LEECH EXHIBITION.
About the year 1860--or thereabouts--there was exhibited in London a
huge picture of Nero contemplating the ruins of Rome, by a German artist
named Piloti. On seeing the picture I was much struck by a certain
somewhat coarse vigour in the work, which asserted itself in spite of
crude and harsh colouring; the principal figure--as often happens--was
disappointing and theatrical. Nero stood in a melodramatic posture, with
his arms folded, enjoying the destruction of the city. Leech,
accompanied by his friend, the late Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A. (the eminent
sculptor who made an admirable statuette of Leech), saw the picture, and
after a long study of it he turned to Boehm and said: "I would rather
have been the painter of that picture than the producer of all the
things I have ever perpetrated!" Leech's friend received this avowal
with incredulous laughter, and, pointing out some of the glaring faults
of the Nero, endeavoured to convince his companion that one of his
drawings was worth acres of such work as Piloti's; in which I, for one,
entirely agree with him.
The hankering after oil-colours which always possessed Leech was
destined to be gratified; for soon after this--in 1862--he came before
the public as the painter of a series of "sketches in oil," being
reproductions of his own drawings in _Punch_. These--almost
virgin--attempts were exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, where they were
visited by thousands of admiring spectators, who left several thousand
pounds behind them. Everyone knows what a few inches of space are taken
up by one of Leech's drawings as it appears in "Pictures of Life and
Character." A sketch of such small dimensions would have been
ineffective in colours, and it was owing to an invention by which the
originals were enlarged, that the artist was enabled to offer to the
public copies of drawings four or five inches square, increased in some
instances to three feet by two.
"'The idea originated,' says Dr. Brown, 'with Mr. Mark Lemon, Leech's
friend and colleague, who saw that by a new invention--a beautiful piece
of machinery--the impression of a block in _Punch_ being first taken on
a sheet of indiarubber, was enlarged; when by a lithographic process
the copy thus got could be transferred to the stone and impressions
printed upon a large sheet of canvas. Having thus obtained an outline
groundwork, consisting of his own lines enlarged to some eight times the
area of the original block, Leech proceeded to colour these. His
knowledge of the manipulation of oil-colours was very slight, and it was
under the guidance of his friend Millais that his first attempts were
made, and crude enough they were. He used a kind of transparent colour,
which allowed the coarse lines of the enlargement to show through, so
that the production presented the appearance of indifferent lithographs
slightly tinted. In a short time he obtained great mastery over
oil-colour, and instead of allowing the thick, fatty lines of printer's
ink to remain on the canvas, he, by the use of turpentine, removed the
ink, particularly with regard to the lines of the faces and figures.
These he redrew with his own hand in a fine and delicate manner. To this
he added a delicacy of finish, particularly in flesh-colour, which
greatly enhanced the value and beauty of his later works."
The catalogue to the sketches in oil is prefaced by a few modest words
by the artist, who concludes some remarks upon their production thus:
"These sketches have no claim to be regarded, or tested, as finished
pictures. It is impossible for anyone to know the fact better than I do.
They have no pretensions to a higher name than the name I give them,
'Sketches in Oil.'"
The exhibition consisted of sixty-seven works, and the room containing
them was filled all day long by a laughing crowd. Leech shrank from
crowds at all times, and an assembly drawn together by his own works
would have special terrors for him. After the opening of the gallery he
was never known to visit it, mainly from his innate modesty, but also
from his dread of being "caught and talked at by enthusiastic people."
A story is told of a visit of a sporting lord who took his
huntsman--whose judgment of hounds and horses was celebrated for its
acumen--to give his verdict on the Leech Exhibition in general, and on
dogs and horses in particular.
"'Ah, my lord, nothin' but a party as knows 'osses could have drawed
them there 'unters.'"
If the huntsman offered an opinion on other features of the exhibition,
it is not recorded; he criticised only what he understood--therein
giving a much-needed example to many critics.
In the few remarks in the way of criticism on the Leech Exhibition
which I allow myself to make, I claim to be in the position of the
huntsman whose experience of the horse made his opinion of that animal
valuable; my own experience of pictures, as it extends over fifty years,
may fairly claim for me the right of judgment, and I acknowledge myself
to be one of those who thought the exhibition of "Sketches in Oil" did
not increase Leech's reputation; though it happily did increase his own
fortune, or the fortune of somebody else.
