ROUGH PENCIL SKETCH FOR "ARTHUR AND GUINEVERE," FOR "PUNCH'S POCKET-BOOK."
"WILL IT BURST?"Captain of Gun:"Ram 'em all down, my lads! She'll stand it safe enough!!!"(From Sir John Tenniel's Rough Sketch for the Cartoon in "Punch," 14th Feb., 1870—p. 67, Vol. LXXVIII.)
"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, andvice 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 ofPunch'sCartoonist—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 aPunchartist 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 aboutme?" 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. Buthe 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 inPunch. 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 ofPunch'sgiants, 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 inPunch'sband, 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 aspecially-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 alwaysinterpretedSir 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.
ROUGH SKETCH FOR "THOR" FOR "PUNCH'S POCKET-BOOK."
"HUMPTY-DUMPTY!"(From Sir John Tenniel's First Rough Sketch for the Cartoon in "Punch" 20th July, 1875—p. 18, Vol. LXXV.)
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 thingabout 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,nowseems 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 fromPunchwork 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 hundredand 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 themarket. 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 matterau 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 maximars longabeen 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 ustwoeyes 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 onPunch, 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 ofPunch. 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 ofPunchof the present with the past. So he is the favourite of the band, to whom he is the beloved "Jackīdēs" of Shirley Brooks's christening. It was Mark Lemon who, at the Dinner, first applied to him the burlesque line—"No longer Jack, henceforth Jackīdēs call;" but it was Brooks who confirmed the practice of according to him thesobriquetwhichPunch(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 whichPunchhad 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 theloftier side of political life—who had brought thePunchspirit 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 "Jackīdēs" that thePunchStaff 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, aPunchwriter too (seePunch, 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."
Captain Howard—Receipt for Landscape Drawing—Earnings, Real and Ideal—George H. Thomas—Charles Keene—His Training—Introduction toPunch—Called to the Table—Uselessness in Council—A Strong Politician—Inherits Leech's Position—Keene as an Artist—Where He Failed—His Joke-Primers—Torturing the Bagpipes—Good Stories, Used, Spoiled, and Rejected—"Toby" as a Dachshund—Death of "Frau"—Keene's Technique—His Inventions and Creations—And what He Earned by Them—Charles Martin—Harry Hall—Rev. Edward Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede")—"Verdant Green" or "Blanco White"?—Double Acrostics—George Cruikshank DefiesPunch—Mr. T. Harrington Wilson—Mr. Harrison Weir—Mr. Ashby-Sterry—Alfred Thompson—Frank Bellew—Julian Portch—"Cham"—G. H. Haydon—J. M. Lawless.
Captain Howard—Receipt for Landscape Drawing—Earnings, Real and Ideal—George H. Thomas—Charles Keene—His Training—Introduction toPunch—Called to the Table—Uselessness in Council—A Strong Politician—Inherits Leech's Position—Keene as an Artist—Where He Failed—His Joke-Primers—Torturing the Bagpipes—Good Stories, Used, Spoiled, and Rejected—"Toby" as a Dachshund—Death of "Frau"—Keene's Technique—His Inventions and Creations—And what He Earned by Them—Charles Martin—Harry Hall—Rev. Edward Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede")—"Verdant Green" or "Blanco White"?—Double Acrostics—George Cruikshank DefiesPunch—Mr. T. Harrington Wilson—Mr. Harrison Weir—Mr. Ashby-Sterry—Alfred Thompson—Frank Bellew—Julian Portch—"Cham"—G. H. Haydon—J. M. Lawless.
CAPTAIN H. R. HOWARD.CAPTAIN H. R. HOWARD.(From a Photograph by Lambert Weston and Son.)
