_PUNCH'S_ ARTISTS: 1850-60.
Captain Howard--Receipt for Landscape Drawing--Earnings, Real and
Ideal--George H. Thomas--Charles Keene--His Training--Introduction
to _Punch_--Called to the Table--Uselessness in Council--A Strong
Politician--Inherits Leech's Position--Keene as an Artist--Where He
Failed--His Joke-Primers--Torturing the Bagpipes--Good Stories,
Used, Spoiled, and Rejected--"Toby" as a Dachshund--Death of
"Frau"--Keene's Technique--His Inventions and Creations--And what
He Earned by Them--Charles Martin--Harry Hall--Rev. Edward Bradley
("Cuthbert Bede")--"Verdant Green" or "Blanco White"?--Double
Acrostics--George Cruikshank Defies _Punch_--Mr. T. Harrington
Wilson--Mr. Harrison Weir--Mr. Ashby-Sterry--Alfred Thompson--Frank
Bellew--Julian Portch--"Cham"--G. H. Haydon--J. M. Lawless.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN H. R. HOWARD.
(_From a Photograph by Lambert Weston and Son._)]
An amateur who signed with cross-pipes, and who appeared five times in
the following year, was the one other contributor of 1850; and then 1851
was distinguished by the enlistment of the prolific draughtsman who at
first used three running legs--quaintly accepted as the Manx arms--as
his sign-manual. This was Captain Henry R. Howard, the son of a country
gentleman, born at Watford, where he lived in the same house for over
fifty years. He was always sketching from a child; and being persuaded
by his friends to "do some of those for _Punch_," he sent a few samples
to the Editor, but without much hope of success. They brought an
immediate invitation to call upon Mark Lemon, who told him, after seeing
his pencil sketches, that he might draw for them, but not on paper, on
wood; and learning that he had had no such experience, referred him for
instruction to the courtesy of Leech and Tenniel, whose senior he was by
six years. He was not entirely without artistic education, having
studied in Hanover under a pupil of Benjamin West's. "You must draw
skeletons," said Herr Ramburg. "But I only want to draw landscapes,"
pleaded the youth. "Then you must draw skeletons first," replied the
artist; "it is the only way to draw landscapes."
After securing Lemon's favour Captain Howard drew scores of comic
humanised beasts and birds in the form of initials and decorations. At
last, after some years, Lemon proposed a change, when Howard quietly
remarked, "I've been wondering how long you'd go on taking those things;
I should have thought you were sick of them. I am." Meanwhile he had
changed his signature of the Manx legs--he had just been sojourning in
the island when he adopted them--as Lemon represented it as Leech's
opinion that it was sometimes unnecessarily like his own wriggling
signature; and he had adopted in substitution the little trident that
figured in the paper for fifteen years. When Leech died, Captain Howard
aspired to be--in part, at least--his successor; but although he was now
drawing figure-subjects, and had an inexhaustible stock of jokes and
fun, he was told, to his bitter disappointment, that new blood was
wanted; and the great mantle which had fallen was now drawn round the
shoulders of Charles Keene and Mr. du Maurier. Captain Howard then
practically retired. Although in the first year of his contributions he
was £30 out of pocket by his _Punch_ work, as he bought his own blocks
instead of claiming them from Swain, he was soon making £100 a year from
the paper. Just before he retired an officer recently returned from
India expressed the desire to draw also for _Punch_ as a profession. "I
hear," said he, "that Leech makes £1,500 a year out of it." "So that you
would be satisfied with £1,200?" asked Captain Howard. His friend
admitted that even the inferior sum would be acceptable. "Very well,"
replied Howard encouragingly; "come and dine with me, and I'll show you
by my books that my _Punch_ income last year was just twelve pounds!"
