ContentsCHAPTER XXI.

"Frank, loyal, unobtrusive, simple-hearted,Loving his book, his pipe, his song, his friend;Peaceful he lived and peacefully departed,A gentle life-course with a gracious end."

Charles Martin—a son of the distinguished painter of Biblical catastrophes, of boundless halls, and illimitable space, John Martin—made three drawings forPunch. "TheBonnet-maker's Dream" was an effort to enlist sympathy for one class of women-workers; but his only fair illustrated joke was that in which a page-boy, pointing to the old torch-extinguishers in one of the London squares, informs his wondering companion that they are "what the swells in ancient days put their weeds out with." But as an artist he was lazy, preferring to make occasional nice little water-colour drawings than to work hard and continuously at black-and-white. He succeeded in making his way into society as a man-'bout-town, which he preferred to either; so that his connection withPunchbegan and ended with the year 1853.

An amateur signing "C" made an anonymous appearance in the same year; and Mr. Harry Hall, who was horse-painter first at Tattersall's, and afterwards at Newmarket, where he made Mark Lemon's acquaintance while painting a Derby Winner, contributed a single sketch. It is not remarkable, nor superior to his subsequent work as horse-draughtsman to the "Field"; but it proves, at least, that Mr. Sydney P. Hall's father could draw with ease.

It was in 1853 that the Reverend Edward Bradley[57]first contributed a drawing toPunchunder his well-known pseudonym, but earlier than that he found admittance in its pages, with both picture and prose, under the signature, not of "Cuthbert Bede," but simply "E. B." Thenom de plumeunder which he is best known he adapted from the names of the two patron saints of Durham, to which city he was much attached, and within whose boundaries he spent his 'Varsity career.

"Photography being a novelty in 1853," says he in his MS. reminiscences, to the transcript of which I have had access through the courtesy of his son, Mr. Cuthbert Bradley, "Mark Lemon readily accepted my proposal to introduce it intoPunch," and accordingly, the first fourcaricature illustrations of photography that appeared were inPunch, between May and August, 1853. One of these represented "The Portrait of an Eminent Photographer who has just succeeded in focussing a view to his Complete Satisfaction." He was depicted with his head under the hood, while a bull was charging him in the rear—a sketch that was pleasantly referred to by Charles Kingsley in his novel, "Two Years Ago."

REV. EDWARD BRADLEYREV. EDWARD BRADLEY ("CUTHBERT BEDE").(From a Photograph by A. J. Hancock.)

To the encouragement of Mark Lemon, Cuthbert Bede owed a good deal, in respect to both pen and pencil, and in the warmth of his geniality the sketches for "Verdant Green" were made, and, says the author, more than forty of them were engraved forPunch'spages, to appear a page each week.[58]But circumstances caused Mark Lemon, with Cuthbert Bede's consent, to transfer them to a special Supplement at that time being prepared byPunch'sEditor for the "Illustrated London News"—a journal which then enjoyed the co-operation of all the best pens and pencils more closely identified with the Sage of Fleet Street.

Then in 1850 the MS. of "Verdant Green" went the round of the publishers for issue in book-form, and not till after a year's tour was it accepted, and reluctantly enough issued, the publisher vowing that it would not pay its expenses. But within four-and-twenty hours he found out his mistake, and the announcement was made thirty years afterwards, that the sale of the book had amounted to upwards of 170,000 copies—while the author, from first to last, received the splendid sum of £350 for a work which must be reckoned among the great popular successes of the century.

When Douglas Jerrold was at Oxford, in November, 1854, Cuthbert Bede was presented to the sharp-tongued wit, theintroducer adding, by way of explanation, "Mr. Verdant Green." "At that time," says Bede, "I was closely shaven, and had a very pale face. Douglas Jerrold looked sharply up at me, with a glitter in his blue eyes, and at once said, 'Mr. Verdant Green? I should have thought it was Mr. Blanco White!'"—though, of course, there was no more real resemblance between Blanco White's face and that of the Rev. Bradley's, than there was between "Mr. Verdant Green" and "Doblado's Letters from Spain." "Among several things that were very agreeable to me in connection with the publication of 'Verdant Green,'" he continues, "was a circumstance that was related to me by an eminent Oxford don, who is now a bishop. He had entered the room of Dr. Pusey, at Christ Church, and saw, as usual, the library table covered with books of divinity and learned tomes; but on the top of these was perched, in pert, cock-sparrow fashion, that shilling railway book that had recently been published, with the spectacled face of the Oxford Freshman on the cover. My friend told me that Dr. Pusey held up the book to him and said, that he had not only read it through, but that he kept it on his table so that he might read bits of it in the pauses of his severer study."

One of Cuthbert Bede's proudest memories was the introduction of the double acrostic. He did not claim to have invented it, for he knew of the monkish acrostics; but for six months he had amused his friends with his revival before he showed them to Mark Lemon. The latter, with a quick eye for novelty, asked Bradley to write a paper on them for the "Illustrated London News," which was then being edited by Dr. Charles Mackay, and the humorist was only too happy to comply with the request. The first of these "double acrostic charades"—the first ever printed—appeared in the paper on August 30, 1856, and at intervals for some months afterwards; indeed, there was a regular column devoted to them, edited by Cuthbert Bede, that drew letters from all parts of the world, literally in thousands, which were forwarded to him in packets by rail. He had to explain their construction, and give examples for practice in the art.