An amateur who signed with cross-pipes, and who appeared five times in the following year, was the one other contributor of 1850; and then 1851 was distinguished by the enlistment of the prolific draughtsman who at first used three running legs—quaintly accepted as the Manx arms—as his sign-manual. This was Captain Henry R. Howard, the son of a country gentleman, born at Watford, where he lived in the same house for over fifty years. He was always sketching from a child; and being persuaded by his friends to "do some of those forPunch," he sent a few samples to the Editor, but without much hope of success. They brought an immediate invitation to call upon Mark Lemon, who told him, after seeing his pencil sketches, that he might draw for them, but not on paper, on wood; and learning that he had had no such experience, referred him for instruction to the courtesy of Leech and Tenniel, whose senior he was by six years. He was not entirely without artistic education, havingstudied in Hanover under a pupil of Benjamin West's. "You must draw skeletons," said Herr Ramburg. "But I only want to draw landscapes," pleaded the youth. "Then you must draw skeletons first," replied the artist; "it is the only way to draw landscapes."
After securing Lemon's favour Captain Howard drew scores of comic humanised beasts and birds in the form of initials and decorations. At last, after some years, Lemon proposed a change, when Howard quietly remarked, "I've been wondering how long you'd go on taking those things; I should have thought you were sick of them. I am." Meanwhile he had changed his signature of the Manx legs—he had just been sojourning in the island when he adopted them—as Lemon represented it as Leech's opinion that it was sometimes unnecessarily like his own wriggling signature; and he had adopted in substitution the little trident that figured in the paper for fifteen years. When Leech died, Captain Howard aspired to be—in part, at least—his successor; but although he was now drawing figure-subjects, and had an inexhaustible stock of jokes and fun, he was told, to his bitter disappointment, that new blood was wanted; and the great mantle which had fallen was now drawn round the shoulders of Charles Keene and Mr. du Maurier. Captain Howard then practically retired. Although in the first year of his contributions he was £30 out of pocket by hisPunchwork, as he bought his own blocks instead of claiming them from Swain, he was soon making £100 a year from the paper. Just before he retired an officer recently returned from India expressed the desire to draw also forPunchas a profession. "I hear," said he, "that Leech makes £1,500 a year out of it." "So that you would be satisfied with £1,200?" asked Captain Howard. His friend admitted that even the inferior sum would be acceptable. "Very well," replied Howard encouragingly; "come and dine with me, and I'll show you by my books that myPunchincome last year was just twelve pounds!"
Captain Howard's work, though clever and ingenious, was weak. Its humour, often fresh enough, was never verypronounced; nor did the draughtsman's hand ever become that of a master. In 1853 he had made no fewer than sixty-six cuts, and about doubled that number each year up to 1867, when, with only two drawings in the volume, he finally vanished fromPunch'spages. Three years later there was printed an initial by him, representing a comic hammer-fish (p. 265, Vol. LIX.), but this belonged to "old stock;" and it marks the failure of its author's long-sustained effort to obtain a recognised position in the front rank of the artistic Staff. He died 31st August, 1895.
A contemporary of his was G. H. Thomas, brother of one of the founders of the "Graphic," and a popular painter of the day, who received much employment from the Queen. Mark Lemon was very anxious to secure the services of so admirable a draughtsman; but Thomas, who was trying to shake himself free from wood-drawing in favour of oil-painting, showed little responsive enthusiasm. He did, however, contribute a couple of drawings—one of them a large head-piece to the preface, representing a feast given toPunchon his twenty-first volume day. In it he is supported by the Queen and Court, and at the round table are the representatives of the nations. It is not a happy effort, and is clearly inspired by Doyle—whose fancy the Editor was still seeking to replace; and, moreover, it is poorly engraved; but it is as full of figures as of incident. Then came C. H. Bradley, who seldom got beyond initials and trifles of large heads on little bodies, being only once or twice promoted to "socials" during the nine years of his connection with the paper. On occasion he showed real humour, while his artistic merit seems to have owed most of what excellence it possessed to the study of Tenniel's work. Bradley, whose monogram might easily be mistaken by the unwary for that of C. H. Bennett, who followed eight years later, executed but five-and-thirty cuts between 1852 and 1860.