Captain Howard's work, though clever and ingenious, was weak. Its
humour, often fresh enough, was never very pronounced; nor did the
draughtsman's hand ever become that of a master. In 1853 he had made no
fewer than sixty-six cuts, and about doubled that number each year up to
1867, when, with only two drawings in the volume, he finally vanished
from _Punch's_ pages. Three years later there was printed an initial by
him, representing a comic hammer-fish (p. 265, Vol. LIX.), but this
belonged to "old stock;" and it marks the failure of its author's
long-sustained effort to obtain a recognised position in the front rank
of the artistic Staff. He died 31st August, 1895.
A contemporary of his was G. H. Thomas, brother of one of the founders
of the "Graphic," and a popular painter of the day, who received much
employment from the Queen. Mark Lemon was very anxious to secure the
services of so admirable a draughtsman; but Thomas, who was trying to
shake himself free from wood-drawing in favour of oil-painting, showed
little responsive enthusiasm. He did, however, contribute a couple of
drawings--one of them a large head-piece to the preface, representing a
feast given to _Punch_ on his twenty-first volume day. In it he is
supported by the Queen and Court, and at the round table are the
representatives of the nations. It is not a happy effort, and is clearly
inspired by Doyle--whose fancy the Editor was still seeking to replace;
and, moreover, it is poorly engraved; but it is as full of figures as of
incident. Then came C. H. Bradley, who seldom got beyond initials and
trifles of large heads on little bodies, being only once or twice
promoted to "socials" during the nine years of his connection with the
paper. On occasion he showed real humour, while his artistic merit seems
to have owed most of what excellence it possessed to the study of
Tenniel's work. Bradley, whose monogram might easily be mistaken by the
unwary for that of C. H. Bennett, who followed eight years later,
executed but five-and-thirty cuts between 1852 and 1860.
[Illustration: CHARLES S. KEENE.
(_Drawn by J. D. Watson. By Courtesy of "Black and White."_)]
_Punch_ was ten years old when the hand of Charles Keene, but not
Charles Keene himself, was introduced to the Editor, through the
instrumentality of Mr. Henry Silver. Keene had at first been intended
for the law, and afterwards had spent a short period in an architect's
office. But he decided to throw himself into art; and in order to learn
engraving and drawing on the wood, he followed the practice of the day
(such as had been adopted by Leech, William Harvey, Fred Walker, Mr.
Birket Foster, Mr. Walter Crane, and other of _Punch's_ artists), and
apprenticed himself to an engraver--Whymper, for choice. Then he studied
along with his comrade Tenniel and other incipient geniuses at the
Clipstone Street Academy, and as early as 1846 produced with his
friend--who was soon to be his fellow-giant on _Punch_--the "Book of
Beauty," already referred to. He took a studio in the Strand--a
sky-parlour renowned for its dust and inaccessibility--and lived, as all
good Bohemians should, chiefly on art, song, and smoke: an existence
sweetened by a few warm but eclectic friendships. He worked desperately
hard, and having, through his fellow-shireman Samuel Read, become
connected with the "Illustrated London News," he made for it many
drawings of the sort now called "actuality."
By that time Mr. Henry Silver had contracted with Keene an
acquaintanceship which was to grow into a warm friendship, and it was
under the shadow of that intimacy that his earlier contributions were
made. As Mr. Silver himself explains in his statement written for Mr.
George S. Layard's admirable "Life and Letters of Charles Keene of
_Punch_" (p. 47): "It may seem a little strange that Keene at first
showed some reluctance to let his name be known where it was finally so
famous. Still, it is the fact that while his earliest _Punch_ drawings
were of my devising, he steadily declined to own himself the doer of
them. I was writing then for _Punch_ as an outsider, but my ambition was
to draw, and for this I had no talent. As for working on the wood, I
soon 'cut' it in despair, and, like a baffled tyrant, I knew not how to
bring my subjects to the block. Keene very kindly undertook the labour
for me, and the first design he executed was 'A Sketch of the New Paris
Street-sweeping Machines'--a couple of cannon, namely--which was
published in December, 1851, immediately after the bloody _coup
d'état_."