Dr. Brown says that Leech "obtained a great mastery over oil-colours."
The huntsman may have thought as much; if he did, he was as much in
error as Dr. Brown. The sketches lost much charm by their enlargement,
and they were further greatly damaged by the crude and inharmonious way
in which they were coloured. The girls' lovely faces, which delight us
so thoroughly in their pencilled forms, became almost vulgar under the
artist's attempts to paint flesh--the most difficult of all things to
render truly. When he first gives them to us fresh from the wood block,
conveying to us, as he does, the most ravishing beauty by a few
pencil-marks, we paint the faces for ourselves with the colours and
brushes of the mind, with a result unattainable by the colourman's tools
unless they are in the hands of a Reynolds or a Vandyke. Leech's
delightful backgrounds, too, were terribly spoilt by his oil-paints: air
and distance disappeared altogether in many of them. But it is time my
grumbling gave place to what Mr. Thackeray had to say about the Leech
Exhibition in the _Times_ of June 21, 1862:
"Now, while Mr. Leech has been making his comments upon our society and
manners, one of the wittiest and keenest observers has been giving a
description of his own country of France in a thousand brilliant pages;
and it is a task not a little amusing and curious for a student of
manners to note the difference between the two satirists--perhaps
between the societies they describe. Leech's England is a country
peopled by noble elderly squires, riding large-boned horses, followed
across country by lovely beings of the most gorgeous proportions, by
respectful retainers, by gallant little boys emulating the pluck and
courage of the sire. The joke is the precocious courage of the child,
his gallantry as he charges his fences, his coolness as he eyes the
glass of port, or tells grandpapa he likes his champagne dry. How does
Gavarni represent the family father, the sire, the old gentleman, in
_his_ country--the civilized country? Paterfamilias, in a dyed wig and
whiskers, is leaning by the side of Mademoiselle Coralie on her sofa in
the Rue de Bréda. Paterfamilias, with a mask and a nose half a yard
long, is hobbling after her at the ball. The _enfant terrible_ is making
papa and mamma alike ridiculous by showing us mamma's lover, who is
lurking behind the screen. A thousand volumes are written protesting
against the seventh commandment. The old man is for ever hunting after
the young woman; the wife is for ever cheating the husband. The fun of
the old comedy never seems to end in France, and we have the word of
their own satirists, novelists, painters of society, that it is being
played from day to day.
"In the works of that barbarian artist, Hogarth, the subject which
affords such playful sport to the civilized Frenchman is stigmatized as
a fearful crime, and is visited by a ghastly retribution. The English
savage never thinks of such a crime as funny, and, a hundred years after
Hogarth, our modern 'painter of mankind' still retains his barbarous
modesty, is tender with children, decorous before women, has never once
thought he had the right or calling to wound the modesty of either.
"Mr. Leech surveys society from the gentleman's point of view. In old
days, when Mr. Jerrold lived and wrote for that famous periodical, he
took the other side; he looked up at the rich and great with a fierce,
a sarcastic aspect, and a threatening posture, and his outcry or
challenge was: 'Ye rich and great, look out! We, the people, are as good
as you. Have a care, ye priests, wallowing on a tithe pig and rolling in
carriages and four; ye landlords, grinding the poor; ye vulgar fine
ladies, bullying innocent governesses, and what not--we will expose your
vulgarity, we will put down your oppression, we will vindicate the
nobility of our common nature,' and so forth. A great deal has to be
said on the Jerrold side, a great deal was said, perhaps, even, a great
deal too much. It is not a little curious to speculate upon the works of
these two famous contributors to _Punch_, these two 'preachers,' as the
phrase is. 'Woe to you, you tyrant and heartless oppressor of the poor!'