CHARLES S. KEENE.CHARLES S. KEENE.(Drawn by J. D. Watson. By Courtesy of "Black and White.")
Punchwas ten years old when the hand of Charles Keene, but not Charles Keene himself, was introduced to the Editor, through the instrumentality of Mr. Henry Silver. Keene had at first been intended for the law, and afterwards hadspent a short period in an architect's office. But he decided to throw himself into art; and in order to learn engraving and drawing on the wood, he followed the practice of the day (such as had been adopted by Leech, William Harvey,Fred Walker, Mr. Birket Foster, Mr. Walter Crane, and other ofPunch'sartists), and apprenticed himself to an engraver—Whymper, for choice. Then he studied along with his comrade Tenniel and other incipient geniuses at the Clipstone Street Academy, and as early as 1846 produced with his friend—who was soon to be his fellow-giant onPunch—the "Book of Beauty," already referred to. He took a studio in the Strand—a sky-parlour renowned for its dust and inaccessibility—and lived, as all good Bohemians should, chiefly on art, song, and smoke: an existence sweetened by a few warm but eclectic friendships. He worked desperately hard, and having, through his fellow-shireman Samuel Read, become connected with the "Illustrated London News," he made for it many drawings of the sort now called "actuality."
By that time Mr. Henry Silver had contracted with Keene an acquaintanceship which was to grow into a warm friendship, and it was under the shadow of that intimacy that his earlier contributions were made. As Mr. Silver himself explains in his statement written for Mr. George S. Layard's admirable "Life and Letters of Charles Keene ofPunch" (p. 47): "It may seem a little strange that Keene at first showed some reluctance to let his name be known where it was finally so famous. Still, it is the fact that while his earliestPunchdrawings were of my devising, he steadily declined to own himself the doer of them. I was writing then forPunchas an outsider, but my ambition was to draw, and for this I had no talent. As for working on the wood, I soon 'cut' it in despair, and, like a baffled tyrant, I knew not how to bring my subjects to the block. Keene very kindly undertook the labour for me, and the first design he executed was 'A Sketch of the New Paris Street-sweeping Machines'—a couple of cannon, namely—which was published in December, 1851, immediately after the bloodycoup d'état."
This was the barest sketch, childish and shaky in execution, which, however, is explained in the legend as being due to the "Special Artist" being in the line of fire. Mr. Layard asserts that when Keene made the drawing he thought thejoke "a mighty poor one;" and he might have added, as is made clear in the chapter dealing with "Plagiarism," not even a new one, forPunchhimself had used the idea before (p. 166, Vol. XV.), and was then accused of theft by the "Man in the Moon." Mr. Silver proceeds:—
"His next two drawings illustrate an article of mine, and appear on the second page of the next volume. His fourth, a far more finished drawing, like these, saw the light in 1852, and may be found in Vol. XXIII., p. 257. It shows a gentleman engaged in fishing in his kitchen, and is entitled 'The Advantage of an Inundation,' the autumn of that year being very wet. Mark Lemon wrote to me commending it, and asking me to try and draw a little more for him. I showed Charles the letter, and said that now, of course, his name must be divulged, for I clearly was obtainingkudosunder false pretences. However, he deferred the disclosure for a while, and it was not until the spring of 1854 that his 'C. K.' first appeared (videinitial 'G,' Vol. XXVI., p. 128)—a modest little monogram, quite unlike his later and so well-known signature. In the interim he marked his drawings with a mask, which was a device of mine for hiding his identity."