This was the barest sketch, childish and shaky in execution, which,
however, is explained in the legend as being due to the "Special Artist"
being in the line of fire. Mr. Layard asserts that when Keene made the
drawing he thought the joke "a mighty poor one;" and he might have
added, as is made clear in the chapter dealing with "Plagiarism," not
even a new one, for _Punch_ himself had used the idea before (p. 166,
Vol. XV.), and was then accused of theft by the "Man in the Moon." Mr.
Silver proceeds:--
"His next two drawings illustrate an article of mine, and appear on the
second page of the next volume. His fourth, a far more finished drawing,
like these, saw the light in 1852, and may be found in Vol. XXIII., p.
257. It shows a gentleman engaged in fishing in his kitchen, and is
entitled 'The Advantage of an Inundation,' the autumn of that year being
very wet. Mark Lemon wrote to me commending it, and asking me to try and
draw a little more for him. I showed Charles the letter, and said that
now, of course, his name must be divulged, for I clearly was obtaining
_kudos_ under false pretences. However, he deferred the disclosure for a
while, and it was not until the spring of 1854 that his 'C. K.' first
appeared (_vide_ initial 'G,' Vol. XXVI., p. 128)--a modest little
monogram, quite unlike his later and so well-known signature. In the
interim he marked his drawings with a mask, which was a device of mine
for hiding his identity."
For nine years Keene worked steadily on _Punch_, improving artistically
in an amazing manner, and in 1860 he was called to the Table--they
served long terms of probation then--and ate his first Dinner on
February 20th. It was a notable company that he used to meet, all the
chief "rising stars" of _Punch_ being still upon the Staff, save Douglas
Jerrold, who had died three years before. There were Mark Lemon,
Thackeray (nominally retired), Tom Taylor, Horace Mayhew, Shirley
Brooks, Percival Leigh, John Leech, Henry Silver, and John Tenniel; and
into this brilliant assemblage, on the evening in question (when,
however, Thackeray was absent, and Sir Joseph Paxton was present as a
visitor), he was received with a cordial welcome. But neither at that
time nor thenceforward did he take a prominent part in the discussions
over the cartoon, although on one occasion he did astonish the company
with an excellent though belated suggestion. He had, in fact, no
originality of a literary or humorous kind. He knew the exact value of a
joke when it was made, and could usually display its point to
incomparable advantage; but joke-creation was not one of his strong
points, even though he was often forced to it by necessity.
Occasionally, however, he would miss a point entirely, as in the joke
sent him by Mr. Alfred Cooper[55]:--
"VISITOR (_having shot a hare at the usual seventy yards_): 'Long
shot that, Johnson.'
"KEEPER: 'Yes, sir; Master remarked as it were a wery long shot.'
"VISITOR (_gratified_): 'Ah! Oh, he noticed it, did he?'
"KEEPER: 'Yes, sir; Master always take notice. When gen'lemen makes
wery long shots, they don't get asked again!'"
"Why," asks Keene, "would 'Master' object to this long shot? Burnand ...
is sure to want to know I don't know either! Will you kindly explain, so
that I can answer him as if I were an expert." As if even a
non-sportsman would fail to see the point!
But at the Table, delightful as Keene personally was--he was lovingly
addressed as "Carlo"--he was not a leading conversationalist. He
proposed little; yet when his opinion was asked, he gave it, with
judgment and taste, tersely expressed. His work, besides, was rarely
discussed at the Table, for he usually had to seek his material outside.
Moreover, he was, as he expressed it, a "hot Tory," and so strongly
antipathetic did he profess himself towards the Liberal tendency of some
of the Staff of that day that he would declare with a wink that he
positively preferred to stay away; and on the occasion of the accession
of Mr. Anstey, wrote this sturdy Conservative "I hope he's a Tory. We
want some leaven to the set of sorry Rads that lead poor old _Punch_
astray at present." But few independent readers, and fewer still of
Keene's personal friends, will take very seriously his sweeping
assertion and political pronunciamentoes--at least, as regards _Punch_,
for whom and for his colleagues he retained to the end feelings of the
warmest affection.
