_PUNCH'S_ ARTISTS: 1860-67.
Mr. G. du Maurier's First Drawing--The "Romantic Tenor"--Polite
Satire--His Types and Creations--His Pretty Women--And Fair
American--"Chang," "Don," and "Punch"--Mr. du Maurier as a _Punch_
Writer--Mr. Gordon Thompson--Mr. Stacy Marks, R.A.--Paul Gray--Sir
John Millais, Bart., R.A.--Mr. Fred Barnard--First Joke Refused as
"Painful"--Mr. R. T. Pritchett--Initiation by Sir John
Tenniel--Fritz Eltze--His Amiable Jocularity--Mr. A. R.
Fairfield--Colonel Seccombe--Fred Walker, A.R.A.--Mr. J. Priestman
Atkinson ("Dumb Crambo")--C. H. Bennett--Mr. W. S. Gilbert
("Bab")--His Classic Joke--G. B. Goddard--Miss Georgina Bowers--Mr.
Walter Crane.
[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER.
(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]
When, in 1860, Mr. George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier contributed
his first drawing to _Punch_, he had little suspicion that he would be
counted, together with John Leech, John Tenniel, and Charles Keene, as
one of the four great pillars on which would rest the artistic
reputation of the paper. In that first drawing, himself and two of his
friends were represented entering the "studio" of a photographer,
smoking, as the manner of artists is; and they are coldly requested by
the deity of the place to leave their tobacco outside, as "they are in
an artist's studio" (p. 150, Vol. XXXIX.). It was a poor sketch enough,
showing some straining after comicality, and lacking every trace of the
grace and beauty the draughtsman was so soon to develop. He was Parisian
born, and after studying with a view to a scientific career, he became
convinced, through Dr. Williamson's amiable assurance that he would make
a "shocking bad chemist," that art and not science was his
destiny--more especially as his professors had been delighted with such
little caricatures of his as they had seen; but, as Mr. du Maurier
suggestively put it in his lecture on "Social Pictorial Satire," "they
had not seen them _all_." He studied art at Antwerp and Paris in company
with several notabilities of the day; but when, through an accident in
the laboratory, he lost the sight of one eye, and found the other
seriously imperilled, his chances of success in life seemed small. It
was when lying, during his long illness, in the Antwerp Hospital, in
1858, that he first saw "Punch's Almanac"--a delight which he never
forgot. When he recovered his ordinary health, he returned to England,
though with little improvement of sight to cheer him. With a courage,
however, equal to that of Sir John Tenniel, he girded himself against
fate; he worked hard in London, where he lived in humble lodgings at 85,
Newman Street, which he shared with his life-long friend, the late
Lionel Henley, afterwards R.B.A.--"the dearest fellow that ever was." He
sometimes wondered, he has told me, if he would eat a dinner that day;
and as becomes the impecunious, he was a tremendous democrat. He "hated
the bloated aristocracy, without knowing much about it; and, to do it
justice, the bloated aristocracy did not go out of its way to pester him
with its attentions." But in those happy, hungry, hard-working days,
when dinner was not always a vested interest, Mr. du Maurier seemed
already tinged with the daintier tastes that were destined to lead his
pencil to the delineation of these same "bloated" classes; and even in
those hard times he could always boast a dress-suit.
So at the age of twenty-six--the same as that at which Charles Keene
made his début in _Punch_--he sent in an occasional contribution that
was far more in Leech's manner than in what came to be his own.
Art has a way, figuratively speaking, of flourishing on an empty
stomach, and Mr. du Maurier made rapid progress on the training. Keene's
acquaintance and genial friendship enslaved at once his artistic
methods, as well as his artistic adoration. It was not that he admired
Leech less, but that he appreciated Keene more; and when the former
died, to the sorrow and consternation of the Staff, Mr. du Maurier was
appointed to his seat at the Table. He obeyed the summons on the first
Wednesday that followed Leech's death, and carved his monogram on the
board between those of the bosom friends, Thackeray and Leech. Mark
Lemon, with characteristic shrewdness, soon discovered in what direction
lay the talent and perhaps the _penchant_ of the artist, and told him
not to try to be "too funny," but to do the graceful side of things, and
to be "the romantic tenor in Mr. Punch's opera bouffe company," while
Keene was to do the comic songs. The little social dramas of the day,
the drawing-rooms of Belgravia, and the nurseries of Mayfair--those were
his preserves, from which he could get as much game as he chose,
humorous if he liked, but graceful withal.
But Mr. du Maurier is emphatically not what is commonly understood by "a
funny man," for all his subtlety and love of humour; he is a combination
of the artistic, with a distinct and clear sense of beauty, and of the
scientific, with speculations and theories of race and heredity--who
would as lief draw East-End types for the sake of their "character," and
would look at a queer face more for the interest that is in it than for
its comicality. If Mr. du Maurier's sense of beauty is strong, so is his
appreciation of ugliness; and if you take down any of the volumes of
_Punch_--that shine in their shelves like the teeth in the great
laughing mouth of Humour itself--you will find no faces or forms more
hideous or grotesque than those which the artist has chosen to put
there.
But if there is one thing to justify the opinion of his admirers that he
is the "Thackeray of the pencil," it is primarily to be found, not so
much in the keen satire of his drawing and legends, but in his
startling, his strikingly truthful creations. Creations we have had from
Leech, Keene, and others--from Leech's pure sense of fun and jollity;
from Keene's unerring observation of men and women, and fleeting
emotion--but those of Mr. du Maurier go deeper into vices, virtues,
habits, and motives, and are at the root of his pictorial commentaries.
He has given us true pictures of the manners of his time; and those
manners he has satirised with more politeness and irony, perhaps, than
broad humour. He worked well with Keene in double harness, and his
pictures are at once a foil and a complement of that genius's work and
_point de vue_. He has satirised everything, and his art has been
admirably adapted to the depth of the civilisation he probes and
dissects. His sense of beauty and tenderness apart, he is to art much
what Corney Grain was to the stage, though his hand is not so heavy; and
while you laugh with Leech, you smile with Mr. du Maurier--lovingly at
his children, respectfully at his pretty women, and sardonically at his
social puppets.
