_PUNCH'S_ ARTISTS: 1867-82.
Mr. Linley Sambourne--Mechanical Engineering Loses a Decorative
Designer--Mr. Sambourne's Work--His Photographs--And
Enterprise--Strasynski--Mr. Wilfrid Lawson--Mr. E. J. Ellis--Mr.
Ernest Griset--Mr. A. Chasemore--Mr. Walter Browne--Mr. Briton
Riviere, R.A.--An Undergraduate Humorist--A _Punch_ Initial
Converted into an Academy Picture--Mrs. Jopling-Rowe--Mr. Wallis
Mackay--Mr. J. Sands, Artist, Traveller, and Hermit--Mr. W.
Ralston--Mr. A. Chantrey Corbould--Charles Keene's Advice--Randolph
Caldecott--Major-General Robley--R. B. Wallace--Colonel Ward
Bennitt--Mr. Montagu Blatchford--Mr. Harry Furniss--Origin of Mr.
Gladstone's Collars--A Favourite Ruse--How It's Done--Mr. Furniss
and the Irish Members--The Lobby Incident--Clever Retaliation--Mr.
Furniss's Withdrawal--Mr. Lillie--Mr. Storey, A.R.A.--Mr. Alfred
Bryan.
[Illustration: LINLEY SAMBOURNE.
(_From a Drawing by Himself._)]
One day when Mr. Linley Sambourne made a successful appearance as
Admiral Van Tromp at a fancy-dress ball, Mr. W S. Gilbert drily
observed, "One Dutch of Sambourne makes the whole world grin!" The jest
was wider in its application than he who made it, probably, had
intended. The humour of the artist, his quaintness of fancy, wit, and
touch, are appreciated by whoever looks for something more, even in a
professedly comic design, than that which is at first and immediately
obvious. When, early in 1867, Mark Lemon fell into admiration of a
little drawing that was luckily thrust into his hand, and declared that
the young draughtsman who wrought it had a great future before him, he
proved himself possessed of a faculty of critical insight, or of an
easy-going artistic conscience, uncommon even among editors. Few who saw
Mr. Linley Sambourne's early work, even throughout the first two or
three years of his practice, would have imagined that behind those
woodcuts, for all their cleverness, there lay power and even genius, or
that the man himself would soon come to be regarded as one of the
greatest masters of pure line of his time.
At that time Mr. Sambourne had been working in the engineering
draughtsmen's office of Messrs. Penn and Sons, of Greenwich. But the
work was not congenial; the "pupil" spent most of his time in sketching,
and there is a story--doubtless as apocryphal as it is malicious--that
in one of his designs for a steam-engine, he sacrificed so much to
"effect" as to carry his steam-pipe through the spokes of the fly-wheel.
It was his office companion in misfortune, Mr. Alfred Reed, who secured
his friend's release from the thraldom of the iron-bound profession, by
seizing the sketch already alluded to and showing it to his father,
German Reed. By that gentleman it was submitted to his friend Mark
Lemon, who had about that time been writing an "entertainment" for the
company at the "Gallery of Illustrations." The result was an editorial
summons to the sketcher, and an engagement which has lasted to the
present day. Thus it was that, with a sketch of John Bright tilting at a
quintain under the title of "Pros and Cons," Mr. Sambourne found
himself, at the age of twenty-two, a regular contributor to
_Punch_--though he had still to wait until 1871 before he was rewarded
with a seat at the Table.
Of artistic education he had had practically none. In the engineering
drawing-office he had learned how to handle the pen and to put it to
uses which have become a feature of his draughtsmanship. But besides a
life-school attendance extending over not more than a fortnight, he had
no other teachers than his own eyes and his own intelligence. In his
earliest work with the pencil there was a curious use of the point.
Suddenly he was called upon, through the unexpected absence of Charles
Keene from town, for more important work than that with which he had
hitherto been entrusted. This was the half-page head-piece and the
tail-piece to the preface to Vol. LIII. Then came promotion to the
"small socials" and "half-page socials." Some of the work he did fairly
well, founding himself now upon Leech, now upon Keene; but his character
and originality were too powerful to follow any man. He began to form a
style of his own, and that style did not lend itself to the
representation of modern life. It was suited better for decoration than
for movement; while the beauty of line and of silhouette which he sought
and obtained, in spite of his intense, almost aggressive, individuality,
placed him absolutely apart from all the black-and-white artists of the
day.
It was, I have said, to the example of his predecessor, Charles H.
Bennett, who died in April, 1867 (the very month in which Sambourne's
first drawing appeared), that we owe those wonderful initial letters to
the "Essence of Parliament" of Shirley Brooks--those intricate drawings
which, covering nearly a whole page, were such miracles of invention, of
fancy, and of allusion, swarming with figures, overflowing with
suggestion, teeming with subtle symbolism. But these things did not come
at once. It was not until the "comic cut" idea was put entirely on one
side and his imagination allowed full play, that Mr. Sambourne fully
developed his powers--his strength of conception, design, and execution.
And then it was that he revealed the fact that though a humorist--and
invariably, too, a good-humorist--by necessity, he is a classic by
feeling.
The artist's personality, as it should, impresses us first, powerfully
and irresistibly. While under Mark Lemon, Mr. Sambourne, as an artist,
was still unformed. Under Shirley Brooks was awakened his wonderful
inventive faculty. Under the _régime_ of masterly inactivity--the happy
policy of _laissez faire_--of Tom Taylor, the talent had burst forth
into luxuriance, not to say exuberance. And under Mr. Burnand it was
schooled and restrained within severer limits.
