ContentsCHAPTER II.

COVER OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF PUNCH.COVER OF THE FIRST VOLUME OFPUNCH.View larger image

(Designed by A. S. Henning.)

"Out came the first number," wrote Landells. "I shall never forget the excitement of that first number! It was so great that Mr. Mayhew, Mr. Lemon, and myself, sat up all night at the printer's, waiting to see it printed." When "our Mr. Bryant," as the publisher was called, opened the publishingoffice on that memorable 17th of July, at 13, Wellington Street, Strand, the unexpected demand for the paper raised the expectations and enthusiasm of the confederates to the highest pitch. Mayhew, with Hodder and Landells, walked up and down outside the office and in the neighbouring Strand, discussing the paper and its prospects, and constantly calling to hear from Bryant how things were progressing. At news of each fresh thousand sold, their spirits rose, and their anxiety became satisfaction when the whole edition of five thousand had been taken up by the trade, and another like edition was called for, and, on the following day, was sold out. Ten thousand copies! Ten thousand proofs, they took it, of public sympathy and encouragement.

Such is the outline ofPunch'sconception and birth, based on many original documents and a mass of evidence, as well as on the independent testimony collected from survivors. In the words of Mr. Jabez Hogg, "Landells and Henry Mayhew were certainly the founders"—the former conceiving the idea of the paper which was presently established, and the latter developing it, as set forth, according to his original views—founding the tradition and personality of "Mr. Punch," and converting him from a mere strolling puppet, an irresponsible jester, into the laughing philosopher and man of letters, the essence of all wit, the concentration of all wisdom, the soul of honour, the fountain of goodness, and the paragon of every virtue.

Reception ofPunch—Early Struggles—Financial Help Invoked—The First Almanac—Its Enormous Success—Transfer ofPunchto Bradbury and Evans—Terms of Settlement—The New Firm—Punch'sSpecial Efforts—Succession of Covers—"Valentines," "Holidays," "Records of the Great Exhibition," and "At the Paris Exhibition."

The public reception of the first number ofPunchwas varied in character. Mr. Watts, R.A., once told me that the paper was regarded with but little encouragement by the occupants of an omnibus in which he was riding, one gentleman, after looking gravely through its pages, tossing it aside with the remark, "One of those ephemeral things they bring out; won't last a fortnight!" Dr. Thompson, Master of Trinity, informed Professor Herkomer that he, too, was riding in an omnibus on the famous 17th of July, when he bought a copy from a paper-boy, and began to look at it with curiosity. When he chuckled at the quaint wit of the thing, "Do you find it amusing, sir?" asked a lady, who was observing him narrowly. "Oh, yes." "I'm so glad," she replied; "my husband has been appointed editor; he gets twenty pounds a week!" One may well wonder who was this sanguine and trustful lady. Mr. Frith describes how, having overheard Joe Allen tell a friend, in the gallery of the Society of British Artists, to "look out for our first number; we shall take the town by storm!" he duly looked out, but was disappointed at finding nothing in it by Leech; and how when he went to a shop for the second number, to see if his idol had drawn anything for it, the newsman replied, "'What paper, sir? Oh,Punch!Yes, I took a few of the first number; but it's no go. You see, they billed it about a good deal' (how well I recollect that expression!), 'so I wanted to see what it was like. It won't do; it's no go.'"

The reception by the press was more encouraging—that is to say, by the provincial press, for the London papers took mighty little notice of the newcomer. The "Morning Advertiser," it is true, quaintly declared in praise of the "exquisite woodcuts, serious and comic," that they were "executed in the first style of art, at a price so low that we really blush to name it;" while the "Sunday Times" and a number of provincial papers of some slight account in their day professed astonishment at the absence of grossness, partisanship, profanity, indelicacy, and malice from its pages. "It is the first comic we ever saw," said the "Somerset County Gazette," "which was not vulgar. It will provoke many a hearty laugh, but never call a blush to the most delicate cheek." They vied with each other in their vocabulary of praise; and as toPunch'squips and sallies, his puns, his propriety, his "pencillings," and his cuts—they simply defied description; you just cracked your sides with laughter at the jokes, and that was all about it.

