The History of "Punch" Part 24

His first paper was "Herr Dobler and the Candle Counter." The popular conjurer had advertised that to begin his performance and illumine his stage he would light two hundred candles by a single pistol-shot. (This was in the very early days of practical electricity.) The "Times" had reported the entertainment, but complained that, having counted the number of candles, they found there were only eighty-seven!--whereupon Oxenford executed a literary dance upon the "Times" reporter.

Thenceforward, he contributed with some degree of regularity. After his "Christmas Game" (January 6th, 1844) he was, on the 3rd of the following year, accounted upon the regular Staff, although from that time he did but little. Verse, clever and bright, burlesque, and the like, in the true spirit of _Punch_, came from time to time; but there was not enough of his work to place him in rank with the chief of the contributors.

"There is one," Mr. Jabez Hogg reminds me, "whose name is rarely mentioned in connection with the early days of _Punch_ and the 'Ill.u.s.trated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good work in his day, and his contributions to _Punch_ a.s.sisted greatly to increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN OXENFORD.

(_From a Photograph by Fradelle and Young._)]

The same number that introduced John Oxenford to the _Punch_ reader presented also William Makepeace Thackeray--a connection that did not immediately attract public notice, perhaps, though it soon bore the richest fruit for both author and publisher.

It was about seven years after the first abortive attempt to found a "London Charivari" that Thackeray--who had been one of the band--commenced that connection with _Punch_ which was to be of equal advantage both to him and the paper. "It was a good day for himself, the journal, and the world," said s.h.i.+rley Brooks, "when Thackeray found _Punch_. At first," continues his biographer, "I should gather that he had doubts as to the advisability of joining in the new and, so far, not very promising venture;" and on the 22nd of May, 1842, we find Fitzgerald uttering a warning note, and writing to a common friend: "Tell Thackeray not to go to _Punch_ yet." But his friend paid little heed to the counsel, for within a month appeared what I am satisfied is Thackeray's first contribution to _Punch_--"The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee" (p. 254, first volume for 1842) with a sketch undoubtedly by his hand; and at the beginning of the very next volume, a fortnight later, was begun the series ent.i.tled "Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History." These, continued for a time, made no sort of hit, and in due course they were discontinued; but there seems to have been in them, and especially in the sketches, the germ of the idea, so perfectly worked out a little later by Gilbert a Beckett and Leech--though not for _Punch_: "The Comic History of England" and "The Comic History of Rome."

When Thackeray joined the _Punch_ circle--or, rather, when he first wrote for it, for he was not on the Staff for some little time--he entered, with the credentials of "Fraser" and the "Irish Sketch Book,"

into a company of which several members were already his friends, who, knowing him as a humorist with both pen and pencil, were glad to secure so useful a man as contributor. "Very early in the work," writes Landells in his private papers, which lie before me, "Mr. Mayhew was desirous to secure his co-operation, and it was rather singular that the first paper which the great man contributed to _Punch_ was rejected as unsuitable."

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. M. THACKERAY.

(_From a Private Photograph._)]

This was hardly correct: it would be more accurate to say that the first extended series was suddenly cut short. The circ.u.mstances of the extinction of Miss Tickletoby are shown in the following letter by Thackeray, which has been placed at my disposal by Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew:--

Halverstown, Kildare, Sept. 27, 1842.

GENTLEMEN,

Your letter, containing an enclosure of 25, has been forwarded to me, and I am obliged to you for the remittance. Mr. Lemon has previously written to me to explain the delay, and I had also received a letter from Mr. Landells, who told me, what I was sorry to learn, that you were dissatisfied with my contributions to "Punch." I wish that my writings had the good fortune to please everyone; but all I can do, however, is to do my best, which has been done in this case, just as much as if I had been writing for any more dignified periodical.

But I have no wish to continue the original agreement made between us, as it is dissatisfactory to you and, possibly, injurious to your work; and shall gladly cease Mrs. [_sic_] Tickletoby's Lectures, hoping that you will be able to supply her place with some more amusing and lively correspondent.

