M. H. Spielmann

Shirley Brooks—His Wit and Humour—Training—Lays Siege to Punch—And Carries him by Assault—"Essence of Parliament"—William Brough—Mr. Beatty Kingston—F. I. Scudamore—M. J. Barry—Dean Hole—Mr. Charles L. Eastlake—Mr. Francis Cowley Burnand—His Little Joke with Cardinal Manning—"Fun"—"Mokeanna"—Its Success—Thackeray's Congratulations to Punch—"Happy Thoughts"—And Other Happy Thoughts—Mr. Burnand as a Ground-Swell—Promoted to the Editorship—The Apotheosis of the Pun—Mr. J. Priestman Atkinson—Mr. John Hollingshead—Mr. R. F. Sketchley—"Artemus Ward" —A Death-bed Ambition—H. Savile Clarke—Locker-Lampson and C. S. Calverley—Miss Betham-Edwards—Mr. du Manner's "Vers Nonsensiques" —Mr. A. P. Graves—Rev. Stainton Moses—Mr. Arthur W. À Beckett—"A. Briefless, Junior"—Mortimer Collins—Mr. E. J. Milliken—"The 'Arry Papers"—Gilbert À Beckett—"How we Advertise Now"—Mr. H. F. Lester—Mr. Burnand and the Corporal.

Shirley Brooks—he dropped his first names of Charles William—was perhaps the most brilliant and useful all-round man who ever wrote for Punch. His rapidity was extraordinary. The clergyman who boasted that he could write a sermon in an hour "and think nothing of it" courted the reply that probably the congregation thought nothing of it either. But the single hour in which Brooks began and finished the composition of his "Rime of the Ancient Alderman" (1855)—a poem of fifty stanzas, that fills nine pages in his volume of selected work—brought him criticism of a different sort. His facility was not less astonishing, and I have heard repeated some of his flashes of epigram enclosed in polished verse which it would be hard to believe were extempore but for the circumstances under which they were inspired. Indeed, his fancy, like himself, was a diamond of great fire and high polish, and rich by bounteous favour of nature. He was as witty as Jerrold without the sting; but, when he chose, he could strike as hard, and, as he himself once said, never care "a horse's mamma."

He had been articled to a solicitor, but he preferred the comic muse, and Punch on "Joe Miller" was more to him than Coke upon Littleton. His humorous prose and graceful witty verse were cast upon the waters of the comic press. He was thirty-two before he had his best chance of making himself widely known in the line he especially loved. This was in 1847, when he began to write for the "Man in the Moon," which was just started under the editorship of two Punch men—Albert Smith and Angus B. Reach. For the latter he had a close and tender friendship. When Reach fell ill, Brooks did all his journalistic work for months, and would touch not a penny of the money; as the cheques arrived, they were immediately forwarded for the benefit of the sufferer. He was his colleague on the "Morning Chronicle," for which Brooks was gallery-reporter in the House of Commons for five sessions as well as leader-writer, and when Reach was sent through France on an expedition of inquiry into the condition of the agricultural classes, Brooks was despatched through South Russia, Asia Minor, and Egypt. And in 1852 he wrote in conjunction with him "A Story with a Vengeance," which was partly illustrated by Charles Keene; but the artist was at that time so little known that it was not considered worth the publisher's while to mention his name.

Under Reach's editorship, then, he appeared in the "Man in the Moon," and the next year (1848) in Hannay's "Puppet Show." It was for the pages of the former (November, 1847) that Brooks wrote one of the severest assaults on Punch ever published—the more severe for the excellence of its quality. It was entitled "Our Flight with Punch" (in imitation of Tom Taylor's "Flight with Russell" and his far less happy "Flight with Louis Philippe," in Punch, August and October, 1847, Volume XIII.), in which the "Man in the Moon" was supposed to fly, genie-like, with Punch over the land which at one time he ruled with his wit; and the "Dreary Hunchback," as he was apostrophised, was caustically besought to awake and stem the tide of his supposed degeneration. It is hardly surprising that this poem, clever as it is, was not reprinted in the posthumous collection of the writer's poems.

But not immediately did he conquer his position. There were still years to wait, which were occasionally occupied with a pleasing attack on Punch, one of which, it is said, drew from Leech his picture of two little "snobs" in a low coffee-house. "Punch is very dummy and slow this week, I think," says the first disreputable-looking "fast man." "So do I," replies the other. "It's their own fault, too, for I sent 'em some dem'd funny articles, which the humbugs sent me back." "That's just the way they served me," resumes his friend—"the great fools!" But at last, at the end of 1851, his first contribution to Punch was received, and he was soon invited to join the Staff. He was not long in making a mark with "Miss Violet," but it was not among his strongest contributions. Nevertheless, "Epicurus Rotundus" was now a made man on the highway to success.

It was his charm and grace as much as his vigour that compelled the admiration of his fellows and their admission that he was the most valuable accession that the Staff had ever received. At the dinner given to Thackeray in 1856, Jerrold, in proposing Brooks's health, pronounced him "the most rising journalist of the day," and Mark Lemon declared openly that "Shirley's pen is the gracefullest in London." It was, in fact, the general opinion at the time that his verses combined much of the technical merit of Pope's with the keen sarcasm of Swift; and of such verse he contributed not fewer than six hundred pieces in the course of his Punch career. One of their merits was the unexpected spontaneity of their humour—the faculty that is distinctive of some of the best of his mots, such as that when looking at Edmund Yates's book-shelves which caused him to pause before one of the volumes and read off "Homer's Iliad," and murmur, "Homer's—Yes—that is the best." On one occasion he, with Mr. George Chester (my informant), was on a visit to Mark Lemon at Crawley, and at the breakfast-table a discussion arose between the two men upon noses, their shapes and characteristics. Turning kindly to one of his host's little daughters, and looking at her delicate little nez retroussÉ, he said, "When they were looking about for a nose for you, my dear, they chose the first that turned up"—a joke often since repeated and well-nigh worked to death.