Yet, notwithstanding all this praise, the paper did not prosper; but whether it was that the price did not suit the public, although the "Advertiser" really blushed to name it, or thatPunchhad not yet educated his Party, cannot be decided. The support of the public did not lift it above a circulation of from five to six thousand, and on the appearance of the fifth number Jerrold muttered with a snort, "I wonder if there will ever be a tenth!" Everything that could be done to command attention, with the limited funds at disposal, was done. No sooner was Lord Melbourne's Administration defeated and discredited (for the Premier was angrily denounced for hanging on to office), thanPunchdisplayed a huge placard across the front of his offices inscribed, "Why isPunchlike the late Government? Because it isJust Out!!" And no device of the sort, or other artifice that could be suggested to the resourceful minds inPunch'scabinet, was left untried. Things were againstPunch. It was not only that the public was neglectful, unappreciative. There was prejudice to live down; there were stamp duty, advertisement duty, and paper duty to stand up to; and there were no Smiths or Willings, or other great distributing agencies, to assist.

While Bryant was playing his uphill game,Punch, written by educated men, was doing his best not only to attract politicians and lovers of humour and satire, but to enlist also the support of scholars, to whom at that time no comic paper had avowedly appealed; and it is doubtless due to the assumption that his readers, like his writers, were gentlemen of education, that he quickly gained the reputation of being entitled to a place in the library and drawing-room, diffusing, so to speak, an odour of culture even in those early days of his first democratic fervour. We had a German "Punchlied," Greek Anakreontics, and plenty of Latin—not merely Leigh's mock-classic verses, but efforts of a higher humour and a purer kind, such, among many more, as the "Petronius," and the clever interlinear burlesque translations of Horace which came from the pen of H. A. Kennedy. Then "Answers to Correspondents" were maintained for a while inside the wrapper, which were witty enough to justify their existence. But it was felt that something more was wanted to make the paper "move;" and the first "Almanac" was decided upon.

The circulation meanwhile had not risen above six thousand, and ten thousand were required to make the paper pay. Stationer and contributors had all been paid, and "stock" was now valued at £250. That there was a constant demand for these back numbers (on September 27th, 1841, for example, £1 3s. 4½d.-worth were sold "over the counter"), was held to prove that the work was worth pushing; but it seemed that for want of capital it would go the way of many another promising concern. The difficulties into whichPunchhad fallen soon got noised abroad, and offers of assistance, not by any means disinterested, were not wanting to remind the stragglers of their position. Helping hands were certainly put out, but only that money might be dropped in. Then Last declined to go on. He had neither the patience nor the speculative courage of the Northumbrian engraver, and money had, not without great difficulty and delay, been found to pay him for his share—which had hitherto been a share only of loss. The firm of Bradbury and Evans had been looked to as adeus ex machinâto take over the printing,and liftPunchout of the quagmire by acquiring Last's share and interest for £150. The offer was entertained, and an agreement drafted on September 25th, when, on the very same day, Bradbury and Evans wrote to withdraw, on the ground that they found the proposed acquisition "would involve them in the probable loss of one of theirmost valuableconnections." Landells, who always regarded this action—without any definite grounds that I can discover—as a diplomatic move to involve him and his friends still more, so that more advantageous salvage terms might be made, hurriedly cast about for other succour, and alighted on one William Wood, printer, who lent money, but whose agreement as a whole was not executed, as it was considered "either usurious or exorbitant" by their solicitors, who characteristically concluded their bill thus:—"Afterwards attending at the office in Wellington Street to see as to making the tender, and to advise you on the sufficiency thereof, but you were not there; afterwards attending at Mr. H. Mayhew's lodging, but he was out; afterwards attending at Mr. Lemon's, and he was out; and we were given to understand you had all gone to Gravesend"—showing the one touch of nature which made allPunch-men kin.