For nine years Keene worked steadily onPunch, improving artistically in an amazing manner, and in 1860 he was called to the Table—they served long terms of probation then—and ate his first Dinner on February 20th. It was a notable company that he used to meet, all the chief "rising stars" ofPunchbeing still upon the Staff, save Douglas Jerrold, who had died three years before. There were Mark Lemon, Thackeray (nominally retired), Tom Taylor, Horace Mayhew, Shirley Brooks, Percival Leigh, John Leech, Henry Silver, and John Tenniel; and into this brilliant assemblage, on the evening in question (when, however, Thackeray was absent, and Sir Joseph Paxton was present as a visitor), he was received with a cordial welcome. But neither at that time nor thenceforward did he take a prominent part in the discussions over the cartoon, although on one occasion he did astonish the company with an excellent though belatedsuggestion. He had, in fact, no originality of a literary or humorous kind. He knew the exact value of a joke when it was made, and could usually display its point to incomparable advantage; but joke-creation was not one of his strong points, even though he was often forced to it by necessity. Occasionally, however, he would miss a point entirely, as in the joke sent him by Mr. Alfred Cooper[55]:—
"Visitor(having shot a hare at the usual seventy yards): 'Long shot that, Johnson.'"Keeper: 'Yes, sir; Master remarked as it were a wery long shot.'"Visitor(gratified): 'Ah! Oh, he noticed it, did he?'"Keeper: 'Yes, sir; Master always take notice. When gen'lemen makes wery long shots, they don't get asked again!'"
"Visitor(having shot a hare at the usual seventy yards): 'Long shot that, Johnson.'
"Keeper: 'Yes, sir; Master remarked as it were a wery long shot.'
"Visitor(gratified): 'Ah! Oh, he noticed it, did he?'
"Keeper: 'Yes, sir; Master always take notice. When gen'lemen makes wery long shots, they don't get asked again!'"
"Why," asks Keene, "would 'Master' object to this long shot? Burnand ... is sure to want to know I don't know either! Will you kindly explain, so that I can answer him as if I were an expert." As if even a non-sportsman would fail to see the point!
But at the Table, delightful as Keene personally was—he was lovingly addressed as "Carlo"—he was not a leading conversationalist. He proposed little; yet when his opinion was asked, he gave it, with judgment and taste, tersely expressed. His work, besides, was rarely discussed at the Table, for he usually had to seek his material outside. Moreover, he was, as he expressed it, a "hot Tory," and so strongly antipathetic did he profess himself towards the Liberal tendency of some of the Staff of that day that he would declare with a wink that he positively preferred to stay away; and on the occasion of the accession of Mr. Anstey, wrote this sturdy Conservative "I hope he's a Tory. We want some leaven to the set of sorry Rads that lead poor oldPunchastray at present." But few independent readers, and fewer still of Keene's personal friends, will take very seriously his sweeping assertion and political pronunciamentoes—at least, as regardsPunch, for whom and for his colleagues he retained to the end feelings of the warmest affection.
When John Leech died in 1864, it was Keene who received the main heritage of his great position as the social satirist of the paper, and with it the heaviest share of work and artistic responsibility. Not only did his work increase in the ordinary numbers, but extra drawings—such as the etched frontispieces to the Pocket-books—fell also to his lot; and a good deal against the grain—for he hated any approach to personality, even though his target was a public man and his shaft was tipped with harmless fun—he executed fourteen cartoons, as is explained elsewhere. In addition to his ordinary "socials" and the formal decorations of each successive volume, Keene re-illustrated "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures" with a marvellous series of drawings, and Mr. Frank C. Burnand's "Tracks for Tourists," which made their first appearance as "How, When, and Where" (1864) and were ultimately republished in "Very Much Abroad." Of his outside work for "Once a Week," published by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, and other publications, no mention need here be made.
It is doubtful if the public will ever realise how great an artist Keene was. His transcendent merit has, however, for a long time been the wonder and admiration of his brother-craftsmen and of the critics. The stream of his genius continued to flow for six-and-thirty years in the most amazing manner. His drawings are in the highest form of Impressionism, reproducing every phase of fleeting expression and suddenly-arrested action with a certainty and accuracy which are absolutely unsurpassable. His power of composition, of breadth of handling, chiaroscuro, and suggestion of colour and form, was perfect within the range of his medium; and in that medium he gave us, not paper with pen-lines on it, but a perfect sense of light, form, and expression. He was as careful, too, in his "comic cuts" as the most conscientious of painters could be in his canvas; and drawing invariably from the model—even if that model were simply an old shoe—he would often journey into the country for a background of, say, a turnip-field, or in search of any other detail or local colour.