The contribution by which he will certainly be best and most gratefully remembered is his "Essence of Parliament"—a work which was entirely his own conception, and which was continued for twenty years from week to week while Parliament was sitting, with cleverness, refinement, truth, and humour that are invaluable to the historian and delightful to the general reader. For this work his experience and training as the "Chronicle" reporter were invaluable to him. Brooks was essentially a politician in feeling, full of suggestion—apt, happy, and ingenious—and yet could turn with ease and equal facility to social, literary, poetical, or art-critical work, to his daily "leader" or weekly article for the "Illustrated London News." He was in his time the cartoon suggestor-in-chief, and towards the end of Mark Lemon's life rendered great assistance in the editorship of the paper; although Percival Leigh was the recognised locum tenens. Lemon had been dead but just a week when Brooks wrote (June 1st, 1870) from the Punch office to a friend:—

—which shows that he was already in harness.

In his editorship he took the utmost pride, and he would defend his paper with spirit. When an ill-mannered acquaintance told him "that of all the London papers he considered Punch the dullest," Brooks replied, "I wonder you ever read it." "I don't," said the other. "So I thought," retorted the Editor, "by your foolish remark."

Shirley Brooks fell ill with a complication of disorders, and Mr. Burnand did him the same service on Punch that he had done for Lemon, and that Leigh did for himself and Tom Taylor. When he was near his end, and a newspaper acquaintance called persistently to inquire how he was progressing, "Tell him," said the sick man, with a shrewd smile about his lips, "that he shall have his 'par' in good time." He was engaged in writing "Election Epigrams" and "The Situation" on his death-bed; and died in February, 1874, before their publication. He was buried in the cemetery of Kensal Green, close to where Thackeray lay by Leech, and within whose walls, though at some distance apart, Doyle was to sleep, and Henry Mayhew.

Neither Robert nor William Brough ever drew for Punch, but it is the belief of their brother, Mr. Lionel Brough, that they were both at one time literary contributors. Of this, however, I have no record. William was brother-in-law to Mark Lemon, but the two men were not on the best of terms. Robert, a provincial Jerrold, with all Douglas's power of sarcasm and some of his genius, had started the "Liverpool Lion," and was a brilliant comic draughtsman. It was the success of his play, "The Enchanted Isle," that brought him to London, where he wrote burlesques and so forth; but he will be remembered for his clever illustrations to most of Punch's rivals of his time, as well as his creation of "Billie Barlow"—the "Ally Sloper" of the day; and it was not to Punch's advantage that he did not enlist Brough's humorous talent.

In the year 1854—or it may have been a few months later—Mr. W. Beatty Kingston made an early appearance with a cockney ballad on the subject of the admission of female searchers to the penetralia of H.M. Record Office, of which at that time he was a "flickering light" at £100 a year. Soon he took service under the Hapsburgs, and left England afterwards for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1883 he resumed comic operations on the invitation of Mr. Burnand, and continued, until June, 1887, to contribute a good deal of verse, illustrated by Mr. Sambourne and Mr. Furniss. Many of these pieces have since been republished in "My Hansom Lays;" while of those which have since appeared some, such as "A Triplet" and "The Wizard's Curse," have passed into the category of "stock recitations."

Then F. I. Scudamore, still remembered for his vers de sociÉtÉ, was a passing contributor. But in 1855 he joined "The Comic Times," with other of old Punch outsiders, and then obtained an appointment in the Government Telegraphs, and, with a Companionship of the Bath, the superintendence of the Constantinople Post Office.

Mr. Ashby-Sterry's name belongs to the following year, but he appeared solely as a draughtsman; his literary connection, which began twenty-four years later, will be spoken of in its proper place. Michael John Barry was another who at this time (1857) shed no little brilliancy on Punch; and to him is now credited the admirable "Peccavi" despatch—perhaps the most finished and pointed that ever appeared in Punch's pages, and certainly one of the most highly appreciated and most loudly applauded:—

This brilliant couplet, according to the "Times," is said to have been contended for by "both Punch and Thomas Hood;" and it never was finally decided which of the two great humorists followed the other. Their claims, indeed, are not irreconcilable. Latterly, the credit has been claimed, with some show of authority, for Barry, who was generally regarded in his day as one of Jerrold's peers in wit. It is curious to observe that in the House of Commons debate on the Candahar question, Mr. P. J. Smyth was reported to have referred to "the unexampled brevity of the General's despatch after he had won his great victory on the Indus," in the quaint belief that the first half-line of the epigram was Lord Ellenborough's actual report.

The Very Rev. Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester, always a spoilt child of Punch's, and the intimate friend of Leech, was more of a Punch man than most contributors, as he was one of the very few outsiders who were ever entertained at the Wednesday Dinner.[45] "Some six-and-thirty years ago," he informed me, "Mark Lemon wrote to me, 'Punch is proud of such a contributor,' and I have his letter. I wrote a few short paragraphs about Oxford, and some longer articles in verse, entitled 'The Sportsman's Dream' and 'My Butler.' Leech told me, 'You are an honorary member of our weekly meetings, and will be always welcome.'" His charming book, "A Little Tour in Ireland," written "by an Oxonian," had the advantage of Leech's pencil, and by his friendship with that artist, as well as with Thackeray and others of the Staff, he was for a time identified in some measure with Punch itself, besides obtaining recognition as the beau-ideal of "the genial, jolly parson." That he did not become a regular contributor to the paper was due, it is believed, to a subsequent misunderstanding.

