character, and his keen sense of the grotesque. When he died in December, 1883, Punch devoted to his memory a poem in which his artistic virtues are generously appreciated, but not a word is said as to the parting of their ways. From this tribute, this "reconciliation after death," I transcribe one stanza:—

In 1844 the versatile artist-dramatist, Watts Phillips, first declared himself in Punch with a few examples of his art, which George Cruikshank had fostered. They lasted up to 1846, but amounted to very little. He gave more attention to "Puck," of which Chatto was the editor; and when, a few years afterwards, he joined "Diogenes" as its cartoonist, he gave full rein to his undoubted talent.

In the same year Richard Doyle's brother Henry—better known as a distinguished member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and best of all as the grave and extremely able Director of the National Gallery of Ireland—made a number of small cuts for Punch, which were published in 1844 and the following years; but as I was informed, at the time of his death, by his elder brother James, now also dead (the chronicler, and the compiler of the "Official Baronage of England"): "The Punch episode was the merest child's play to him. His line, chosen years before, was sacred or poetic art; and his illustrations to Telemachus, done before this time, remarkable for invention and colour, were greatly admired by Prince Albert. That he drew for Punch at one time is, of course, true; but the mention of it gives a false impression of his taste and principal work at that period." Yet the spirit of humour was strong within him, for he was one of the "Great Gunners" in 1845; and from 1867 to 1869, when he was appointed to Dublin, he was cartoonist for "Fun," signing with a Hen, or "Fusbos."

Thomas Onwhyn, best known, nowadays, perhaps, by his "extra illustrations" to "Pickwick" and "Nicholas Nickleby," and by his plates to "Valentine Vox" and Cockton's other novels, began to contribute a few blocks to Punch—a fact which has hitherto been denied. His first drawing, published on p. 130, Vol. XIII. (1847), illustrates an article by Gilbert À Beckett, entitled, "The Friends Reconciled." The next was a "Social," on p. 230 of the same volume, representing a hatter's wiles and their victim. But Onwhyn was better used to the etching-needle than the pencil, and his drawing on wood was hard and unsympathetic, and his figures were usually rather strained than funny. About this time he was retiring from his position as a popular illustrator of books. Throne Crick's "Sketches from the Diary of a Commercial Traveller," embellished by Onwhyn, had just appeared; and the artist was beginning to bring out his series of albums of plates, big and small, on all sorts of humorous subjects. The time was, therefore, appropriate at which to embark on independent illustration in Punch. But in the following year he contributed not more than a sketch or two; and thenceforward, until he finally laid down his pencil in 1870, he confined his artistic efforts to his own happy ideas with but few exceptions—such as "Welcome, a Charade; by W. Shakesides" (1850). Onwhyn died so late as 1886.

For four years, if we except two or three unimportant cuts contributed by E. J. Burton in 1847-8-9, no new name appears upon the draughtsman's roll. Then John Macgregor—the celebrated "Rob Roy"—who had begun to contribute paragraphs and short articles in 1847, commenced adding sketches, such as his "Silence in the Gallery," in January, 1848. "Prince Albert's Hat" was also his, and others besides; and it is worth remarking that the proceeds of these sketches and articles were given to the police-courts, wherewith the magistrates might assist poor cases.

The year 1850 became of the first importance in the history of Punch. Not that William McConnell and his gentle art would make the year remarkable, for his early defection from Punch, and his premature death from consumption, cut short a career which promised considerably more than it achieved. Mr. Sala tells me that McConnell was a handsome little fellow, bright, alert, and full of originality. He was always exceptionally well-dressed—and with good reason, for his father, on coming over from Ireland and settling in Tottenham Court Road, resumed his trade of tailor. The youth sent in some sketches, which were highly thought of by Mark Lemon. He was turned over to Mr. Swain for some instruction in drawing on the wood, and subsequently took up his residence in the engraver's house for a time; but, not living long enough to prove his individuality, he remained to the end an imitator of Leech. Perhaps that was the reason that he drew so small a salary from Punch; at any rate, he always resented what he considered to be the contumelious and shabby treatment meted out to him by Mark Lemon. But for such money as he did receive, it must be admitted that he gave full value in the fierceness of his cartoons on Louis Napoleon. He did much book illustration, besides drawing for the Press, serious and comic—his Punch work including a couple of cartoons in 1852, among a great number of "socials." His last appearance was in July of that year. He was a good and improving draughtsman, especially of horses; and he revelled in beggars, "swells," and backgrounds.