It was many years before regular political cartooning[64] fell to his
lot. He illustrated several of Mr. Burnand's serials in _Punch_, and
some of his work out of it. But afterwards he rose to the treatment of
actuality. Upon the event of the hour his picture is formed, and each
week his work _must_ be forthcoming. There can be no question of
failure, no dallying with the subject, however elaborate or unpromising
it may appear. A decision must be come to, and that rapidly; and there
the artist sits, his watch hung up before him, "one eye on the dial and
the other on the drawing-paper," knowing that at the appointed hour the
work must be ready for the messenger. Thus the majority of his four
thousand designs have been greatly hurried--hurried in thought as well
as in execution. Many have been wrought in a single day; the great
majority within two days; very few, indeed, have taken more. But when he
has the time he wants, what amazing results are achieved! Sir John
Tenniel once exclaimed to me: "What extraordinary improvement there is
in Sambourne's work! Although a little hard and mechanical, it is of
absolutely inexhaustible ingenuity and firmness of touch. His diploma
for the Fisheries Exhibition almost gave me a headache to look at it--so
full, cram-full of suggestion, yet leaving nothing to the imagination,
so perfectly and completely drawn, with a certainty of touch which
baffles me to understand how he does it."
For the rest, Mr. Sambourne's method, like his work, is unique. Keen of
observation though he is, his memory for detail is not to be compared to
that of Sir John Tenniel; and, actuated by that desire for accuracy
which he holds desirable in a journal specially devoted to topical
allusion, he avails himself extensively of the use of photography. In
the cabinets in his studio, filled full of drawers, each labelled
according to their contents, over ten thousand photographs are
classified: every celebrity of the day, and to a certain extent of the
past, British and foreign, at various ages, in various costumes, and in
various attitudes; representatives of the Church, the Bench, and the
Bar; of Science, Art, Literature, and the Stage; the beasts and birds
and insects in and out of the Zoological Gardens; figures by the score,
nude and draped; costumes of all ages and every country; soldiers,
sailors, and the uniforms of every army and navy; land and sea and sky;
boating and botany, nuns and clowns, hospital-nurses, musical
instruments, and rifles, locomotives, wheel-barrows, shop-windows, and
everything else besides--everything, in short, as he himself declared,
"from a weasel to a Welshman"--all are photographed mostly by himself,
and all are arranged by himself, in readiness against the demand for
accuracy and the exigencies of haste. But when time permits, Mr.
Sambourne goes to greater trouble still. Does he require a special
uniform? he begs the War Office--not unsuccessfully--to lend him one or
two men, or even a detachment; does he want to represent Mr.
Gladstone--say, as Wellington (as he did November 2nd, 1889)? he
procures the loan of the duke's own raiment, and only stops short at
borrowing Mr. Gladstone himself. For his types, too, he takes pains not
less thorough. For Britannia's helmet, he made working drawings of the
unique Greek piece in the British Museum, and from that had a replica
constructed--one of the most notable items in a notable "property" room.
At the back of his house is a paved courtyard, wherein his servant poses
as every character under the sun while he is photographed by his master,
who then runs inside to develop the plate and make a dash at his
drawing. Or he will photograph himself, or the model in the desired
attitude; or he will get his friends to pose. Among his sitters there is
none more useful than the burly man who serves equally well for
"Policeman A 1" or John Bull, for the Duke of Cambridge or Prince
Bismarck. It was he who sat for one of the finest of Mr. Sambourne's
"junior cartoons" on the occasion when the great ex-Chancellor had said:
"I am like the traveller lost in the snow, who begins to get stiff while
the snow-flakes cover him." This picture of the aged and forlorn
statesman, accompanied only by his faithful hound, is perhaps the best
of the artist's achievements of dignity and pathos--worthy of being
named with "Dropping the Pilot" of Sir John Tenniel. His passion for
realism is so great that, I remember, when he was engaged on his
"Mahogany Tree" for the Jubilee number of _Punch_--one of the most
popular drawings he ever made--he had just such a table duly laid for
dinner in the courtyard, with one person sitting at it in order to show
the proportion, and photographed it from a window of the house at the
necessary elevation.[65] But for his love of accuracy he would not have
done these things; nor, but for his love of naturalism, could he have
given us his numerous fine studies of Nature. And but for this, Mr.
Punch would never have printed one or two of his Norwegian sketches,
such as "The Church-going Bell," in which there was not the slightest
attempt at humour or fun--nothing but a calm and reposeful love of
Nature, the deep, sad impression on the mind and heart of the artist as
he watches the northern sun dip in sleepy majesty behind the panting
waves.
Like Rabelais, he can use the pencil to greater ends under cover of the
motley, and encase bitter truths with the gilt of a printed jest. Like
Giotto and his legendary feat, he can draw you a perfect circle with his
pen--and perhaps he is the only man in the country who can do it. His is
the rare gift that in him sense of fun, of dignity, and of art is equal.
He will brook nothing more serious in his sallies than chaff and banter;
and yet his kindly art, based upon Nature and observation of the work of
others, has, by its very truth, made him enemies even on foreign
thrones. Nevertheless, it is less as a politician and a satirist that he
claims recognition; it is primarily as an artist that he will assuredly
be remembered when his place among his countrymen has to be determined.
A Polish artist, with Mr. Sambourne's initials, L. Strasynski by name,
also began in 1867, and during that and the following year contributed
nine cuts, very foreign in feeling and firm in touch. Then, after an
anonymous draughtsman, "M.S.R.," had appeared with a single cut
("Candles"), Mr. F. Wilfrid Lawson, the elder brother and teacher of
Cecil Lawson, contributed a sheetful of initials and vignettes which
dribbled forth in the paper up to 1876; and Mr. T. Walters, a
half-a-dozen, up to 1875. Mr. E. J. Ellis, now better known in other
fields than comic draughtsmanship, began on December 12th, 1867. He had
received an introduction to Mark Lemon through Mr. (now Sir) Algernon
Borthwick, and found the Editor "good-natured enough," as he himself
says, "to allow me to do a dozen or so of initials, and a quarter-page
illustration. They were all more or less pinched and painful things, and
Mr. Lemon did not conceal from me that 'he was not knocked over by
them.' But they were drawn on the block--not on paper--and from the
strangeness and discomfort of it came the tight-elbowed style of the
work. Of what I did altogether, only about a third were printed; half
were paid for; but what they paid for they did not print, and what they
printed they did not pay for." At that time Mr. Ellis caught the fever
of decorative art, classic and romantic, which culminated in the
"interpreted" edition of Blake's "Prophetic Books," in collaboration
with Mr. Yeats; and _Punch_ lost a promising recruit.