The first was "Charles Dickens—Pickwick Papers"; then followed "London—Thames," "Waterloo—Napoleon," "Scutari Hospital—Miss Nightingale," and then "Lemon—Punch." Here is how the last-named was treated:—

I brighten even the brightest scene(L am P)I very nearly an ostrich had been(E m U)I with a hood once pass'd all my days(M aria N)I am a fop in a play of all plays(O sri C)To its greatness the city of Bath I did raise(N as H)

I'm a Mark of judgment, of taste, and wit,O'er a crowd of pages I rule the roast;I mix with choice spirits, while choicer ones sitAround, while I give them full many a toast.Of my two words, my first is squeez'd into my second,Although at its head it is commonly reckoned.

"When I read it to Mark Lemon," says Bede, in conclusion, "he said thatPunchought to be well flavoured, for that into its composition there went not one, but three lemons—Mark Lemon, Leman Rede, and Laman Blanchard."

Edward and his brother, Thomas Waldron Bradley, were sons of a surgeon of Kidderminster. When the former was quite a child, his delight in sketching was as remarkable as his keenness of observation, and he had a trick on arriving home, after seeing anything that interested him in the streets, of saying, "Give me a slate," and sketching the scene upon it with the utmost facility. It was this facility, joined to his lack of artistic education, which placed upon his work the unmistakable stamp of the amateur. But his sense of humour saved him, winning for him admittance toPunch'spages in 1847, when he was only twenty years of age. He had made his début the previous year in "Bentley's Miscellany," with some love verses signed with his usual pen-name. Five years later he was making suggestions for "The Month," and both he and his brother Walrond (whose pseudonym of "Shelsley Beauchamp" is hardly yet forgotten in his own county) wrote in it.

His early MS. diaries record frequent receipts of small sums fromPunchin return for small contributions. His first draft upon the Whitefriars exchequer was on October 23rd, 1847, when one guinea was received. By 1853 the receipts were a little more frequent, but still hardly noteworthy. Here, at any rate, is an example:—

Photo subjects£400Table-turning0100Initial letter to Peterloo Brown, I.300Sidney Snub1100Savage Lions in London100Sept. 14: 2nd and 3rd Peterloo Brown letters650Article "High Mettle Dragon".

—while his earnings for the following year amount to £22 6s. for drawings and MS. After 1856 he contributed nothing more toPunch'spages, though a stray forgotten cut appears to have cropped up in the second volume for 1874.

George Cruikshank was a valuable friend to Cuthbert Bede, just as he was to Watts Phillips, and gave him a good deal of advice as to drawing on wood forPunch, as well as practical lessons in draughtsmanship, by working before him on his wonderful etching of the "Tail of a Comet;" still, he was unable to impart to his pupil's work either trained ease or style. Cruikshank was on terms of intimacy with Mark Lemon, but he never drew forPunch, save indirectly for its advertisement page in 1844—an announcement for his "Table-Book," in which appear the portraits of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett (his literary Editor), Thackeray, and himself. Yet the "Quarterly Review," in the course of an essay upon that journal, declared that "Punchowes at least half its popularity to the pencil of George Cruikshank"! The fact is, that Cruikshank, though on intimate terms with many of the Staff, would never allow himself to be persuaded to draw for its pages. "We shall have you yet," said Mark Lemon one day. "Never," said Cruikshank, in his most melodramatic tone and striking his favourite attitude. He had then become the staunchest of total abstainers,and he held its very name in abhorrence. Moreover, he professed to look upon their Dinners as orgies; but it is far more likely that the predominance in its pages and in its councils of his mighty rival, John Leech, had more to do with his total abstinence—fromPunch, I mean—than any other consideration. "Between Cruikshank and Leech," says Mr. Frith, "there existed little sympathy and less intimacy. The extravagant caricature that pervades so much of Cruikshank's work, and from which Leech was entirely free, blinded him a little to the great merit of Cruikshank's serious work. I was very intimate with 'Immortal George,' as he was familiarly called, and I was much surprised by the coolness with which he received my enthusiastic praise of Leech. 'Yes, yes,' said George, 'very clever. The new school, you see. Public always taken with novelty.'" Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the only lessons in etching Leech ever had he received from George Cruikshank. Moreover, George had a grievance, as will be seen by the following letter addressed to Mr. G. H. Haydon, one ofPunch'ssubsequent contributors, to whom reference will be made later on:—

"263, Hampstead Road, N.W.,January 7, 1867.

"My Dear Sir,

"I am sorry that I am not able to tell you where to find a 'Punch and Judy,' but I think some of that family reside, or might be heard of, in the vicinity of Leicester Square. The 'Punch' that I copied my figures from for the 'History of Punch and Judy' was an old Italian long since deceased. His performance and figures were first-rate—far superior to anything of the present day, and it is quite evident that poor Leech and others copiedmyPunch, forPunchand other works, from the Punch that I copied from this Italian Punch.