In due course Landells acquired Last's share, and the printing was executed successively by Mr. Mitchell and by Mills, Jowett, and Mills, until it slid by a sort of natural gravitation into the hands of Bradbury and Evans. Landells had endeavoured to interest his friends in the paper, but soon discovered the fatal truth that one's closest friends are never so close as when it is a question of money.

Then came the Almanac, upon which were based many hopes that were destined to be more than realised. It has hitherto been considered as the work of Dr. Maginn, at that time, as at many others, an unwilling sojourner in a debtor's prison. But H. P. Grattan has since claimed the distinction of being, like the doctor, an inmate of the retreat known as Her Majesty's Fleet, where he was visited by Henry Mayhew. Mayhew, he said, lived surreptitiously with him for a week, and during that time, without any assistance from Dr. Maginn, they brought the whole work to a brilliant termination. Thirty-five jokes a dayto each man's credit for seven consecutive days in the melancholy privacy of a prison cell is certainly a very remarkable feat—hardly less so than the alleged fact that Mayhew, who proposed the Almanac, as he proposed so many other good things forPunch, should have gone to the incarcerated Grattan for sole assistance, when he and his co-editors had so many capable colleagues at large. The claim does not deserve full credence, especially in face of Landells' declaration that "everyone engaged on it worked so admirably together, and it was done so well, that the town was taken by surprise, and the circulation went up in that one week from 6,000 to 90,000—an increase, I believe, unprecedented in the annals of publishing." The Almanac became at once the talk of the day; everybody had read it, and a contemporary critic declared that its cuts "would elicit laughter from toothache, and render gout oblivious of his toe."

Now, although Bradbury and Evans had hesitated to become proprietors, they had had no objection to act as printers and publishers, and when the editors approached them they lent a ready ear. "It was Uncle Mark," said "Pater" Evans at the "Gentleman's Magazine" dinner in 1868, "who was the chief conspirator when they broughtPunchto Whitefriars; it was his eloquence alone that induced us to buyPunch. Jerrold did not say much, but he supported his friend, you may be sure. They talked us over very easily." They bought the editors' share for £200, which they advanced on the security of the whole. Into the circumstances of the subsequent squabbles between Landells and the firm it is not needful to enter. He bitterly complained that he could obtain neither statements of accounts nor satisfactory arrangement, while the firm withheld their favourable consideration of the agreements his solicitors sent them to sign. The negotiations proceeded wearily from April, 1842, to December 24th, with rising wrath on the part of the good-hearted, impatient Northumbrian, who could neither understand nor brook the repeated delays, and fairly boiled over with indignation, suspicion, and wrath. In despair, so Landells recorded, that his lawyers could get no satisfaction, and yet "not willingto put the whole thing into Chancery," he blurted out that he should buy back Bradbury and Evans' share or they acquire his. As cool business men they promptly asked his price. He named £450, ultimately reducing it to £400, and further to £350, on the understanding, he says, that he should continue to act as engraver; and great were his anger and humiliation when he found after the second week of the newrégimethat the engraving was taken from him. But it is only fair to say that in his lawyer's instructions there is evidence that Bradbury and Evans persistently declined to give up their freedom in the matter of the engraving. The transfer then took place.[5]On December 23rd, 1842, the firm was already speaking with some authority; the voice was the voice of the printers, but the tone was the tone of proprietors. And that was the passing ofPunch. Earlier in the year Landells had made an effort to save the paper by persuading those who worked for it to take shares. With a few he was successful; others were less speculative, so the writer was informed by the late H. G. Hine. "Landells," he said, "asked me to take a share in the paper,but, not being a business man, I declined. When the paper changed hands, Bradbury and Evans bought it for so small an increase on the actual losses and debts, that each man, when the profits were divided, received two-and-sixpence each." Not long after Landells ceased his connection withPunch, Douglas Jerrold met Vizetelly, and acquainted him with the turn of the tide. "Punchis getting on all right now," he said; and added, in his saturnine way, "It began to do so immediately we threw that engraving Jonah overboard!" Yet Jerrold was glad enough to take advantage of the engraving Jonah's influence the following year, when Landells, with Herbert Ingram, N. Cooke, T. Roberts, W. Little, and R. Palmer started the "Illuminated Magazine," and installed him as editor at a handsome salary.