The experience of Mr. Ernest Griset, who is first seen on p. 61 of Vol.
LIV., was more extensive but less gratifying. He excelled at comic
animals--his human figures are most of them of one ragged type--but on
Bennett's sudden disappearance he was quickly encouraged to take up the
dead man's work, and was enabled to show in many of his three-and-sixty
drawings of that year the full range of his talent, his remarkable
invention and ingenuity. Mr. Griset, though born in Boulogne, was
educated in England, and after studying art under Gallait, intended to
follow water-colour painting, taking subjects by preference of a Glacial
Prehistoric kind. But the foundation of "Fun" gave him the opportunity
of comic draughtsmanship, and the work he did for the paper brought him
Mark Lemon's invitation to call upon him. A cordial reception and a
flattering tribute to his ability were followed by an understanding of
regular employment, and the young draughtsman became a _Punch_ artist
unattached. But he did not remain long in favour. His work, perhaps, was
not highly popular, and Mark Lemon perceptibly cooled towards him. So,
finding he was no longer wanted, Mr. Griset, who was then no more than
twenty-four years of age, retired, and consoled himself in other
directions--notably by illustrating "Æsop's Fables," which had attracted
Bennett and Sir John Tenniel before him.
[Illustration: ERNEST GRISET.
(_From a Photograph by W. G. Parker and Co._)]
[Illustration: MR. ERNEST GRISET OBEYS THE EDITOR'S SUMMONS.]
At the end of the index to Vol. LIII. is a little tail-piece that marks
the advent of Mr. A. Chasemore. This draughtsman was welcomed by Mark
Lemon with the words: "You may try your hand at a large drawing, but let
it be broad fun. We don't want any more ladies and pretty children."
That was in 1868--yet ladies and pretty children do not even now seem
to have lost their popularity! The original drawing was not a success,
and had to be touched up by Keene. It is mentioned here as affording
another good example of the careful way in which sketches are adapted.
The subject was a recruit joining a volunteer corps. The adjutant
inquires: "What company would you wish to be in?" to which the recruit
replies: "Oh, gentleman's co'pany, of course!" The recruit was left
untouched, but the adjutant was re-drawn by Keene. "I'm afraid there's
not much humour in the idea," wrote the artist with quaint modesty;
"still, I hope it's good enough for _Punch_!" Up to 1875 Mr. Chasemore
contributed thirty-three drawings, and in addition there was a belated
one in 1879; and then he passed over to "Judy," to which paper he
thereafter devoted himself.
The last recruit of the year was "Phiz'" young son, Walter Browne, who,
through his father's influence with Mark Lemon, was allowed to
contribute a few drawings, the first of which appeared on p. 148, Vol.
LV., and the last on November 20th, 1875. He was hardly out of his
studentship at the time--he was a pupil of Bonnat--and his work was
"young;" but he might have risen on _Punch_ had he not allowed himself
to be tempted away by a delusive offer of Tom Hood's of constant work on
"Fun," so that he closed the door in his own face, and had thenceforward
to look to news-drawing and book-illustration for advancement.
Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A., appeared in the month of January, 1868. Few
who have followed his career as painter would detect in him the
inveterate humorist; yet it was in that direction that his bent led him
while he was still a boy. When at Oxford he had amused himself of an
evening with making humorous illustrations in pen-and-ink, and a book
which he then so drew was shown by him in 1868 to his friend Mr. G. L.
Craik, one of the partners in the house of Macmillans, and the husband
of John Halifax, Gentlewoman. This book Mrs. Craik sent to Mark Lemon,
who invited the young graduate to the _Punch_ office, and adopting the
grotesque illustrations to "Mazeppa" at once, gave him a sort of running
commission to do incidental work, to which Mr. Riviere gladly responded
by a total of the twenty-three cuts--chiefly of wild animal
subjects--contributed by him through 1868 and 1869. Not only was the
work congenial, but the artist at the time was entirely dependent upon
illustration for his livelihood, for he was newly-married, and the
picture-buying public had not yet been educated up to purchasing his
canvases. His illustrations--in chief part for American
publications--were all done at night, as his days were delivered over to
earnest though unremunerative painting. But directly his pictures began
to make way, he dropped illustration, which had made inroads upon his
health and had permanently injured his left eye through the strain of
the artificial light. So Mr. Riviere ceased his _Punch_ connection, the
proprietors, moreover, consenting to suppress those blocks which had not
yet appeared, as the painter feared that they would do harm to himself
professionally, and no particular good to the paper. Yet he has always
expressed his pride that he should have been one of the outside "_Punch_
Staff," and he has proved it by elaborating the initial "M," which was
published on p. 217, Vol. LVI., in "_Punch's_ Derby Sporting Prophecy,"
into his picture "Of a Fool and His Folly there is no End," which was
painted and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890.
A couple of drawings from Mr. Cooper, and an initial by "W. V." (the
cipher of Mr. Wallis Mackay, whose sketch and subsequent work did not
appear for a couple of years) were next sent in, and then came Mr. J.