"Speaking of Punch, you are, I presume, aware that although the idea of 'Punch' was taken from my 'Omnibus,' that I never had anything to do with that work of 'Punch,' and also that for many years (20!!!) I have not taken anything in the way ofPunch.

"However, I will say no more about Punch at present, as I fear you will feel as if you could 'punch' the head of

"Yours truly.

"George Cruikshank."

His grievance was thatPunch'sfigure was stolen from his book (to which Payne Collier had written the text), and that the paper itself was but an imitation of his own short-lived monthly magazine. With greater reason could he complain that thePunchPocket-books were copied from his "Comic Annuals," as they were, and that the imitations killed the originals after a contest of a dozen years; but the idea ofPunchbeing copied from the "Omnibus," with which it had hardly a single point in common, save humour and illustration, has probably about as much foundation as Cruikshank's claim against Dickens and "Oliver Twist," or against Harrison Ainsworth and "The Miser's Daughter" and "The Tower of London." YetPunchrendered ample tribute to his genius, not so much in the adaptation of many of his best-known drawings to cartoons, including "Jack Sheppard" (1841), "Oliver asking for More" (1844), "The Fix" [Points of Humour] (1844), "The Juggernaut" (1845), "Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger" (1846), "The Deaf Postilion" (1846), and "Fagin in the Cell" (1848), "The Election" [Sketches by Boz] down to "Harcourt the Headsman" (June 8th, 1895); but also by deliberate statement and amiability prepense. That, however, did not preventPunchfrom chaffing "the Great George" upon occasion, as when he was preparing his "Life of Falstaff" the journal gravely assumed that he would reform that incorrigible tippler into a "teetotal Falstaff," and protested against the enthusiast mixing water so copiously with the milk of his human kindness. So Cruikshank set off in great wrath towards Fleet Street to seek out the scoffer, and, meeting Blanchard Jerrold, sputtered out his purpose and declared that he was on the trail of that scoundrelPunchto "knock his old wooden head about." When he died,Punchannounced that "England is the poorer by what she can ill spare—a man of genius. Good, kind, genial, honest, and enthusiastic George Cruikshank ... has passed away."

T. HARRINGTON WILSONT. HARRINGTON WILSON(Drawn by T. W. Wilson, R.I.)

Mr. T. Harrington Wilson, the well-known special correspondent of the "Illustrated London News," at that time a specialist in theatrical portraiture, joined the paper as an occasional contributor in 1853, and over various monograms sent in a dozen clever, but hardly striking, drawings. These were "socials" dealing with society or fashion, stage situations from behind the scenes, and grotesque ideas, such as the "effect of wearing respirators on burglars" (October, 1853). Mr. Wilson—who, by the way, had studied at the National Gallery side by side with Sir John Tenniel and Charles Martin—contributed to the Pocket-books from 1854 to 1857, and ceased his connection when he was ordered abroad.

All the outside artistic help received byPunchin 1854 came from five occasional correspondents: from "F. M.," an amateur, in February; from Mr. Swain the engraver (who fitfully contributed unimportant sketches at times of sudden need), in the same month; from J. Bennett; from Chambers (a half-a-dozen initials extending over that and the following year, and reappearing in 1864;) and from Mr. Harrison Weir. The contribution of the latter occurred during Leech's indisposition, when Mr. Weir was invited by Mark Lemon to make a few drawings to fill the place which would be so sadly missed. So the artist—who was working under Lemon on the "Field"—produced a half-page drawing illustrative of the tribulation of young lady who was obliged to leave half her luggage behind by reason of the cab-strike; and it was printed on p. 163 of Vol. XXVII. Then Leech recovered, and Mr. Weir's services were dispensed with.

The second clergyman who ever drew forPunchwas the Rev. W. F. Callaway, a Baptist minister of York and Birmingham, and the son of a gentleman who had distinguished himself by writing a book on "Cingalese Gods." He contributed one or two sketches, the first one being referred to in his MS. diary, February 15th, 1855—"Foundmy Sketch inPunch—'Comment on the Balaclava Railway.'" It had been re-drawn in part by Leech, but the character of the original was left intact. Then three initials from Ince are to be chronicled; another from "W. R.," and a drawing signed "H.," from B. C. Halliday (p. 200, Vol. XXVIII), showing "Our Artist in the Crimea" in a hopeless mess; as well as a dozen initials of no particular importance from G. W. Terry (p. 171, Vol. XXX.) from 1856 to 1858.

Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry, so well and pleasantly known in later days asPunch's"Lazy Minstrel," and writer of verses and paragraphs innumerable in its pages, was from 1856 to 1861 an artistic contributor on fifteen occasions. "When I was a youth," he writes, "I fear I must have annoyed good, genial Mark Lemon very much, for I was continually sending pen-and-ink sketches toPunch. Not content with showering these upon him, which were invariably courteously returned, I began to pelt him with wood blocks. I took to drawing on the wood enthusiastically, and was continually popping these little parcels into the letter-box under the shadow of St. Bride's Church. At last one of them, to my intense joy, appeared. Altogether I must have had about four initial letters, a dozen black silhouettes, and a quarter-page social cut inserted in the paper. But the quantity that were never used at all, and the number that were re-drawn by my old friend Charles Keene, is a high testimony to the artistic knowledge and editorial skill of Mark Lemon." But Mr. Ashby-Sterry does himself an injustice, as all will say who have seen the vivacious sketch of a gentleman struggling violently inside his shirt, with the legend: "How agreeable it is, more especially if you are late, and are dressing against time to dine with ultra-punctual people—how agreeable it is, on getting into your clean shirt, to find the laundress has been careful to fasten all the buttons for you!" Moreover, he was trained as an artist, both at "the Langham" and at the Royal Academy Schools; and portraits painted by him of his father and grandfather have long since "toned" into canvases at once able and attractive.

A few sketches by Saunderson in this same year werefollowed by the début of Alfred Thompson. When a cavalry officer, this gentleman, encouraged by the acceptance of his work by "Diogenes," in 1854, sent a few drawings—initials, for the most part—toPunch, that were published in 1856-7-8, and he was persuaded by Mark Lemon to take up the career of art. On retiring from the service, he studied in Paris, and contributed to the "Journal Amusant;" and on his return found that Mark Lemon was dead, and that, by the side of Keene and Tenniel, there had grown up a giant in the person of Mr. du Maurier. Under Tom Taylor's editorship he was a regular literary contributor, and was promised the next vacant place on the Staff; but an offer from Messrs. Agnew of the management of the Theatre Royal, Manchester, tempted him away from London and all journalistic enterprise. On his return to town, Mr. Burnand was on the point of becoming Editor, and the connection came to an end. And soPunchknew him no more, and Mr. Thompson appeared before a later generation chiefly as editor of the brilliant little "Mask," as designer of stage costumes and ballets, and writer of pantomimes. By some he was also remembered as a contributor, in 1865, to the "Comic News" and "The Arrow." His lastPunchsketches were published in 1876 and 1877, and in the Pocket-book for the latter year was buried what was, perhaps, his most important literary contribution that is worth preserving—a continuation of "Daniel Deronda." The most that can be said of Mr. Thompson's sketches is that they are bright and not without fancy; but since these were made, his power and charm of grace greatly increased. He died in New Jersey, September, 1895.

Frank Bellew, whose signature consisted of a flattened triangle, either with or without his initials, drew about thirty initials and quarter- or half-page "socials" from 1857 until 1862, many of them dealing with incidents connected with the American Civil War; and then—following the example of Newman and Mr. Thompson—he went to America, where he obtained more recognition for his clever outline drawings and for the pathetic touches and moral points which heloved to introduce; and there he begat a son whose reputation as a humorous draughtsman (being "Chip" of the New York "Life") soon became far greater than his father's. Bennet and "B. W." followed with a few trifles in 1857 and 1858, and then on October 13th Julian Portch sent in his first contribution.

Portch sprang from humble surroundings, and with no recommendations but his art; that, however, was sufficient for Mark Lemon. It is true that it lacked strength, but it showed a delicate pencil and a certain power of comic expression sufficient to place him among "Mr. Punch's clever young men" of the second rank. He was forthwith employed on decorations to the preface and to the Pocket-book (a task on which he was engaged for several consecutive years), as well as onPunchitself. He stopped active contribution in 1862, his work being seen only once in 1863, 1864, 1867, and 1870; but the last drawing he sent in was in October, 1861. He had illustrated "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a new edition of Boswell's "Life of Johnson," and, in part, Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell's "Puck on Pegasus," when in 1855 Henry Vizetelly, whose pupil he had been, sent him to the Crimea as war correspondent for the "Illustrated Times," in order to make sketches of British camp life. In the rigours of that awful winter he was laid low with rheumatic fever, ending in general paralysis; and after three years of lovingly tended illness he died in September, 1865.

An anonymous contributor, more than usually modest, then sent in three drawings (August, 1859) as from "A Stranger," and then the distinguished French caricaturist, "Cham" (the Comte Amédée de Noé), made six humorous and spirited character sketches of Turco soldiers in Paris in 1859, not very complimentary to his country's allies. When he had visited London previously, Mark Lemon had sent him a little parcel of wood-blocks for drawings forPunch, and was astonished to receive them all back the next morning, all covered with vigorous work, with a calm request for "more woods." He was, perhaps, a betterraconteurthan comic draughtsman, and, speaking English thoroughly well,became at once a great favourite. Thackeray, in particular, delighted to do him honour in his rooms at Young Street. In the same year Brunton, a young artist far better known outsidePunch'spages than in them, put his sign-manual of arrow-pierced hearts to a couple of drawings; and it is curious to observe how in his "Annamite Ambassadors" he forestalled Mr. Furniss's "Lika Joko" series.