The following page from Landells' rather rough-and-ready accounts will give some idea of how financial matters stood between the parties at the time of the transfer:—

B. & E. Cash Recd.B. & E. Cash Paid.£s.d.£s.d.Accts.1,27869Cash paid to Artists, Editors, etc.50740Editors, Artists, paid50746B. & E. for printing605106——————77123B. & E. acct.605106——————Balance in hand£165119E. Landells.Lemon, Coyne, and Mayhew.£s.d.£s.d.To Engravings31540To Editing40000Cash2500½ debt10000——————Paid contributions at£6. 0. 0 per week12000½ debt30000Paid contributions at£6. 0. 0 per week12000½ debt30000——————4604040000½ debt1000010000————————————3604030000——————12000Cash received5700——————£303402500——————£15500

[Note.—The schedule of documents and legal papers connected with the matters here dealt with, now in possession of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnewand Co., Ltd. (which confirm the particulars derived from Landells' papers) are:—1. The original Agreement between the original founders ofPunchalready enumerated. This is dated July 14th, 1841—only three days before the appearance of the paper. It is printed at length as Appendix 1 to this volume.2. Agreement between Bradbury and Evans and "Punchites," whereby in consideration of a loan of £150 the printing of the paper is assured to the firm. This is dated Oct., 1841, the signatories being E. Landells, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne, with W. H. Wills and G. Windsor as witnesses.3. The assignment to Landells ofPunchand the stock-in-trade by Lemon, Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne. Dated December 6th, 1841.4. Assignment to Bradbury and Evans by Landells of his two-thirds share ofPunch. Dated, July 25th, 1842.5. Assignment of his remaining one-third to Bradbury and Evans by Landells, in consideration of £100 cash and their acceptance for £250 due Jan. 31st, 1843, their mortgage on this share to be cancelled. This deed is dated Dec. 29th, 1842, and is in the terms of Landells' letter of agreement of the previous 24th.]

1. The original Agreement between the original founders ofPunchalready enumerated. This is dated July 14th, 1841—only three days before the appearance of the paper. It is printed at length as Appendix 1 to this volume.

2. Agreement between Bradbury and Evans and "Punchites," whereby in consideration of a loan of £150 the printing of the paper is assured to the firm. This is dated Oct., 1841, the signatories being E. Landells, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne, with W. H. Wills and G. Windsor as witnesses.

3. The assignment to Landells ofPunchand the stock-in-trade by Lemon, Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne. Dated December 6th, 1841.

4. Assignment to Bradbury and Evans by Landells of his two-thirds share ofPunch. Dated, July 25th, 1842.

5. Assignment of his remaining one-third to Bradbury and Evans by Landells, in consideration of £100 cash and their acceptance for £250 due Jan. 31st, 1843, their mortgage on this share to be cancelled. This deed is dated Dec. 29th, 1842, and is in the terms of Landells' letter of agreement of the previous 24th.]