Moyr Smith, whose long series of clever mock-Etruscan drawings continued
with few breaks for the space of ten years. Although the spirit that
runs through them becomes monotonous after a while, the draughtsmanship
and the excellence of the fooling always elicit admiration. Mr. Smith
had served his time to architecture; but natural love of figure-drawing,
intensified by the study of Sir John Tenniel's comic illustrations of
the historical costume, faithfully and even learnedly delineated and
perfectly drawn, settled his career, and "Fun," under Tom Hood's
editorship, witnessed his start in humorous life. Referred to Mark Lemon
by "Pater" Evans, he obtained a ready hearing, and for a couple of
years drew for the paper; but he did not work regularly, during an
interval of three years, until 1872. From this time forward he was one
of _Punch's_ recognised outside contributors, though he worked for it
only when not engaged in making designs for art-manufacturers. It was
under Shirley Brooks's editorship, and later under Tom Taylor's, that he
gave full rein to his passion for classic treatment, and his ornament,
which gave a distinct _cachet_ to _Punch_ up to 1878, was not founded on
a mere grotesque treatment of classical subjects, but was the fruit of a
close study of and easy familiarity with heathen mythology, classical,
Egyptian, and, in particular, Norse. The fun was not particularly broad,
but Tom Taylor was especially tickled by his attempts to find amusement
in the extraordinary head-dresses worn by ladies of Ancient Egypt--such
as that in the cut (July 11th, 1874) learnedly inscribed "Oos Yer
Atter?"
[Illustration: J. MOYR SMITH.
(_From a Drawing by Himself._)]
Mrs. Jopling-Rowe, then Mrs. Frank Romer, was the only new arrival in
the year 1869. The death of her husband had left her under the necessity
of supporting herself and her children, and as niece of Mark Lemon she
might have obtained easy admittance to _Punch_, had she not found
portrait-painting a more remunerative occupation. Under the initial of
her name she made but four drawings of little importance, the most
ambitious being an illustration of the "Song of Sixpence," which was
treated as a subject from "Nursery History." It appeared on page 56 of
Volume LVII.
Mr. Wallis Mackay, the clever "Captious Critic" of later days, followed
"W. G."--a contributor of a couple of trifles--and worked for _Punch_
from 1870 to 1874, making seven-and-twenty drawings, "socials" chiefly,
in his well-known style. It was in the latter year that Tom Taylor
succeeded to the editorship, and having been mortally offended with a
personal sketch which the "Captious Critic" had drawn some time before,
he forthwith cancelled the connection. Even the blocks already in hand
and paid for were suppressed, with the exception of four, of which the
last appeared in 1877. On the accession of Mr. Burnand, says Mr. Mackay,
he was informed that Bouverie Street was no longer "a close borough,"
and that the Essence of Parliament awaited him; but the "Special
Correspondent" was away in the wilds of Ireland, and the opportunity
passed by.
[Illustration: J. SANDS.
(_From a Painting._)]
The same day as that on which the first of Mr. Bennitt's four drawings
arrived--(he must not be confounded with the Colonel Bennitt who is
referred to later on)--saw also the first contribution of Mr. J. Sands,
Charles Keene's friend, who put his little anagrammatic device of an
hour-glass to more than three-score drawings between the years 1870 and
1880. Save for their ingenuity, they were not of first-rate importance.
Mr. Sands had been an Edinburgh and Arbroath solicitor; a prairie
farmer; an art-student under Charles Keene, who made him practise
drawing until he became dyspeptic and melancholy at the sight of his own
feeble work; an emigrant to Buenos Ayres, where he practised most trades
in turn, including that of newspaper artist; a contributor and
draughtsman (again under Keene's eye) to London magazines, and to
_Punch_; a sojourner in the almost inaccessible island of St. Kilda; an
archæological explorer in the islands of the Hebrides; and finally, for
thirteen years a hermit, living a hermit's life, solitary and
intellectual, at the water's edge, at Walls, Shetland. Many have been
the stones that have rolled for _Punch_, but few that have rolled so
far, or gathered so much moss the while. In his more civilised moments,
so to speak, Mr. Sands lived for a time a good deal in the life of
Keene, to whom he presented many jokes and sketches for pictures; but he
became disheartened at the slowness of his own promotion, and
suspecting, moreover, that Keene, in his heart, would have been glad
were he to retire in favour of Mr. A. Corbould, Keene's nephew, he
finally decided to withdraw. Nevertheless, the friendship of the two men
lasted to the end--a friendship that was a rare and deep attachment.
Two more names belong to 1870--that of Mr. E. F. Brewtnall, R.W.S.,
whose single contribution was sent in in this year; and Mr. W. Ralston,
of Glasgow, later a photographer by profession, but by taste and
opportunity an artist. It was with Shirley Brooks's succession to the
Editorship that Mr. Ralston obtained his recognition. "I remember," says
the draughtsman, "how in walking down to business that day I tried to
look unconscious of my greatness, and mentally determined that it would
make no difference in my bearing." His drawings at first were very hard,
but the point of humour was invariably good, and the Scottish "wut"
equal to that of the best man who ever drew for the paper. He was a
self-taught draughtsman, who learned by watching his younger brother,
"whose artistic boots," says he, "I was not fit to black;" but he
improved rapidly, and contributed in all two hundred and twenty-seven
drawings, initials, and "socials." At the death of Tom Taylor, Mr.
Ralston's contributions ceased, only one more from his pencil ever
appearing in the paper--in 1886. It was partly because Mr. Ralston
became a busy "Graphic" artist, and partly because the Editor was in
search of new blood; but the only time Mr. Ralston made his
post-Taylorian appearance in _Punch_ (that was not "old stock") was with
an article in the Sandford and Merton style, directed against the Duke
of Bedford and the Bloomsbury gates. This little attack, called
"K.G.--Q.E.D.," constitutes Mr. Ralston's sole contribution to the
literature of the age.
[Illustration: W. RALSTON.
(_From a Photograph by W. Ralston, Glasgow._)]
Mr. A. Chantrey Corbould, as already explained, was introduced to
_Punch_ by his uncle, Charles Keene. Beginning in 1871, he worked on
until 1890, when a temporary cessation intervened. His work, dealing
chiefly with hunting and "horsey" subjects, has always a certain
freshness, in spite of being, technically speaking, a little tight, and
at one time raised their author to very near the front rank in
popularity. He was only eighteen when he joined (the expression "Mr.