Miss Coode was the first lady who drew forPunch, contributing nineteen drawings from November, 1859, to January, 1861; and then G. H. Haydon (barrister-at-law and steward of Bridewell and the Royal Bethlehem Hospital) began his connection. He was the intimate friend of John Leech, by whom he was introduced toPunch, and of Charles Keene, with whom he used to draw regularly at the Langham Sketching Club. During 1860-1-2 he contributed twenty-two sketches and initials. He was a keen fly-fisherman, and many of Leech's subjects of this sort were done with him at Whitchurch, Hampshire, which they haunted together for the sport. After Leech's death Haydon contributed nothing more, as it was only during his spare time and out of friendly feeling that he made his sketches. He was, on the other hand, the subject of several of Keene's angling drawings, which were also done for the most part at Whitchurch. Such is the sketch in the Almanac for 1885, wherein the "Gigantic Angler" is an excellent portrait of Haydon, while Leech's drawing of August 11th, 1860, was a record of an incident that happened while the friends were fishing the same water. From that extremely promising young artist, M. J. Lawless, who was doing some of his best designs for "Once a Week," there came between May, 1860, and the following January, six drawings; but he was already a dying man when they were done, and he left little proof in them of the greatness of his talent. He was still contributing, however, when, on September 28th, 1860, there was sent into the office a drawing from the hand of one of the most brilliant ofPunch'slights—George du Maurier.

Mr. G. du Maurier's First Drawing—The "Romantic Tenor"—Polite Satire—His Types and Creations—His Pretty Women—And Fair American—"Chang," "Don," and "Punch"—Mr. du Maurier as aPunchWriter—Mr. Gordon Thompson—Mr. Stacy Marks, R.A.—Paul Gray—Sir John Millais, Bart., R.A.—Mr. Fred Barnard—First Joke Refused as "Painful"—Mr. R. T. Pritchett—Initiation by Sir John Tenniel—Fritz Eltze—His Amiable Jocularity—Mr. A. R. Fairfield—Colonel Seccombe—Fred Walker, A.R.A.—Mr. J. Priestman Atkinson ("Dumb Crambo")—C. H. Bennett—Mr. W. S. Gilbert ("Bab")—His Classic Joke—G. B. Goddard—Miss Georgina Bowers—Mr. Walter Crane.

GEORGE DU MAURIER.GEORGE DU MAURIER.(From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey.)

When, in 1860, Mr. George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier contributed his first drawing toPunch, he had little suspicion that he would be counted, together with John Leech, John Tenniel, and Charles Keene, as one of the four great pillars on which would rest the artistic reputation of the paper. In that first drawing, himself and two of his friends were represented entering the "studio" of a photographer, smoking, as the manner of artists is; and they are coldly requested by the deity of the place to leave their tobacco outside, as "they are in an artist's studio" (p. 150, Vol. XXXIX.). It was a poor sketch enough, showing some straining after comicality, and lacking every trace of the grace and beauty the draughtsman was so soon to develop. He was Parisian born, and after studying with a view to a scientific career, he became convinced, through Dr. Williamson's amiable assurance that he would make a "shocking bad chemist," that art and not science was hisdestiny—more especially as his professors had been delighted with such little caricatures of his as they had seen; but, as Mr. du Maurier suggestively put it in his lecture on "Social Pictorial Satire," "they had not seen themall." He studied art at Antwerp and Paris in company with several notabilities of the day; but when, through an accident in the laboratory, he lost the sight of one eye, and found the other seriously imperilled, his chances of success in life seemed small. It was when lying, during his long illness, in the Antwerp Hospital, in 1858, that he first saw "Punch's Almanac"—a delight which he never forgot. When he recovered his ordinary health, he returned to England, though with little improvement of sight to cheer him. With a courage, however, equal to that of Sir John Tenniel, he girded himself against fate; he worked hard in London, where he lived in humble lodgings at 85, Newman Street, which he shared with his life-long friend, the late Lionel Henley, afterwards R.B.A.—"the dearest fellow that ever was." He sometimes wondered, he has told me, if he would eat a dinner that day; and as becomes the impecunious, he was a tremendous democrat. He "hated the bloated aristocracy, without knowing much about it; and, to do it justice, the bloated aristocracy did not go out of its way to pester him with its attentions." But in those happy, hungry, hard-working days, when dinner was not always a vested interest, Mr. du Maurier seemed already tinged with the daintier tastes that were destined to lead his pencil to the delineation of these same "bloated" classes; and even in those hard times he could always boast a dress-suit.

So at the age of twenty-six—the same as that at which Charles Keene made his début inPunch—he sent in an occasional contribution that was far more in Leech's manner than in what came to be his own.

Art has a way, figuratively speaking, of flourishing on an empty stomach, and Mr. du Maurier made rapid progress on the training. Keene's acquaintance and genial friendship enslaved at once his artistic methods, as well as his artistic adoration. It was not that he admired Leech less, but thathe appreciated Keene more; and when the former died, to the sorrow and consternation of the Staff, Mr. du Maurier was appointed to his seat at the Table. He obeyed the summons on the first Wednesday that followed Leech's death, and carved his monogram on the board between those of the bosom friends, Thackeray and Leech. Mark Lemon, with characteristic shrewdness, soon discovered in what direction lay the talent and perhaps thepenchantof the artist, and told him not to try to be "too funny," but to do the graceful side of things, and to be "the romantic tenor in Mr. Punch's opera bouffe company," while Keene was to do the comic songs. The little social dramas of the day, the drawing-rooms of Belgravia, and the nurseries of Mayfair—those were his preserves, from which he could get as much game as he chose, humorous if he liked, but graceful withal.