The new proprietors, when they acquired their interest inPunch, were not then distinguished publishers such as they soon became; they were essentially printers, and had few connections to assist them in making it into a paying property. They had, however, W. S. Orr & Co. (the London agents of Chambers, of Edinburgh), who had fallen into financial difficulties, and looked to Bradbury and Evans to help them out; and through their organisationPunchwas taken up by the trade "on sale or return." To work up the sale of a threepenny publication was at that time a formidable task; but Orr certainly accomplished it, and for a timePunchundoubtedly owed more to his efforts than to Jerrold's pen or Leech's pencil. The head of the firm, in both senses, was William Bradbury, the keenest man of business that ever trod the flags of Fleet Street, and the founder of a dynastic line nearly as long and eminent as that of John Murray himself. His portrait may be seen inPunchmore than once—for example, in Tenniel's drawing of the Staff at play at the beginning of Vol. XXVII, 1854, where his tall, imposing figure contrasts with that of his partner, Frederick Mullett ("Pater") Evans, who appears with shining spectacles, beaming countenance, and convex waistcoat. Jolly old "Pater," who died in 1870, was the model of Leech'spater-familias; and it is remembered to his credit that he neverresented the liberty taken with him by Thackeray in "The Kickleburys on the Rhine." It has always been the graceful and feeling practice ofPunch, ever since the death of Dr. Maginn, to whom a kindly obituary was devoted in 1842, to do honour in his pages to each of his lieutenants as they drop out of the ranks, recognising misfortune and death—both "devil's inventions," as Ruskin calls them—as toll-gates on the path of life, with sorrow as the tax; so that these more solemn articles and mortuary elegies seem to mark the way, like milestones set by loving hands. To Evans one of these was raised, and we read in it that "they who inscribe these lines to his memory will never lament a more kind, more genial, or more loyal friend."

BRADBURY AND EVANSBRADBURY AND EVANS

(From Photographs by A. Bassano Limited.)

The next head of the firm was William Hardwick Bradbury, who had been at school with Mr. Justice Romer, the husband of Mark Lemon's daughter; and the house then became Bradbury, Evans & Co. He married the daughter of Mr. Thomas Agnew; and when, in 1872, Mr. F. M. Evans (the son of "Pater") left the firm, after having attended the Dinner for five years as the son of his father, and sat for another seven years at the tail of the Table by right of proprietorship, the business was reinforced by the inclusion of the house of Agnew. It then became Bradbury, Agnew & Co., and it has been thought that Sir William Agnew's personality has tended to colourPunchup to a certain point with just a shade of his own Liberal political opinions. Messrs. W. H. Bradbury, William Agnew, Thomas Agnew, and John Henry Agnew were then the members of the firm, which a few years since was converted into a limited company; and on the death of the first-named, Mr. W. Lawrence Bradbury took his father's place as managing head of the house, with Mr. Philip Agnew as colleague: young men, surely, to succeed to the direction of a house which had been the publisher of Thackeray and Dickens, founders of "The Field," "The Army and Navy Gazette," printers of the "Family Herald" and "London Journal," of the "Daily News," the "English Encyclopedia," and other huge undertakings. With the advent of the younger generation came some of those technical alterations and improvements whichhave brought the production ofPunchabreast of the times; but the older traditions, in particular that great institution of thePunchDinner, have been reverently and lovingly retained in all their admirable features.

BRADBURY, AGNEW and Co.BRADBURY, AGNEW and Co.

(From Photographs by A. Bassano, Limited.)

It is not surprising that after the striking success of the experiment the Almanac became a permanent annual institution. Into so important a publication did it develop, commercially speaking, that a special "Almanac Dinner" has up to recent years always been considered necessary, at which its chief contents are arranged, just as at the ordinary weekly Dinner. Hine, Kenny Meadows, and others assisted in the production of the first two or three Almanacs; but after that, and for many years, practically the whole of the illustrative work usually fell on the broad and entirely competent shoulders of John Leech, especially after Doyle's secession. From time to time experiments have been made in the direction of novelty. Thus in 1848, in consequence of the great popularity of the issue, a luxurious edition was prepared, at the price of five shillings for the coloured and half that sum for the uncoloured copies, wherein, it was claimed, "full effect is given to the artists' designs." It was certainly an imposing affair, with meadows of margin, and printed on one side only of the thick paper; and it now commands a price in the bookshops of five or six times its original cost.

