MR. PERCIVAL LEIGH AND LEECH.
In the death of Mr. Percival Leigh, which took place a short time ago,
the last member of the original staff of _Punch_ passed away. Mr. Leigh
never married, and died at a very advanced age. I frequently met him in
society, where his refined and gentle manners, and his quaintly humorous
conversation, were what might have been anticipated from the author of
"Pips his Diary," the "Comic Grammars," and other contributions to the
paper to which he was so long and so faithfully attached. From the days
of their fellow-studentship at St. Bartholomew's (with a short
interval), to the time of Leech's death, a firm friendship existed
between these two distinguished men.
Much alike in their sense of humour, they also resembled each other in
numberless amiable qualities of heart and mind. Leigh's pen was as free
from personality, and as conspicuous for the gentleness with which it
dealt with folly, as Leech's pencil. In early and late days, when Leech
was in trouble, Leigh's was the hand--amongst others--ever ready to
help; and to those who can read between the lines in the paper which Mr.
Leigh has contributed to this book, there will be little difficulty in
discovering the "friend" who found purchasers for work that the producer
was barred (in a double sense) from selling for himself.
I see little or no reason for weakening my assertion that Leech arrived
at his supreme eminence without any art education; for the slight
mechanical knowledge of the art of drawing upon wood which he acquired
from Mr. Orrin Smith, a wood-engraver, is no more worthy the name of
art-teaching, than the few lessons in etching given to Leech by George
Cruikshank can be called art-education. Following the example of Sir
John Millais, Mr. Percival Leigh (to whom, it will be remembered,
Millais recommended my predecessor, Mr. Evans, to apply) furnished the
following remarks for this memoir.
Said Mr. Leigh: "Orrin Smith has been dead many years. How long Leech
was with him I cannot say precisely. Perhaps a twelvemonth or
thereabouts. Smith was a sociable and rather a clever man, but according
to Leech, occasionally so economical that he would now and then try to
get a little gratuitous work out of him. On one occasion Smith asked him
to introduce a few figures, so as to put a touch of action into a
drawing on wood, meant to illustrate a serious little book, the work of
a clergyman. The scene represented was a quiet churchyard. Leech
improved it with a group of little boys larking and boxing.
"Of course these embellishments, on discovery, were objected to as
painfully incongruous, and had to be cancelled. I forget whether or no
they had been actually engraven before they were taken out."
Thus far Mr. Leigh. I think I can interpret the incongruity. I fancy I
can hear Leech say, after previous unrequited sketches, "Oh, hang it!
this is too bad. Well, here goes; he shall have a few figures, and I
hope he'll like 'em."
Mr. Leigh continues: "The post-office envelope was one of Leech's
successes; so were the 'Comic Histories' of England and Rome, and the
'Comic Blackstone'; but his growth in popularity was gradual. He had
previously illustrated 'Jack Brag' for Bentley, and subsequently various
articles for _Bentley's Miscellany_, particularly the 'Ingoldsby
Legends,' as well as other ephemeral works of the same publisher;
amongst them the 'Comic Latin' and 'English' Grammars, and the 'Children
of the Mobility,' a travesty of the 'Children of the Nobility,' long
since out of print. He also furnished coloured illustrations to the
'Fiddle-Faddle Fashion-book,' a whimsical satire on the fopperies and
literary absurdities of the period, also out of print."
I venture again to interrupt the current of Mr. Leigh's narrative with a
word or two on the "Fiddle-Faddle" book. A copy of it, date 1840, has
been lent to me. The literary portion, consisting mainly of a thrilling
story of brigand life, the blood-curdling tenor of which may be imagined
from the title, "Grabalotti the Bandit; or, The Emerald Monster of the
Deep Dell," is the work of Mr. Leigh. The story opens thus:
"Italia! oh, Italia! blooming birthplace of beauty! land of lazzaroni
and loveliness! clime of complines and cruelty, of susceptibility and
sacrilege, of roses and revenge! thy bright, blue, boundless skies
serene I love; thy verdant vales, volcanoes, vines, and virgins! Thy
virgins? ay, thy bright-eyed, dark-haired virgins. I love them--how I
love them, though mine, alas! they ne'er can be! And there was one who,
in earlier, happier hours, before these locks were--no matter. Let me
proceed with the calmness becoming a narrator with my tale."
And he proceeds "with a vengeance" to let us know that the spokesman of
the above is an artist who had "halted in a deep ravine in the Abruzzi
(where, on each side, the cliffs frowned like fiends upon the quailing
traveller) to transfer to my portable sketch-book a slight souvenir of
the celestial scene. Absorbed in my enthralling occupation, I heeded not
the approach of a visitant; it was therefore with surprise, not
unmingled with alarm, that I was aroused by a tap upon the shoulders,
accompanied by the following sarcastic greeting:
"'Is thy maternal parent, young man, aware of thine absence from home?'