In one direction alone did he fail, or choose to fail—inthe portrayal of facial beauty, elegance, and respectability. A pretty woman lurked but rarely about the point of his pencil, as she does so delightfully about those of his principal collaborators onPunch; and an elegant woman—save by accident—never. You may point to the Brittany peasant in the number for September 20th, 1856; to the very Leechy young lady on p. 188, Vol. XXXVI. (May 7th, 1859), who, it must be admitted, really is a "lady;" and to one or two more. But these pretty women serve rather to accentuate the ugliness of all his other women, when they should have been most beautiful; while elegance is with him a virtue that very rarely saves. Keene, indeed, misrepresented his countrywomen as much as M. Forain libels his. Keene's "swells," and even his gentlemen, are snobs; his aristocracy and his clerks are cast in the same mould; his city young men are like artizans; and his brides are forbidding—models of virtue, no doubt, but lacking every outward feminine charm. These shortcomings, of course, are to a certain extent to be accounted for by his own nature. Living in the strictest economy and temperateness, he hated anything like ostentation. He despised "Society" and the whole fabric of fashion, and held the world of Burke and Debrett in good-natured abhorrence. Like Leech and Dickens, he had given his heart to the middle and lower-middle classes, and among them he found his best models and most admirablemotifs.
NoPunchartist was ever so dependent upon his friends for "subjects" as he, and none received such continuous and delightful support. From Messrs. Joseph Crawhall, Andrew Tuer, Walker, Clayton, Birket Foster, Sands, Pritchett, Savile Clark, Ashby-Sterry, Chasemore, and others, he was under constant friendly, and fully-acknowledged, obligation. Not but that he made constant effort to secure "jokes" of his own. He was ever on the look-out, and often very hard-pressed, for them. One day he told Mr. Pritchett that he had determined to join a riding class at Allen's Riding-school, and seek inspiration there. His friend amiably suggested that he (Mr. Pritchett) should attend as observer and reporter, and tell Keene all the ridiculous things he did onhorseback and the amusing appearances he cut. But the idea did not seem to commend itself to Keene, who merely replied that he thought he should choose a hearse-horse to ride, as being at once more stately, decorative, and safe.
Amongst Keene's own subjects are to be included the greater number of those series of drawings dealing with artist and volunteer life; but it must be recognised that to a great extent Keene was frankly the illustrator of other men's ideas, and often of other men's "legends." These legends, or "cackle," were often touched up by Keene; but sometimes they were entirely original. And though it must be admitted that they are not concise as Leech's, they are, as a rule, more life-like, more truthfully Impressionistic—just as his drawings are. The "legend," by the way, Keene used to term the "libretto"—a reflection, as it were, of his passion for music (a passion he shared with Gainsborough and Dyce and Romney, and so many more of our most eminent artists). This love of music he indulged at the meetings of the Moray Minstrels, in the Crystal Palace Choir during the Handel Festivals, and in the depths of the country, wherein he would bury himself in order to torture the bagpipes, without testing too severely the forbearance of his fellow-men.
When he secured a good story—which he loved to impart with an ecstatic wink to one or other of his closest friends—he would look as carefully to the "libretto" as to the drawing, as in the case of the British farmer who, crossing the Channel for the first time—in great discomfort at the roll of the boat—"This Capt'n don't understand his business.Dang it, why don't he keep in the furrows?" or the story—older, by the way, than Keene had any knowledge of—of the Scotchman who was asked by a friend, upon whom he had called, if he would take a glass of whiskey. "No," he said, "it's too airly; besides, I've had a gill a'ready!"