calls out Jerrold as Dives' carriage rolls by. 'Beware of the time when
your bloated coachman shall be hurled from his box, when your gilded
flunkey shall be cast to the earth from his perch, and your pampered
horses shall run away with you and your vulgar wife and smash you into
ruin.' The other philosopher looks at Dives and his cavalcade in his own
peculiar manner. He admires the horses and copies, with the most curious
felicity, their forms and action. The footmen's calves and powder, the
coachman's red face and flock wig, the over-dressed lady and plethoric
gentleman in the carriage, he depicts with the happiest strokes; and if
there is a pretty girl and a rosy child on the back seat, he 'takes them
up tenderly' and touches them with a hand that has a caress in it. The
artist is very tender to all these little people. It is hard to say
whether he loves girls or boys most--those delightful little men on
their ponies in the hunting field, those charming little Lady Adas
flirting at the juvenile ball, or Tom the butcher's boy on the slide, or
ragged little Emily pulling the go-cart, freighted with Elizerann and
her doll. Steele, Fielding, Goldsmith, Dickens, are similarly tender in
their pictures of children. We may be barbarians, monsieur; but even
savages are occasionally kind to their papooses. 'When are the
holidays?' Mothers of families ought to come to this exhibition and
bring the children. Then there are the full-grown young ladies--the very
full-grown young ladies--dancing in the ball-room or reposing by the
sea-shore: the men can peep at whole seraglios of these beauties for the
moderate charge of one shilling, and bring away their charming
likenesses in the illustrated catalogue (two-and-six). In the
'Mermaids' Haunt,' for instance, there is a siren combing her golden
locks, and another dark-eyed witch actually sketching you as you look at
her, whom Ulysses could not resist. To walk by the side of the
much-sounding sea and come upon such a bevy of beauties as this, what
bliss for a man or a painter! The mermaids in that haunt, haunt the
beholder for hours after. Where is the shore on which those creatures
were sketched? The sly catalogue does not tell us.
"The outdoor sketcher will not fail to remark the excellent fidelity
with which Mr. Leech draws the backgrounds of his little pictures. The
homely landscape, the sea, the winter road by which the huntsmen ride,
the light and clouds, the birds floating overhead, are indicated by a
few strokes which show the artist's untiring watchfulness and love of
Nature. He is a natural truth-teller, as Hogarth was before him, and
indulges in no flights of fancy. He speaks his mind out quite honestly
like a thorough Briton. He loves horses, dogs, river and field sports.
He loves home and children--that you can see. He holds Frenchmen in
light esteem. A bloated 'mosoo,' walking Leicester Square with a huge
cigar and a little hat, with _billard_ and _estaminet_ written on his
flaccid face, is a favourite study with him; the unshaven jowl, the
waist tied with a string, the boots which pad the quadrant
pavement--this dingy and disreputable being exercises a fascination over
Mr. Punch's favourite artist.
"We trace, too, in his work a prejudice against the Hebrew nation,
against the natives of an island much celebrated for its verdure and its
wrongs. These are lamentable prejudices indeed, but what man is without
his own? No man has ever depicted the little 'snob' with such a
delightful touch. Leech fondles and dances this creature as he does the
children. To remember one or two of these dear gents is to laugh. To
watch them looking at their own portraits in this pleasant gallery will
be no small part of the exhibition; and as we can all go and see our
neighbours caricatured here, it is just possible that our neighbours may
find some smart likenesses of _their_ neighbours in these brilliant,
life-like, good-natured _Sketches in Oil_."
The publication of this sympathetic article in such a paper as the
_Times_, by such a writer as Thackeray, no doubt increased the
popularity of "Sketches in Oil." However that may have been, its
appearance gave the keenest pleasure to Leech, who is said to have
"rejoiced like a child, exclaiming:
"'That's like putting a thousand pounds into my pocket!'"
By far the best examples of Leech's oil paintings are in the collection
of his old warmly attached friend, Mr. Charles Adams, of Barkway.
Instead of a garish stain of washy colour merely passed over an
engraving, these small sporting subjects are painted in a good solid
style, well drawn and carefully finished; carrying with them the
conviction, to my mind, that Leech might possibly have been as great
with the brush as he was with the lead pencil.
Amongst the "Pictures of Life and Character" there is a drawing of two
young ladies sitting _vis-à-vis_ on a rustic seat; from the books held
by both of them it might be supposed they were reading, as no doubt they
were, till one of them caught sight of their partners at the ball the
night before, who by a strange coincidence are advancing upon them
through the wood. The drawing is entitled "Remarkable Occurrence," with
the following explanation: "On the morning after the dispensary ball, as
Emily Deuxtemps and Clara Polkington were sitting in the plantation, who
should come to the very spot but Captain Fastman and young Reginald
Phipps!"