"'Quite so,' I replied, in a tremulous tone, anxiously glancing round to
behold the speaker.
"My acquaintance with literature--to say nothing of my constant
attendance at the opera--at once convinced me that I was in the hands of
a brigand."
Had there been "any possible doubt whatever," it would have been
instantly dispelled; for after "smiling in demoniacal derision," the
disturber of the sketcher said, "deliberately and tranquilly, as he
levelled a pistol at my head:
"'Thy wealth or thy existence!'
"My sole remaining ducat was offered in vain. At the shrill sound of his
whistle the crags bristled with bandits, and fifty carbines were pointed
at my person. Blue with boiling agony, I made as a last resource the
Masonic sign. It succeeded. At another signal every carbine was lowered,
and breathless expectation brooded over the heart of its bearer."
The bandits, however, were not so easily satisfied; for "a murmur of
impatience, mingled with discontent, arose, like the billows of emotion,
amongst the troop, and some twenty weapons again kissed with their
stocks as many manly shoulders.
"'Back, slaves, for your lives!' shouted the infuriated Grabalotti,
throwing himself in front of me. 'One moment more, and, by the
blood-stained power of the thundering Avalanche, the foremost of you
dies!'
"Cowering in cream-like humility, each individual reversed his
implement of death--all but one. A ball from the pistol of Grabalotti
instantly crashed through his brain. For a moment he writhed in sable
pangs; then all was over, and darkness mantled over his impetuosity for
ever. Then, turning towards me, the brigand chief gave me a civil
invitation to spend the day with him, which, under existing
circumstances, I thought it best to accept. On our way I took the
opportunity thus furnished me to survey my lawless companion. He was at
least six feet and a half, independent of the coverings of his feet, in
height; his air was stern and commanding; raven ringlets clustered down
to his shoulders. Premature intensity glowed in his volcanic eyes; his
nose was Roman, and he wore mustachios. The lines in the lower part of
his face were indicative of death-fraught concentration; and the teeth,
frequently disclosed by his smile of pervading bitterness, were
remarkably white. The gloom of his conical hat was mocked by gay
ribands. He wore a jacket of green velvet (an expensive article),
lustrously gemmed with gold buttons; and those portions of his dress for
which our language has no proper appellation were richly meandered with
superior lace. His legs were variously swathed in the manner so
characteristic of his profession. The carbine that slept in a snowy belt
at his back; the pistols bickering in his girdle; and the stiletto
reposing, like candid innocence, in its silver sheath, with its ivory
handle protruding from his sash, were all of the most ornamental and
valuable description."
This extraordinary robber and the artist arrive at "the dwelling of the
bandit, which was eligibly situate among the most romantic scenery."
Signor Grabalotti conducted his visitor to a "table groaning with fruit,
and supporting six sacramental chalices filled with the richest wine."
The brigand has made a great haul of prisoners, whose friends have not
shown the alacrity in rescuing them required by their captor, who, by
way of entertaining his guest, orders them all, to the amount of a
dozen, into his presence, and, arranging them in a row "along a trench
in the background," with the assistance of twelve of his men, has them
all shot.
"Almost ere the smoke had cleared away, the earth was shovelled over the
bodies.
"'And now,' said the chief, 'for a dance in honour of our guest.'
"Four-and-twenty brisk young bandits, clad in jackets, green array, were
instantly joined by as many maidens, each wearing the square _coiffure_,
short dress, and _petite_ apron, and otherwise fully attired in the
costume of the country. Each robber provided himself with a partner, and
a festive dance was performed with great spirit to a popular air.
"Their gaiety was at its height, when suddenly the sound of a distant
bell stole with milky gentleness on the ear. In an instant all present
fell on their knees, and, with their arms devoutly crossed upon their
breasts, raised, in heavenly unison, their hymn of votive praise to the
Virgin."
Here endeth the first chapter of the "Emerald Monster of the Deep Dell."
As "a satire on the literary absurdities of the day," to quote its
author, this capital fooling could not be surpassed; indeed, to those
who remember, as the present writer can distinctly, the effusions in
prose and verse--or, as Jerrold called it, "prose and worse"--that more
or less filled the pages of the Keepsakes, the Books of Gems and Beauty
of a long bygone time, the "Monster of the Deep Dell" is scarcely a
caricature.
But I have not yet done with him. The second chapter is devoted to an
account in Grabalotti language of the early life and loves of the
interesting bandit:
"Rino Grabalotti is my name," he says. "Italy is my nation; the Deep
Dell is my dwelling-place, and--but no! never shall monkish cant pollute
the lips to baleful imprecation attuned for ever. Let the blue and
hideous glare of the lightning, and the ghastly gleam of the hag-ridden
meteor, illumine the deeds of my doing. Growl, ye thunders! Roar, ye
tempests! Yell, ye fiends, and howl in hideous harmony a prelude to my
tale!"