His own particular creations--his types and "series"--are to some
sections of _Punch's_ admirers, _Punch's_ chief attraction. Especially
is this the case in the United States,[59] where to Mr. du Maurier many
people have looked almost exclusively, not only for English fashions in
male and female attire, and the _dernière mode_ in social etiquette, but
for the truest reflection of English life and character. First of all
these types are Sir Gorgius Midas--who, the artist once confided to me,
was drawn without exaggeration from real life--and his common wife and
still vulgarer son. Then Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns, the clever and
scheming, and her husband, depressed and stolidly obedient; the bishop
and the flunkey, all calves and dignity; Grigsby, the "comic" man, and
his punctilious friend, Sir Pompey Bedell, inflated with pretentious
emptiness; 'Arry and 'Arriet, blatant and irrepressible; young Cadby,
the Cockney; and the Duke and Duchess of Stilton, whose very figures
seem to be drawn in purple ink; the refined colonel, a counterpart and
not unworthy comrade of Newcome himself; Maudle, Postlethwaite, and Mrs.
Cimabue Brown, most delightful trio of sickening "æsthetes"--specially
beloved of Mr. du Maurier, whose famous drawing, "Are You Intense?" is
perhaps the particular favourite of all his satiric _Punch_ work; Mr.
Soapley and Mr. Todeson, who vie with each other in vulgar servility
and sycophancy; the Herr Professor, ponderously humorous in smoking-room
or boudoir; and Anatole, the bridegroom, happy and dapper in the Bois de
Boulogne; Titwillow and the ex-Jew at the Club--what an assemblage of
carefully differentiated specimens of London's characteristic
inhabitants! That many of them are often accepted, universally quoted as
types, apart from any express reference to _Punch_ or to its artist, is
the best testimony of the truth of his irony; for they are as
recognisable in the real world as the Jacques, the Becky Sharps, and the
Pecksniffs of other brains. And besides these there are the general
characters so accurately presented to us--the refined lady with the very
old face and frontal grey or white curls whom Mr. du Maurier used to
draw, I believe, from the person of Mrs. Hamilton Aädé; the charming
young ladies for whom, in succession, his wife and daughters have sat;
and the delightful little ones to whom Professor Ruskin paid partial
tribute when he declared, a little cruelly, perhaps, that the "charm of
his extremely intelligent, and often exquisitely pretty children, is
dependent, for the greater part, on the dressing of their back hair and
the fitting of their boots."
The admirable setting in which Mr. du Maurier frames his series of jokes
is testimony to his genius. He follows Leech's plan of such series
("Servantgalism," "The Rising Generation," etc.), but the quality of the
thought and its presentation is as much more elaborate than Leech's as
his method of draughtsmanship is more complicated. These series or
formulæ, in their chief heads and subtle variations, display the quality
of his mind. If you turn to the volumes for 1888 (XCIV. and XCV.) you
will find examples of no fewer than nine of them: (1) Things one would
rather have left unsaid; (2) Things one would rather have expressed
differently; (3) Social Agonies; (4) Feline Amenities; (5) Our
Imbeciles; (6) Typical Modern Developments; (7) Studies in Evolution;
(8) Nincompoopiana; and (9) What our Artist has to put up with;--the
last-named, however, a vein which Keene began to work as early as 1854.
His talent, too, in devising the legends, or "cackle," for the drawings
is uniformly happy, unsurpassed by any man who ever wrote for _Punch_.
As Mr. Anstey says, he has brought the art of _précis_-writing to
perfection. His legends are not always so concise as Leech's, but for
truth of expression, felicitous colloquialism, and above all, for
foreign accent, he is unapproached. I go farther, and say that he is the
first man who ever put truthfully upon paper, and properly
differentiated, the "broken English" and slangy mispronunciations of
German, French, and Semite, to say nothing of his Cockney; indeed, his
studies in this direction prove him, besides an admirable physiologist
_pour rire_ and a pungent though courteous satirist, an inimitable
comparative-"broken"-philologist.
[Illustration: "MY PRETTY WOMAN."
(_Drawn by George du Maurier._)]
True to his _rôle_ of "Romantic Tenor," Mr. du Maurier has endowed
_Punch_ with the greater part of the grace and beauty which have done so
much to make the paper what it is. "In his social subjects," says a
distinguished critic,[60] "Mr. du Maurier, though somewhat mannered and
fond of a single type of face and figure, has carried the ironical
_genre_, received by Leech from Gavarni and Charlet, to the highest
point of elegance it has attained." He is too fond of the beautiful,
sighs Mr. James; he sees everything _en beau_, and Mistress and Maid
with him are a good deal of Juno and Hebe. No doubt his grace often
militates against his fun, but Mr. du Maurier, as has already been
suggested, is only by accident a professional funny man. Besides, when
he wishes to be merely funny, he passes Beauty by as if he were not the
most devoted of her adorers, as you may see in one of the best of all
his drawings in _Punch_, in which a typically selfish master of the
house orders up the cook into the breakfast-room, complaining that he
cannot eat the bacon which he has just served; his wife's, he says, is
the worst he ever saw--and _his own is nearly as bad_!
Even more than his lovely child (often drawn from his little grandson),
his superb youth, and his splendid gentleman, Mr. du Maurier's pretty
woman is the pedestal upon which he has erected his reputation--at
least, so far as _Punch_ is concerned. His pretty woman, he declares, is
the granddaughter of Leech's, and he beseeches the public to love her,
paternally at least as he does, "for her grandmother's sake."
[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.