I forget the year in which this drawing appeared. The scene is laid at
Scarborough, where Leech was passing his summer holiday. I was so taken
with the beauty of the girls, the composition of the drawing, and its
general adaptability to the making of an oil picture, that I wrote to
the artist; and, pointing out these characteristics, begged him to
"paint the subject." I received no reply to my entreaty, but on meeting
him afterwards in London, he apologized, and declared he would take my
advice.
"You don't mind my not answering you, old fellow: I hate letter-writing.
It was very kind of you to write--glad you like the girls on the
garden-seat. Well, I will try my hand at it the moment _I have time to
spare_." The time never came. A "Remarkable Occurrence" did not even
appear amongst the "Sketches in Oil."
It would have been a very onerous task for a man in perfect health, and
accustomed to the use of the brush, to have prepared those sixty-seven
sketches in oil for exhibition, even if his time could have been wholly
devoted to it. To Leech, with the hand of Death nearly touching him, in
almost entire ignorance of the method in which he was working--the
ordeal was terrible. To the entreaties of his friends that he should
stick less closely to his easel at Lowestoft or Whitby, he would reply
that the fine air of the former, and the picturesque scenery abounding
at the latter, were intended for idle people, and not for him.
To the man with well-strung nerves Leech's sensibility to noises of all
kinds seems incomprehensible; but for years before the oil sketches were
undertaken I knew of his sufferings from himself; and the world must
have guessed them from his attacks upon the organ-grinders, the
bellowing street-hawkers, and the thousand and one noises that distress
the London householder whose livelihood depends upon his brain. Of
course most of the drawings in which the organ-grinder and the itinerant
vendor of stale fish figure, are highly humorous; causing the unthinking
to laugh, unconscious of the terrible seriousness under which they have
been produced.
Humour was so much a part of Leech's nature that it sometimes asserted
itself incongruously. For example: One evening a convivial party of the
Ancient Order of Foresters returning from, perhaps, the Crystal Palace,
where high festival had been held, roused poor Leech almost to madness
by a yelling uproar opposite his door. He left his work, and rushed
bare-headed amongst them.
"What are you making this horrible row for?"
Then seeing the extraordinary Robin Hood kind of costume affected by
these people, he said:
"What's it all about--who are you?"
"We are Foresters, that's what we are," was the reply.
"Then, why on earth don't you go into a forest and make your infernal
row there, instead of disturbing a whole street with your noise?" said
Leech.
There is no doubt that hyper-sensitiveness to noises troubled Leech
"from his youth up," for we find in comparatively early drawings in
_Punch_ examples of the nuisances created by the fish-hawkers, and the
sellers of the great variety of things that nobody wants, at the
different seaside places where he took his so-called holidays. He was
naturally hard upon the encouragers of these pests. There is an
inimitable sketch of an old lady who has called an organ-grinder into
her parlour. The man, a perfect type of the Italian performer, grinds
away at his instrument, the old woman snaps her fingers and kicks up her
heels in mad delight; her parrot screams, and her dog howls an
accompaniment. Cake and wine are on the table, and there is a stuffed
cat in a glass case on the wall. The drawing is called a "Fancy Sketch
of the Old Party who rather likes Organ-grinding."
In another sketch an elderly paterfamilias is seen sitting upon the
beach attempting to read his newspaper under the difficulties caused by
a boy with guinea-pigs, and others with something to sell; a sailor
proposes a sail, an old woman has a box of baby linen, and the
inevitable sweetstuff merchant looms in the near distance. The drawing
is entitled "The Bores of the Beach," with the following explanatory
lines:
"So, as it's a fine day, you'll sit on the beach and read the paper
comfortably, will you? Very good! Then we recommend you to get what
guinea-pigs, brandy-balls, boats, and children's socks, to say nothing
of shell-work boxes, lace collars, and the like you may want, before you
settle down."