When John Leech died in 1864, it was Keene who received the main
heritage of his great position as the social satirist of the paper, and
with it the heaviest share of work and artistic responsibility. Not only
did his work increase in the ordinary numbers, but extra drawings--such
as the etched frontispieces to the Pocket-books--fell also to his lot;
and a good deal against the grain--for he hated any approach to
personality, even though his target was a public man and his shaft was
tipped with harmless fun--he executed fourteen cartoons, as is explained
elsewhere. In addition to his ordinary "socials" and the formal
decorations of each successive volume, Keene re-illustrated "Mrs.
Caudle's Curtain Lectures" with a marvellous series of drawings, and Mr.
Frank C. Burnand's "Tracks for Tourists," which made their first
appearance as "How, When, and Where" (1864) and were ultimately
republished in "Very Much Abroad." Of his outside work for "Once a
Week," published by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, and other publications,
no mention need here be made.
It is doubtful if the public will ever realise how great an artist Keene
was. His transcendent merit has, however, for a long time been the
wonder and admiration of his brother-craftsmen and of the critics. The
stream of his genius continued to flow for six-and-thirty years in the
most amazing manner. His drawings are in the highest form of
Impressionism, reproducing every phase of fleeting expression and
suddenly-arrested action with a certainty and accuracy which are
absolutely unsurpassable. His power of composition, of breadth of
handling, chiaroscuro, and suggestion of colour and form, was perfect
within the range of his medium; and in that medium he gave us, not paper
with pen-lines on it, but a perfect sense of light, form, and
expression. He was as careful, too, in his "comic cuts" as the most
conscientious of painters could be in his canvas; and drawing invariably
from the model--even if that model were simply an old shoe--he would
often journey into the country for a background of, say, a turnip-field,
or in search of any other detail or local colour.
In one direction alone did he fail, or choose to fail--in the portrayal
of facial beauty, elegance, and respectability. A pretty woman lurked
but rarely about the point of his pencil, as she does so delightfully
about those of his principal collaborators on _Punch_; and an elegant
woman--save by accident--never. You may point to the Brittany peasant in
the number for September 20th, 1856; to the very Leechy young lady on p.
188, Vol. XXXVI. (May 7th, 1859), who, it must be admitted, really is a
"lady;" and to one or two more. But these pretty women serve rather to
accentuate the ugliness of all his other women, when they should have
been most beautiful; while elegance is with him a virtue that very
rarely saves. Keene, indeed, misrepresented his countrywomen as much as
M. Forain libels his. Keene's "swells," and even his gentlemen, are
snobs; his aristocracy and his clerks are cast in the same mould; his
city young men are like artizans; and his brides are forbidding--models
of virtue, no doubt, but lacking every outward feminine charm. These
shortcomings, of course, are to a certain extent to be accounted for by
his own nature. Living in the strictest economy and temperateness, he
hated anything like ostentation. He despised "Society" and the whole
fabric of fashion, and held the world of Burke and Debrett in
good-natured abhorrence. Like Leech and Dickens, he had given his heart
to the middle and lower-middle classes, and among them he found his best
models and most admirable _motifs_.
No _Punch_ artist was ever so dependent upon his friends for "subjects"
as he, and none received such continuous and delightful support. From
Messrs. Joseph Crawhall, Andrew Tuer, Walker, Clayton, Birket Foster,
Sands, Pritchett, Savile Clark, Ashby-Sterry, Chasemore, and others, he
was under constant friendly, and fully-acknowledged, obligation. Not but
that he made constant effort to secure "jokes" of his own. He was ever
on the look-out, and often very hard-pressed, for them. One day he told
Mr. Pritchett that he had determined to join a riding class at Allen's
Riding-school, and seek inspiration there. His friend amiably suggested
that he (Mr. Pritchett) should attend as observer and reporter, and tell
Keene all the ridiculous things he did on horseback and the amusing
appearances he cut. But the idea did not seem to commend itself to
Keene, who merely replied that he thought he should choose a
hearse-horse to ride, as being at once more stately, decorative, and
safe.