(_By George du Maurier._)]
Writing his mind on the subject of his delightful creation at my own
request,[61] he says:--
"I do hope the reader does not dislike her--that is, if he knows
her. I am so fond of her myself, or, rather, so fond of what I
_want_ her to be. She is my _pièce de résistance_, and I have often
heard her commended, and the praise of her has sounded sweet in
mine ears, and gone straight to my heart, for she has become to me
as a daughter. She is rather tall, I admit, and a trifle stiff; but
English women are tall and stiff just now; and she is rather too
serious; but that is only because I find it so difficult, with a
mere stroke in black ink, to indicate the enchanting little curved
lines that go from the nose to the mouth-corners, causing the
cheeks to make a smile--and without them the smile is
incomplete--merely a grin. And as for height, I have often begun by
drawing the dear creature little, and found that by one sweep of
the pen (adding a few inches to the bottom of her skirt) I have
improved her so much that it has been impossible to resist the
temptation--the thing is so easy, and the result so satisfying and
immediate."
Nowadays, he has declared, girls are no longer pretty--they are
beautiful; and as Mr. Galton, the anthropometrical expert, himself
admits, they, even more than the rest of mankind, have certainly grown
taller. The artist, as we have seen, invented the tall woman; the
Psyches of our fathers' days have become the Venuses and Junos of these;
and more than one writer has gravely sought to fix the responsibility,
or the credit, on Mr. du Maurier and his pencil. Scientific
investigation has taught us that the English girl tops her foreign
sisters, though her average weight is two pounds less than that of the
fair American; and there is little doubt that if she does not absolutely
adapt her height to the artist's sense of beauty and power of
inspiration, she has at least to thank him for making it fashionable.
The truth of the matter is that Mr. du Maurier has always been a close
observer; and just as his drawings have always been in the fashion in
point of dress through his careful watching of the changing wardrobe of
his wife and daughters, so was he the first to record the increasing
stature of English girls, even while Leech was still drawing them as he
had known them--short and buxom and "plump little dumplings"--never
recognising that they had been deposed by Fashion and improved by
Nature. But the race changed, and _Punch_ changed with them. Venus was
Venus once more, and Mr. du Maurier was her Prophet.
"And the old ladies!" proceeds Mr. du Maurier; "it is such a pleasure to
draw them, and do one's best. To think of all the charming old ladies
one has known, and (according to one's letterpress) to select the chin
of one, the white curls of another, the mouth and nose of a third, and
then to make a subtle arrangement in sweet sympathetic wrinkles--too
often to be subtly disarranged by the engraver and the printer!
"Then we get to the male characters, and there it is comparatively plain
sailing; and would be pleasant sailing enough but for the hideousness of
certain portions of the modern male attire. However new, however good
the tailor, however comely the leg beneath, the TROUSER is the one
heart-breaking object to the conscientious but æsthetically-minded
draughtsman on wood! It ignores the knee, and falls on the boot in a
shape that has no reference to the ankle whatever--a shape of its
own--and yet the ankle is the foundation of everything!
"Next in order of demerit and impossibility comes the chimney-pot hat,
which is not lacking in character, but is ugly and ridiculous. Its one
redeeming feature is the difficulty it presents to the draughtsman. It
is mathematical, geometrical, with every curve known to science, as hard
to represent correctly as a boat or a fiddle--more so; and the delight
of successful achievement is proportionately great. Linley Sambourne
alone, who was originally trained as an engineer, has been able to
grapple with the chimney-pot hat; Walker all but succeeded by the sheer
force of his heaven-born genius."
But, in spite of all this beauty, surely his misrepresentation of
that divinity--the American Girl--is beyond all hope of pardon,
beyond contrition, beyond all penance. He does full justice to her
refined and splendid loveliness and her magnificent proportions;
but he seems to regard her, if one may say so, as a sort of
Kensington-Town-Hall-Subscription-Dance young lady, a little more
_outrée_ and free and slangy and vulgar. She guesses in the ballroom
that English partners don't "bunch" (give bouquets); when invited to go
in to supper she avers, not without a sense of inward satisfaction, that
she is "pretty crowded already;" she has a deep though entirely a
tourist's interest in English institutions, ruins, and celebrities; she
has little reverence else for what is in the heavens above or the earth
beneath; and she dearly loves a lord--or she would, if by any
honourable means she can obtain the chance. His American girls, too,
all come from one and the same place; they are all born from one and the
same mother; their natural cleverness and unnatural ignorance are
compounded in the same proportions, and, altogether, they are the most
charming and delightful libels on American young-womanhood that well
could be. But is his representation of the American girl any less
pleasant than the common, home-made American view of an English
gentleman--at least, of an English "swell"? Not at all. On the contrary,
she is, as I said before, a divinity.
More than once Mr. du Maurier has broken away from his light comedy
_rôle_ and, besides giving vent to his fantastic power in his wonderful
"Night-mares," has given us something with serious thought, and, now and
again, with tragedy in it--has offered us, indeed, a taste of the
deepest poetic quality that he has shown in his novels of "Peter
Ibbetson" and "Trilby." You may see a touch of it in Tenniel's great
cartoon at the outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany, in
which the great Napoleon stands warningly in the path of the infatuated
Emperor; that was du Maurier's suggestion. You may see a touch of it in
the page drawing of "Old Nickotin Stealing Away the Brains of His
Devotees" (1868), in which a circle of strange men, whose own heads are
their pipe-bowls, smoke away their brains through long tubes that work
well into the composition, while, in the foreground, one of the poor
foolish wretches drops, just as a last little curling puff rises from
his smoked-out skull. There were more of such compositions before 1880,
at the time when Mr. du Maurier was still making full-page drawings in
_Punch_. But, after all, it is not in _Punch_, but rather in the
"Cornhill Magazine" and "Once a Week," in "Esmond," and other
works--particularly in the "Illustrated Magazine"--that his full power
in serious work must be sought.