Perhaps the drawing that most happily illustrates the terrible suffering
that is caused by those wandering minstrels, the Italian organ-grinders,
is in double form--two _scenes_, so to speak. The first represents a
dignified, middle-aged father of a family who stands at his door
"expostulating with an organ-grinder, who is defying him with extreme
insolence, alternated with performances on the instrument of torture,"
says Leech. The Italian, who is an embodiment of brutal impudence,
says, "Ha! ha! P'lice! Where you find p'lice?"
In the second drawing we see why the noise is more than commonly
distressing, for it represents a bedroom in the indignant father's
house, where a "sick boy, tended by his mother, is suffering from
nervous fever."
I dwell at some length upon these drawings, because they greatly aided
Mr. Bass in his efforts to put a stop to some extent--alas! only to some
extent--to a serious public nuisance. The Bill which that gentleman
carried through Parliament still requires amendment before the author,
the musician, the artist, or the tradesman even, can pursue his calling
in the peace so essential to success.
An eminent artist friend of mine lived in a part of the town where
organ-grinders greatly congregate. The interruptions to his work were
constant and terrible. After finding that remonstrance, threats of the
police, and other inducements, failed to procure relief, he armed
himself with a pea-shooter, with which he practised upon his lay figure
until he acquired considerable skill in the use of it; and when he
considered he was enough of a marksman, he stood by his shutter window
and waited; not for long, for the notes of "Champagne Charley is my
name"--a favourite melody some years ago--pierced his ears from "an
instrument of torture" opposite to his window. Through a narrow aperture
made by the shutter the pea-shooter was projected, a smart blow on the
cheek of the organ-grinder stopped "Champagne Charley" in the middle of
one of his notes; the man rubbed his face and looked about him, up and
down and round about, with an expression of pained surprise pleasant to
behold. He then took up the tune where he had left it, and had produced
a few more notes when a blow upon the grinding hand, and another almost
instantly on his face, again stopped the performance. "It was very
gratifying," said my friend, "to study the puzzled expression of the
fellow as he looked about for the cause of his trouble." After another
attempt to play out his tune, and another salute from the pea-shooter,
he shouldered his organ and took himself off. "Yes," said the sportsman,
"after a while they found me out, but they couldn't get at me, and now I
am never troubled by any of them."
I am writing these pages at Lowestoft, where Leech passed several summer
holidays. Under the name of "Sandbath," this place had the honour of
appearing in _Punch_ as the scene of several humorous incidents,
notably of one in which the street-horrors are stigmatized under the
heading of "How to Make a Watering-place Pleasant, particularly to
Invalids." Time 6.30 a.m. (a hint to the powers that be at Sandbath).
The principal performer is an admirably drawn figure of a big burly
ruffian--ugliness personified--from whose monstrous mouth one can almost
hear "Yah-ha-bloaters!" Two little boys, carrying baskets of shrimps,
are yelling "Ser-imps, fine ser-imps!" while two more youths add to the
din by ringing bells by way of announcing other delicacies likely to be
in request early in the morning. The date of this drawing can be fixed
pretty accurately, for I hear from Mr. Adams that several of the
sketches in oil exhibited in 1862 were finished at this place, Mr. Adams
constantly watching his friend as he worked.
To the unexaggerated truth of the incident I can speak, for the cry of
"Bloaters!" arouses me every morning, and precisely at the time
indicated by Leech. Added to this, even as I write about the
organ-grinder detested of Leech, comes one, as if in revenge, under my
window; and in reply to my threat of police, I am told to "go and _find_
a policeman"--an impossibility, as the wretch well knows, for there is
but one in Sandbath--as far as my observation goes--and he never
appears in this part of it.
A petition, very numerously signed by eminent members of all the
professions, and by others, was a formidable weapon in Mr. Bass's hands
in his crusade against street musicians and other peace-breakers. The
Bill passed both Houses, and became law. Leech signalized the success by
an admirable drawing called "The Rival Barrels."
"Three cheers for Bass and his barrel of beer, and out with the
foreign ruffian and his barrel-organ."
One of Mr. Bass's draymen is using a cask of beer in the form of a
weapon as he rolls it against a foreign organ-grinder, who finds himself
perilously near the edge of a cliff at Dover or Folkestone, _en route_
from the country he has tormented so long. The brutal Italian scowls and
threatens as the barrel rolls upon him, but we feel he must go; the
stalwart, good-humoured drayman is too much for him.