I shall pa.s.s the winter either in Paris or in London where, very probably, I may find some other matter more suitable to the paper, in which case I shall make another attempt upon "Punch."--Meanwhile, gentlemen, I remain, your very obedient Servant,

W. M. THACKERAY.

Gradually, however, and by sure degrees, Thackeray fell into the spirit of the paper, and became known to the general public first as a "_Punch_ man," and then as "_the Punch_ man," and for some time recognised by that, rather than by his work in other directions. He became more and more highly appreciated as one of those who contributed to that speciality of humour for which _Punch_ had already established a reputation while creating a demand. All the while, during the first ten years, he regarded the paper as a sort of stepping-stone to an independent literary position; and he was not very long in using his opportunity for making a reputation equal to that of Jerrold himself--but a literary, and in no sense a political one. Jerrold, whose influence was political quite as much as literary and dramatic, undoubtedly did a good deal of unconscious service in spurring Thackeray with the spirit of emulation. It has already been pointed out how little love was lost between the two men at the weekly Dinner, and how Jerrold sped his galling little shafts of clever personalities at Carlyle's "half-monstrous Cornish giant;" how, in short, they were, and remained to the end, the friendliest and most amiable of enemies.

Vizetelly has recorded how Thackeray would tear the postal-wrapper nervously from the newly-delivered _Punch_ in order to "see what Master Douglas has to say this week"--(there is a world of dislike and scorn in that courtesy-t.i.tle of "Master")--and how, when he gave a lunch in honour of the French humorous draughtsman "Cham," he invited "Big"

Higgins, Tom Taylor, Richard Doyle, and Leech, all _Punch_ men, to meet him, but neither Mark Lemon nor Jerrold, for "Young Douglas, if asked, would most likely not come; but if he did, he'd take especial care that his own effulgence should obscure all lesser lights." It was not Arcedeckne, I am a.s.sured by Mr. Cuthbert Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede's"

son), but Jerrold, who, in Mark Lemon's hearing, crus.h.i.+ngly criticised Thackeray's first public reading to the lecturer's face, with the laconic remark, "Wants a piano!" Thackeray, as we all know, was free enough himself in his criticisms of his own features, and his many sketches of his dear old broken nose are familiar enough to every lover of the man. Yet he was not best pleased when he entered the _Punch_ dining-room a little late, apologising for his unpunctuality through having been detained at a christening, at which he had stood sponsor to his friend's boy, to be met with Jerrold's pungent exclamation--"Good Lord, Thackeray! I hope you didn't present the child with your own mug!"

And still less was he flattered when he heard that, on its being reported in the _Punch_ office that he was "turning Roman," simply because he defended Doyle's secession, Jerrold tartly remarked that "he'd best begin with his nose." (Jerrold, by the way, uses the same conceit in a letter to Sir Charles Dilke when repeating a rumour of the attempted conversion of the novelist by "Lady ----.") These and many more sardonic thrusts would amply account for Thackeray's dislike; yet that the men's relations were not half so disagreeable as has generally been believed is shown by the fact of Thackeray coming up specially to town from his lecturing tour in order to support Jerrold on the night of his election at the Reform Club, and delightedly exclaiming, when the result was known--"We've got the little man in!" Nor would he, perhaps, have shown himself and Jerrold, in the accompanying cut, listening in fraternal shame-facedness and disgust to a fellow-pa.s.senger declaiming against the wickedness and profanity of _Punch_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAITS OF THACKERAY AND JERROLD.

(_Drawn by W. M. Thackeray._)

AUTHOR'S MISERIES, NO. VI.

Old gentleman. Miss Wiggets. Two authors.

_Old gentleman:_ "I am sorry to see you occupied, my dear Miss Wiggets, with that trivial paper _Punch_. A railway is not a place, in my opinion, for jokes. I never joke--never."

_Miss W.:_ "So I should think, sir."

_Old gentleman:_ "And, besides, are you aware who are the conductors of that paper, and that they are Chartists, Deists, Atheists, Anarchists, and Socialists, to a man? I have it from the best authority that they meet together once a week in a tavern in St. Giles's, where they concoct their infamous print. The chief part of their income is derived from threatening letters which they send to the n.o.bility and gentry. The princ.i.p.al writer is a returned convict. Two have been tried at the Old Bailey; and their artist--as for their artist...."