Professor Ruskin, after declaring that the "terrific force" of Mr. du
Maurier's satire of character in face and figure consists in the
_absence_ of caricature, describes as "cruelly true" the design
"representing the London mechanic with his family when Mr. Todeson is
asked to amuse 'the dear creatures' at Lady Clara's garden tea;" and
proclaims the artist more exemplary than either John Leech or John
Tenniel ("the real founders of _Punch_, and by far the greatest of its
illustrators both in force of art and range of thought") "in the
precision of the use of his means, and the subtle boldness to which he
has educated the interpreter of his design."[62] In point of fact, the
engraver has had to "interpret" Mr. du Maurier's drawings far less than
those of many of his colleagues, for his line is too delicate,
sympathetic, and precise to leave room for anything but the strictest
possible facsimile. This was quite as true in the old days when he drew
upon the block, as in later times, when, yielding to the stern demands
of failing eyesight--which, for a period, forced him to suspend work
altogether--he drew with the pen upon paper several times larger than
the ultimate reduction effected by means of photography. It is curious
in tracing his hand through _Punch_ to see how his work gradually
strengthened; how his early vigour of subject and activity of mind,
expressed in strong black-and-white, gave way to a daintier touch when
the grace and prettiness of his _dramatis personæ_ came to demand
greater refinement of the drawn line; and how this again constantly
widened out into a broader method, under the inspiration of Charles
Keene. And yet from first to last, in the smallest sketch as in the most
elaborate picture, his hand is unmistakable.
In common with Keene and others, Mr. du Maurier has suffered from time
to time from printers' errors. One of the most curious, perhaps, is that
in which three little boys are shown in a drawing playing upon a sofa,
evidently very much in the way of their elder sister, who is receiving a
visit from an admirer. The sister asks her brothers with pardonable
point if they will not go and play downstairs. No, the oldest replies,
Mamma has sent them up "to play forfeits." The joke, utterly pointless
as printed, becomes intelligible when it is explained that "forfeits"
is an error for "propriety." Many of the artist's jokes, as already
explained, have come from various friends; indeed, in this case, they
are probably less often manufactured than in that of others. All the
same, it may be of interest to record that the oft-quoted joke of the
æsthetic young couple who agreed that they must "live up to" their blue
and white tea-pot, was not "made up," but was spoken in downright,
imbecile earnest.
[Illustration: "CHANG."
(_Drawn by G. du Maurier. By Courtesy of the Fine Art Society._)]
Like Keene, too, Mr. du Maurier loved to put his own dogs into _Punch_.
Whether it was his magnificent St. Bernard, "Chang," whose seven-foot
skeleton now graces the Royal College of Surgeons, or his little
terrier, "Don," or his dachshund, "Punch," they have all played their
part in public and justified their existence as models, and have in
their time been the pets as much of you and me as of their legal owner.
But, for all his connoisseurship in dogs, Mr. du Maurier is woefully
deficient in certain forms of sportsmanlike knowledge, and could he but
have heard the howls in the cricket world a few years since when he
ventured on depicting a "mixed match," and showed the wickets about
forty yards apart, he would almost have wished the excellent joke
untold. Herein, of course, he was not more ignorant than his friend
Keene, who had to be specially coached (yet with what disastrous
results!) when he wished to present a picture involving the "placing" of
the field.
[Illustration: "DON."
(_Drawn by G. du Maurier._)]
Apart from his artistic services to _Punch_, Mr. du Maurier has been a
contributor to its pages of verse and prose, comparable with some of the
best that has appeared there. Who can forget his admirable
nonsense-verses, his "_Vers Nonsensiques à l'usage des Familles
Anglaises_," or his exquisite fooling in his "Shalott" poem, or his
"Alphabet" verses, or his _vers de société_? They worthily heralded the
novelist as we know him now, who is also the author of one of the most
brilliant lectures--brimming over with happy thought and sparkling
epigram--that have been composed in recent years. It is by his long,
varied, and effective service that Mr. du Maurier has to be recognised
as one of the four artists--Leech, Keene, and Tenniel being the
others--who bore the chief share in raising _Punch_ to his pinnacle, and
he is to be named with Keene as a truthful recorder of the life and
humours of Society during the last forty years of the nineteenth
century. But if it is for this achievement, and for his delightful
genius that he is primarily esteemed in Whitefriars and throughout the
English-speaking world, it is for himself and his own good-humour that
"Kiki"--as he is known to his intimates--has been regarded with
affection and admiration by his colleagues during the long period of his
honourable, dignified, and brilliant connection.
For the space of one-and-twenty years--a period which drew to a close in
1895--Mr. du Maurier has lived and worked in his house near Hampstead
Heath, from which he has wrought so many backgrounds for his _Punch_
pictures. Whitby, Scarborough, Boulogne, as well as Paris and London,
have oftentimes afforded him local colour; but you get to learn
Hampstead as you look at his drawings better than any of the others, and
to know his sanctum--his salon-studio. Its characteristic bits, its
bow-window, its Late-Gothic fireplace, its window-seat, are all
familiar. And here the artist's model has latterly been the
draughtsman's more constant companion, for "the older I grow," says Mr.
du Maurier, "the more careful, the more of a student I become." So, for
every _Punch_ drawing he now makes beautiful pencil studies which, in my
opinion, are even more delightful and more dainty than the pen-and-ink
pictures they assist in perfecting. Examples of these studies,
accurately and simply drawn, are here reproduced, and they will be seen
to reveal the draughtsman's graceful artistry more completely than any
other work in his recognised medium.
[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.
(_By George du Maurier._)]
It was in the year following Mr. du Maurier's début that Mr. John Gordon
Thompson began his short connection with _Punch_. He was a very young
man, and these drawings were almost his earliest work. He was at that
time studying for the Civil Service, and after his appointment to
Somerset House he discontinued to a great extent his artistic efforts;
but when he left the Service in 1870 he resumed the pencil, and became,
and remained for twenty years without one week's break, the cartoonist
of "Fun." His style was not yet formed when he contributed to _Punch_,
and his three-and-thirty socials, all published by 1864, gave little
promise of the ability he afterwards displayed in the papers, magazines
and books innumerable which he illustrated with such furious ardour.
Mr. H. Stacy Marks, R.A., also made his appearance in the paper in 1861,
with a design for an architectural hat of Tudor-Gothic order, fitted
with gargoyles round the brim for rainy weather. He also made an initial
"I," and then was seen in _Punch_ no more until the Almanac for 1882,
when he made a full-page ornithological drawing of "Up before the Beak."
[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.