In "Jack Easel," the writer of a number of delightful letters upon artistic and social topics at home and abroad, it is difficult to recognise Mr. Charles L. Eastlake, the able Keeper of the National Gallery. From 1859 to the autumn of 1862 Mr. Eastlake contributed eight-and-twenty articles of importance, one of them in verse, and the majority headed "Our Roving Correspondent." "Jack Easel on the Continent" and "The Royal Academy Exhibition" were the subjects of many of them, and their note was lively enough to cause his papers to be looked forward to by Punch's readers.

Mr. Francis Cowley Burnand, when he first appeared in Punch, in 1863, was no mere recruit; he was a proved humorist, though of short standing, and his dÉbut was an astonishing success. His dÉbut, that is to say, as a Punch writer, for eight years previously he had sent up from Cambridge a couple of drawings which Leech had made artistically suitable for publication.

Mr. Burnand was born in 1837—having been too gallant, it was said, to come into the world before his Queen had ascended the throne, and too loyal and zealous to delay his appearance after she had taken her place. He was sent to Eton, where, however, he did not care much for football, being, as he expressed it, "more shinned against than shinning;" and thence, at the age of seventeen, he went into Trinity College, Cambridge. In three years he had graduated and had founded the still flourishing "A.D.C.;" at the same time, he determined to enter the Church. He placed himself under the Rev. H. P. (afterwards Canon) Liddon; but soon left for the seminary of the Oblates of St. Charles, at Bayswater, the head of which was Dr. (Cardinal) Manning. While there his passion for playwriting was too strong to be resisted, and before he left Dr. Manning confessed that he feared his young friend had no "vocation," i.e. for the ecclesiastical state. Mr. Burnand, taking a wider view of the term, entirely acquiesced with Dr. Manning, and added rather timidly that he "thought he had a vocation for the stage." Dr. Manning raised his eyebrows, wrinkled his forehead, sniffed, and then said: "A 'vocation' concerns the spiritual welfare. You cannot speak of 'going on the stage' as a 'vocation.' You might as well call 'being a cobbler' a 'vocation.'" "Well, yes, Dr. Manning," rejoined Mr. Burnand very nervously; "but—if I were a cobbler I should still have the cure of soles."

An unsuccessful trial of the stage at Edinburgh, and a call to the Bar in 1862, indirectly shaped Mr. Burnand's career, and, throwing him into playwriting and humorous journalism, led him quickly into a talented circle. With Mr. W. S. Gilbert, H. J. Byron, Matt Morgan, Jeff Prowse, and others, Mr. Burnand helped to strengthen Tom Hood's additional staff of "Fun," then newly established, under the proprietorship of a looking-glass maker, named Maclean—whom, by reason of his expansive smile and shining teeth, Byron used to call "Maclean teeth." Mr. Burnand's fresh and bright productions sparkled on the pages and caught the eye of Mark Lemon; but it was an unusually happy and original idea that was to bring the two men closely together. Mr. Burnand had conceived a series of burlesque stories, satirising the sensational style of the day, to be accompanied by an equally burlesque imitation of the illustrations that were to be seen in publications such as the "London Journal." To his own daughter, as "one of his oldest friends," Mr. Burnand once confided the following facts and circumstances for publication:—

The illusion was complete, and the fun most apt and full of spirit. The various artists ("Phiz," Charles Keene, Mr. du Maurier, and Sir John Millais) each drew a picture for it, in every case burlesquing his own style and trotting out his peculiarities. The public laughed heartily—first, at itself for having been deceived by the verisimilitude to the "London Journal," and then at the work upon its merits; and "Mokeanna, or the White Witness" became the talk of the hour, and one of the good things of Punch. Charles Dickens was among those who most admired the execution of the jeu d'esprit, and he displayed considerable interest in the writer.

In due time Mr. Burnand was called to the Table. "My first appearance," he tells me, "was at the Inn at Dulwich where Punch sometimes dined in the summer in those days. Thackeray drove there, and left early. He had come on purpose to be present on this occasion, and before quitting the room he paused, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the "New Boy!"' I felt, and probably looked, very hot and uncomfortably proud; and then he shook me warmly by the hand."

Mr. Burnand's next success—a phenomenal success, too, on which his reputation as a humorist will stand unshaken—was "Happy Thoughts." For popularity and for immediate advantage to the paper this clever series, with its exquisite fooling and keen appreciation of humour, was second only to the "Caudle Curtain Lectures," and among the greatest hits that Punch has ever made. It has since been admirably translated into French by M. Aurelien de Courson under the title of "Fridoline!"—"happy thought!" being, however, somewhat inadequately rendered "ingÉnieuse pensÉe!" Then followed his imitations of popular writers—including "Strapmore," by "Weeder," and "One-and-three," by "Fictor Nogo"—"Happy Thought Hall," with illustrations by himself, "More Happy Thoughts," "Out of Town," and many others, which are still to be found on the bookstalls. His, too, was the song "His 'Art was true to Poll," which achieved so great a success when Mrs. John Wood introduced it into "My Milliner's Bill" many years after it first appeared in Punch.

And in addition to the mass of work he has contributed to Punch, there are "The Incompleat Angler," "The New History of Sandford and Merton," "The Real Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," more than a hundred burlesques—beginning with his exceedingly popular perversion of Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan"—and a number of comedies and adaptations: a total rivalling, and in some cases surpassing, the industry of the most hard-working of his predecessors in Punch's editorial chair. Moreover, he has been a lecturer with "realistic notions," as he proved on the occasion when he was giving a public reading dealing with a yachting cruise, and, as he stood behind his reading-desk, stooped and rose with a regular maritime motion, relieved by an occasional roll, until the more susceptible among his audience began seriously to ask themselves if they were good enough sailors to sit out the reading to its ground-swell, breezy end.