Humour for private as well as for public consumption has always been a rule in thePunchcircle; and in 1865, a year in which influenza colds were extremely prevalent, this pleasing faculty was given full scope. Most of the Staff that Christmas were afflicted with severe colds; so with amiable consideration the copies of the Almanac provided for them and for some of the chief contributors were printed upon linen—lest their supply of handkerchiefs should run short. They were charming and cheerful in appearance, being handsomely bound and stitched with red, and presented unusual advantages in the way of utility and entertainment. Of recent years the Almanacs have had admirably drawn wrappers, specially designed. In 1882 Mr. Burnand tested the powers of our humorous painters outside, in addition toPunch'sown Staff, including Mr. StacyMarks, R.A., Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R.A., and Sir John Gilbert, R.A.; but the result was an argument in favour of Staff-work over outside contribution. Among other experiments, colour was tried with a view to rendering further homage to Sir John Tenniel's cartoon, by printing it on a tinted background, in the manner of Matt Morgan's famous designs in the "Tomahawk." But the idea, which originated with the late Mr. Bradbury, did not answer expectations, and the attempt was abandoned.

The success that immediately attended the Almanac naturally attracted the attention of the pirates, and hatched the brood of spurious and coarse imitations given forth by such notorious printers and publishers as Goode, Lloyd, and Lyle. ButPunchhad a short legal way with him that soon scared them off, and the merry Hunchback is now left supreme in his own sphere. He not only, as the "Times" said, "commences the winter season for us with the 'Almanac,' but he continues the tradition of Charles Dickens by retaining for Christmastide much of the fine hearty old flavour which the great novelist imparted to it—that jovial, tender, charitable, roast-goose spirit that exhales from it, the Spirits of Christmas Present and Christmas Past." "Christmas without the Christmas number ofPunch," exclaimed the "Saturday Review" not long ago, "would be a Christmas without plum-pudding, mince-pies, turkey, and children's parties—it would not be Christmas at all!"

Another result of the constant search for freshness was the changing of the design on the cover of each consecutive volume. Any change from that of Henning could only be a change for the better, so a second application was made to Hablôt Knight Browne ("Phiz") for his collaboration. Well satisfied by this time with the tone of the paper, he gladly responded. The result was a refined and artistic page, crowded with figures, rather graceful and quaint than funny; and although, to Leech's horror, a barrel-organ figured in it, it served its purpose admirably.

PUNCH'S SECOND WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY "PHIZ." JANUARY, 1842.PUNCH'SSECOND WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY "PHIZ." JANUARY, 1842.View larger image

PROPOSED WRAPPER FOR THIRD VOLUME. SKETCH BY H. G. HINE. NOT ADOPTED.PROPOSED WRAPPER FOR THIRD VOLUME. SKETCH BY H. G. HINE. NOT ADOPTED.View larger image

For the next volume a sketch was made by H. G. Hine, based on a slighter one by Landells. It was not used,however, as intended, but adapted as the index-heading; and William Harvey, the Shakespearian illustrator, was requested to undertake a design to replace it. This, though yet moregraceful than Browne's, was less suitable than ever. Babes likeamorinitoying with Punch's cap andbâton, bells and mask, were very pretty and charming, but a good deal too much in the style of Rubens or Stothard; and what was thought more unsuitable still was the price. Mr. Birket Foster has borne witness to the consternation in the officewhen the charge of twelve guineas was sent in with the design—nearly half the total capital with which Landells a year before had begun the concern!

PUNCH'S THIRD WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY WILLIAM HARVEY. JULY, 1842.PUNCH'STHIRD WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY WILLIAM HARVEY. JULY, 1842.View larger image

PUNCH'S FOURTH WRAPPER. DESIGNED BY SIR JOHN GILBERT. JANUARY, 1843.PUNCH'SFOURTH WRAPPER. DESIGNED BY SIR JOHN GILBERT. JANUARY, 1843.View larger image

PUNCH'S FIFTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY KENNY MEADOWS. JULY, 1843.PUNCH'SFIFTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY KENNY MEADOWS. JULY, 1843.View larger image

PUNCH'S SIXTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. FIRST DESIGN. JANUARY, 1844.PUNCH'SSIXTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. FIRST DESIGN. JANUARY, 1844.View larger image