Amongst Keene's own subjects are to be included the greater number of
those series of drawings dealing with artist and volunteer life; but it
must be recognised that to a great extent Keene was frankly the
illustrator of other men's ideas, and often of other men's "legends."
These legends, or "cackle," were often touched up by Keene; but
sometimes they were entirely original. And though it must be admitted
that they are not concise as Leech's, they are, as a rule, more
life-like, more truthfully Impressionistic--just as his drawings are.
The "legend," by the way, Keene used to term the "libretto"--a
reflection, as it were, of his passion for music (a passion he shared
with Gainsborough and Dyce and Romney, and so many more of our most
eminent artists). This love of music he indulged at the meetings of the
Moray Minstrels, in the Crystal Palace Choir during the Handel
Festivals, and in the depths of the country, wherein he would bury
himself in order to torture the bagpipes, without testing too severely
the forbearance of his fellow-men.
When he secured a good story--which he loved to impart with an ecstatic
wink to one or other of his closest friends--he would look as carefully
to the "libretto" as to the drawing, as in the case of the British
farmer who, crossing the Channel for the first time--in great discomfort
at the roll of the boat--"This Capt'n don't understand his business.
_Dang it, why don't he keep in the furrows?_" or the story--older, by
the way, than Keene had any knowledge of--of the Scotchman who was asked
by a friend, upon whom he had called, if he would take a glass of
whiskey. "No," he said, "it's too airly; besides, I've had a gill
a'ready!"
[Illustration: CHARLES KEENE TORTURING THE BAGPIPES.
(_From a Pen-Drawing by Himself. By Permission of Henry S. Keene.
Engraved by J. Swain._)]
And when his legends were altered by the Editor he would fret for a
week. Once when Tom Taylor altered the good Scotch of a "field preacher"
(Almanac for 1880) he declared himself "in a great rage," and swore that
he would "never forgive" the delinquent. On other occasions, too, he
fumed at the desecration of his "librettos;" and when the word "last"
was accidentally omitted from his joke--"Heard my [last] new song?" "Oh,
Lor! I hope so!!" he mourned over the loss of the point. Yet he might
have been comforted; for had the word been retained, the further charge
of plagiarism could have been sustained against him.
[Illustration: FROM CHARLES KEENE TO HIS EDITOR.]
But his sorest point against _Punch_--to which, after all, he was
sincerely attached--was not the alteration, but the total suppression of
some of his work. Two such cases are duly recorded by Mr. Layard--both
of them admirable jokes in their way, though perhaps of questionable
taste. The first deals with a "Bereaved Husband's" opposition to the
"Sympathetic Undertaker's" remorseless insistence that the chief mourner
should enter the first carriage with his mother-in-law. "Ah! well," he
sighs, with resignation; "_but it will completely spoil my day!_"
The second story--to which an excellent drawing was made--tells of a
widow who looks with sorrowful resignation upon a portrait of her
husband that hangs above the fireplace, and says to her sympathising
friend: "But why should I grieve, dear? I know where he passes his
evenings now!" The first of these Mark Lemon--ever anxious to avoid
giving offence--declined on the ground that it was too hard upon
mothers-in-law; and the second because, in Keene's own words, "Our
Philistine Editor ... said it would 'jar upon feelings'!" He surely
could not have borne completer testimony to the care, the ultra-respect
for others' sentiments, which has usually distinguished _Punch_, to the
disgust of critics of less refinement and consideration.
On another point, too, he was not at one with _Punch_, and that was
"Toby." The form and face of Mr. Punch, as rendered by him, was hardly a
classic rendering; but this was forgiven him. But Keene's Toby was
neither the cur represented by some, nor the Irish terrier affected by
others, but a _dachshund_! And he persisted in so drawing him to the
end, not because he thought it right, but because "it _might_ have
been!" and because the original of the beast was his own much-loved pet
"Frau," which he survived not many days. (See next page.)