Punch's young men," it will be seen, is no misnomer), having already had
the benefit of Keene's advice. One of the elder artist's letters is
before me as I write:--
"I saw your drawing this morning," he says, "and think it very
good, considering the short time you have had to study art; but I
can see that the execution would render the drawing rather
difficult to engrave, and you want a little more study and practice
in 'the human face divine' to please the newspaper people. I never
give advice on these matters, but I can tell you from my own
experience I don't think drawing on wood is a good road to stand on
as an artist; but if you don't agree with me, and wish to go in for
this particular branch, it seems to me that you should article or
apprentice yourself by legal agreement with some engraver of large
business for a certain time on certain terms. This is how I began,
and have been sorry for it ever since!"
[Illustration: A. CHANTREY CORBOULD.
(_Drawn by Himself._)]
Fourteen years later, when Mr. Corbould was still hoping for that
position with which many people already credited him--a Staff
appointment--Keene wrote:--
"I've no doubt myself that it is in your power, if you manage well,
to get on to _Punch_. It is rather unlucky that Burnand is not a
sporting man" [Mr. Burnand, by the way, is an inveterate horseman].
"... I should advise you to drive gently but steadily at hunting
and country subjects, and if you get a good idea of any sort have a
shy at it, and encourage your friends to look out for you....
You've noticed I only do one a week now, as a rule. I send you an
idea you might work out. Wouldn't you make it a meet (in
background), and the speakers mounted?
"'Think I must part with him.' SHE: 'What! all at once, wholesale?
Wouldn't it be better to sell him retail on little skewers?' I'll
look out and send you anything in your line I hear of."
This joke of Keene's was duly worked out by Mr. Corbould, and was
produced Nov. 22, 1884 (p. 249, Vol. LXXXVII). Up to this time the
draughtsman had worked under three Editors, to whom, as was the
practice, he would send in slight sketches to "legends," and work out
those which were accepted, the selection being made in due course, with
a bit of criticism to take the vanity out of him, thus: "_Very good
subject._ The man is far too big for the horse, which is a 15.3 if he's
an inch. This was generally Leech's mistake; so you err in remarkably
good company. Why 'Hunting Puzzle'? It's not a puzzle."
Apart from a couple of sketches by Mrs. Field and one by Mr. Graham, the
year 1872 brought no contributor but Randolph Caldecott. The
half-a-dozen sketches together comprising his "Seaside Drama" (p. 120,
Vol. LXI.) contains no hint of that peculiar style, individual humour,
and perfect suggestion, which he was to make his own. His drawings were
published in 1872, 1873, and 1875, and then again in 1879, 1880, 1882,
and 1883--eighteen drawings in all; but it was not until 1879 that
Caldecott showed any of his later freshness and humorous exaggeration.
It was in 1870, his biographer asserts, that his drawings were shown to
Shirley Brooks and Mark Lemon:--
"Mr. Clough thus records the incident: Bearing an introductory
letter, he went up to London on a flying visit, carrying with him a
sketch on wood and a small book of drawings of 'The Fancies of a
Wedding.' He was well received. The sketch was accepted, and with
many compliments the book of drawings was detained. 'From that day
to this,' said Mr. Caldecott, 'I have not seen either sketch or
book.' Some time after, on meeting Mark Lemon, the incident was
recalled, when the burly, jovial Editor replied, 'My dear fellow, I
am vagabondising to-day, not _Punching_.' I don't think Mr.
Caldecott rightly appreciated the joke."[66]
Caldecott had had some practice in humorous drawing, having drawn three
years before for the "Will-o'-the-Wisp" and "The Sphinx." But his
_Punch_ work was merely occasional; his more serious labours were for
the "Graphic," "The Pictorial World," and most notably, on Mr. Edmund
Evans's suggestion, for the immortal children's books which the engraver
might print in colours. He was only forty years old when he died, and
_Punch_, in the course of a long obituary poem, bore witness to his
singular charm, though he made no reference to the work contributed to
his own pages:--
"Sure never pencil steeped in mirth
So closely kept to grace and beauty.
The honest charms of mother Earth,
Of manly love, and simple duty,
Blend in his work with boyish health,
With amorous maiden's meek cajolery,
Child-witchery, and a wondrous wealth
Of dainty whim and daring drollery."
Perhaps the best military contributor of jokes that _Punch_ has had is
Major-General H. G. Robley. Keene, as I have already stated, re-drew or
touched up the earlier of his sketches, which dealt for the most part
with military life on foreign service. Twenty-seven contributions, many
of them unsigned and of varying degrees of importance, came from young
Captain Robley, as he was then, of the 91st (Argyle and Sutherland)
Highlanders. To Keene he was, as the artist confessed, "a very obliging
correspondent," who sketched well and sent him many suggestions. "You
see, a mess-table makes a very 'preserve' for _Punch_ subjects. I don't
follow his drawings very much, but they are very useful in military
subjects." Captain Robley contributed during the years 1873-8. Mr. W. J.
Hennessy, who has since established his position as a delicate and
accomplished draughtsman, made a couple of drawings of social subjects
in 1873, and two more in 1875, but they were by no means of the
excellence to which the artist afterwards attained.
No fresh contributor appears in 1874, the couple of sketches signed "C.
B." having been sent in twelve months before, and that of F. Woods
having been practically redrawn, although his initials were allowed to
stand; but 1875 witnessed the work of five new hands in the paper. The
first was Robert Bruce Wallace, whose style was modelled on that of C.
H. Bennett, and greatly inspired besides by Mr. Sambourne. The bulk of
his work was done from 1875 to 1878 inclusive, but in the latter year he
fell away, and his contributions became very rare. He died in 1893, and
one of his drawings made a posthumous appearance in 1894. He was a very
prolific contributor. Wallace gave up his _Punch_ connection--not, as
has been said, because the remuneration was insufficient, but because he
considered himself ill-treated. According to him, he had fully
understood that he was to succeed Miss Georgina Bowers, and with this
promotion in view, he had proceeded to Worcestershire from Manchester,
where he lived, and made preparatory studies of horse and hound and
landscape scenery. When, contrary to expectation, he found himself
passed by, he was grievously disappointed and annoyed, and refused to go
on with initials and so forth--which he drew with so much beauty and
conscientiousness. He was a secretary of the Manchester Academy of Fine
Arts, and had a considerable reputation as a wit at its councils; and
when Ford Madox Brown was engaged on his Manchester frescoes, Wallace
acted for some time as his assistant.