But Mr. du Maurier is emphatically not what is commonly understood by "a funny man," for all his subtlety and love of humour; he is a combination of the artistic, with a distinct and clear sense of beauty, and of the scientific, with speculations and theories of race and heredity—who would as lief draw East-End types for the sake of their "character," and would look at a queer face more for the interest that is in it than for its comicality. If Mr. du Maurier's sense of beauty is strong, so is his appreciation of ugliness; and if you take down any of the volumes ofPunch—that shine in their shelves like the teeth in the great laughing mouth of Humour itself—you will find no faces or forms more hideous or grotesque than those which the artist has chosen to put there.

But if there is one thing to justify the opinion of his admirers that he is the "Thackeray of the pencil," it is primarily to be found, not so much in the keen satire of his drawing and legends, but in his startling, his strikingly truthful creations. Creations we have had from Leech, Keene, and others—from Leech's pure sense of fun and jollity; from Keene's unerring observation of men and women, and fleeting emotion—but those of Mr. du Maurier go deeper into vices, virtues, habits, and motives, and are at the root of hispictorial commentaries. He has given us true pictures of the manners of his time; and those manners he has satirised with more politeness and irony, perhaps, than broad humour. He worked well with Keene in double harness, and his pictures are at once a foil and a complement of that genius's work andpoint de vue. He has satirised everything, and his art has been admirably adapted to the depth of the civilisation he probes and dissects. His sense of beauty and tenderness apart, he is to art much what Corney Grain was to the stage, though his hand is not so heavy; and while you laugh with Leech, you smile with Mr. du Maurier—lovingly at his children, respectfully at his pretty women, and sardonically at his social puppets.

His own particular creations—his types and "series"—are to some sections ofPunch'sadmirers,Punch'schief attraction. Especially is this the case in the United States,[59]where to Mr. du Maurier many people have looked almost exclusively, not only for English fashions in male and female attire, and thedernière modein social etiquette, but for the truest reflection of English life and character. First of all these types are Sir Gorgius Midas—who, the artist once confided to me, was drawn without exaggeration from real life—and his common wife and still vulgarer son. Then Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns, the clever and scheming, and her husband, depressed and stolidly obedient; the bishop and the flunkey, all calves and dignity; Grigsby, the "comic" man, and his punctilious friend, Sir Pompey Bedell, inflated with pretentious emptiness; 'Arry and 'Arriet, blatant and irrepressible; young Cadby, the Cockney; and the Duke and Duchess of Stilton, whose very figures seem to be drawn in purple ink; the refined colonel, a counterpart and not unworthy comrade of Newcome himself; Maudle, Postlethwaite, and Mrs. Cimabue Brown, most delightful trio of sickening "æsthetes"—specially beloved of Mr. du Maurier, whose famous drawing, "Are You Intense?" is perhaps the particular favourite of all his satiricPunchwork; Mr. Soapley and Mr. Todeson, who viewith each other in vulgar servility and sycophancy; the Herr Professor, ponderously humorous in smoking-room or boudoir; and Anatole, the bridegroom, happy and dapper in the Bois de Boulogne; Titwillow and the ex-Jew at the Club—what an assemblage of carefully differentiated specimens of London's characteristic inhabitants! That many of them are often accepted, universally quoted as types, apart from any express reference toPunchor to its artist, is the best testimony of the truth of his irony; for they are as recognisable in the real world as the Jacques, the Becky Sharps, and the Pecksniffs of other brains. And besides these there are the general characters so accurately presented to us—the refined lady with the very old face and frontal grey or white curls whom Mr. du Maurier used to draw, I believe, from the person of Mrs. Hamilton Aädé; the charming young ladies for whom, in succession, his wife and daughters have sat; and the delightful little ones to whom Professor Ruskin paid partial tribute when he declared, a little cruelly, perhaps, that the "charm of his extremely intelligent, and often exquisitely pretty children, is dependent, for the greater part, on the dressing of their back hair and the fitting of their boots."

"MY PRETTY WOMAN.""MY PRETTY WOMAN."(Drawn by George du Maurier.)

The admirable setting in which Mr. du Maurier frames his series of jokes is testimony to his genius. He follows Leech's plan of such series ("Servantgalism," "The Rising Generation," etc.), but the quality of the thought and its presentation is as much more elaborate than Leech's as his method of draughtsmanship is more complicated. These series or formulæ, in their chief heads and subtle variations, display the quality of his mind. If you turn to the volumes for 1888 (XCIV. and XCV.) you will find examples of no fewer than nine of them: (1) Things one would rather have left unsaid; (2) Things one would rather have expressed differently; (3) Social Agonies; (4) Feline Amenities; (5) Our Imbeciles; (6) Typical Modern Developments; (7) Studies in Evolution; (8) Nincompoopiana; and (9) What our Artist has to put up with;—the last-named, however, a vein which Keene began to work as early as 1854.