In August, 1880, after the death of Tom Taylor, Mr. Burnand, who had been acting-editor in his last illness, was called upon to take up the task of restoring to Punch its ancient reputation for liveliness and fun, and with a dinner to every contributor, outside as well as Staff, the proprietors inaugurated the new era. Mr. Burnand at once made great changes among the outside contributors, and introduced new blood upon the Staff. For himself, he showed his chief strength as a punster of extraordinary ability; probably no one before him ever tied so many and such elaborate knots in his mother-tongue as he. "Mr. Burnand's puns are generally good, and sometimes very good," said a critic in the "Spectator;" "but they are really too plentiful.... When it comes to be a question of a volume of four hundred pages, with an average of ten puns to a page, the reader is likely to suffer from an indigestion ... a cake that is all plums is likely to lie rather heavily on the person who eats it." But he was constrained to admit artistic merit in the humour of such passages as this: "There was a dead pause in the room. How long it had been there it was impossible to say, for it was only at this minute that the three became aware of it. And the Bishop sniffed uncomfortably, as though there was something wrong with the drainage."

But there was something of greater import brought in by Mr. Burnand's editorship than the literary tone. It was tolerance, political and religious, and wider sympathy than had lately been the case. The heavy political partisanship of Tom Taylor gave way to the more beneficent neutrality of Mr. Burnand—a personal neutrality, at least, even though Whig proclivities still coloured the cartoons to a certain, yet not unreasonable degree. And a larger religious tolerance and warmer magnanimity developed in Punch, such as comes chiefly from quarters where oppression has been known.

So he who has been called "the Commandant of the Household Brigade of British Mirth" has marched gaily along in Punch's service for more than thirty years. Prodigal of his jokes, he sometimes makes the best of them outside the pages of his paper. Thus in November, 1893, he wrote to the press in contradiction of the statement made by a police-court prisoner named Burnand, that he was the brother of the editor of Punch: "I beg to say that I have no brother, and never had any brother. I have two half-brothers (this man is neither of them), but two half-brothers don't make one whole brother." And people chuckled as the little joke was copied from one paper to another all over the English-speaking world, and applauded the excellent quaintness of Punch's Aristophanes. So, when a fictitious dinner of the Punch Staff at Lord Rothschild's was reported in the press, Mr. Burnand briefly dismissed the matter with the remark that the only dish was—canard.

Again, in the autumn of 1894, when he fell ill, alarming reports were spread. One of his colleagues on the Staff received a request for a column obituary notice of the dying man from the editor of a leading daily newspaper. But Mr. Burnand was much better, and was greatly cheered on learning the particulars. "Really," he said, "that's more than I expected. A column! Why, that's what they gave to Nelson and the Duke of York!"

Mr. J. Priestman Atkinson's literary achievements in Punch are spoken of in the chapter where "Dumb Crambo's" pictorial contributions are treated. From August, 1877, to October, 1880, they are frequent, and consist for the most part of fanciful verse accompanied by cuts from the same hand. There is a charming prose story, however, in the Pocket-Book for 1879, seasonably entitled "The Invention of Roast Goose." But with Mr. Burnand's editorship Mr. Atkinson's energies were exclusively concentrated on humorous sketches and "Dumb Crambo" eccentricities.

In 1864 Mr. John Hollingshead—"Practical John"—was dramatic critic of the "Daily News." His notices attracted the attention of Shirley Brooks, with the result that he was invited to contribute to Punch. But it was in 1881 that he was taken on the salaried outside Staff, writing for the paper for several years, chiefly on the subject of social reform. He is the inventor, to whom Londoners should be grateful, of "Mud-Salad Market" and the "Duke of Mudford;" and the "Gates of Gloomsbury," "The Seldom-at-Home Secretary," and "The Top of the Gaymarket," are also his. It was with his pen that Punch attacked so lustily our licensing system—or want of system; and from him, too, came the burlesque "Schopenhauer Ballads," and other contributions, which, many of them, have been reprinted in "Footlights," "Plain English," and "Niagara Spray."

In the same year came Mr. R. F. Sketchley, late Librarian of the Dyce and Forster collection in the South Kensington Museum, who was destined to become one of Punch's Staff officers. "I find," he writes, "that I became a contributor to Punch in 1864. At the beginning of 1868 I was honoured with an invitation from Mark Lemon to join the Table. I served also under his successors—Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, and Burnand; and finally retired of my own accord in 1880. I have seen it stated that in an illness of Shirley Brooks I did some of the 'Essence of Parliament.' If I had been called on to take up the pen of that most brilliant man of letters, I should have been in despair. All I did was to turn the Queen's Speech on the opening of Parliament into verse.

"I was never a prominent member of the Staff, but I am, and always shall be, proud of having been connected with Punch. I wrote both prose and verse—more of the former than the latter—and my contributions ranged in extent from a column down to a single line. My subjects were generally 'topical,' sometimes 'imaginary,' and the verse included a good many parodies." Mr. Sketchley, it should be observed, is one of the few members of the inside Staff—at least, within the last forty years—who have ever resigned their appointments, Richard Doyle, Mr. Henry Silver, and Mr. Harry Furniss being the others. His strong point was prose parody, the best, perhaps, being the quaint quasi-Gulliverian sketch called "A Fortnight in Sparsandria," which he contributed to Punch's Pocket-Book. Sober in judgment and wise in counsel, he was greatly missed when his genial companionship was lost to Punch's Knights of the Round Table.