Then followed Colonel Ward Bennitt, late of the 5th Lancers, who drew
several initials and "socials;" but being at that time a lieutenant (in
the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons), he found that he had no time during the
day to draw for _Punch_, and that night work affected his eyesight. Mr.
J. Curren, with a couple of sketches, in 1875 and 1876; Mr. L. G.
Fawkes, of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with a single drawing in the
former year; and that clever young painter, Valentine Bromley, who died
so young after promising so well, with a single drawing, complete the
list; but there was nothing distinctive in the work of any save the
last.
[Illustration: M. BLATCHFORD.
(_From a Photograph by Warwick Brooks._)]
Mr. Montagu Blatchford, who adopted--not without success--the
Bennett-Sambourne-Wallace style of half-decorative, half-pictorial
representation, appeared towards the end of 1876; and although he was
supplanted a few years later by Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Wheeler, he
continued, even after 1881, to be seen fitfully in _Punch_. He was, by
profession, a carpet-designer, with unusual skill in freehand drawing;
and when in the spring of 1876 he no longer saw Mr. Sambourne's work in
the paper, he adopted the shrewd idea of sending in some sketches in
which that artist's style was respectfully imitated. But Tom Taylor was
shrewder still, and wrote: "Dear Sir,--Mr. Sambourne's absence is only
temporary. I have not, therefore, an opening for a designer to fill his
place, and return your drawings, which are very clever;" adding that he
would be glad to give the young applicant an opening if possible--a
chance which soon came, but which never meant very much for the artist.
He began with a comic umbrella-stand, and from that basis made scores of
small subjects, all, with but half-a-dozen exceptions, of his own
suggestion. Then, when Tom Taylor died he sent less and less--a little
sore that he should be pushed aside for younger men--and finally ceased
altogether, returning to Halifax in response to business calls. Then
followed W. J. Hodgson (who is not to be confounded with the draughtsman
of the same name and initials of nearly twenty years later), with four
cuts, during 1876 and the two next years; "Captain F.," with a couple;
Miss Fraser ("MF"), daughter of Colonel Fraser of the City Police, with
seven sketches; and Mr. Hallward, with a couple of initials.
[Illustration: E. J. WHEELER.
(_Drawn by Himself._)]
For four years no accession of importance was made, Mr. W. G. Smith,
with a single initial, and Mr. W. G. Holt, with three more ambitious
cuts, being all that 1878 had to show; while 1879 brought forth Mr.
Dower Wilson with a "social" in the Almanac, and a nameless F. B.
("Memorials"). In the following year Mr. Athelstan Rusden made his
maiden appearance as an illustrator with a Disraeli Elephant, which he
had drawn on the wood and sent in from Manchester; but "Moonshine"
offered the inducement of continuous occupation, and the young amateur
drifted away.
The year 1880 is memorable for the enlistment of Mr. Harry Furniss. Mr.
E. J. Wheeler was the other arrival, and he still (1895) spreads over
_Punch's_ pages his bright little theatrical sketches and initials, as
well as illustrations to Mr. Burnand's own literary contributions. His
drawings are unmistakable, as much by their rather old-fashioned method
as by the well-known monogram of later years, or by the appropriate
sign-manual of a "four-Wheeler" in his earlier contributions.
[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS.
(_From a Photograph by Debenham and Gould._)]
[Illustration: BISHOP PUNCH.
(_By Harry Furniss._)]
In Mr. Harry Furniss _Punch_ found an artist who was destined to become,
during the fourteen years of his connection, a considerable factor in
his career. Mr. Furniss was bred up in the _Punch_ tradition. While
still a boy at school in Ireland--where, through a mistake on Time's
part, he was born, of English and Scotch parents--he produced, edited,
and illustrated "The Schoolboys' Punch" in manuscript, in careful
imitation of the original, drawing the cartoon as well. One of these
"big cuts" represented himself as the performer in a cabinet-trick--(the
sensation of the Davenport Brothers was before the public at the
time)--in which the cabinet was the school, and the ropes that bound him
the curriculum; while from another cabinet he emerges in full blaze of
scholastic triumph. He soon began drawing, and engraving his own
designs, for Mr. A. M. Sullivan's Irish version of _Punch_; and having
met Tom Taylor--who then reigned in Whitefriars--and been by him
applauded for his sketches, he accepted the hint that he might send in
drawings to the original Hunchback of Fleet Street. But when they came,
Taylor declined them on the ground that the ideas were unsuitable; yet,
curiously enough, they several times appeared, re-drawn by members of
the Staff. One of these, re-drawn by Mr. du Maurier in February, 1877,
represented a scene witnessed by Mr. Furniss from the railway--a flooded
field navigated by two men in a boat, who are reading a notice-board
indicating that the submerged "highly-eligible site" was "To be Let or
Sold for Building." Mr. Furniss thereupon decided to have done with
_Punch_ during that editorship; and came to London to seek his artistic
fortune. He speedily made such way on leading journals, especially on
the "Illustrated London News," that Mr. Burnand, on succeeding to his
office, invited the young draughtsman, then aged twenty-six, to become a
regular contributor. Mr. Furniss's first sketch (published on p. 204,
Vol. LXXIX., 1880) was a skit on what is ignorantly called the Temple
Bar Griffin--(it is really an heraldic dragon, designed by Horace
Jones)--executed by his friend C. B. Birch, A.R.A.