His talent, too, in devising the legends, or "cackle," forthe drawings is uniformly happy, unsurpassed by any man who ever wrote forPunch. As Mr. Anstey says, he has brought the art ofprécis-writing to perfection. His legends are not always so concise as Leech's, but for truth of expression, felicitous colloquialism, and above all, for foreign accent, he is unapproached. I go farther, and say that he is the first man who ever put truthfully upon paper, and properly differentiated, the "broken English" and slangy mispronunciations of German, French, and Semite, to say nothing of his Cockney; indeed, his studies in this direction prove him, besides an admirable physiologistpour rireand a pungent though courteous satirist, an inimitable comparative-"broken"-philologist.

True to hisrôleof "Romantic Tenor," Mr. du Maurier has endowedPunchwith the greater part of the grace and beauty which have done so much to make the paper what it is. "In his social subjects," says a distinguished critic,[60]"Mr. du Maurier, though somewhat mannered and fond of a single type of face and figure, has carried the ironicalgenre, received by Leech from Gavarni and Charlet, to the highest point of elegance it has attained." He is too fond of the beautiful, sighs Mr. James; he sees everythingen beau, and Mistress and Maid with him are a good deal of Juno and Hebe. No doubt his grace often militates against his fun, but Mr. du Maurier, as has already been suggested, is only by accident a professional funny man. Besides, when he wishes to bemerely funny, he passes Beauty by as if he were not the most devoted of her adorers, as you may see in one of the best of all his drawings inPunch, in which a typically selfish master of the house orders up the cook into the breakfast-room, complaining that he cannot eat the bacon which he has just served; his wife's, he says, is the worst he ever saw—andhis own is nearly as bad!

Even more than his lovely child (often drawn from his little grandson), his superb youth, and his splendid gentleman, Mr. du Maurier's pretty woman is the pedestal upon which he has erected his reputation—at least, so far asPunchis concerned. His pretty woman, he declares, is the granddaughter of Leech's, and he beseeches the public to love her, paternally at least as he does, "for her grandmother's sake."

PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.(By George du Maurier.)

Writing his mind on the subject of his delightful creation at my own request,[61]he says:—

"I do hope the reader does not dislike her—that is, if he knows her. I am so fond of her myself, or, rather, so fond of what Iwanther to be. She is mypièce de résistance, and I have often heard her commended, and the praise of her has sounded sweet in mine ears, and gone straight to my heart, for she has become to me as a daughter. She is rather tall, I admit, and a trifle stiff; but English women are tall and stiff just now; and she is rather too serious; but that is only because I find it so difficult, with a mere stroke in black ink, to indicate the enchanting little curved lines that go from the nose to the mouth-corners, causing the cheeks to make a smile—and without them the smile is incomplete—merely a grin. And as for height, I have often begun by drawing the dear creature little, and found that by one sweep of the pen (adding a few inches to the bottom of her skirt) I have improved her so much that it has been impossible to resist the temptation—the thing is so easy, and the result so satisfying and immediate."

Nowadays, he has declared, girls are no longer pretty—they are beautiful; and as Mr. Galton, the anthropometrical expert, himself admits, they, even more than the rest of mankind, have certainly grown taller. The artist, as we have seen, invented the tall woman; the Psyches of our fathers' days have become the Venuses and Junos of these; and more than one writer has gravely sought to fix the responsibility, or the credit, on Mr. du Maurier and his pencil. Scientific investigation has taught us that the English girl tops her foreign sisters, though her average weight is two pounds less than that of the fair American; and there is little doubt that if she does not absolutely adapt her height to the artist's sense of beauty and power of inspiration, she has at least to thank him for making it fashionable. The truth of the matter is that Mr. du Maurier has always been a close observer; and just as his drawings have always been in the fashion in point of dress through his careful watching of the changing wardrobe of his wife and daughters, so was he the first to record the increasing stature of English girls, even while Leech was still drawing them as he had known them—short and buxom and "plump little dumplings"—never recognising that they had been deposed by Fashion and improved by Nature. But the race changed, andPunchchanged with them. Venus was Venus once more, and Mr. du Maurier was her Prophet.

"And the old ladies!" proceeds Mr. du Maurier; "it is such a pleasure to draw them, and do one's best. To think of all the charming old ladies one has known, and (according to one's letterpress) to select the chin of one, the white curls of another, the mouth and nose of a third, and then to make a subtle arrangement in sweet sympathetic wrinkles—too often to be subtly disarranged by the engraver and the printer!

"Then we get to the male characters, and there it is comparatively plain sailing; and would be pleasant sailing enough but for the hideousness of certain portions of the modern male attire. However new, however good the tailor, however comely the leg beneath, theTrouseris the one heart-breaking object to the conscientious but æsthetically-minded draughtsman on wood! It ignores the knee, and falls on the boot in a shape that has no reference to the ankle whatever—a shape of its own—and yet the ankle is the foundation of everything!