Passing over Mr. W. S. Gilbert's connection with the paper—which is described in the section devoted to artistic contributors—we find another humorist, equally distinguished, who identified himself with the paper the same year, Charles F. Browne, better known as "Artemus Ward." He had arrived in England early in the year, and soon after his arrival he was invited by Mark Lemon to contribute. Ward was at that time in failing health, and, according to his secretary and manager Mr. Kingston, two or three of the papers produced in accordance with the understanding that was entered into were written with painful effort—the reason, no doubt, why so little of his usually rollicking humour is to be found in them. Nowadays many Americans profess to regard Punch with a sort of scornful amusement, and "Life," with an assumption of lofty disdain, is for ever sneering at it as a survival of the unfittest; and the same line is taken in England by New Journalists and Newer Critics. Not that the New American Journalist was unknown in Ward's day. He had already declared that "Shakespeare wrote good plase, but he wouldn't have succeeded as the Washington correspondent of a New York daily paper. He lacked the reckisit fancy and imagination." Anyhow, he did not live so near to the fin de siÈcle; nor was he ashamed to own that for years it had been his pet ambition to write for the "London Charivari." Unhappily, its realisation came too late to permit him to do justice to his talent and his humour; and he himself was only too conscious of his sad shortcoming, or, rather, of his failing powers. Only eight papers had come from his hand when it closed in death. In September the first of his papers was published—"Personal Recollections;" the last in November—"A Visit to the British Museum;" they are garrulous and discursive, and a good deal of the humour they contain was repeated from earlier works. That they should have contained any at all, under the circumstances, is the wonder; indeed, one is irresistibly reminded by them of his own humorous reference to one of the burlesque "pictures" illustrative of his "Lecture." "It is by the Old Masters," he said, in his quaint, sad way; "it is the last thing they did before dying. They did this, and then they died."

It is, indeed, curious how many of Punch's most valued contributors were working for the paper up to within a few hours, a few minutes, of being called away—Jerrold, Thomas Hood, C. H. Bennett, John Leech, Shirley Brooks, and Artemus Ward; and many a time have the public laughed aloud at jokes and pictures wrought when the hand was stiffening in death, when the brain that had imagined them had already ceased to think.

H. Savile Clarke, previously a "Fun" contributor, and a disciple of James Hannay, made his Punch dÉbut with a set of verses in August, 1867; but he did not follow them up, except in a very small way, until Mr. Burnand's editorship, in 1880, encouraged him to write regularly. This he soon began to do, his main work being Society verse, mostly bearing on medical and scientific subjects, for he was brought up as a doctor. "Songs of the Sciences," "Lyrics in a Library" (verse on books), verse on the minor picture exhibitions, clever trifles like the "Carmen Culinarium" (December, 1891), and the important and strikingly able and successful parody, "Modern Life in London, or Tom and Jerry Back Again," illustrated by Mr. Priestman Atkinson—these formed the staple of his Punch work. But he was not enthusiastic about writing for the paper, as the chance of gaining reputation by unsigned contributions was very small. "I feel strongly," he wrote to me years ago, "as many writers do on the paper, as to the inequality of authors and artists. It keeps very good men off it."

"Berkeley Square, 5 p.m." was a poem of five stanzas that formed Frederick Locker-Lampson's sole contribution to Punch; it was published at the same time as Savile Clarke's maiden effort (August, 1867), and was illustrated by Mr. du Maurier. It was Locker-Lampson, it may here be mentioned, who sent in C. S. Calverley's ewe-lamb—a charade—to Punch's pages.

On the 25th of July, 1868, a lady-contributor made her dÉbut in Punch's pages. This was Miss M. Betham-Edwards, who was already well known as the authoress of "A Winter with the Swallows," and whose travel "Through Spain to the Sahara," dealing with much the same scene, was then expected from the press. In the earlier part of the year a friend had shown to Mark Lemon a clever skit by the young lady, and the Editor forthwith commissioned her to write a series of papers to be called "Mrs. Punch's Letters to her Daughter"—a sort of belated sequel to Jerrold's "Punch's Letters to his Son." These letters, which ran through six numbers—the last in November 7th of the same year—are contributions of the worldly-wise order, cynical, satirical, and shrewd. Two years later Mark Lemon died, and Miss Betham-Edwards dropped out of the outside Staff position which she was by courtesy supposed to occupy. Certain contributions she sent in were returned; she took the hint, and the connection was severed.

It was about this time that Mr. du Maurier wrote his admirable "Vers Nonsensiques," and proved the literary talent which he afterwards displayed in so striking a manner in his lecture on "Social Satire" and in his novels. But, as has already been pointed out in several other cases, he is not by any means alone in having used both pen and pencil in the paper. Thackeray is the principal example of the twin-talent; but others, in very various degrees, are Cuthbert Bede, Watts Phillips, Thomas Hood (a single cut, and a wonderful one, too), Richard Doyle (a single contribution), John MacGregor, with Sir John Tenniel, and Messrs. Alfred Thompson, Ashby-Sterry, W. S. Gilbert, W. Ralston (one literary effort), J. Priestman Atkinson, J. H. Roberts (one poem), Harry Furniss (a dramatic criticism), and Arthur A. Sykes. As a rule, however, artist and author has kept strictly within his own field, although a bold experiment of a curious kind was once proposed. On that occasion the literary Staff had been complaining, with malicious frankness, that the drawings in a certain issue—(it is not necessary to particularise)—were not up to the mark. They were at once challenged by the artists, who declared that they would strike—that they would do the text, and allow the literary men to do the pictures. The idea was seized upon; the result, they thought, would be screamingly funny. But the Editor would not hear of it; he imagined, not without reason, that the public, who would be called upon (but would probably decline) to pay, would not see the point of the joke. Years after a similar discussion arose; and those who heard it are not likely to forget the mock-philosophic-gastronomic blank verse composed by Mr. Sambourne on the spur of the moment just to illustrate how very easy clever verse-writing really is.

Whilst Punch has been greatly indebted for much of its humour to Scotsmen, several Irishmen also have contributed not a little to its success. Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves is one of these, although it is long since he wrote for the paper. "I contributed to Punch" he says, "during Shirley Brooks's editorship. Tom Taylor was then secretary to the Local Government Board, and I was private secretary to the Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Home Office, Mr. Winterbotham. Meeting on business, we struck up a friendly acquaintance, and, Punch being then a close borough, Taylor smuggled in verses and jokes of mine for a while, till he thought I had established a claim to introduction to Shirley Brooks. My work only went on from 1871 to 1874, as I became so engaged on literary work of a severer kind, and educational work as an Inspector of Schools, that I had not time for Punch; and when I cared to return to it Taylor had gone, and the present Editor was surrounded by fresh men, so I have not resumed my connection with it."