The great acquisition of the year was John Tenniel. The paper had been left by Doyle, as I have explained, without its Almanac blocks, and it found itself, moreover, without a second cartoonist, and, what was quite as important at the moment, without an artist of distinctly decorative ability, who would provide the fanciful initial-letters, headings, and title-pages which have always been a feature in Punch. The circumstances of his joining the paper Sir John once recounted to me in conversation, with that sort of apologetic humour and true modesty that are characteristic of him:—

"I never learned drawing, except in so far as attending a school and being allowed to teach myself. I attended the Royal Academy Schools after becoming a probationer, but soon left in utter disgust of there being no teaching. I had a great idea of High Art; in fact, in 1845 I sent in a sixteen-foot-high cartoon for Westminster Palace. In the Upper Waiting Hall, or 'Hall of Poets,' of the House of Lords, I made a fresco, but my subject was changed after my work had been decided on and worked out. At Christmas, 1850, I was invited by Mark Lemon to fill the place suddenly left by Doyle, who with very good reasons for himself—that of objection to the "Papal Aggression" campaign suddenly severed his connection with Punch. Doyle had left them in great straits—the Pocket-book and Almanac to come out—and I was applied to by Lemon, on the initiation of Jerrold, to fill the breach. This was on the strength of my illustrations to Æsop's Fables, which had recently been published by Murray. I did the title and half-title to the nineteenth volume, as well as the first page-border to the Almanac, together with a few initials and odds and ends for the end of that volume, and the first illustration to the next; but only the half-title, title, and tail-piece were signed. My first cartoon was that facing page 44 in the twentieth volume; and, only signing occasionally for the first month or two, I went on from time to time doing cartoons.

"As for political opinions, I have none; at least, if I have my own little politics, I keep them to myself, and profess only those of my paper. If I have infused any dignity into cartoon-designing, that comes from no particular effort on my part, but solely from the high feeling I have for art. In any case, if I am a 'cartoonist'—the accepted term—I am not a caricaturist in any sense of the word. My drawings are sometimes grotesque, but that is from a sense of fun and humour. Some people declare that I am no humorist, that I have no sense of fun at all; they deny me everything but severity, 'classicality,' and dignity. Now, I believe that I have a very keen sense of humour, and that my drawings are sometimes really funny!

"I have now been working regularly at the weekly cartoons for Punch for close on thirty years (from 1862),[52] missing only two or three times from illness. In all that time I have hardly left London for more than a week; yet I enjoy wonderful health, doubtless to be attributed to regular riding. I carry out my work thus: I never use models or Nature for the figure, drapery, or anything else. But I have a wonderful memory of observation—not for dates, but anything I see I remember. Well, I get my subject on Wednesday night; I think it out carefully on Thursday, and make my rough sketch; on Friday morning I begin, and stick to it all day, with my nose well down on the block. By means of tracing-paper—on which I make all alterations of composition and action I may consider necessary—I transfer my design to the wood, and draw on that. The first sketch I may, and often do, complete later on as a commission. Indeed, at the present time I have a huge undertaking on hand, in which I take great delight—the finishing of scores of my sketches, of which I have many hundreds. They are for a friend—an enthusiastic admirer, if I may be permitted to say so. Well, the block being finished, it is handed over to Swain's boy at about 6.30 to 7 o'clock, who has been waiting for it for an hour or so, and at 7.30 it is put in hand for engraving. That is completed on the following night, and on Monday night I receive by post the copy of next Wednesday's paper. Although case-hardened in a sense, I have never the courage to open the packet. I always leave it to my sister, who opens it and hands it across to me, when I just take a glance at it, and receive my weekly pang. My work would be difficult to photograph on to the wood, as it is all done in pencil; the only pen-and-ink work I have done, so far, being for the Almanac and Pocket-book.[53]