Six months later Sir John Gilbert—then a youth doing great things for the "Illustrated London News"—was commissioned to draw another front page. This was subsequentlyused until recent years as the pink cover ofPunch'smonthly parts. A cover was produced by Kenny Meadows, and then for January, 1844, Richard Doyle, the latest recruit, whosemerit had been quickly gauged, was employed to execute the new one. This wrapper was far more in accord with the true spirit ofPunch. More sportive and rollicking, and with less attempt at grace, it threw over the style of the "Newcastle School"—of which Landells was a member—and gave the general idea of the latest of all covers. This was not executed until January, 1849, when several changes of detail were made, including the substitution of the smug lion's head for that of Judy in the canvas—the whole sosuccessful that it may safely be predicted that it will never be superseded.

PUNCH'S SIXTH AND LAST WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. SECOND DESIGN. JANUARY, 1849.PUNCH'SSIXTH AND LAST WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. SECOND DESIGN. JANUARY, 1849.View larger image

Such are the covers—comprising what Mr. W. Bradbury used to call "our wardrobe of old coats"—which, though interesting enough in themselves, certainly included nothing to equal the last design, by which Doyle's name is best known throughout the artistic world.

Guided by the success of the first Almanac, the conductors decided to work the same oracle by publishing "extra numbers" at every promising opportunity. "Mr. Mayhew, Mr. Jerrold, and I," says Landells, "happened to spend a few days in the summer at Herne Bay, and there 'Punch'sVisit to the Watering Places' was projected. These articles gavePunchanother great lift. Messrs. Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, and I, did Herne Bay, Margate, Broadstairs, and Ramsgate, and I never enjoyed myself more than on this, to me, memorable occasion. Albert Smith did Brighton.Punchthenceforth became an established favourite with the public, and the weekly circulation averaged over 30,000."

Just before this lucky stroke, another not less fortunate as asucces d'estime, if nothing more, was "Punch'sValentines"—at that time considered a most remarkable production; for there were no fewer than twelve half-page engravings within its full-page borders—a generous amount that puzzled the public far more than ten times as much and as good would do to-day. Kenny Meadows, "Phiz,"[6]Leech, Crowquill, Henning, and Newman, contributed each two "valentines," which were addressed to various sorts and conditions of people, accompanied by verses of considerable humour and more than average merit. Thus, to the lawyer—whom "Phiz" has represented as a mixture, in equal parts, of Squeers, Brass, and Quilp—the lines begin in a manner not unworthy of Hood himself:—

"Lend me your ears, thou man of law,While I my declaration draw,Your heart in fee surrender;As plaintiff I my suit prefer,'Twould be uncivil to demur,Then let your plea be—tender."

The invocation which follows, to a gorgeous footman, by some love-smitten serving-maid, ends—

"But now fare thee well!—with your ultimate breath,When you answer the door to the knocking of Death,On your conscience, believe me, 'twill terribly dwell,If now you refuse to attend to thebelle!"

In August, 1850, in the extra number called "Punch'sHolidays," that was done for the outskirts of London which eight years before had been done for the watering-places. It was illustrated by Leech and Doyle, and, it may be added, the Hampton Court section was written by Thackeray. Then when the great Shakespeare Tercentenary was being celebrated, with singularly littleéclatso far as the Shakespeare Committee itself was concerned,Punchproduced his "Tercentenary Number." It was in all respects admirable, and Tenniel's double-page cartoon was a striking success—as might have been expected from a Staff so remarkably well versed in Shakespeare. In that cartoon the poet's triumphal car, drawn by twin Pegasi and driven by Mr. Punch, is followed by a motley procession, in which Mark Lemon, in the character of John Bull, appears adapted as Prospero (one of the best of the many portraits of the editor that have appeared in the paper), while a typically malignant organ-grinder is Caliban, and all the leading statesmen and sovereigns are represented in Shakespearian character appropriate to the circumstances; the "Standard" and "Morning Herald," two ofPunch'spet aversions and journalistic butts, bringing up the rear as the Witches in "Macbeth," Mesdames Gamp and Harris. The illustrators of this exceptionally happy number were—besides Sir John Tenniel—Charles Keene, Mr. du Maurier, and Mr. Fairfield.