If--as I feel sure--the brilliant powers possessed by Leech were certain
to be attended by a highly sensitive and nervous organization, absolute
tranquillity and ease of mind were required for the exercise of them;
but in this unhappy case what do we find? No repose--no cessation--no
peace. The conditions under which these wonderful drawings were
produced were no doubt to some extent uncontrollable--the public
appetite grew with what it fed on; it was not _Punch_ only who insisted
upon his weekly portion, but numberless publications, stories,
biographies, poems, taxed the genius of the popular illustrator.
It was not till I undertook this task that I had any idea of the
_quantity_ of work done by Leech: to say nothing of the excellence of
it, the quantity is astonishing. But surely, I hear my reader say,
though _Punch_ required ever-recurring contributions, other demands upon
the artist were within his own control. There are men, and plenty of
them, who would have turned deaf ears to appeals from relatives and
friends; but John Leech was not one of those, and I fear it cannot be
denied it was to meet pressing solicitation for money from various
quarters that we must look to account for the worn brain and the
shattered nerves that throbbed with agony at noises which would scarcely
have disturbed a healthy man.
For some years before his death he suffered from sleeplessness, and at
length he yielded to the suggestion of his friends and the order of his
doctor--that change of air and scene should be tried as a remedy. Mark
Lemon became his companion, and the two went to Biarritz, staying a
short time in Paris on their way.
"That Leech's pencil was not idle on this holiday," says Shirley Brooks,
"two well-known pictures will testify. One of them is a general view of
that now famous watering-place, with specimens of its curious
frequenters. The other is a very remarkable drawing. It represents a
bull-fight as seen by a decent Christian gentleman, and, for the first
time since the brutal fray was invented, the cold-blooded barbarity and
stupidity of the show is depicted without any of the flash and flattery
with which it has pleased artists to treat the atrocious scene. That
grim indictment of a nation professing to be civilized will be on record
for many a day after the offence shall have ceased.
"This brief visit," continues Mr. Brooks, "to the Continent was his last
but one. His strength did not increase, and he no longer found pleasure
in hunting, of which he had been exceedingly fond, and later he
discontinued riding on horseback. He was then not merely advised, but
ordered to travel. About this time the great man who had been to him as
a brother, the schoolmate of his boyhood, the chief friend of his
manhood--Thackeray--died. He told Millais of his presentiment that he,
too, should die suddenly, and soon. In the summer of 1864 he went to
Homburg, accompanied by his friend, Alfred Elmore, and afterwards he
sojourned at Schwalbach. His mind was amused if his body was not
strengthened by these visits to new scenery, and his sketch-book was
soon filled with memorials, some of which he embodied in his last large
_Punch_ engraving--a view of the place where the residents of Schwalbach
meet to drink the waters, and with figures of illustrious political
people.
"Soon after his return he resolved to try what pure fresh English air
would do for him, and accompanied by his family he went to Whitby.
Several friends were also staying there at the same time, and he wrote
to London that he liked the place. In September, on his writing to me
that he would prolong his stay if I and wife would come down, we went,
and remained at Whitby till he left it, on the 3rd of October.
"The scenery round Whitby is varied, and some of it is exceedingly fine;
and Leech, when we could induce him to leave the painting in oil--to
which he devoted far too many hours--enjoyed the drives into the wild
moors, and up and down the terrible but picturesque roads; and he was
still more delighted with the rich woods, deep glades, and glorious
views around Mulgrave Castle. I hoped that good was being done; but it
was very difficult to stir him from his pictures, of which he declared
he must finish a great number before Christmas. It was not for want of
earnest and affectionate remonstrance close by his side, nor for lack of
such remonstrance being seconded by myself and others, that he
persevered in over-labour at these paintings, which he had undertaken
with his usual generosity, in order to provide a very large sum of money
_for the benefit of his relatives, not of his own household_. It need
hardly be said that he was never pressed for work by his old friend the
editor of _Punch_. His contributions to that periodical had not exceeded
one half-page engraving for some time, until he volunteered to compose
the large Schwalbach picture. Let me note another instance of his
kindness to utter strangers. A deputation from the Whitby Institute
waited upon him to ask him to attend a meeting, and to speak in
promotion of the interests of the association. He was on that day too
ill to bear an interview with more than one of the gentlemen, and was,
of course, compelled to refuse their request. But it occurred to him
that they might think his refusal ungracious (as I am sure they could
not), and he sent for all his 'Sketches of Life and Character' from
London, and presented them to the Institution."
