MICHAEL HALLIDAY AND LEECH.
"No man can put more into a picture than there is in himself," says Sir
Joshua Reynolds. As an art student I have always felt the force of this
aphorism. I would even go further, and add that no man can avoid the
disclosure in numberless ways of what "there is in himself" of special
mental organization, under the heads of taste, temper, delicacy,
honesty, kindliness, and the true and full appreciation of the beauties
of nature.
"I cannot see nature as you represent it," someone is said to have
remarked to Turner.
"Don't you wish you could?" was the reply.
It is not the subject of a great artist's work that we admire, but the
artist's mind as reflected in his subject. Reynolds was fortunate in
having for his sitters most of the beauties of the last century, and
they were more fortunate still in falling into the hands of a painter
who had such intense sympathy with their loveliness--so intense in some
instances as to emphasize it somewhat to the sacrifice of individuality.
It is what Turner sees in nature that we reverence, producing beauties
for us to which we were blind, till they were called up by the spell of
the great magician. Heads as fine as any of those painted by Vandyke can
be seen any day, but there is no Vandyke to show us the impression they
make upon him. Let anyone compare Vandyke's Charles I. with a
contemporary rendering of that monarch, and he will feel with me that it
is the great painter's power of penetrating the inner man before him, so
to speak, added to his sympathy with the melancholy and dignified King,
that, combined with his transcendent technical power, enabled him to
present to us both the person and the mind of the unfortunate King. The
contemporary painters give us but the husk and shell of him.
But of all artists who have reflected themselves in their works, Leech
is the best example. Save when his hatred of injustice and oppression is
aroused, the man's loving, tender nature, and his honest English, manly
character, are apparent in everything he does. As he was to all who knew
him well, he shows himself in his treatment of every theme he touches
with his pencil. Of his life--quiet, studious, and ever observant--there
is little to relate that cannot be gathered from his works. His
passionate love of children and childish ways and tricks, his sympathy
with beauty in all its forms, his eager participation in manly sports,
with numberless other delightful qualities, are part and parcel of the
man who was never tired of giving us unconscious revelations of himself
in his drawings. Even when a certain amount of ridicule is attached to
the principal incidents in the career of a ludicrous personage, we never
have a feeling for him approaching contempt.
In the history of Messrs. Briggs and Tom Noddy these gentlemen present
themselves in positions of laughable difficulty. Laugh at them we
certainly do, but we never despise them; for do they not show the good
qualities of courage and fortitude? Tom Noddy is thrown from his horse;
nothing daunted, he instantly remounts. He drops his whip; he recovers
it: is thrown again, and this time his horse gallops off; but though the
little hunter pursues as fast as his little legs can go, the horse has
the best of it and escapes. An ordinary being would despair and bemoan
his loss; not so Tom Noddy, who gives up the pursuit for a time, and
being no doubt a little tired, lights a cigar as he sits upon a stile.
When refreshed by tobacco and repose he resumes his horse-chase, and
ultimately succeeds in finding the animal in the possession of a rustic,
who had amused himself by nearly galloping him to death. Tom Noddy is a
delightful little creature; his numerous escapades are plentiful in
"Pictures of Life and Character," and will be for all time a hearty,
healthy pleasure to all who study them.
Many attempts were made to betray Leech into personality. Subjects were
suggested, and offers were made to him, by persons who had real or
imaginary grievances, to place well-known public characters in positions
ridiculous or contemptible. Those attempts would not have been made if
the proposers had known Leech; such suggestions were always rejected,
and sometimes in terms very unpleasant to their proposers. I was not
aware that Tom Noddy had a prototype until I was informed by my old
friend, Mr. Holman Hunt, in a paper of Leech reminiscences, originally
intended for this memoir, that Mike Halliday, a man I knew well forty
years ago, was the original Tom Noddy. Halliday's figure was intended
for an ordinary-sized man, but when Nature had produced his head and
shoulders she seemed to have changed her intention, and the rest of his
figure was that of a diminutive form, a full foot shorter altogether
than an ordinary middle-sized man. When I first became acquainted with
Halliday he was a clerk in the House of Lords. "He then," says Holman
Hunt, "took to poetry, to love that never found its earthly close, and
to our art--for he found time for all. So well did he succeed in
picture-making that he once completed an oil-painting of two lovers
sitting under a ruined abbey window, habited in contemporary costume,
the gentleman intent on taking the size of the lady's marriage-finger."
I remember this picture being exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856; I
thought highly of it, and looked, but in vain, for a repetition of a
success so complete as to cause the purchase of the picture by a
well-known dealer, who had an engraving made from it, the print meeting
with extensive popularity. Halliday's face was a very plain one, but
totally unlike that of Tom Noddy: his hair was pale yellow, "a vapoury
moustache joining a soft beard, long but sparse whiskers;" he was
slightly lame, and altogether an elf-like quaintness in his appearance
made him quite a remarkable little figure.