"Next in order of demerit and impossibility comes the chimney-pot hat, which is not lacking in character, but is ugly and ridiculous. Its one redeeming feature is the difficulty it presents to the draughtsman. It is mathematical, geometrical, with every curve known to science, as hard to represent correctly as a boat or a fiddle—more so; and the delight of successful achievement is proportionately great. Linley Sambourne alone, who was originally trained as an engineer, has been able to grapple with the chimney-pot hat; Walker all but succeeded by the sheer force of his heaven-born genius."

But, in spite of all this beauty, surely his misrepresentation of that divinity—the American Girl—is beyond all hope of pardon, beyond contrition, beyond all penance. He does full justice to her refined and splendid loveliness and her magnificent proportions; but he seems to regard her, if one may say so, as a sort of Kensington-Town-Hall-Subscription-Dance young lady, a little moreoutréeand free and slangy and vulgar. She guesses in the ballroom that English partners don't "bunch" (give bouquets); when invited to go in to supper she avers, not without a sense of inward satisfaction, that she is "pretty crowded already;" she has a deep though entirely a tourist's interest in English institutions, ruins, and celebrities; she has little reverence else for what is in the heavens above or the earth beneath; and she dearly loves a lord—or she would, if by any honourablemeans she can obtain the chance. His American girls, too, all come from one and the same place; they are all born from one and the same mother; their natural cleverness and unnatural ignorance are compounded in the same proportions, and, altogether, they are the most charming and delightful libels on American young-womanhood that well could be. But is his representation of the American girl any less pleasant than the common, home-made American view of an English gentleman—at least, of an English "swell"? Not at all. On the contrary, she is, as I said before, a divinity.

More than once Mr. du Maurier has broken away from his light comedyrôleand, besides giving vent to his fantastic power in his wonderful "Night-mares," has given us something with serious thought, and, now and again, with tragedy in it—has offered us, indeed, a taste of the deepest poetic quality that he has shown in his novels of "Peter Ibbetson" and "Trilby." You may see a touch of it in Tenniel's great cartoon at the outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany, in which the great Napoleon stands warningly in the path of the infatuated Emperor; that was du Maurier's suggestion. You may see a touch of it in the page drawing of "Old Nickotin Stealing Away the Brains of His Devotees" (1868), in which a circle of strange men, whose own heads are their pipe-bowls, smoke away their brains through long tubes that work well into the composition, while, in the foreground, one of the poor foolish wretches drops, just as a last little curling puff rises from his smoked-out skull. There were more of such compositions before 1880, at the time when Mr. du Maurier was still making full-page drawings inPunch. But, after all, it is not inPunch, but rather in the "Cornhill Magazine" and "Once a Week," in "Esmond," and other works—particularly in the "Illustrated Magazine"—that his full power in serious work must be sought.

Professor Ruskin, after declaring that the "terrific force" of Mr. du Maurier's satire of character in face and figure consists in theabsenceof caricature, describes as "cruellytrue" the design "representing the London mechanic with his family when Mr. Todeson is asked to amuse 'the dear creatures' at Lady Clara's garden tea;" and proclaims the artist more exemplary than either John Leech or John Tenniel ("the real founders ofPunch, and by far the greatest of its illustrators both in force of art and range of thought") "in the precision of the use of his means, and the subtle boldness to which he has educated the interpreter of his design."[62]In point of fact, the engraver has had to "interpret" Mr. du Maurier's drawings far less than those of many of his colleagues, for his line is too delicate, sympathetic, and precise to leave room for anything but the strictest possible facsimile. This was quite as true in the old days when he drew upon the block, as in later times, when, yielding to the stern demands of failing eyesight—which, for a period, forced him to suspend work altogether—he drew with the pen upon paper several times larger than the ultimate reduction effected by means of photography. It is curious in tracing his hand throughPunchto see how his work gradually strengthened; how his early vigour of subject and activity of mind, expressed in strong black-and-white, gave way to a daintier touch when the grace and prettiness of hisdramatis personæcame to demand greater refinement of the drawn line; and how this again constantly widened out into a broader method, under the inspiration of Charles Keene. And yet from first to last, in the smallest sketch as in the most elaborate picture, his hand is unmistakable.

In common with Keene and others, Mr. du Maurier has suffered from time to time from printers' errors. One of the most curious, perhaps, is that in which three little boys are shown in a drawing playing upon a sofa, evidently very much in the way of their elder sister, who is receiving a visit from an admirer. The sister asks her brothers with pardonable point if they will not go and play downstairs. No, the oldest replies, Mamma has sent them up "to play forfeits." The joke, utterly pointless as printed, becomesintelligible when it is explained that "forfeits" is an error for "propriety." Many of the artist's jokes, as already explained, have come from various friends; indeed, in this case, they are probably less often manufactured than in that of others. All the same, it may be of interest to record that the oft-quoted joke of the æsthetic young couple who agreed that they must "live up to" their blue and white tea-pot, was not "made up," but was spoken in downright, imbecile earnest.

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