To this drawing particular interest attaches, for it is the very last
that ever came from his hand--a loving tribute to an old friend that had
passed away. Concerning it, Mr. Henry S. Keene writes to me: "The
history of the dog is shortly this. She was a favourite old dog of my
brother's, and has figured a good many times in his drawings as the dog
of the 'typical' _Punch_, and was of the breed of the 'dachshund.' She
was very old and full of infirmities, and my brother consented, with
some reluctance, to put the poor thing out of its misery. When it was
dead, he had it put on a chair in his room, and made the sketch. This
was about three months before he died, and was the last thing he drew.
It required an effort on his part, as he had entirely left off doing any
work since the beginning of last year [1890]."
More than any other man on _Punch_, Keene suffered at the hands of the
engraver. But it was wholly his own fault. He took no heed whatever of
the engraver, and set before him problems to which there was no
solution. Thus, he loved to make his drawings on old rough paper, which
by its grain gave a wonderfully charming but irreproducible quality to
his ragged lines, and which by stains of age would impart effects wholly
foreign to the art of the wood-cutter.
[Illustration: "FRAU," ALIAS "TOBY," LYING IN STATE.
(_Keene's Last Drawing._)]
Moreover, he would manufacture his own inks in varying degrees of
greyness, and even of different colours, and then set them before the
cutter (not the _engraver_, mind) to translate into black-and-white. Yet
there are some who blame the craftsman for not reproducing what it was
an absolute impossibility to reproduce by printer's ink and graver! But
Keene was engrossed in his art; and I have seen a drawing, at Mr. Birket
Foster's house at Witley, which was the _seventh_ attempt he made before
he was satisfied. This was the drawing entitled "Ahem!" representing a
man kissing a girl, while someone, with the familiar inconsiderateness
of humanity, is approaching. The background for this drawing is Mr.
Foster's house.
But although Keene was not a man of ideas, his merits as a creator--as a
realiser of types--were supreme. Many of his _dramatis personæ_ no doubt
became old-fashioned in a sense; but who can deny the truth to life of
the Kirk Elder, the slavey, the policeman, the fussy City man, the
diner-out, the waiter (did he not invent "Robert"?), the cabman, the
hen-pecked husband, the drunkard, the gillie, the Irish peasant, the
schoolboy, and the Mrs. Brown of Arthur Sketchley's prosaic muse? The
wealth of his limited fancy, and his power of resolving it into
well-ordered design, and presenting it with strange economy of means,
invested these puppets of his with a vividness which is often startling.
With greater force and subtlety, if with less refinement and grace, than
Leech--though not, like him, the genial sketcher of the genial side of
things--he has recorded, in the five or six thousand designs that make
up the sum of his contribution, the character of "the classes" of our
day, and that with such intensity of truth that we derive our delight in
his work even more from the faithfulness of its representation than from
the fun of the joke and the comic rendering of the subject. One writer
has been found who sees in his pictures nothing but degradation, and who
condemns the one which shows a tippler who has returned late and thrown
himself upon the bed beside his wife fully clad and with his umbrella
open, as "obscene, and it is matched by many another equally odious!"
But everybody else will endorse Sir Frederic Leighton's enthusiastic
testimony that "among the documents for the study in future days of
middle-class and of humble English life, none will be more weighty than
the vivid sketches of this great humorist."[56] In praising Keene's
"feeling of out-of-doorness," in the "Magazine of Art," Mr. William
Black criticised truly when he declared, "Ever and again we come upon a
bit of a turnip-field, a hedge-row, even the corner of a London street,
the vividness of which is a sudden delight to the eyes." This estimate
was well thrown into verse a few months later, when _Punch_ in its
bereavement sang the praises of its greatest artist:--
"... Nor human humours only; who so tender
Of touch when sunny Nature out-of-door
Wooed his deft pencil? Who like him could render
Meadow or hedge-row, turnip-field or moor?
Snowy perspective, long suburban winding
Of bowery roadway, villa-edged and trim,
Iron-railed city street, where gas-lamps blinding
Glare through the foggy distance, dense and dim?"