(_By George du Maurier._)]
Paul Gray was another of _Punch's_ promising contributors fated to an
early death. He began with a few initials--a couple of "A's" were his
first little feat, one of them made out of an old woman and a bathing
machine. Then came "socials" up to 1865, which attracted attention for
their grace, in spite of their lack of backbone; but after a variety of
work, including drawings for the "Argosy" and illustrations for
Kingsley's "Hereward," his pencil was laid down, and he was no more than
twenty-five when he died.
Half-a-dozen sketches by Harris in 1863 were followed by Sir John
Millais' first contribution--a mock-heroic illustration to Mr. Burnand's
"Mokeanna" (p. 115, Vol. XLIV.). The distinguished artist repeated his
unusual experience in the Almanac for 1865, when in a technically
exquisite drawing he showed a couple of children in a studio assaulting
the lay figure. There were other pictures by which Sir John figured
indirectly in _Punch_. As one of the most intimate friends of John
Leech, he took the liveliest interest in his work. "Once," he informs
me, "I forwarded two drawings to Leech from Scotland, and he traced them
on to the wood and they appeared in _Punch_--one a tourist struggling
against the wind in a plaid; the other, two artists sketching with veils
on to escape the midges. Possibly they were the occasion of my attending
the Dinner. Leech, I think, asked me to do a drawing for 'Mokeanna' and
the drawing of the 'Children in the Studio.'"
About this time it is claimed that Miss Joanna Hill, the niece of Sir
Rowland Hill, contributed some sketches on the convict question; but it
is certain that nothing in her name was ever accepted.
[Illustration: A LIBEL ON HIMSELF.
(_By F. Barnard._)]
A far more interesting and amusing adherent was Mr. Fred Barnard, a
humorist of the first rank; but as he was not yet seventeen years of age
at the time it is not surprising that his drawings were greatly inferior
to his admirable work of later years. His first joke was rejected, as he
quaintly explains in the following note: "In 1863 I was a student (and
in consequence fondly supposed to be studying) at Heatherley's School of
Art in Newman Street, and was then half-past sixteen. I must have had
plenty of assurance at that time, for, unknown to anyone, I sent a joke,
accompanied by a pencil sketch, to _Punch_. It represented a brute of a
dustman belabouring his horse's head with the butt-end of his whip. To
him enters a fussy, benevolent-looking, and slightly sarcastic old
gentleman, who remonstrates with him in these words: 'My good man,
_that_ isn't the way to treat your horse! You should _poke it in his
eye_--poke it in his eye, man!' Mark Lemon returned it as, he said, 'the
enclosed is rather too painful for _Punch_.' Encouraged by this repulse,
I sent in another joke and drawing, which were accepted. A small parcel
arrived shortly afterwards containing a '_block_' of wood. As I had
never seen one before, and had no notion whatever as to the process of
wood engraving, I didn't know what it was, or for what use. At the back,
on its rough ribbed surface, was a mystic inscription which I
interpreted into 'C. Bramitsi Struss,' but which a friend informed me
was intended for '6, Bouverie Street,' and he showed me how to set to
work. And so I did the drawing and some dozen others.... But I rather
fancy I shine with more than usual brilliancy in religious
periodicals--especially when the articles I have to illustrate are
written by imbecile women or ministers of the Gospel--I find it so
congenial and instructive." In three years Mr. Barnard was seen but
fifteen times in all. Twenty years later, in 1884, he made a last
appearance in a drawing which did not show him at his best (p. 303, Vol.
LXXXIV.). This was entitled "Early Prejudice," in which a child,
referring to the baby, suddenly exclaims, "Oh, mamma! when baby begins
to talk, what a dreadful thing if we find out _he's an Irishman_!"--a
joke, by the way, which in its main point was anticipated by Mr. du
Maurier in 1876, in his drawing called "Waiting for the Verdict." Lastly
there was a sketch called "Evening at Earls," which was sent in and
engraved, but not used; and since that day Mr. Barnard abstained from
further contribution.
In this same year a young lady named Miss Mansel (now Mrs. Bull) sent in
a drawing of an incident which occurred at her uncle's place at Anglesey
in Hampshire--the initials "R. M." on the buckets being those of Colonel
Mansel. "My eyes!" says Cooper the groom, in effect, to a gentleman who
has watched a lady dismount from her over-ridden animal; "to them ladies
a 'oss is a 'oss, and he must go!" Leech slightly re-touched the
drawing, adding pigeons in the foreground, and so forth, but, of course,
did not add his initials. Curiously enough, this block was included
among that artist's "Pictures of Life and Character" (p. 52, Series
IV.). "I remember I was very proud," writes the lady, "a few days after
the drawing appeared, at hearing some officers in High Street,
Portsmouth, quoting my sketch as a lady galloped up the road. I was only
about seventeen then."
[Illustration: R. T. PRITCHETT.
(_From a Photograph by H. Bibo, Warwick._)]
After a single contribution (entitled "Clara") by that ill-fated genius,
George Pinwell, Mr. R. T. Pritchett left his rifles for _Punch's_ pages.
He was in fact but a boy when he took charge of his father's gun factory
at Enfield, and was still a lad when he conducted experiments in
competition, with his own hand, for a new Government gun, introducing a
bullet of his own conception, firing every shot, and triumphing over
every competitor. So the "Enfield" or "Pritchett rifle" brought him
fame; but it proved the stumbling-block of his artistic career, for he
found out for himself the truth that a man known for one thing has
little chance in any other field--particularly in the artistic field. He
was glad, however, when the Government eventually decided to manufacture
the gun themselves, and the House of Commons voted him £1,000--though
the experiments had cost nearly three times as much--and he was enabled
to take to art.