At that time Mr. Henry W. Lucy had just been summoned to reinforce
_Punch's_ Staff, and to take over the "Essence of Parliament," since
Shirley Brooks's death so ponderously distilled by the late Tom Taylor,
and to him was left the selection of an illustrator of his "Toby's
Diaries." In selecting Mr. Furniss he made a wise choice, for the "Lika
Joko" of later times had been a close student of politics, and seemed
cut out for the post. How he justified himself is sufficiently known; he
achieved for himself a great popularity, and unquestionably acquired for
_Punch_ a unique position among journals, as representing to the people
that personal side of Parliamentary life, the familiar aspect and the
_vie intime_ of the House of Commons, not to be found elsewhere. No
doubt, here and there some offence was taken; and wives would at times
protest against the caricatures of husbands' figures, clothes, or faces;
but as a rule the "truthful falsehood" was appreciated by Mr. Furniss's
victims--many of whom would ask to be included in his pictures--and few
frequenters of the Lobby were more popular than he.
"Mr. Gladstone's collars" are a by-word in the land; and Mr. Furniss
made them. It is generally recognised that Mr. Gladstone wore no such
collars. Nevertheless, his favourite sitting attitude in the House was
one very low down, his chin buried in his chest; and the more tired or
depressed he was--the more weary or dejected at the course of the
debate--the more his head would sink within his collar, and the more the
linen rose. This fact gave Mr. Furniss the idea, in the course of a few
sessions, of his drawing of "Mr. Gladstone's Choler Getting Up;" and
thereon was based his popular fiction. Similarly, the representation of
Lord Randolph Churchill as a small boy of irrepressible "cheek" was at
first intended to typify the noble lord's irrepressible unimportance in
the Chamber (that was before he had risen from the Fourth Party
leadership to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer); while the creation
of the complacent, many-chinned descendant of the Plantagenets in "The
House of Harcourts"--a page imagined and drawn in greatest haste
straight on to the wood-block, to fill up--was received with uproarious
delight by the public as a true piece of satirical humour. But of all
his "types" the funniest, as well as the easiest, was the ungainly but
side-splitting caricature of Sir Richard Temple--which helped not a
little to spread his fame throughout the land. All these men took the
fun in the best of good part, Sir William Harcourt only protesting--not
when Harry Furniss endowed him with an extra chin, but when he did not
credit him with the full complement of hair.
[Illustration: A HURRIED NOTE.
(_By Harry Furniss._)]
To obtain his portraits Mr. Furniss would stalk his quarries unawares:
for self-consciousness in a sitter kills all character. A favourite ruse
was for him to tell Mr. A. that he wanted to sketch Mr. B., and that his
work would be greatly facilitated if the hon. member would keep the
other in conversation. Mr. A. would enter gleefully into the joke, and
then Harry Furniss would sketch _Mr. A!_ If need be, he would make his
sketch, unseen and unseeing, upon a piece of cardboard or in a
sketch-book, in the side-pocket of his overcoat. In this way detail,
mannerism, gesture, pose--character, in fact, would be secured, and next
week's _Punch_ might contain the portrait--sometimes severe, generally
humorous, and always well-observed. A rapid worker, too, is
Furniss--incomparably the quickest of his colleagues--who could produce
anything from a thumbnail sketch to a full-page drawing, portraits and
all, in an hour or so, although he would prefer, of course, to have fair
time to arrange his composition, to pencil it in, and then work it up
carefully from the living model. On the occasion when Lord Randolph
Churchill's hunting adventures in South Africa kept London amused, Mr.
Furniss, who was in the country and about to start for town by rail, saw
an account of the exploit in the morning paper. He wired to Mr. Burnand:
"See Churchill's lion-hunt, page -- 'Times.' Splendid opportunity.
Reply ---- Junction." At ten-thirty he found the answer awaiting him at
the junction: "Good. Let engravers have it to-day." He set to work at
once in the train. Having to change several times, he found the
junctions of great use for drawing in the faces; and by half-past four
the finished page was in Mr. Swain's possession.
[Illustration: TWO FRIENDS.
(_By Harry Furniss._)]
Indefatigable and unconventional, as much a journalist as an artist,
gifted with a rapid intelligence and a subacid humour, Mr. Furniss, in
his work on _Punch_, has been extremely varied, and by the strength of
his personality he imparted to the Parliamentary side of the paper a
touch of his own convictions. It was obvious from his treatment of the
Irish that he was a strong Unionist, and that his sympathy with the
Irish party was neither very deep nor very cordial. This was emphasised
by some of the best caricatures he ever produced. They were bitterly
resented; but probably more ill-feeling was created by the ludicrous
picture he subsequently drew of the patriots as they returned, sea-sick,
moist, and dejected, to Dublin from the "London Conference," entitled "A
Sketch at Kingstown." On the top of this came the irritation caused by
his laughable but merciless mimicry, in his famous entertainment of "The
Humours of Parliament," of the imaginary Member for Ballyhooly; but it
was the caricatures of Mr. Swift MacNeill, M.P., that brought matters to
a head. Mr. MacNeill had previously appreciated the sketches, and begged
certain of them. But at last, on the occasion of an exuberant and
unflattering, but still not an ill-humoured, portrait, supported by a
solid contingent of his Party, he sought the artist out and, reproaching
him in excited and unmeasured terms, he committed a "technical assault"
upon him. Mr. Furniss was not to be induced to retaliate, even when Dr.
Tanner, M.P., and others who surrounded him addressed him in words more
violent and offensive than Mr. MacNeill's, and threatened him with
corporal punishment. As it appeared to the draughtsman that it was all a
pre-arranged affair, he remained passive, lest a development of the
situation should lead--as it was probably intended that it should
lead--to his exclusion from the Lobby. _Punch_ himself, however, snapped
his fingers at this _argumentum baculinum_, and Mr. Furniss, with rare
good taste, revenged himself by a full-page drawing (21st September,
1893) of "A House of Apollo-ticians," in which every member has been
idealised to a point of extraordinary personal beauty, while the artist
himself appears in the corner as a malignant ape of hideous aspect. This
was balm, no doubt, to the gentleman who had been so incensed at being
"caricatured, now as a potato, now as a gorilla;" while the situation
was cleverly summed up thus:--
"O, Mr. MacNeill was quite happy until a
Draughtsman in _Punch_ made him like a gorilla--
At the Zoo the gorilla quite happy did feel
Till the draughtsman in _Punch_ made him like the MacNeill."