"As I never have a model, I never draw from life, always when I want a portrait, a uniform, and so on, from a photograph, though not in quite the same spirit as Sambourne does. I get a photograph only of the man whom I want to draw, and seek to get his character. Then, if the photograph is in profile, I have to 'judge' the full face, and vice versÁ; but if I only succeed in getting the character, I seldom go far wrong—a due appreciation is an almost infallible guide. I had the opportunity of studying Mr. Gladstone's face carefully when he did me the honour of inviting me to dinner at Downing Street, and I have met him since; but I fancy, after my 'Mrs. Gummidge' cartoon and 'Janus,' I don't deserve to be honoured again! His face has much more character and is much stronger than Mr. Bright's. Mr. Bright had fine eyes and a grand, powerful mouth, as well as an earnest expression; but a weak nose—artistically speaking, no nose at all—still, a very intellectual face indeed."

Thus it was not only Nature, but the Pope, who marked out Tenniel for the position of Punch's Cartoonist—the greatest "Cartoonist" the world has produced. Had the Pope not "aggressed" by appointing archbishops and bishops to English Sees, and so raised the scare of which Lord John Russell and Mr. Punch really seem to have been the leaders, Doyle would not have resigned, and no opening would have been made for Tenniel. Sir John, indeed, was by no means enamoured of the prospect of being a Punch artist when Mark Lemon made his overtures to him. He was rather indignant than otherwise, as his line was high art and his severe drawing above "fooling." "Do they suppose," he asked a friend, "that there is anything funny about me?" He meant, of course, in his art, for privately he was well recognised as a humorist; and little did he know, in the moment of hesitation before he accepted the offer, that he was struggling against a kindly destiny.

John Tenniel was only sixteen years old when his first oil picture was exhibited at the Suffolk Street Galleries, and he soon became recognised, not only as a painter, but as a book and magazine illustrator of unusual skill. But he and Keene had already proclaimed themselves the humorists they were by the production of the "Book of Beauty," to which much public attention was drawn when the sketches contained in it were exhibited and sold. They had been fellow-students at the life class, and in the year 1844 were both intimate visitors at the house of their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Barrett. After dinner, when the lamp was brought in, the two young artists would amuse themselves, together with their host, by making drawings in coloured chalks. Mr. Barrett, it may be said, was a thin man, signing himself "5-12ths," in recognition of the nobler proportions of Mrs. Barrett, unquestionably his "better half." Keene chose the "Signs of the Zodiac," to begin with, as the subject of his admirable burlesques, Tenniel having already selected quotations from Shakespeare, history, poetry, and so forth, the humour which he infused into them being equal to anything he afterwards produced in Punch. But it may interest the present owners of these highly-prized productions to know that those who produced them thought very little of them as art, while Sir John expressed the greatest surprise that in their rubbed condition they should attract any notice whatever. As early proofs, however, of the comic faculty of two of Punch's giants, they were interesting and valuable designs; while, so far as Sir John's work was concerned, they were the forerunners of the extremely humorous illustrations of Shakespearian quotations with which he advanced his reputation and his position on the paper.

No sooner had the severe young classicist determined to accept the position offered him in Punch's band, than Mr. Swain was requested to wait upon him in Newman Street, and instruct him in the art of drawing upon wood. But he found that Tenniel, the illustrator of the Rev. Thomas James's edition of Æsop's Fables, published by John Murray in 1848, was already a brilliant expert. The accomplished young draughtsman soon took keen delight in the smooth face of a block, and at once began—and ever continued—to demand a degree of smoothness that was the despair of Swain to procure. Tenniel, indeed, always drew with a specially-manufactured six-H pencil—which appears more impressive with its proper style of "H H H H H H"—and so delicate was the drawing that, firm and solid as were the lines, it looked as if you could blow it off the wood. The result is that Swain has always interpreted Sir John Tenniel's work, not simply facsimile'd it, aiming rather at producing what the artist intended or desired to have, than what he actually provided in his exquisite grey drawings. So Swain would thicken his lines while retaining their character, just as he would reduce Mr. Sambourne's, particularly in the flesh parts, and otherwise bring the resources of the engraver's art to bear upon the work of the masters of the pencil. Doubtless the artists might deplore the "spoiling" of their lines; but pencil greys are not to be reproduced in printer's ink—they must be "rendered." And though, as artists, draughtsmen may groan under the transitional process, they realise that in submitting their work to the wood-cutter's craft, they must take its drawbacks along with its advantages.