Keene's simple, kind, and somewhat lonely life are too well known to
call for recapitulation here--his tenderness and chivalry towards women,
his unconventionality, his love of ancient pipes and virulent
"dottle"-smoking, his quaint story-telling and singular modesty, his
sensitiveness (he never would ask his nephew, Mr. Corbould, to sit as
model to him again after a bantering inquiry of how much he was going to
pay), his Conservatism, his humour, his gentle hobbies, and, lastly, his
stern economy. Indeed, by his thrift, when he died, he was found to have
accumulated over £30,000, chiefly out of his _Punch_ work, in spite of
the fact that he would never receive a salary: all this is accessible
elsewhere. For some time before he died he ceased to draw for the paper,
so broken was he; and it is worth noting that the last sketch that
appeared from his hand was "'Arry on the Boulevards," in the Paris
Number of _Punch_ (1889), although he was not able to join the rest of
the Staff in their trip to the Universal Exhibition.
He died on the 10th of January, 1891, and was buried in Hammersmith
Cemetery, in the presence of most of his colleagues, who mourned their
friend--
"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 for _Punch_. "The Bonnet-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 with _Punch_ began 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 to _Punch_ under 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." The _nom de plume_
under 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 into _Punch_," and accordingly, the first four caricature
illustrations of photography that appeared were in _Punch_, 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."
[Illustration: REV. 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 for _Punch's_ pages, 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 by _Punch's_ Editor 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, the introducer 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:--
THE LETTERS (5).
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)
THE WORDS.
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 sit
Around, 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 that
_Punch_ ought 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 to _Punch's_ pages 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 from
_Punch_ in 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:--
Up to August 4th, received from Mark Lemon for _Punch_--
Photo subjects £4 0 0
Table-turning 0 10 0
Initial letter to Peterloo Brown, I. 3 0 0
Sidney Snub 1 10 0
Savage Lions in London 1 0 0
Sept. 14: 2nd and 3rd Peterloo Brown letters 6 5 0
Article "High Mettle Dragon".
--while his earnings for the following year amount to £22 6s. for
drawings and MS. After 1856 he contributed nothing more to _Punch's_
pages, 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 for _Punch_, 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 for _Punch_, 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 "_Punch_ owes 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--from _Punch_, 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 of
_Punch's_ subsequent 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 copied _my_ Punch, for _Punch_ and 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 of _Punch_.
"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."
[Illustration: T. HARRINGTON WILSON
(_Drawn by T. W. Wilson, R.I._)]
His grievance was that _Punch's_ figure 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 the _Punch_ Pocket-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 of _Punch_
being 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." Yet _Punch_ rendered 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 prevent _Punch_ from
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 scoundrel _Punch_
to "knock his old wooden head about." When he died, _Punch_ announced
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."
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 by _Punch_ in 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 for _Punch_ was 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--"Found my Sketch in
_Punch_--'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 as
_Punch'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 to _Punch_. 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 were followed 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--to _Punch_, 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 so _Punch_ knew 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 last _Punch_ sketches 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 he loved 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 on _Punch_ itself. 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 for _Punch_, 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 better _raconteur_ than 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 outside _Punch's_ pages 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 for _Punch_, 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 to _Punch_, 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 of _Punch's_ lights--George du Maurier.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] See Mr. Layard's "Life and Letters of Charles Keene," p. 387.
[56] Speech at Royal Academy Banquet, May 2nd, 1891.
[57] English humour is under a great debt to the English Church. Not
only, of course, are Sydney Smith and "Tom Ingoldsby" of immortal
fame--to name no others--in the front rank of our wits, but _Punch_ has
received the homage of "Cuthbert Bede," Dean Hole, the Rev. W. F.
Callaway, Canon Ainger, and the Rev. Anthony C. Deane. The Irish
Catholic priest Father James Healy, by the way, indirectly contributed a
number of capital jokes.
[58] It is to be observed, however, that there is no mention of these
engravings in Mr. Swain's "_Punch_ Cut Book."