Meanwhile, several series of importance had come from his pencil. His
"Puzzle-heads" are marvels of ingenuity, in each of which a portrait of
a celebrity is built up of personal attributes, characteristics, or
incidents in the career of the person represented; his Lika Joko
"Japanneries" caught with amazing truth the spirit of Japanese
draughtsmanship--far more completely than either Bennett or Brunton ever
succeeded in achieving; and his "Interiors and Exteriors" reflect social
and public life with exuberant, almost with extravagant, humour.
But the end of his connection with _Punch_ was at hand. He had joined in
October, 1880. He had been called to the Table four years later, and on
the 21st February, 1894, he ate his last dinner at it, and resigned in
the following month. Meanwhile, like Charles Keene, he was never one of
the salaried Staff, but to the end was paid by the square inch. This
permitted him to do as much work as he chose for other papers; but it
made him feel, at the same time, that he was not flesh of their flesh,
while he suspected himself of getting into a cast-iron groove from which
he sought to free himself. So, after a minor "misunderstanding" had been
put right, Mr. Furniss quitted his old friend _Punch_, and forthwith set
about starting a monthly magazine of his own. This enterprise, in the
course of evolution, was considerably modified; and for a time the
weekly "Lika Joko" soon emerged into open rivalry with the paper which
for nearly fourteen years had made the name of Furniss as celebrated
throughout all English-speaking lands as that of any of his colleagues.
And such is the Passing of Furniss, whose extraordinary powers of
observation (he was the first, by the way, to detect and represent
truthfully Mr. Gladstone's loss of a digit) and of catching a likeness
in its essential lines, and whose unbounded and buoyant good-humour
early justified Mr. Burnand's selection. Though he so soon drifted into
Parliamentary sketching, there is no class of work, except the
officially-recognised political "cartoons," which he did not attempt;
and he romped through _Punch's_ pages with unlimited invention and
inexhaustible resource--with comedy and farce, with drama and tragedy,
and sometimes with work startling in its truth and touching in its
pathos.
[Illustration: "A HAPPY RELEASE."--A REJECTED SKETCH.
(_Drawn by C. J. Lillie._)]
* * * * *
The men who immediately followed Mr. Harry Furniss did not come to stay.
In December, 1880, a sketch of "Cherry Unripe"--a clever parody on Sir
John Millais' famous picture--was contributed by Mr. Stowers, who then
rested on his laurels. Mr. Finch Mason contributed three sporting cuts
in 1881, three in 1882, and one in the following year, and then Mr.
Charles J. Lillie appeared on the scene. Mr. Lillie's principal
victories have been won in the field of poster-designing, his favourite
achievement being the design of a young lady in bathing costume who,
being wrecked, succeeded by the aid of Somebody's Soap, with the
cleverness of her sex, in "washing herself ashore." At the time when Mr.
Herkomer was designing his famous poster for the "Magazine of Art," Mr.
Lillie submitted to _Punch_ a set of humorous sketches nominally adapted
to similar advertisements of wines. Thus, "Port: Old and Crusty," was of
course a typical Colonel Chutnee, a fire-eating Anglo-Indian; "Sherry:
Pale and Dry," was an ascetic philosopher; "Claret: Very Light and
Delicate," was a maiden dainty and graceful; and so forth. Some of
these were published in the early summer of 1881; but that of
"Champagne" (here reproduced) was not used. Shortly afterwards the
clever draughtsman sought work and adventure in Europe, Africa, and
America, and on his return devoted himself to story-writing, confining
his pencil to the illustration of his own articles. Like Mr. Sambourne
and others of Mr. Punch's artistic contributors, Mr. Lillie was trained
as an engineer.
As already recounted, a new idea was carried into effect in _Punch's_
Almanac for 1882: drawings were sought from certain members of the Royal
Academy who were supposed to be afflicted with the _vis comica_ in any
pronounced degree. Of these, only Mr. G. A. Storey made his début in
_Punch_ on this occasion; but his drawing of "Little Snowdrop"--a fancy
character-portrait of a Dutch lady--pretty as it was, displayed but a
very mild sort of humour. In the following February Mr. Alfred Bryan
began his series of "Sketches by Boz," in which public men of the day
were caricatured as personages in Dickens' novels. Thus, the Duke of
Cambridge was most happily identified with "Joe Bagstock, Sir!", Sir
John Holker was the Fat Boy, and Mr. Bradlaugh appeared as Rogue
Riderhood "taking his Davy." These clever sketches, to the number of
twenty-seven, were spread over that year and the next, when, to the
regret of both Editor and artist, the connection was unavoidably
severed.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] Mr. Sambourne's cartoons are dealt with in the chapter devoted to
that subject.
[65] It may be as well to give here the names of the diners, so that the
reader may identify them in the reproduction which forms the
frontispiece to this volume. Mr. Burnand, at the head of the table, with
his left hand outstretched towards the figure of _Punch_, is giving the
toast of the evening; on his left is Mr. Anstey, and then Mr. Lucy and
Mr. E. T. Reed, the late Gilbert à Beckett and Mr. Milliken, Sir W.
Agnew, the late Mr. W. H. Bradbury, Mr. du Maurier, Mr. Furniss and Mr.
R. C. Lehmann, Mr. Arthur à Beckett, Mr. Sambourne, and Sir John
Tenniel. The portraits and busts along the wall are (from left to right)
of Mark Lemon, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, with, under it, Douglas
Jerrold, Thackeray, Doyle, Hood, Leech, Shirley Brooks, and Tom Taylor.
On the easel is a portrait of Charles Keene, then recently dead.
[66] This is all very well; but as the alleged visit took place in 1870,
the year in which Caldecott came up to London, and as Mark Lemon died on
the 23rd of May in that year, and that not suddenly, the story is hardly
above suspicion.