CHARLES KEENE TORTURING THE BAGPIPES.CHARLES KEENE TORTURING THE BAGPIPES.(From a Pen-Drawing by Himself. By Permission of Henry S. Keene. Engraved by J. Swain.)
And when his legends were altered by the Editor he would fret for a week. Once when Tom Taylor altered the good Scotch of a "field preacher" (Almanac for 1880) he declared himself "in a great rage," and swore that he would "never forgive" the delinquent. On other occasions, too, hefumed at the desecration of his "librettos;" and when the word "last" was accidentally omitted from his joke—"Heard my [last] new song?" "Oh, Lor! I hope so!!" he mourned over the loss of the point. Yet he might have been comforted; for had the word been retained, the further charge of plagiarism could have been sustained against him.
FROM CHARLES KEENE TO HIS EDITOR.FROM CHARLES KEENE TO HIS EDITOR.View larger image
But his sorest point againstPunch—to which, after all, he was sincerely attached—was not the alteration, but the total suppression of some of his work. Two such cases are duly recorded by Mr. Layard—both of them admirable jokes in their way, though perhaps of questionable taste. The first deals with a "Bereaved Husband's" opposition to the "Sympathetic Undertaker's" remorseless insistence that the chief mourner should enter the first carriage with his mother-in-law. "Ah! well," he sighs, with resignation; "but it will completely spoil my day!"
The second story—to which an excellent drawing wasmade—tells of a widow who looks with sorrowful resignation upon a portrait of her husband that hangs above the fireplace, and says to her sympathising friend: "But why should I grieve, dear? I know where he passes his evenings now!" The first of these Mark Lemon—ever anxious to avoid giving offence—declined on the ground that it was too hard upon mothers-in-law; and the second because, in Keene's own words, "Our Philistine Editor ... said it would 'jar upon feelings'!" He surely could not have borne completer testimony to the care, the ultra-respect for others' sentiments, which has usually distinguishedPunch, to the disgust of critics of less refinement and consideration.
On another point, too, he was not at one withPunch, and that was "Toby." The form and face of Mr. Punch, as rendered by him, was hardly a classic rendering; but this was forgiven him. But Keene's Toby was neither the cur represented by some, nor the Irish terrier affected by others, but adachshund! And he persisted in so drawing him to the end, not because he thought it right, but because "itmighthave been!" and because the original of the beast was his own much-loved pet "Frau," which he survived not many days. (See next page.)
To this drawing particular interest attaches, for it is the very last that ever came from his hand—a loving tribute to an old friend that had passed away. Concerning it, Mr. Henry S. Keene writes to me: "The history of the dog is shortly this. She was a favourite old dog of my brother's, and has figured a good many times in his drawings as the dog of the 'typical'Punch, and was of the breed of the 'dachshund.' She was very old and full of infirmities, and my brother consented, with some reluctance, to put the poor thing out of its misery. When it was dead, he had it put on a chair in his room, and made the sketch. This was about three months before he died, and was the last thing he drew. It required an effort on his part, as he had entirely left off doing any work since the beginning of last year [1890]."
More than any other man onPunch, Keene suffered atthe hands of the engraver. But it was wholly his own fault. He took no heed whatever of the engraver, and set before him problems to which there was no solution. Thus, he loved to make his drawings on old rough paper, which by its grain gave a wonderfully charming but irreproducible quality to his ragged lines, and which by stains of age would impart effects wholly foreign to the art of the wood-cutter.
"FRAU," ALIAS "TOBY," LYING IN STATE."FRAU," ALIAS "TOBY," LYING IN STATE.(Keene's Last Drawing.)