Mr. Graves—the author of the popular "Father O'Flynn," perhaps the best of all his Irish songs—wrote for Punch "The Tea-Table Tragedy," "The Ballad of the Babes in the Wood," and those admirable "Lines of Farewell to the Irish Humorist, Baron Dowse, on leaving the House of Commons"—

Then there is "On St. Patrick's Day falling on a Sunday," and in Punch's Pocket-Book the lines on "A Frog," and "A Cauliflower"—a parody of "The green, immortal Shamrock." But another merit in Mr. Graves was his coaching of Charles Keene on the subject of his Irish jokes, for which the former was greatly responsible in the years of his Punch connection.

Nursery jingles newly adapted and applied to the morals and manners of the day are always a favourite vehicle of satire with the public, and have been freely used by professional humorists. Punch offers many instances of happy examples of the work. The first of a long series of "Nursery Rhymes for the Times" was begun by Mr. Charles Smith Cheltnam on January 9th, 1875, as well as in the Almanac of the same year. The writer forthwith became a busy contributor. About fifty of these rhymes appeared in Punch in quick succession, and there were many other pieces besides. "The Infallible Truth," a comment in verse on the passage at arms which was then (November 13th, 1875) taking place between Lord Redesdale and Dr. Manning on the subject of infallibility, showed that Punch's "papal aggression" was still rankling in his bosom. Mr. Cheltnam remained a contributor until the death of Tom Taylor, when he transferred his pen to the service of "Fun."

On April 1st, 1872, the Rev. F. D. Maurice died, and Punch contained a set of verses to his memory, in which the beauty and the strength of his character were set forth with deep sympathy, and not without power or poetical thought. They were from the hand of the Rev. Stainton Moses, of Exeter College, Oxford, for seventeen years an assistant master at the University College School. He was the editor of the leading London organ of Spiritualism. The more ribald of his pupils and acquaintance declared that his spiritualism was of another sort; but there is no doubt that he was very popular with all men, and exercised great influence among the faithful.

Eighteen years after the death of Gilbert Abbott À Beckett, his son, Arthur W. À Beckett, restored the family name to Punch's Staff. He had been nominated to the War Office by Lord Palmerston, but he soon found that he could walk in no other path but that which his father had trodden. Like him, he became an editor at twenty, by assuming for a space the direction, relinquished by Mr. F. C. Burnand, of an evening paper called the "Glow-Worm"—whose light, after Mr. À Beckett left it, steadily refused to burn with the requisite effulgence. Mark Lemon was then approached; but he would have nothing to say to—or, rather, nothing to do with—the sons of his old friend, who thereupon sought elsewhere the encouragement they had hoped for in Punch's show. Mr. Arthur À Beckett started a satirico-humorous paper of great ability and promise, the staff including himself and his brother, Matt Morgan, Frederick Clay, and Frank Marshall, with Messrs. Alfred Thompson, Austin, T. G. Bowles, and T. H. Escott—most of them Civil Servants. But in the full tide of its success its financial foundations were weakened by one in the managerial department, and the whole thing came to the ground. After a few years of an active journalistic career he was invited by Tom Taylor, who had succeeded to the command, to contribute to Punch. A curious success attended his opening chapters. His first paper on a "Public Office" (p. 226, Vol. LXVI.), as well as the twelve following—that is to say, his contributions to thirteen consecutive numbers—were all of them quoted in the "Times," though whether or not through Taylor's intermediary did not appear. After the fourth number Mr. À Beckett was put on the salaried Staff, and in August, 1875, was invited to join the Table. Since Mr. Burnand's promotion to the editorship Mr. À Beckett has acted as his locum tenens, just as Shirley Brooks did to Lemon, and Percival Leigh to Brooks.

Being called to the Bar in 1881, Mr. À Beckett was enabled to revive the humours of his father's "Mr. Briefless," by the filial creation of the happily-named "A. Briefless, Junior." The "Papers from Pump Handle Court" from this self-sufficient, inflated, and utterly hopeless Junior, have been a feature in Punch for years past, and by them the author has—so says an expert—"charmingly illuminated the legal profession by his queer fancy." One of the best papers in the collection is an account of a visit to the studio of a well-known firm of West-End photographers in the character of a legal celebrity, which is wittily called "A Matter in Camera." Up to December, 1894, he had contributed to a thousand and eighty consecutive numbers, his work including many "series," besides the usual topical subject-articles.

Mortimer Collins became an occasional, and by no means a prolific, contributor of verse from the year 1874. The sonnet in Punch on p. 237, Vol. XI. (December, 1846), has been ascribed to him, but there is no ground for the statement (he would then have been only nineteen years of age), nor did he contribute otherwise than from 1874 to 1876. His light lyric touch may be traced in many a poem. In "Where shall we go?" (p. 105, Vol. LXIX., September 11th, 1875) his dainty pen is to be recognised; as in "Lady Psyche's Garden Party," and various other verses of similar style and pleasant flavour. The attack on Mr. Whalley and "Crede Byron" (July 20th, 1875) are his, and the verses on the Burnham Beeches, and, in September, "Causidicus ad Canem." The charming "Sonnets for the Sex" (June 17th, 1876) and, on July 8th, the humorous prose in praise of goose-quill and sealing-wax, entitled "Mr. Oldfangle's Opinion," were full of pleasing turns of thought—little presaging the writer's death three weeks later. When he died, Punch contained an obituary notice of the writer (p. 57, Vol. LXXI., August 12th, 1876), in which it is said, "He wrote the 'Secret of Long Life,' to teach men to live a century, and himself died at forty-nine." He was in this respect a curious echo of Thomas Walker, who wrote his "Art of Attaining High Health" in his paper "The Original," and did not survive the completion of his task; and the prototype of the Duke of Marlborough, who died while engaged on an essay on the "Art of Living" for the "Nineteenth Century." Had he lived, he would certainly have been promoted to the Staff; and the fact that his funeral was officially attended by Tom Taylor, Percival Leigh, and Mr. Arthur À Beckett, on behalf of Punch, is testimony of the respect in which his co-operation was held.