"Leech," says Mr. Hunt, "became intimate with him, and so under many
names and ingenious disguises did Leech's public make his
acquaintance--Tom Noddy, and a variety of names he figured under. Leech
told of an expedition which formed a small party with Halliday one
evening in the country, where there was to be a meet with the hounds
next morning. As they dined and chatted, the attractions became greater
every minute to the cavalier instincts of Halliday's youth. Leech and
the others had horses coming, and on inquiry it was found that it would
be possible for Mike to find a mount at hand, and so it was pointed out
that he could sleep there and have a good day on the morrow.
"'No,' said Halliday, 'I must find a train from town in time to be at
the cover.'
"'Why, in the name of mystery--why go to town?' said they all.
"But all was useless--the little man would go, and would come back by a
train starting very early from town; and so, to the bewilderment of all,
he did. The next morning the friends went to see the train come in. As
it stopped, down jumped the little Nimrod, decked out in carefully
preserved pink, well-stained cords, with top-boots, and falling over the
rim a tassel of ribbons in emulation of Sixteen-stringed Jack, as dandy
hunting-men had dressed twenty years before. He was capped with
hunting-helmet, and he carried a magnificent riding-whip in hand. Seeing
him thus walking and skipping with that outward turn of the feet, which
is denominated in horsey parlance 'dishing,' Leech said that with all
the desire in the world to treat the matter with supreme seriousness, as
Halliday did, it was almost impossible for him to curb his provoked
risibility."
Leech, in speaking of Halliday at a party, of which Holman Hunt made
one, said:
"Mike is a mine of resource to me. Whenever I am in difficulties I can
remember something of him that it is possible to turn into a 'subject';
and," he added earnestly, "I do hope he never recognises the
resemblance, for I often put some point to prevent recognition."
The surprise at this innocence made the whole table burst into laughter,
but in undeceiving Leech we were able to assure him that Halliday was by
no means pained by the darts which had struck him; that he wore them
proudly as decorations, and so disarmed the ill-nature that might be
disposed to take advantage of the chance. He often achieved this by
drawing the attention of his visitors to the last addition to his
gallery of _Punch_ portraits, exhibited on the walls of his studio.
It must have been from some peculiarity of dress or manner, to which
Halliday's attention was called by "a candid friend," that he discovered
that in drawing Tom Noddy Leech "had him in his eye"; for, as I said
before, his face was as unlike that of Tom Noddy as Leech's own face was
unlike the round, good-humoured physiognomy of Mr. Briggs, though some
of the escapades of Briggs had their origin in Leech's personal
experiences: a happy accident to the roof of Leech's house, and the
noise and varied troubles caused in repairing it, was the suggestion of
the famous scene of the Briggs disaster; and it was Leech himself who
was caught by the leg by a policeman as--finding his front door blocked
by scaffolding--he was attempting to enter in what that functionary
considered a burglarious manner.
Leech was more fortunate than another artist of my acquaintance, for the
officer listened to his explanation of the unusual way of entering his
house, and, believing the statement, assisted him to "make himself at
home." But my other friend, who had been "dining," finding something the
matter with his latch-key--for do what he would he could not induce it
to perform its usual office--mounted his area railings, and would very
likely have fallen into the area if he had not been stopped by a
policeman. The artist's attempts to explain his position were either
incomprehensible by the officer, or they were not believed, for he was
taken to the station and locked up for the night.
Leech gives us no hint by which we might guess in what condition of life
the immortal Briggs made the fortune that enabled him to retire to his
comfortable home in Bayswater; whatever his pursuit may have been, the
taste for sport of every kind must have possessed the prosperous
gentleman, to be indulged to the full--happily for us--when he had
achieved independence.
Leech's powers are seen in their highest development in the Briggs
drawings. Mr. Briggs is unfortunate in respect of horseflesh; the
animals he selects are none of them free from vice, and in their
various--and often successful--attempts to unseat their rider, they give
the artist opportunities of showing his power of representing almost
every action of which the horse is capable in the indulgence of that
propensity. The enterprising sportsman chases the fox, coming in at the
death, or soon after it--anyway, in time to give the huntsman
half-a-sovereign for the brush, only he must "say nothing about it." He
rides steeplechases, and though he is half drowned in a water-jump, and
suffers other hindrances, he wins the race.