_Guard:_ "Swin-dun! Sta-tion!" (_Punch_, p. 198, Vol. XV., 1848.)]

From the beginning, one of Thackeray's strong points on the Staff was that he was a "pen-and-pencil man," that he worked indifferently as artist or as writer, and not only as a writer, but as a prose-and-poem man. It has been said, with authority, that Thackeray never ill.u.s.trated any articles but his own; but that is wholly incorrect. If you open Volume VIII., at p. 266, you will find a drawing of his showing Jack Tar and his Poll waltzing an accompaniment to an article on the "Debate on the Navy," which was written by Gilbert a Beckett. To the same writer's chapter on "The Footman," in his series of "_Punch's_ Guide to Servants"

(p. 40, Volume IX.), is a characteristic ill.u.s.tration by Thackeray, and again on the following page to "The Gomersal Museum." A little farther on, on p. 56, is a clever cut of a lovers' _tete-a-tete_ beside a tea-table, to accompany Percival Leigh's ballad of "The Lowly Bard to his Lady Love;" and many similar results will reward a more extended search.

Thackeray's own opinion of his powers as a draughtsman is not easy to determine. We know, of course, from his own lips, his (? affected) surprise at d.i.c.kens not finding his art good enough to ill.u.s.trate "Pickwick" _vice_ Seymour, deceased. But in the interval between this application in 1836 and his later work he probably came to a more critical estimate of the real value of his draughtsmans.h.i.+p--that work which had been so laboriously and earnestly evolved from his studies in the Louvre and elsewhere. When Vizetelly was engraving Thackeray's designs to "Mrs. Perkin's Ball," which on account of their unsophisticated artistic character, were re-touched by a clever young draughtsman, the artist wrote that there was a "je ne sais quoi" in his "vile drawing" which was worth retaining. "Somehow," he said, "I prefer my Nuremberg dolls to Mr. Thwaites's superfine wax models." After Edmund Yates had started that brilliant little journal or magazine, which was not destined, however, to live as long as it deserved, Thackeray wrote to him: "You have a new artist on 'The Train,' I see, my dear Yates. I have been looking at his work, and I have solved a problem. I find there _is_ a man alive who draws worse than myself!" Yet he continued to draw for _Punch_ with zeal; but when an acquaintance told him, probably in all sincerity, "but you _can_ draw," Thackeray brusquely put down the compliment to the toadyism of a "sn.o.b." Trollope declares that Thackeray "never learned to draw--perhaps, never could have learned;" but he did not see that in the art of ill.u.s.tration, especially of a humorous character, there is something more important than academic correctness and technical mastery. He moved his pencil slowly, with a deliberate broad touch, without haste, and with no more attempt at refinement than was natural to him. Yet his hand was capable of astonis.h.i.+ng delicacy of touch; and I have seen the Lord's Prayer written by him one day at the _Punch_ Table, within the s.p.a.ce of a threepenny-piece, which is a marvel of legibility. There is a character about Thackeray's work--his "je ne sais quoi"--that makes us forgive him his glaring faults--indeed, we almost come to love him for them--when once we have frankly recognised that it was in great measure his facility in drawing that was his artistic ruin. There is always something of the caricaturist in his most serious and important sketches--most of all, perhaps, in his etchings.

It is in his smallest cuts that he is seen to the best advantage, and in them he occasionally challenges comparison with Doyle and Leech himself.

In the execution of his _Punch_ sketches, in nearly all the three hundred and eighty of them, Thackeray was as summary as in the turning of a ballad, and I describe elsewhere how he would make a drawing on the wood while the engraver waited and chatted over a cigar. It was clearly not his opinion that, as is nowadays adjudged to be the proper course, elaborate studies should first be made from the life-model, even for the execution of a simple _Punch_ picture. He preferred, when possible, to confine his pencil to the ill.u.s.tration of his own text; but on occasion he would produce a "social" cut--a drawing, that is to say, with a joke printed beneath. Sometimes it would be in the manner of Leech, as in the joke in Volume IX. (p. 3) called "The Ascot Cup Day,"