Amongst the party at Whitby was Mr. George Du Maurier, whose charming
drawings are familiar, not only to the readers of _Punch_, but also as
excellent illustrations in other newspapers and periodicals; especially
good are they in Thackeray's great novel of "Esmond." Du Maurier only
made Leech's acquaintance a few months before his death, but he tells me
that in the Whitby walks and talks he found him to be the most
delightful companion, and the most "lovable" of men. My friend also
tells me that he was the last of the craft that shook the hand to which
we all owe so much. Du Maurier called upon Leech the day before his
death to present a little drawing to him; he seemed "much as usual," and
the artists parted, little dreaming that they had parted for ever.
On the day after Mr. Hill's party the weekly dinner of the _Punch_ staff
took place. Leech attended as usual, but the readiness with which he was
wont to make suggestions, or to discuss those already made, seemed to
have deserted him. He was dull, silent, and appeared, says Shirley
Brooks, "scarcely to understand what was going on"--requiring a question
to be repeated two or three times before he could frame a reply to it,
and then his answer was often wide of the mark. This condition, I
suppose, showed the alternations of the disease that was killing him,
for he was perfectly free from such a distressing symptom only the night
before the _Punch_ dinner, and as free from it, according to Du Maurier,
the day before his death.
The journeys abroad, and the Whitby sojourn, even if the sufferer could
have been prevailed upon to cease work altogether, came too late. The
sword had worn out the scabbard. Leech's conversation and letters after
his return from Whitby expressed ardent hope, but feeble conviction,
that he had materially benefited by the change of air and scene. I think
he knew that his prophecy, so mournfully spoken to Millais by the
death-bed of Thackeray, was near its fulfilment. In common with all
Leech's friends, I knew that he had suffered from attacks of angina
pectoris, or breast pang; but in our ignorance of the serious character
of the disease, most of us thought lightly of its attacks. One idea
amongst us was that he had strained, and perhaps injured, some muscle in
one of his hunting tumbles. That the agony of the spasms was very
dreadful we knew, because on one occasion, after a severe attack, he
said, "If it had lasted a little longer, I must have died." But how
often have sufferers used the same words when they were in no danger
whatever!
I approach the end of my endeavour to show my illustrious friend in his
true colours, with sad feelings, grievously increased by the conviction
that under happier circumstances he might have been the delight of all
who did--and did not--know him for many years beyond the time so cruelly
shortened. The letter to a friend which follows--written at Kensington
after his return from Whitby--gives us in his own melancholy words a sad
account of his condition.
"6, The Terrace, Kensington,
"October 6, 1864.
"MY DEAR ----,
"I received your most kind note last night on my return from Whitby
in Yorkshire, where I have been with my family since I came from
Germany; and I assure you I have so many things to put in order,
that to go away from my work would be impossible just now. I was
amused with Homburg, and to some extent I think the waters did me
some good; but I am sorry to say I can give but a sorry account of
my health. Nothing seems to quiet my nervous system, and I suffer
still from sleeplessness dreadfully. Alas for Sheldrake! Why, I
could not ride him if I had him; anything out of a walk would bring
on a spasm that would occasion me to drop from his back. I trust I
may be able to ride some time yet, but do not see my way. As for
shooting, you would see me disappear amongst the turnips in about
five minutes from exhaustion. But, however, I look forward with
hope, and with a will, shall try and make myself a better man; and
I am not yet incapable, thank God, to enjoy the society of a
friend, and hope you will find me out--no, not out, but at
home--should you come to London this autumn or winter. You must see
a pantomime, you know. I have one great consolation--that the air
of Yorkshire did my wife and children great good; and hoping that
you and all your kind relations at ... are well,
"Believe me,
"Yours faithfully,
"JOHN LEECH."