But it is in the shooting and fishing exploits that the sportsman and
his illustrator shine most. Among so many triumphs of art and
sportsmanship, it is difficult to say which of the many excellent
examples is to be preferred; all are admirable, but I think the one I
have chosen for illustration is my favourite. Mr. Briggs is
deer-stalking, and though he occasionally suffers, even to prostration,
from the heat of the weather, and the difficulties presented by hills,
rocks, and heather, he really enjoys creeping and hiding with his
gillies, until the royal hart, which the forester has seen through his
glass, is well within rifle shot. He fires, misses; and behold the
result!
[Illustration: "AFTER AIMING FOR A QUARTER OF AN HOUR, MR. B. FIRES BOTH
HIS BARRELS AND MISSES!! TABLEAU: THE FORESTER'S ANGUISH."]
In expression, drawing, character, and action, the figure of the
forester is perfect; there is a tragic grandeur in the pose that would
be appropriate in the gravest scene of misfortune. Poor Mr. Briggs
plainly shows us that he not only suffers from the mortification of
having missed so splendid an opportunity of distinguishing himself, but
also from the misery his mishap has inflicted upon the forester. The
skilful way in which this drawing is composed--the three figures
separated from each other presenting a difficult problem to the
artist--excites one's admiration. Without the connecting links
afforded by the forms in the landscape, and the lines made by the dogs
in the leash, held by the young gilly, the figures would be unpleasantly
separated. As it is, with the masterly effect of light and shadow, this
drawing is above all criticism.
My elderly readers may remember a certain Mr. Rarey, an American, I
think, who "took the town" by his horse-taming feats. A horse named
Cruiser, which was in the habit of indulging in every wickedness that
could disgrace a horse, became docile under the Rarey treatment. The
tamer's method was a profound secret; he allowed no one to witness the
working of the charm by which a furious animal was changed into
lamb-like meekness. In Cruiser's case, what was certain was, that a
creature unapproachable without risk to limb and life, was transformed
to such an extent that a child might--and did--ride him.
In a number of admirably humorous drawings, Leech pictures Mr. Briggs,
who comes to grief in all his attempts to emulate Mr. Rarey. He
evidently does not possess the secret, and though we laugh over his
failures, we respect the courage which led to them. "Mr. Briggs tries
his shooting pony" is an inimitable drawing. Mr. B. has no doubt been
assured that the pony will take no more notice of a gun when fired from
his back than "if you was to whistle a tune as you was riding of him."
In perfect confidence in the truthfulness of the dealer's assurance, Mr.
Briggs fires. The pony instantly flies, rather than gallops,
away--without, however, unseating Mr. Briggs, who clings to the saddle,
clutching his gun still smoking from the recent discharge.
Mr. Briggs goes to Scotland after salmon, as well as deer and grouse. As
a fisherman he is more successful with the rod than he was as a
deer-stalker with the gun. A huge salmon, for which "he would not take a
guinea a pound," rewards him for a long and desperate struggle, in which
he encounters obstacles in the shape of the slippery rocks and
deep-water holes that distinguish a Highland river.
In Scottish scenery Leech is as much at home as he is in the
turnip-field or the covert. No praise can be too extravagant for all the
backgrounds that form so perfect a setting for the gem-like figures of
Mr. Briggs. Nor must his attendants be forgotten. Witness the difference
of character, so completely marked, between the snuff-taking bearer of
the "gaff," with his Scotch bonnet, and the forester in his kilt, who so
pathetically mourns Mr. Briggs' failure, and who afterwards makes him
"free of the forest" by smearing his face with the blood of a stag which
has died by the accidental discharge of his gun.
During the quarter of a century of Leech's work, the British public had
its crazes--Bloomerism, crinoline, spirit-rapping, and other less
dangerous absurdities than the last, seized upon the minds of large
portions of the people, to be thrown aside and replaced by other
ridiculous fancies. Even games, after a time, seem to pall upon the
players: cricket, happily, bids fair to be perennial; but croquet, once
so fashionable, is no more. When one looks at Leech's drawings, in which
crinolines figure so prominently, it is really difficult to believe that
the artist has not exaggerated a frightful fashion; from observation I
can assure a doubter that Leech has frequently under, rather than over,
done the swell of those voluminous skirts. Of course, whenever they are
permitted to do so, servants will imitate their masters and mistresses,
and it was by no means uncommon for the ribs of a housemaid's crinoline
to assert themselves through the outer skirt, as we see in some of
Leech's drawings.
I would draw attention to the opposite, or antithesis, of this. In some
of the cuts, prior, I think, to the "crinoline mania," Leech's
delightful girls wear jackets of a form that follows the lines of
nature, and of a very picturesque shape. These have a very short reign,
being discarded in their turn by that Goddess of Fashion, the
dressmaker, for "something new" and outrageous. There is amongst the
"Pictures of Life and Character" a drawing of a dinner-party in which
the male guests are so hidden and covered by ladies' crinolines that
their heads and a small portion of their shoulders only are visible. How
the gentlemen's hands are to be used in the consumption of their dinners
is left to the imagination of the beholder, and of the sufferers.