wherein a hot-potato-seller asks a small boy with a broom, "Why are you on the crossing, James? Is your father Hill?" and is informed "No. He's drove mother down to Hascot." More personal was such work as "The Stags, a Drama of To-day," in which a retired thimblerigger and an unfortunate costermonger, under a magnificent alias, take advantage of the railway mania to make their application for shares--for which they could not pay, of course, if things went wrong--in accordance with the game of "heads I win, tails I vanish," at that time extensively played throughout the country. Later on (in Volume XV.), following "The Heavies," he gave, in seven scenes, a panorama of an "Author's Miseries." In 1847 (Volume XII., p. 59) Thackeray contributed a "social"

picture which is to this day a wonder to all beholders. It is ent.i.tled "Horrid Tragedy in Private Life," and represents a room in which two ladies, or a lady and a servant, are in a state of the greatest alarm.

What the meaning of it all is there is nothing whatever to indicate (unless it be that something has fallen on the taller lady's dress); and on its appearance the "Man in the Moon" offered a reward of 500 and a free pardon to anyone who would publish an explanation. The reward was never claimed; and Thackeray's contribution remains one of _Punch's_ Prize Puzzles, unsolved, and, apparently, unsolvable.

It was in No. 137--that notable part which contained "The Song of the s.h.i.+rt"--that Thackeray appeared in his own right, as belonging not only to the Staff, but to the Table. The contribution was a "Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain;" and with it Thackeray took his place at the Dinner as an excellent subst.i.tute for Albert Smith. That writer, who had found his successor "a very jolly fellow with no High Art about him,"

and a charming companion at "the Cider Cellars," a month later disappeared for ever from _Punch_ as a contributor, refiguring only in its pages from time to time as an object of attack.

Thackeray's work on _Punch_ covered every corner of _Punch's_ field.

Burlesques of history and parodies of literature, ballads and songs, stories and jokes, papers and paragraphs, pleasantry and pathos, criticisms and conundrums, travels in the East and raillery in the West, political skits and social satire--from a column to a single line--such was the sum of Thackeray's contribution to _Punch_. Less prolific than either Jerrold or Gilbert a Beckett, he produced, nevertheless, an enormous amount of "copy" that was always readable, even when it was not his best. He wrote from Paris to his friend, Mrs.

Brookfield (September 2nd, 1849): "I won't give you an historical disquisition in the t.i.tmarsh manner upon this, but reserve it for _Punch_--for whom, on Thursday [I have written] an article that I think is quite unexampled for dulness, even in that Journal, and that beats the dullest Jerrold. What a jaunty, offhand, satiric rogue I am, to be sure--and a gay young dog!" But he did not think his work half so uninteresting as he pretended; he even regarded with satisfaction that which he produced when greatly out of the vein. "It is but a hasty letter I send you, my dear lady," he wrote to the same correspondent, in 1850, "but my hand is weary with writing 'Pendennis'--and my head boiling up with some nonsense that I must do after dinner for _Punch_.

Isn't it strange that, in the midst of all the selfishness, that of doing one's business is the strongest of all. What funny songs I've written when fit to hang myself!"

His first contributions to _Punch_, after those already mentioned, were "Mr. Spec's Remonstrance," Volume IV., p. 70 (omitting "a.s.sumption of Aristocracy," which has. .h.i.therto been credited to him, but was really sent in by Gilbert a Beckett), "Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain," with the three amusing cuts of sailors who, having found a bottle at sea, speculate as to its contents as they open it--"Sherry, perhaps," "Rum, I hope!" "_Tracts, by Jove!!_" Then, to select the chief and longest series, came "The History of the Next French Revolution," in nine parts (Volume VI.), contributions which were leavened by pleasant attacks levelled at Lytton, and at "Jenkins" of the "Morning Post." Then followed, in Volumes VII. and VIII., "Travelling Notes, by our Fat Contributor" (for Thackeray loved to call himself so, or "Our Stout Commissioner," or "t.i.tmarsh," "Policeman X," "Jeames," "Paul Pindar,"

or other whimsical pseudonym), and "Punch in the East"--the record of a journey undertaken by Thackeray at the invitation of the P. and O.

Company, who offered him a free pa.s.sage to Egypt.