It was at a meeting of the Moray Minstrels, the delightful "Jermyn Band"
promoted by Mr. Arthur Lewis--where every man was invited on his own
merits and guests were excluded--that he met John Tenniel. John Forster
was the leader, and there were often present John Leech, Dickens,
Stanfield, Thackeray, Landseer, Tom Angell, Sir John Millais, Mr. Carl
Haag, Mr. Frith, Mr. Marks, Charles Keene, Mr. Whistler, and Sir Arthur
Sullivan; altogether a notable company. It was under Sir John Tenniel's
hospitable roof that Mr. Pritchett was initiated into the mysteries of
wood-drawing. He had been watching the Master drawing his cartoon, and
was busy sketching the top of his amiable head, when its owner told him
he would be much better occupied in drawing on the wood, and threw him
over a piece. Upon it Mr. Pritchett made a sketch, which Sir John took
to Mr. Swain, and which afterwards appeared in one of A. K. H. B.'s
works. By Mr. Swain the draughtsman was introduced to "Once a Week" and
to _Punch_, and for the latter Mr. Pritchett began with some initials.
His work appears from 1863 until 1869, some six-and-twenty amusing
drawings in all, and when he ceased in order to take to painting, he
drew for no other comic paper; for he had adopted the proud motto: "Aut
_Punch_, aut nullus." He then took to travel, writing books and
illustrating them by himself, and commended himself still further by the
cruise he made and illustrated with Lady Brassey in _The Sunbeam_.
Moreover, he has for many years drawn privately for the Queen, in
recognition of which he received the Jubilee medal. A portrait of him,
drawn by Charles Keene, may be seen in the _Punch_ picture wherein a
little girl asks her papa if she "may have the gentleman's moustache for
a tail for her horse"--a portrait so good that by virtue of it he made
the acquaintance of Mr. Sambourne years after, when the latter gentleman
accosted him with the words "I know you by Keene's likeness of you in
_Punch_!"
Then came Fritz Eltze, who was introduced to _Punch_ on May 1st, 1864,
and in due course took up some of the work let fall by Leech. He was a
son of Sir Richard Mayne's confidential secretary, and most of what he
knew of the life he drew was what he could see down Scotland Yard, or
what he could remember of happy early days at Ramsgate. He was a
confirmed invalid who had never enjoyed life like other children, and
the consumption from which he died was already developing. He submitted
a few sketches to Mark Lemon who, according to his custom, sent Mr.
Swain to make inquiries, with a result that was the brightest spot in
the artist's life. Although his work had the touch of the amateur about
it, it had a curious charm; and rapid improvement followed. His humours
of the fashions and follies of the day were greatly appreciated,
especially as his work advanced to half-page "socials;" but it was to
his tender touches that his popularity was chiefly due, particularly in
his treatment of child-life. The little one who--being told that they
may not have mistletoe in church at Christmas--naively asks if "they
must not love one another in church," and the other who, when playing at
"horses" and one of the leaders falls, cries to its companion next in
command to "sit on her head and cut the traces," are typical of his work
in this direction. His last contribution (Mr. Punch _à la Turc_ on a
minaret) appeared in September, 1870, but a couple of drawings, in 1872
and 1875, were published "out of stock." Eltze, one of _Punch's_ tall
men, by the way, was a pleasing draughtsman whose work, in its curious
absence of lining, had a striking appearance of originality in its
practically broad outline.
Mr. A. R. Fairfield may be known by his sign-manual like a Sign of the
Zodiac run wild. It is, however, merely an inverted "A" on the Greek
character [Greek: Phi] with its stem elongated. He sprang from an
artistic family, and after three months' training at South Kensington in
1857, he began to draw on wood for "Fun" at about the same time as Mr.
W. S. Gilbert--the autumn of 1861. His connection with _Punch_ was
fortuitous. Being sent by Dr. James Macaulay, the editor of the "Leisure
Hour," to Mr. Swain for some blocks on which to make his drawings for
that magazine, he was smartly captured by the vigilant engraver for the
"London Charivari." The result was many initials and drawings made to
his own jokes; but his first contributions appeared in the special
"Shakespeare Jubilee Number." His work appears often enough after
that--four-and-twenty times in 1864 and 1865. They were at times
amateurish in manner, but they had character and humour. It was Leech's
death that practically put an end to Mr. Fairfield's connection with
_Punch_, for Keene then came to reign supreme in the art department; but
it did not matter much, as Mr. Fairfield, at that time a clerk at the
Board of Trade--in which capacity only he ever came into contact with
Tom Taylor, then Secretary of the Local Government Board--was given to
understand that his career would be interfered with if he prosecuted
too far his outside work. In 1887 (p. 245, Vol. XC.) another sketch
appears, comet-like, after an interval of more than twenty years.
Colonel Seccombe followed a few weeks after Mr. Fairfield's début. At
that time he was a subaltern. His youthful military drawings--signed
with a sketch of a cannon--were clever, and highly promising. His cuts
appeared in 1864, 1866, and again in 1882--eight altogether. Foreign
service interrupted the young draughtsman's artistic studies for a
considerable period, but the result of his later labours is seen in the
many works for children and others which he has since published.
At the same time came a bevy of draughtsmen, who added little to
_Punch's_ prestige--Dever, whose eight drawings are but caricatures,
which none can see without being reminded of some of the grotesque types
which later on were adopted by Mr. E. T. Reed in his earlier work; H. R.
Robinson with two (though his work was not printed till two years
later); Chambers with one; and Rogat with three; and then the year 1865
brought two or three contributors of interest and importance.
The first of these was Fred Walker, A.R.A., whose first drawing, printed
in the "Almanac," shows a number of water-nymphs sea-bathing around
Neptune--called "The New Bathing Company (Limited). Specimens of the
Costumes to be worn by the Shareholders"--is graceful, and technically
good, but not particularly remarkable, and is rather fanciful than
funny. His second and last, "Captain Jinks of the _Selfish_ and his
Friends enjoying themselves on the River"--a more masterly sketch--was
made in 1869 (p. 74, Vol. LVII.), in hot indignation at the selfishness
and mischievousness of steam-launch skippers on the upper Thames. He had
himself been an angry witness of the destruction of the river-banks by
private steamboats, but had fairly boiled over at the sight of the very
incident which he recorded in _Punch_--the outrageous, insolent
indifference shown by the trippers to all on the river or its banks,
save their own selfish selves. As a fisherman, Mr. Leslie, R.A., tells
us, Walker looked upon the steam-launcher as his natural enemy; and it
was while the two friends were on the river together that the incident
occurred, and the drawing was decided upon. "He was most fastidious
about this work, rehearsing it many times before he was satisfied....