Moreover, he would manufacture his own inks in varying degrees of greyness, and even of different colours, and then set them before the cutter (not theengraver, mind) to translate into black-and-white. Yet there are some who blame the craftsman for not reproducing what it was an absolute impossibility to reproduce by printer's ink and graver! But Keene was engrossed in his art; and I have seen a drawing, at Mr. Birket Foster's house at Witley, which was theseventhattempt he made before he was satisfied. This was the drawing entitled "Ahem!" representing a man kissing a girl, while someone, with the familiar inconsiderateness of humanity, is approaching. The background for this drawing is Mr. Foster's house.
But although Keene was not a man of ideas, his merits as a creator—as a realiser of types—were supreme. Many of hisdramatis personæno doubt became old-fashioned in a sense; but who can deny the truth to life of the Kirk Elder, the slavey, the policeman, the fussy City man, the diner-out, the waiter (did he not invent "Robert"?), the cabman, the hen-pecked husband, the drunkard, the gillie, the Irish peasant, the schoolboy, and the Mrs. Brown of Arthur Sketchley's prosaic muse? The wealth of his limited fancy, and his power of resolving it into well-ordered design, and presenting it with strange economy of means, invested these puppets of his with a vividness which is often startling. With greater force and subtlety, if with less refinement and grace, than Leech—though not, like him, the genial sketcher of the genial side of things—he has recorded, in the five or six thousand designs that make up the sum of his contribution, the character of "the classes" of our day, and that with such intensity of truth that we derive our delight in his work even more from the faithfulness of its representation than from the fun of the joke and the comic rendering of the subject. One writer has been found who sees in his pictures nothing but degradation, and who condemns the one which shows a tippler who has returned late and thrown himself upon the bed beside his wife fully clad and with his umbrella open, as "obscene, and it is matched by many another equally odious!" But everybody else will endorse Sir Frederic Leighton's enthusiastic testimony that "among the documents for the study in future days of middle-class and of humble English life, none will be more weighty than the vivid sketches of this great humorist."[56]In praising Keene's "feeling of out-of-doorness," in the "Magazine of Art," Mr. William Black criticised truly when he declared, "Ever and again we come upon a bit of a turnip-field, a hedge-row, even the corner of a London street, the vividness of which is a sudden delight to the eyes." This estimate was well thrown into verse a few months later, whenPunchin its bereavement sang the praises of its greatest artist:—
"... Nor human humours only; who so tenderOf touch when sunny Nature out-of-doorWooed his deft pencil? Who like him could renderMeadow or hedge-row, turnip-field or moor?Snowy perspective, long suburban windingOf bowery roadway, villa-edged and trim,Iron-railed city street, where gas-lamps blindingGlare through the foggy distance, dense and dim?"
"... Nor human humours only; who so tenderOf touch when sunny Nature out-of-doorWooed his deft pencil? Who like him could renderMeadow or hedge-row, turnip-field or moor?
Snowy perspective, long suburban windingOf bowery roadway, villa-edged and trim,Iron-railed city street, where gas-lamps blindingGlare through the foggy distance, dense and dim?"
Keene's simple, kind, and somewhat lonely life are too well known to call for recapitulation here—his tenderness and chivalry towards women, his unconventionality, his love of ancient pipes and virulent "dottle"-smoking, his quaint story-telling and singular modesty, his sensitiveness (he never would ask his nephew, Mr. Corbould, to sit as model to him again after a bantering inquiry of how much he was going to pay), his Conservatism, his humour, his gentle hobbies, and, lastly, his stern economy. Indeed, by his thrift, when he died, he was found to have accumulated over £30,000, chiefly out of hisPunchwork, in spite of the fact that he would never receive a salary: all this is accessible elsewhere. For some time before he died he ceased to draw for the paper, so broken was he; and it is worth noting that the last sketch that appeared from his hand was "'Arry on the Boulevards," in the Paris Number ofPunch(1889), although he was not able to join the rest of the Staff in their trip to the Universal Exhibition.
He died on the 10th of January, 1891, and was buried in Hammersmith Cemetery, in the presence of most of his colleagues, who mourned their friend—