He then proceeds to inform the artist (who, with an eye for copy,
ventures to hint "that an outline of his history would be interesting")
that he was the son of a priest, and born in Naples; and naturally much
annoyed by the scandalous irregularity of his birth, he devotes his life
to robbing and murdering as many of his fellow-creatures as good fortune
places in his hands in the practice of his profession.
But I anticipate. Grabalotti declines to say much about his infancy; he
seems to have been pretty often reminded of the scandal of his birth,
and as often he registered a vow that, sooner or later, he would close
for ever the mouths of the slanderers.
"It was in my sixteenth summer," he continues, "that I really began to
live. Though in years a boy, I was in all else a man. Passion hurtled in
my darkening eye, and plunged my heart in lava. I loved; what Italian at
my age does not? Yes; I--the ruthless, the scathed, the smouldering, the
sanguinary, the Emerald Monster of the Deep Dell--I, even I, gasped with
tortuous anguish in the maddening transports of Cupid."
Giulia is the name of the fair creature who has caused the eruption of
this volcanic passion; and on what the bandit-lover calls "an evening of
rosy gladness," he seeks his fair enslaver's window, guitar in hand. But
the voice, "which was the best at a barcarole of any in Naples," had
raised a very few love notes, when a rough voice exclaims:
"'What dost thou here, spurious offspring of sacrilege?' accompanying
the inquiry by an equally rough salutation from behind (oh,
madness!)--'begone!'
"Confusion simmered in my brain. Frenzied, I turned; one stroke of my
stiletto, and my wounded honour was salved--with gore. It was that of
Giulia's father!"
This sudden death of the author of her being offended Giulia, and she
solemnly renounced young Grabalotti for ever. This intimation, conveyed
in a mixture of "indignation mingled with scorn," had an extraordinary
effect. Says the lover:
"Twisting in bitterness awhile I lingered, then rushed distracted from
the spot, and fled hissing with desperation to the mountains."
The beauties of the Deep Dell produced no soothing effect on the
desperate bitterness that twisted the soul of Grabalotti; he issued from
the Dell to "soak and steep his heart in blood."
"The dewy wail of infancy, the piercing zest of female innocence, and
the tremulous pleading of piping feebleness, all mocked at the radiance
of the crimson steel, have poured their bootless incense o'er my
breast.... Ha, ha! The nun, her dove-like innocence devastated, has
broiled like a chestnut amid the ashes of her convent," etc.
More "copy" in the style of the above is imparted to the artist. But an
interruption takes place. A brigand enters, and so irritates the monster
by the abruptness of his appearance that, had not the pistol with which
his impatient master received him missed fire, his brains would have
been scattered to the winds of heaven.
"'Ha! dost thou dare to break in upon my mood?' roared Grabalotti.
"'Come to tell you,' said the robber (speaking in the greatest possible
haste), 'that the nun who escaped the sacking of the convent has been
taken.'
"'Do as you list with her, and chop her head off! Stay, I would fain see
it when it is done; and here, take this purse for the risk thou hast
encountered.'"
Yet another interruption--this time in the person of a brigand spy
disguised as a peasant. The chief anticipates startling and perhaps
unpleasant news, and saying: "'Excuse me, signor, for a few moments,' he
retires with his emissary."
Grabalotti was absent some little time, during which the artist "added
another sketch to his small collection," when the monster returned, and
informed his guest "in a lively tone" that they were about to have "some
fun."
"'Of what description?' inquired the artist.
"'In an hour's time we shall be attacked by the military,'" to whom he
promises a warm reception; and in the event of the robbers being
overpowered by numbers, "a train communicates with the magazine below."
"Here the head of the unfortunate nun made its appearance on a silver
dish. Its loveliness, even in death, was intensely overpowering. With a
grin of fiendish malice, Grabalotti seized it by the hair, but no sooner
did the features meet his eye, than he relinquished his hold and fell,
senseless, backwards, faintly gasping, like a dying echo, ''Tis she!
'Tis Giulia!!'"
Unless the artist guest was possessed of courage uncommon among our
fraternity, he could not have contemplated being blown into the air with
the robbers, or being shot by the soldiers, with equanimity; and he must
have been much relieved in any case by Grabalotti, who, when "the
violence of frantic ferocity" had given way to "the calm profundity of
despair," muttered in a low and suppressed tone: "Nay, thou shalt live
to tell the world my story!" and to enable his guest to do this
eventually, "in a tone of sweetest melancholy" he said:
"Stranger, hence! thy further stay is perilous. Yon by-path will conduct
thee to the valleys."