Then came the unwieldy "Records of the Great Exhibition, extracted fromPunch" on October 4th, 1851.Punchhad made a dead-set against the exhibition in Hyde Park (until his friend Paxton was appointed its architect, subsequently earning £20,000 by the work), and, according to Mr. Justin McCarthy, "was hardly ever weary of making fun of it ... and nothing short of complete success could save it from falling under a mountain of ridicule. The Prince did not despair, however, and the project went on." And when it was afait accompli,Punch, good man of business that he was, at once put it to the best possible advantage, by issuing his enormous "extra" of nine previously-published cartoons by Tenniel and Leech, and many other cuts besides—the whole, in point of its double-folio size, more suitable for street display than library reading. The price was sixpence, and with all the special matter it contained it was one of the cheapest productions ever issued from that office.

With the special Paris Exhibition number, produced in celebration of the Exhibition of 1889, the list of extra numbers issued byPunchfor general circulation comes to a close. Nearly the whole of the Staff, including the proprietors, travelled to Paris together—how luxuriously, Mr. Furniss's drawing of their dining-saloon gives a good notion; it contains (with Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Lucy) portraits of all who were present. Charles Keene had stayed at home; he felt unequal to the jaunt, and was, in fact, sickening for the mortal illness which soon had him in its grip. The "Paris Sketches" in the number that bear his signature were—like the "war correspondence from the front" concocted in Fleet Street—quietly drawn at home down at Chelsea. One thing primarily the number showed: thatPunch'snational prejudices have mellowed with time, and that a Frenchman may be accepted as a cultivated gentleman and a genial companion—a very different being to him whom Leech habitually drew as a flabby-faced refugee in Leicester Square, "withestaminetclearly written across his features," while Thackeray applauded the conception in his most righteous hatred and contempt for all things vile.

Two other special means hasPunchadopted with the viewof pleasing his constituents and confounding his enemies, exclusive of the mock Mulready envelope known as the "Anti-Graham Envelope" and the "Wafers," which are elsewhere referred to. The first of these was the music occasionally printed in his pages from the hand of his own particular maestro, Tully, the well-known member of thePunchClub, whose musical setting of "The Queen's Speech, as it is to be sung by the Lord Chancellor," appeared in 1843; the polka, at the time when that dance was a novel and a national craze, dedicated to the well-known dancing-master, Baron Nathan; "Punch'sMazurka," in Vol. VIII. (1845); and one or two other pieces besides. The other was a coloured picture representing a "plate"—a satire on the poor and inartistic "coloured plates" then being issued by S. C. Hall's "Art Union." It was a clever lithographic copy of an ordinary "willow pattern" plate; a homely piece of crockery, broken and riveted, beneath which is inscribed: "To the Subscribers to the Art Union this beautiful plate (from the original in the possession of the Artist) is presented, as the finest specimen of British Art, byPunch." It was designed by Horace Mayhew; but the edition was extremely limited—not a hundred copies, it is understood—on account of the expense, which it was thought was not justified by the excellence or the likely popularity of the joke.

Such have been some ofPunch'sefforts outside the usual routine, and the result has been the continual popularisation of the paper. Volume after volume, too, in various forms, has been republished, culminating in the "Victorian Era," "Pictures fromPunch," and "Sir John Tenniel's Cartoons;" and each one has but served to attract the favourable notice of the public to the ordinary issue. SoPunchhas developed his power and his resources. To him one might almost apply what a Welshman said of his friend: "I knew him when he wass a ferry poor man—quite a poor man walking about in the village; and now he drives in his carriage and twice!"

"Here let us sport,Boys, as we sit;Laughter and witFlashing so free.Life is but short—When we are gone,Let them sing on,Round the old tree."—Thackeray's "Mahogany Tree."

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