The literary post on Punch which corresponds with that of Chief Cartoonist has for years past been occupied by Mr. Edwin J. Milliken. The position is an onerous one, and carries great responsibility with it. He who fills it is at once "the Punch Poet" par excellence and the big drum, so to speak, of the political orchestra. For many years Mr. Milliken has written the letterpress explanatory of the Cartoon, either in verse or prose, as well as the preface to each succeeding volume. To his pen, too, we have owed during the same period those verses which it has been the graceful practice of Punch to devote to the memory of distinguished men. Remarkable for their tact, dignity, and good-sense—instinct with lofty thought and deep feeling—these poems are often masterpieces of their kind, models of taste and generous sympathy. In particular, those published upon the deaths of Lord Beaconsfield, John Bright, and Lord Tennyson, may be remembered as worthy of the men they were designed to honour, as well as for the felicity with which they set down what was in the heart of the nation, and the eloquence with which its sentiment was expressed.

On January 2nd, 1875, there appeared in Punch some lines entitled "A Voice from Venus," the planet's transit having at that time just occurred. They were Mr. Milliken's first contribution—a bow drawn at a venture—for he was entirely unknown to anyone connected with the paper. Tom Taylor asked for a guarantee of the originality of the verses—in itself a flattering distrust—and, receiving the necessary assurance, printed them forthwith. From that time forward the young writer contributed with regularity, and for two years was put severely through his paces by the Editor, who, in order to "try his hand," as he said, gave him every sort of work to do. Then came a personal interview of a gratulatory nature, in which Taylor promised to invite Mr. Milliken to the Table as soon as a vacancy occurred. At the end of the second year of probation this promise was fulfilled, and early in 1877 "E. J. M." cut his initials on the board.

It is worthy of remark that the successful career of Mr. Milliken is in direct opposition to his training, for he began life, much against his will, as a man of business in a great engineering firm. But literature was his goal, and the appreciation of the editors of a few magazines and journals to some extent satisfied his ambition. In point of fact, Mr. Milliken, in respect to his work, is the most modest and retiring of men; and the only contribution to which his name appeared, for years before or after, was the set of memorial verses to Charles Dickens which were printed in the "Gentleman's Magazine" in 1870.

Without a doubt "The 'Arry Papers" are the most popular and best known of Mr. Milliken's contributions, although "Childe Chappie's Pilgrimage," "The Modern Ars Amandi" (1883), "The Town" (1884), "Fitzdotterel; or, T'other and Which" (a parody of Lord Lytton's "Glenaveril"), 1885; "Untiled; or, the Modern Asmodeus" (1889-90), and "The New Guide to Knowledge," have successively loomed large in Punch's firmament. But it is the great creation of 'Arry for which Mr. Milliken is most applauded—and least understood. It is generally supposed that the 'Arry of Mr. Milliken corresponds to the similar character conceived by Charles Keene and Mr. Anstey. But the author means him for a great deal more. 'Arry with him is not so much a personage as a type—as much an impersonal symbol as Mr. Watts's Love, or Death, or other quality, passion, or fate, without individuality and, in spirit at least, without sex.

It is often suggested that Mr. Milliken's 'Arry is the survival—or, at least, the descendant—of the "gent" of Leech and the "snob" of Thackeray and Albert Smith. He is nothing of the sort. The gent and the snob had at least this merit; they aspired, or imagined themselves, to be something more and better than they really were. But 'Arry is a self-declared cad, without either hope or desire, or even thought, of redemption. Self-sufficient, brazen, and unblushing in his irrepressible vulgarity, blatant and unashamed, he is distinguished by a sort of good-humour that is as rampant and as offensive as his swaggering selfishness, his arrogant familiarity and effrontery, and his sensuous sentiment. He is a mean-souled and cynical camp-follower of the army of King Demos, every day expanding, every day more objectionable in his insolent assurance. Originally designed as an illustration of the 'Arryism of the rougher classes, then promoted to be characteristic of the low sort of shop-lad and still lower kind of mechanic "with views" of a clear-cut kind within the narrow limits of his materialistic philosophy, he has developed into a type of character—almost, indeed, into a type of humanity. And as 'Arryism is rife in every walk of society, so 'Arry's experiences have become more informed, but not for that reason more cultivated or more refined. And therein lies the one inevitably weak point of Mr. Milliken's invention. Like Frankenstein, he seems to have created a Monster, who has outgrown the purpose he was originally intended to serve. For when he finds himself considering the 'Arryism of the "upper classes," he is bound, by his otherwise admirable convention, to retain the Cockney slang of which he is such a master, even though the speaker is supposed to have advanced so far in his views and knowledge of life as to be able to discuss matters of art, science, and literature. For, be it observed, a bank-'oliday at the Welsh 'Arp, "wich is down 'Endon wy," is no longer a spree for him, however uproarious the "shindy," and however ready his "gal" may be to sit on his knee and "change 'ats" to the accompaniment of cornet and concertina. He travels—on the cheap, of course—but still he travels, and discusses Venus of Milo, and 'Igh Art, and the philosophic questions of the "dy," and resolves all his meditations into the "motter" that "Socierty's all right." Without soul, without ideality, without aspiration, save of the baser sort, he represents no good quality nor redeeming virtue but physical health—the promise, it may at least be hoped, of a posterity that in the future, perchance, may justify his existence. He is the raw, the offensively raw, material from which respectable and useful descendants may eventually be made. At present Mr. Milliken shows the 'Arryism that is permeating and fouling all classes, almost to the highest; but there the convention fails—only because it is a convention—for 'Arry is made to fill the part which has more recently, and perhaps with greater fitness, been accorded to the Bounder.[46]