In rendering the distant landscape the work becomes entirely finished
and tender. It is a beautiful little bit of Bray, with the church and
poplars drawn direct from Nature; a bridge is introduced to prevent the
scene being too easily recognised. On the opposite bank is a portrait of
myself, with easel and picture upset by the steamer's swell.... I was
told that three copies of _Punch_ were sent to the steam-launch
proprietor on the day of publication.... This clever bit of satire had
no effect."
[Illustration: J. PRIESTMAN ATKINSON.]
[Illustration: IN A HANSOM WITH MARK LEMON.
(_Drawn by J. Priestman Atkinson._)]
"Dumb Crambo, Junior"--Mr. J. Priestman Atkinson--is better remembered
by _Punch_ readers, perhaps, by his pencil-name than by his common
cipher. In 1864 he was in the General Manager's office at Derby,
pleasingly varying his clerical duties by drawing caricatures for the
amusement of his fellow-clerks, and designing cartoons for the local
satirical journal, the "Derby Ram," which appeared spasmodically and
devoted itself principally to electioneering purposes. One of his
colleagues was Harry Lemon, Mark's son, who showed his father some of
his friend's sketches. On the occasion of a subsequent visit paid by Mr.
Atkinson to town, Mark Lemon invited him to dine at the Garrick Club
(whither they drove in a hansom, much in the style shown in the sketch),
and Shirley Brooks drank to him as "the future cartoonist of _Punch_."
His first cut--an initial T--appeared on p. 15, Vol. XLVIII, and
thenceforward Mr. Atkinson has been considered on the "outside Staff,"
with but two breaks: the first during an absence in Paris for artistic
instruction, and the second from 1869 to 1876, when an opportunity
occurred to make a "sure fortune" in commerce. The "sure fortune," as
usually befalls, became a pecuniary loss, and the draughtsman gladly
went back to the service of _Punch_ and the other papers and books to
which his pencil (under a different signature) has been devoted. It is
years since Mr. Atkinson, who has latterly worked less for _Punch_ than
in the early days of his connection, was able to do himself full justice
in a half-page drawing; but his "Dumb Crambo" series remain among the
happy things which _Punch_ has published in the direction of punning
sketches. They remind one of those by Hine, Newman, and the rest, in the
old "blackie" days, and are often little masterpieces of comic
ingenuity--as may be seen in "Shooting over an Extensive Moor," where a
man is discharging his weapon over the portly figure of a Moorish
gentleman. Mr. Atkinson, in addition, made some two score literary
contributions to the paper and "Pocket-book"--poems chiefly, and
stories, not counting smaller trifles, between August, 1877, and the
accession of Mr. Burnand to the Editorship. It was, I may add, at the
suggestion of Mr. Burnand that Mr. Atkinson adopted his _nom de crayon_,
just as he suggested Mr. Furniss's "Lika Joko."
[Illustration: CHARLES H. BENNETT.
(_From the Water-Colour Drawing by Himself._)]
One of the brightest and most talented draughtsmen _Punch_ has ever had
was Charles H. Bennett, the forerunner of Mr. Linley Sambourne. He had
graduated in comic draughtsmanship, having been the life and soul of
"Diogenes" (August, 1855), and rendered solid service to the "Comic
Times" (1855), and the "Comic News" (1863 to 1865), by which time his
cipher of an owl, and then of a B in an owl's beak ("B in it" =
Bennett), were known and appreciated. Apart from his _Punch_ work, his
"Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" was his masterpiece in serious art; while
in the opposite direction his "Shadows" (which procured him for a time
the public nickname of "Shadow Bennett"), as well as his amusing
"Studies in Darwinesque Development" for Vizetelly's "Illustrated
Times," and his second series, somewhat less satisfactory, of "Shadow
and Substance," obtained for him great popularity. But when he came on
_Punch_, introduced to Mark Lemon by Hain Friswell, he was within two
years of his death. His début was on February 11th, 1865, with a sketch
of "Our Play Box," in which "Mr. Punch's delight at finding his Dear Old
Puppets where he left them in July" shows that the artist had already
begun those illustrations to the "Essence of Parliament" which form the
backbone of his _Punch_ work. Occasional pictures there are,
unconventional in shape, grotesque, ingenious, graceful in fancy, that
delight us while, as a rule, they successfully conceal any lack of early
artistic education; but the Parliamentary drawings are those by which
Bennett will be best remembered. Between the date of his first sketch,
when he was forthwith summoned to the Table without serving any
probationary period, to that last sketch in the spring of 1867, showing
Lord John Russell as a cock crowing upon the 1832 Easter egg (p. 116,
Vol. LII.), he had made over 230 drawings for the paper, besides his
contributions to the Pocket-books of 1866 and 1867. He had already
established himself, despite repeated absences through ill-health, one
of the greatest favourites in _Punch's_ company; and the comic letter
addressed to him by his colleagues during one of his illnesses is
printed in the chapter on the "_Punch_ Dinner." Indeed, he had not time
to cut his cipher on the Table; the H is begun and abandoned. "As for
dear Bennett," Mr. Frederic Shields tells me, "every link that attached
me to him has so long since been severed, that to attempt to find the
lost end of the thread is hopeless. Nothing remains but the sweet odour
of his memory--like a faded rose-leaf turned up in a long-closed
drawer." But Mr. Sala declares that he had been, "socially, the most
miserable of mankind. He was sober, industrious, and upright, and
scarcely a Bohemian; but throughout his short life he was 'Murad the
Unlucky.' At one time he occupied shabby chambers in the now defunct
Lyon's Inn, Strand; and it was the poor fellow's fate to have a child
born--a child that died--the sack from his employers, and the brokers
in, _all in the same day_." Still, Bennett, who was one of the original
founders of the Savage Club, was cheerful enough, and of a singularly
lovable disposition--as may almost be gathered from his pictures in
_Punch_, in which the shadow of none of his former troubles is ever
reflected: nothing but his "facile execution and singular subtlety of
fancy." Indeed, "Cheerful Charley," as he was known to his intimates,
became, as he himself declared, one of the luckiest and happiest of
men--fully appreciated for his art and his own delightful qualities by
troops of admiring friends. It was his extraordinary power of realising
an abstract thought and crystallising it at once into a happy pictorial
fancy that set him on a pedestal, a poet among his colleagues--those
colleagues who, when he died, lamented "the loss of a comrade of
invaluable skill, and the death of one of the kindliest and gentlest of
our associates, the power of whose hand was equalled by the goodness of
his heart."