The first drawing by Tenniel in the bound volume is, as he says, the frontispiece to the second half-yearly volume for 1850, but his actual first contribution the initial on p. 224 of that volume. Perhaps the most notable thing about it is the extraordinary resemblance between the artist's work at the beginning and at the end of his career. Of course, it is much "tighter;" it is much younger. But the hand and method are strangely unchanged. It is beautiful in its exquisite precision and its refinement, and altogether superior in its character to what its creator, in a spirit of severe self-criticism, chooses to believe. "My first cartoon," he wrote to me, "was 'Lord Jack the Giant-Killer'—and awfully bad it is; in fact, all my work, at that particular time, now seems to me about as bad as bad could be, and fills me with wonder and amazement!!" But this cartoon, continuing the Papal campaign so hateful to Doyle, by showing Lord John Russell with his sword of truth and liberty attacking the crozier-armed Cardinal Wiseman, was greatly inferior to the smaller contributions. His improvement, however, was rapid. Tenniel's first "half-page social" is on p. 218 of the same volume; while in 1852 we have his first superb Lion, and his first obituary cartoon. Gradually he took over the political big cut, which Leech was happy to place in his hands; but during the long years that they worked together the two men were admirable foils to one another. Leech sketched and Tenniel drew; Leech gave us farce and drama, and Tenniel, high comedy and tragedy; and the freedom of the one heightened the severer beauties of the other. And when Leech died, his friend continued the labour alone. Except in 1864, 1868, and 1875-6-7-8, in which last-named year he took his first holiday from Punch work and went with Mr. Silver to Venice—(during his illness or absence Charles Keene contributed thirteen cartoons[54])—and again in 1884 and 1894 (when Mr. Sambourne twice took over the duty), he has never, from that day to this present time of writing, missed a single week. Nearly two thousand cartoons, initials innumerable, "socials," double-page cartoons for the Almanac and other special numbers, and two hundred and fifty designs for the Pocket-books—such is the record of the great satirist's career; and the only change has been in the direction of freedom of pencil and breadth of artistic view.

Of his work little need be said here, for in its main bearings it has already been fully considered. But acknowledgment must at least be made of how, with all his sense of fun and humour, Sir John Tenniel has dignified the political cartoon into a classic composition, and has raised the art of politico-humorous draughtsmanship from the relative position of the lampoon to that of polished satire—swaying parties and peoples, too, and challenging comparison with the higher (at times it might almost be said the highest) efforts of literature in that direction. The beauty and statuesque qualities of his allegorical figures, the dignity of his beasts, and the earnestness and directness of his designs, apart from the exquisite simplicity of his work at its best, are things previously unknown in the art of which he is the most accomplished master, standing alone and far ahead of any of his imitators. The Teutonic character and the academic quality of his work, modified by the influence of Flaxman and the Greeks, are no blemishes; one does not even feel that he draws entirely from memory. Indeed, the things are completely satisfying as the work of a true artist, and—a quality almost as grateful and charming as it was previously rare—of a gentleman.