Rising from "the valleys" was a crag, to the summit of which half an
hour's walk would take the artist, and from thence he was assured that
"if he turned his gaze backwards he should see something worth seeing."
The narrator tells us that he reached the crag in twenty-nine minutes
exactly.
"For one minute I gazed in the direction of the Brigands' Haunt, from
which, precisely at the expiration of that time, a vivid flash of flame,
shooting into the air, accompanied by a dense column of smoke, and
followed by a terrific explosion, proclaimed too plainly the last
achievement of the Emerald Monster of the Deep Dell."
Mr. Percival Leigh contributes a second story to the "Fiddle-Faddle
Fashion-book," in which the novel of fashionable life, not uncommon
fifty years ago, is satirized under the title of "Belleville: a Tale of
Fashionable Life," not less happily than the sanguinary and terribly
romantic writers are treated in the burlesque of Grabalotti. The "Clara
Matilda poets" of the Keepsake time are also amusingly parodied in some
short poems, which, with comic advertisements, occasionally very
humorous, fill up the literary portion of the "Fiddle-Faddle
Fashion-book."
This book is not the only one in which Leech's powers have been
enlisted--I was nearly saying prostituted--in publications devoted to
eccentricities in dress and the caprices of fashion. In illustrations by
him of the tale of fashionable life, or of Grabalotti, the genius of
that great artist would have had full play; but as the draughtsman of
fashion-plates it was, in my opinion, degraded. In vindication of my
judgment I present my readers with two plates from the "Fiddle-Faddle"
book, in which Leech portrays--no doubt under direction--caprices of
fashion which could only have existed in his own imagination, and
produced with a feeling of caricature that is so conspicuous by its
absence in his usual work.
I now return to the paper which Mr. Leigh wrote with a view to this
memoir.
[Illustration]
That Leigh and Leech first met as students at St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, I have noted elsewhere; and the details of his apprenticeship
to the eccentric surgeon, which Mr. Leigh heard from Leech himself, I
have also given, with the exception of one incident of which I was
ignorant.
[Illustration]
"In his dispensary," says Mr. Leigh, "the doctor had one drawer amongst
his boxes, in which there were pills of gentle efficacy, intended to be
served out (they were made, I believe, of bread and soap) to the
generality of his customers. This receptacle bore the label of 'Pil.
Hum.,'--abbreviation of humbug--or, as their concoctor used to call
them, 'Humbugeraneous Pills.' The Dr. Cockle to whom, Mr. Leigh says,
Leech went after he left Mr. Whittle, was the son of the inventor of
Cockle's Pills.
"No sooner had he become of age," continues Mr. Leigh, "than he was
induced, in order to meet difficulties for which he was not responsible,
to accept an accommodation bill, which the drawer of, when it fell due,
failed to supply the means of meeting. Leech was consequently arrested
for debt at the suit of this discounter, and lodged in a sponging-house
kept by a sheriff's officer, a Jew, by name (I think) of Levi, in Newman
Street. There he remained about a fortnight, supporting himself in the
meanwhile by drawing cartoons and caricatures. He lithographed them on
stone for Spooner, in the Strand, at a guinea each, a _friend_ having
negotiated their sale.
"At last, an advance of money on a projected publication sufficient to
discharge the debt having been obtained, he was liberated. But not long
after, a second scrape--a repetition of the first--cost him another
temporary sojourn with another Jew in another sponging-house in Cursitor
Street. This detention, however, lasted but a few days. _From that
period to the close of his life_ he remained subject to repeated demands
for pecuniary assistance under continued pressure, which, as at the
outset, he could not withstand. The deficits he had to defray were
always heavy; the last of them, as I understand, a thousand pounds. It
cost him very hard work to make it good. Excess of generosity was his
greatest failing."
I have no means of knowing, nor do I desire to know, who the borrowers
were to whom Percival Leigh alludes; but his revelations make the fact
of Leech having died a comparatively poor man comprehensible enough. If
ever man was killed by overwork, Leech was that man, and this must be a
painful reflection for those whose incessant demands upon him made it
only possible for him to meet them by the incessant exertions which
destroyed him.
Mr. Leigh's paper concludes with the anecdote that follows:
"Leech and Albert Smith worked together very harmoniously as illustrator
and writer in several books--'Ledbury,' 'Brinvilliers,' and many
others--and one day when they were leaving Smith's house together, a
street-boy stepped up to them, and scoffing at the inscription on
Smith's large brass door-plate, cried:
"'Oh yes! Mr. Albert Smith, M.R.C.S., Surgeon-Dentist.'
"'Good boy!' said Leech, putting a penny into the boy's hand; 'now go
and insult somebody else.'"