For the unexaggerated truth of this print I, who write, can vouch; for
have I not again and again been obliged to solve the difficulty of using
my knife and fork? In spite of the attacks upon it, crinoline had its
day--and far too long a day it was.
The Bloomer costume--a Yankee invention--made but a feeble struggle for
existence, though it had many advocates, notably a _belle Americaine_,
one of whose lectures at the Hanover Square rooms I had the curiosity to
attend. The lady wore a red velvet overcoat and loose trousers, a
broad-brimmed black hat and feather, and looked and talked like a pretty
boy.
Bloomerism afforded Leech many opportunities of showing that his pencil
could invest eccentricity with beauty. A study of the Bloomer sketches
will also show that the attempt to adopt the manly dress was, in his
estimation, an insidious attempt to usurp manly work and offices. In
proof of this see the charming Bloomer omnibus-conductor, who is
threatened by an elderly male passenger with a summons for abusive
language; or the group of Bloomer police, who fly from a riotous mob
instead of arresting the ringleaders. Look at her again as "the man at
the wheel" who must not be "spoken to." Those who have suffered from
sea-sickness will see by the expression of the Bloomer's countenance why
she should not be spoken to, and what the effect of conversation under
the circumstances would most probably be. Leech gave his imagination
full play in this fruitful theme. Granting the assumption of the
masculine dress, he sees no reason why a proposal should not be made by
the female lover instead of the male. Why, he seems to ask, should the
gentleman have to undergo that terrible ordeal?
I advise my reader to seek in "Pictures of Life and Character" for a
drawing of an elopement in which the positions of the principals are
reversed. It is the lady who is pouring words of passionate persuasion
into the ears of her frightened and half-reluctant lover, as he looks
back at the home he is leaving for ever; she almost drags him to the
carriage which is to bear the happy pair away to Gretna Green.
Spirit-rapping, table-turning, and the rest of it, fare badly at the
hands of Leech. Happy was the thought that possessed him when, by a
touch of his magic pencil, he changed the heads of a seance-party into
those of geese. And how admirably humorous is the drawing in which
furniture starts into life at the bidding of a medium, to the
astonishment and dismay of the housemaid! Hats were supposed to "turn
about and wheel about" under the influence of encircled hands round the
brims. It would be a mistake to suppose that the handsome Guardsman who,
with the assistance of the fingers of those pretty creatures, so
patiently waits for the hat to move, has either the expectation or the
desire that the experiment will be successful. No, he greatly enjoys the
situation, and is eager to prolong it for any unreasonable time.
Here I cannot resist interposing a little anecdote of an experience of
which I should like to have an explanation by the spiritualists. The
incident took place on one of the many occasions when I served as a
member of the dreaded Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy. As is well
known, the Academicians have a vast variety of works of art offered for
exhibition, perpetrated, as a rule, by human hands. But there is no rule
without an exception, and it was my fate to witness the exception in the
form of pictures painted by spirits, and sent for exhibition by their
thrice-blessed proprietor. These were very striking works indeed. At
first sight they looked like masses of many-coloured weeds, very weird
vegetation, unlike anything "in heaven above or on the earth beneath."
On nearer inspection, some childishly-drawn, half-naked figures were
discernible amongst the weeds, intended to represent spiritual forms of
departed friends, probably, who had been changed into these unfortunate
figures. These works received our most careful examination, created
laughter, and were rejected. Now, I respectfully ask what the spirits
were about thus to subject themselves and their doings to the ignorant
ribaldry of the Academicians? They must have known that we were in a
state of darkest unbelief, and the least they could have done was to
warn the owner of these works of their certain fate at our hands, and
thus have saved him the trouble of sending them to Burlington House, to
say nothing of the expense of the handsome frames in which they were
enshrined. "I pause for a reply."
Archery and croquet afforded Leech opportunities for the display of
beauty in many forms. His lady-archers are bewitching creatures, their
male competitors always manly, graceful gentlemen. The pursuit of both
amusements offered chances of love-making and flirtation, of which full
advantage is sometimes taken; indeed, in one instance we see a game of
croquet stopped altogether by a couple who find an interchange of--shall
we say vows?--more interesting than the game; a feeling which, judging
from the other players, is by no means shared.
Leech seems to have left no phase of human life and character untouched:
whether he deals with the aristocrat or the plebeian, the Duchess or the
beggar, the very poor or the very rich, the beautiful or the ugly, he is
ever true to Nature; turning away from our vices, dealing lovingly with
us in all ways, touching our follies lightly, humorously, and always
good-naturedly--in short, invariably reflecting in his work his own
disposition to what is pure, manly, and true.