But, apart from the satirical creation, 'Arry is a most amusing personage—his forms of speech, the quaint turns of his vulgar thought, being in themselves irresistibly laughable—their grossness merged in their genuine humour, and in the art so well concealed. 'Arry alone has stamped Mr. Milliken as a satirical humorist of the front rank, and has gone far towards making the public forget his other phase—the graceful and sympathetic poet. The philologists, too, proclaim their debt of gratitude to the author as the most complete collector of modern English slang, with suitable context and situation. Dr. Murray's great "New English Dictionary" accepts 'Arry as a name "used humorously for: A low-bred fellow (who drops his h's) of lively temper and manners," and quotes "'Arry on 'Orseback" in Punch's Almanac for 1874 as his dÉbut in print. And, finally, Herr C. Stoffel, of Nijmegen, has published a philological volume on the "'Arry Letters" in Punch, from 1883 to 1889, examining the cant words with the utmost elaboration, gravity, and knowledge, and producing one of the most valuable treatises on the subject that have hitherto been published.

In addition to the work already indicated, Mr. Milliken (as shown in the chapter on cartoons) devotes a great deal of attention to the devising of Mr. Punch's "big cuts," both for Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Linley Sambourne. The Almanac double-page cartoons, too—usually very elaborate designs—have been planned by him for a good many years, as well as most of Mr. Sambourne's fanciful calendars and "months" in the Almanacs. It will thus be seen that—with all his work in prose and verse, from a paragraph to a preface, and from a series to an epigram—Mr. Milliken is Writer-of-all-work and "General Utility" in the best sense; and a more loyal and devoted servant Punch has never had.

Alfred Thompson's work, which began in 1876, is considered with that of Punch's artists. Then came Gilbert Arthur À Beckett, who after a short spell of regular work was summoned to the Table. His first contribution had, in fact, been published by Mark Lemon, but immediately afterwards that Editor treated him just as he had treated his brother; and not for some years did he receive the call. Tom Taylor it was who, attracted by the quality of the work which the brothers were doing elsewhere, sent the coveted invitation.[47] In 1879—five years after his brother Arthur—Gilbert À Beckett joined the salaried Staff, and three years later he was appointed to the Table. He had a very quaint humour and a wonderfully quick and startling sense of the incongruous. He was sadly hampered by his affliction, but he was an accomplished, high-principled, sensitive fellow, of whom one of his companions declared that "he was the purest-minded man I ever knew." Under more favourable conditions of health he would probably have made a greater mark; but as it was, he did good work. He was a happy parodist, and a very neat and smart versifier—at the age of fifteen he had gained the prize for English verse at Westminster, which was open to the whole school—and in the wildly absurd yet laughable vein of his bogus advertisements (of which he did many under the head of "How we Advertise Now"—a continuation of Jerrold's early idea) none of his Punch brethren could touch him. He was, perhaps, best known to the world as part author of the famous political burlesque of "The Happy Land;" less, perhaps, as part author of "The White Pilgrim;" and least of all as a musical composer, as it was under the pseudonym of "Vivian Bligh" that he put forth his songs and his music for the "German Reeds' Entertainment." But his work on Punch was always relished, and, considering his sad physical afflictions, he held his own on the Staff. He contributed both prose and verse, smart and apt of their kind. He wrote—in part, at least—the admirable parody of a boy's sensational shocker (p. 119, Vol. LXXXII., March 11th, 1882). With the exception of this and the comical "Advertisements" he did very few "series," but his contributions were always varied and excellent in their way, and himself appreciated as a useful and clever man. Perhaps his chief claim to recollection was his suggestion, as explained elsewhere, of the famous cartoon of "Dropping the Pilot." The Dinners were his greatest pleasure, and he attended them with regularity, although the paralysis of the legs—the result of falling down the stairway of Gower Street Station—from which he suffered (in common with his uncle Sir William À Beckett, and with one of the Mayhew brothers as well) rendered his locomotion and the mounting of Mr. Punch's stairway a matter of painful exertion. Although he did useful work for Punch, he never became a known popular favourite; yet when he died—on October 15th, 1891—a chorus of unanimous regret arose in the press, for he was one of those few men who count none but friends among their wide circle of acquaintance.

Mr. Horace Frank Lester, late of Oxford University, afterwards barrister-at-law, author and journalist of the first rank, but at that time unknown to Punch, first appeared on January 5th, 1878, with a slashing satire on busybody amateur statesmen which greatly tickled Tom Taylor's fancy. But his first real hit was in September, 1880, with a form of contribution then comparatively new. It was a "Diary of the Premier at Sea," when Mr. Gladstone was on board the Grantully Castle, and, so far from "husbanding his energies," as his doctor directed, was supposed to receive deputations, make speeches, convert the man-at-the-wheel from Toryism, and try to cut down the mainmast with his axe. Then followed political diaries, parodies (such as "'The Entire History of Our Own Times' by Jestin Machearty," and innumerable poems), comic Latin verse, "Journal of a Rolling Stone," "Advice Gratis," "Queer Queries," legal skits, and so on. An amusing incident occurred in respect to one of the "Advice Gratis" series. Mr. Lester had spoken of a mythical book called "Etiquette for the Million: or, How to Behave Like a Gentleman on Nothing a Year, published at this Office." A corporal stationed at Galway Barracks wrote and asked for the price of it, "as I am extremely anxious to have the book referred to." Mr. Burnand's reply was simply, "Sold."