“Punch” Office, 10, Bouverie Street, E.C.
[Illustration: The Whitefriars Press.]
Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Ltd.,
Printers,
London and Tonbridge.
Phil May.
_Born, April 22, 1864._ _Died, August 5, 1903._
If the death of PHIL MAY is a loss that the world of art may not soon
retrieve, to his wide circle of friends it is an irreparable hurt. He
had a nature made to love; so great a charm of gentleness and unaffected
modesty went with his splendid gifts. The hard times of early life, that
helped him in his art, as they helped another Filippo, to “learn the
look of things,” left their trace, too, in the almost reckless
generosity he showed for the needs of others. Less careful for himself,
he suffered as a man must suffer who has a heart too quickly responsive
to the claims of good fellowship always to distinguish in others between
friendship and mere _camaraderie_. Among his colleagues at the Table he
inspired a personal affection not less frank and sincere than their
admiration, never even faintly tinged with envy, for the genius from
which they caught a reflected pride. Their only jealousy was of the
happy possessor of the latest of those delightfully spontaneous sketches
which he used to make on the backs of the _Punch_ Dinner menus. These
gifts are treasured still more dearly now, along with many unrecorded
memories that linger about his vacant place.