Yet this practice of drawing from memory has its drawbacks; for the things remembered are apt to grow old-fashioned. The Flying Dutchman was running when Sir John's locomotive still had the odour of Puffing Bilfy about it. His indifference to that "actuality" which is the characteristic of Mr. Sambourne has often raised the howl of the specialist. When in an excellently drawn cartoon full of point (November, 1893), entitled "A Bicycle made for Two," he grafted the features of a modern roadster on to the type of 1860, the cycling world fluttered in a manner that must have been very encouraging to the artist. His machine, they said, was the most wonderful one ever placed on the market. Sir H. H. Fowler, it was said, was sitting on a half-inch tube without a saddle, and "working with his heels on pedals shaped like a Mexican gaucho's stirrup"—but his critics had clearly never seen a gaucho's stirrup. "Nor has the lady—riding behind, instead of in front—better accommodation, being in suspension over a frame that lacks a backstay, and above a wheel that buckles under her weight; while the handles are thrown up instead of down, and their bars so slender that they must inevitably break." The gear-case is on one side of the frame and the chain on the other, and the frame itself was a marvel of ingenuity misapplied. Thus did the cyclists moan in many newspapers, taking the matter au grand sÉrieux, with quite unusual regard for mechanical accuracy, and a total disregard for the political allusion and point. Similarly in January of the same year the "Forlorn Maiden" of trade was shown lying across the railway lines while an engine is bearing down upon her. But "there are five rails in sight, all at equal distances apart, though the railway gauge is four feet eight inches and a half, and the locomotive is running on the six-foot way." The girl, too, stretches across it, and spans it from waist to ankles, not counting a bend at the knees, so that at the lowest estimate she is ten feet high. This violated the public conscience even more than the fact that the engine rushes along the inside line of the two sets of rails; and they declared that never before had the maxim ars longa been more triumphantly indicated than in the maiden's figure. But what of it all? Is it not a striking commentary on our English temperament, that while an inaccuracy of a purely mechanical description raises the protests of thousands who have no idea beyond the parts of a bicycle or the width of a railway gauge, a score of artistic beauties pass unnoticed and unchallenged?

And so Tenniel worked his way upwards. The fact that in a fencing bout he had partially lost his sight, through the button of his father's foil dropping off, whereupon he received the point in his eye, was not the slightest deterrent. He regarded it merely as an annoying, though not a very important, incident. Being satisfied that the Almighty had only given us two eyes as a measure of precaution, to provide against such vexatious little accidents as he had experienced, he went on working as if nothing had happened. "It's a curious thing, is it not," he said one day to the writer, "that two of the principal men on Punch, du Maurier and I, have only two eyes between them?" Yet it only made him the more careful. Free from mannerism, he never allowed carefulness to interfere with fun, and his cartoon of Britannia discovering the source of the Nile, and of Lord Beaconsfield as a peri entering the Paradise of Premiership, are among the memorably funny things of Punch. His elevation to the leading position on the paper has thus been gradual and certain; not of his own assumption, however, but the ready tribute of his colleagues, who have always regarded him not only as the great artist, but as the link incarnate of the tradition of Punch of the present with the past. So he is the favourite of the band, to whom he is the beloved "Jackides" of Shirley Brooks's christening. It was Mark Lemon who, at the Dinner, first applied to him the burlesque line—"No longer Jack, henceforth Jackides call;" but it was Brooks who confirmed the practice of according to him the sobriquet which Punch (p. 148, Vol. XLV.) had previously conferred on Lord John Russell, "England's Briefest Peer."

It was a startling proof of his extraordinary, and by him half-unsuspected, popularity, that when Tenniel's knighthood became known the honour was received with loud and general applause—with an enthusiasm quite unusual in its command of popular approval. "I am receiving shoals of letters and telegrams," he wrote to me on the day of the announcement; "I suppose you know the reason Y." It is said that Lord Salisbury had intended to make the recommendation himself, but that the nomination was delayed and forgotten; but when Mr. Gladstone came into office the new Premier repaired the neglect of the old, and at the same time acknowledged the steady support which Punch had offered to the Whig policy. By the general public it was regarded as an appreciation of the man who was the personification of the good-humoured and the loftier side of political life—who had brought the Punch spirit round to something a good deal better and higher than he found it, blending fun with classic grace, and humour with dignity. To the art world it was the recognition of that "Black-and-white" drawing which has been the glory of England and the Cinderella of the Royal Academy of Arts. It was in this sense that Sir John Tenniel accepted the distinction. But it was to "Jackides" that the Punch Staff drank when Mr. Agnew proposed his health at the Dinner following the announcement of the nomination; it was "dear old John Tenniel" that the Arts Club toasted when, with Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., in the chair and Mr. du Maurier in the vice-chair, the new knight was the honoured guest of his club, and received its congratulations with the modest dignity and kindly good taste characteristic of him. And it was "good Sir John," the cartoonist—who has also been, at extremely rare intervals, a Punch writer too (see Punch, p. 56, Vol. XX.)—who was celebrated by the pen of Mr. Milliken—"the Pride of Mr. Punch and the delight of the British Public."