But Bennett left his family in sad straits, and, on Shirley Brooks's
initiative, the "_Punch_ men" at once set about devising a means to help
them. The result was the theatrical performance referred to on pp.
132-134. The Moray Minstrels wound up this famous entertainment, and
Shirley Brooks delivered a touching address of his own writing.
Besides T. W. Woods (who made four drawings), Prehn (two), Lowe (six),
and Hays (three), Mr. W. S. Gilbert swelled the list of contributors in
this same year (1865). His work, consisting of fifteen small cuts signed
with the now familiar "Bab," and designed to illustrate the rhymes they
accompany, was lost to _Punch_ by the indisposition for compromise
displayed by contributor and Editor alike. "I sent three or four
drawings," Mr. Gilbert informs me, "and half-a dozen short articles; but
I was told by Mark Lemon, or rather a message reached me from him, that
he would insert nothing more of mine unless I left 'Fun,' with which I
was connected. This I declined to do unless he would take me on the
regular staff of _Punch_. This _he_ declined to do, and so the matter
ended. I had previously offered 'The Yarn of the Nancy Bell' (the first
of the Bab Ballads) to _Punch_, but Mark Lemon declined it on the ground
that it was 'too cannibalistic for his readers.'" So Mr. Gilbert knew
_Punch_ no more; and it is commonly related that he enjoys nothing more
than an occasional good-humoured fling at the journal which could not
see his worth. "I say, Burnand," he has many times been reported to have
said at the Garrick Club and elsewhere, when the Editor had referred to
the heavy post-bag delivered each day at the office, though witticisms
found among the wilderness of suggestions were desperately few, "do you
_never_ get anything good?" "Oh, sometimes--occasionally." "Then,"
drawled the other, "_why don't you ever put one of them in?_"
"A Hot Chestnut" (p. 143, Vol. XLIX.) was the first contribution of G.
B. Goddard, well known a little later on as Bouverie Goddard, the
animal-painter. Oil-colour was in truth his medium; but his drawings
were good, and _Punch_ for a couple of years rejoiced in his new hunting
draughtsman. Goddard was a great friend of Charles Keene, with whom he
shared for a time a studio in Baker Street; but feeling that he must
paint pictures rather than draw upon the wood-block, he left the paper,
after placing to his credit fourteen drawings--of which some were
adjudged to contain the best horses seen in its pages since the death of
Leech.
By far the most important lady artist who ever worked for _Punch_ was
Miss Georgina Bowers (for some years now Mrs. Bowers-Edwards).[63] It is
not usual, as I have remarked before, to find a woman a professional
humorist, though a colonial _Punch_ is edited by a lady; but it is, I
believe, an undoubted fact, that up to this year of grace no female
caricaturist has yet appeared before man's vision. But Miss Bowers was a
humorist, with very clear and happy notions as to what fun should be,
and how it should be transferred to a picture. Her long career began in
1866, and thenceforward, working with undiminished energy, she executed
hundreds of initials and vignettes as well as "socials," devoting
herself in chief part to hunting and flirting subjects. She was a facile
designer, but her manner was chronically weak. It was John Leech who set
her on the track; Mark Lemon, to whom she took her drawings, encouraged
her, and with help from Mr. Swain she progressed.
[Illustration: MRS. BOWERS-EDWARDS.
(_From a Photograph by S. A. Walker._)]
"My first published drawing," Miss Bowers tells me, "was a dreadful
thing of a girl urging a muff of a man to give her a lead at a brook. My
'jokes' all came from incidents I saw out hunting, and from my own
varied adventures with horse and hound; but occasionally a suggestion
sent to the Editor was transferred to me to be put into shape. Then some
one else wrote up to them. When I first hunted in Hertfordshire, I had
great opportunities for provincial sporting studies. I feel now that
some of my subjects were too personal, and wonder how many people
forgave me. I often overheard stories about myself in the hunting-field
(where I had hard times with ladies occasionally). When Shirley Brooks
died, I felt I had lost my best and most helpful friend; and then Mr.
Tom Taylor cared nothing for sport or sporting subjects, so that I felt
that my work was uncongenial to him, and I got on badly and lost all
interest in it, and gave up, after having drawn ten years for the paper,
to which I shall never again contribute."
Mr. Walter Crane, of all people in the world, appears on p. 33 of Vol.
LI. The cut is hardly funny, except in idea--it represents a
chignon-show--nor is it as well drawn as much of the work he was doing
at the time; he had not yet hit upon the style or subject that he
afterwards made his own. A couple of sketches by O. Harling, an amateur,
conclude the list for the year.
The year 1867 is famous in _Punch's_ calendar for the acquisition of Mr.
Linley Sambourne; but an earlier arrival was Mr. Frederic Shields. Mr.
Swain suggested that he should "do a letter or two"; Mr. Shields did
three, including a "social" ("Want your door swep', marm?"), and a girl
curling her hair with the fender-tongs. The initials were kept over
until 1870; and this constituted the sum of Mr. Shields' artistic
adventure into the domain of humour.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Mr. Henry James, jun., considers ("Century Magazine," 1883) that
"since 1868, _Punch_ has been, artistically speaking, George du
Maurier."
[60] See "Encyclopædia Britannica."
[61] See "Magazine of Art," 1891.
[62] "The Art of England: The Fireside," p. 174.
[63] The other ladies are Miss Coode, Mrs. Romer (Mrs. Jopling-Rowe),
Mrs. Field, Miss Fraser, Miss Mansell (Mrs. Bull)--merely a sketch, and
Miss Maud Sambourne.