At this time the railway mania was at its height, and Thackeray took his share in _Punch_ in stemming the fatal tide, so far as ridicule could be used to do so. One of his first papers on the subject was the "Letter from Jeames, of Buckly Square," signed by "Fitz-Jeames de la Pluche"--the famous Jeames who, first created by Thackeray in the pages of "The Britannia" in 1841, under the t.i.tle of "Mr. Yellowplush, my lord's body-servant," began in the same Vol. IX. (1845) his immortal "Diary." One of the successes of this epistle was what, to Thackeray's delight, was seriously complained of as the "deplorable" inaccurate orthography of the illiterate flunkey. Thackeray was certainly not the first to use the device, but he was the first to achieve great success with it, and Arthur Sketchley, Artemus Ward, Mr. Deputy Bedford ("Robert"), and all the American humorists who have adopted the same idea, are but followers where the great t.i.tmarsh led. Jeames's weakness became a strength in Thackeray's hands, and at one time was turned with effect upon Sir Isaac Pitman's "Spelling Reform," which was then a novel b.u.t.t for the satirist. The incident has been thus gravely recorded in the pages of the "Phonetic Journal":--

"Ten years ago Mr. Punch had meni a meri kakinashon at the ekspens ov Mr. Pitman and the 'Phonetic News,' which he leiked tu kall the 'Fanatic Nuz.' Here is wun of his sneerz:--'Voltaire sed ov the Inglish that they save two ourz a day bei kontrakting all their wurdz. The "Fonetic Nuz" woz not then in eksistens. If we save two ourz,' kontiniuz the kaustik pupet, 'in the dayz ov Voltaire, we must save siks ourz at least nou that we hav our improved plan ov speling, az originali invented bei Winifred Jenkins, and karid to its greatest heit bei Jeames, with the a.s.sistans ov Yellowplush and Pitman.' But _Punch_, who, leik the 'Thunderer,' never goez agenst publik opinion, sneerz no longer at the Speling Reform moovment, and sensibel men, who ar not fonetik men at all, admit at last that our prezent sistem ov orthografi is bei no meanz perfekt."

There is little wonder that Thackeray seized on the comic side of this movement, for whimsical spelling always delighted him. On one occasion, indeed, he was so proud of an uncompromising cold that had "sat down" in his head that he wrote to a friend in these terms:--"Br. Lettsob (attache to the Egglish Legatiob at Was.h.i.+gtol) has beel kild elough to probise to dile with be ol _Bulday lext_ at 6 o'clock--if you would joil hib aid take a portiol of _a plail joilt ald a puddl_, it wd. give great pleasure."

"The Sn.o.bs of England" began in the tenth volume, and continued through fifty-one numbers well into the twelfth. The effect of these papers was remarkable; the sensation they caused was profound. It may be compared to that of Jerrold's "Caudle Lectures," save that they appealed to a more cultivated and less demonstrative cla.s.s, and were appreciated in proportion to their superior merits. The circulation of _Punch_ rose surprisingly under their benign influence, and Thackeray did not leave the subject until he had handled it from every point of view and even carried it abroad. He was, naturally, not a little proud of his first great success, and in his unaffected manner was tempted to speak about it in Society--where more than in any other quarter the papers were appreciated. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Gordon Hake's memoirs, Thackeray broached the subject to George Borrow. He had been trying to make conversation with that strangely crotchety man, but had completely failed. So, being somewhat embarra.s.sed, he asked him abruptly, "Have you read my 'Sn.o.b Papers' in _Punch_?" Borrow seemed to thaw. "In _Punch_,"

he repeated sweetly. "It is a periodical I never look at." This was as bad as the Oxford University magnate when Thackeray called upon him in 1857 in reference to his lecturing-tour and mentioned his connection with _Punch_, the fame of which was great in the land, as a sort of certificate of character--"_Punch_--_Punch_?" repeated the ignorant scholar, "is that not a ribald publication?" Thackeray, I may add, in order to impart local colour to his chapters on the Club Sn.o.b, with characteristic shrewdness obtained an introduction from Mr. Hampton, the secretary of the Conservative Club, to the Secretaries of the Reform and the Athenaeum, and begged their permission to inspect their complaint-books--a fact which has not before been recorded; and from them he gained such an insight into the failings of the sn.o.bbish clubman, that that portion of the work is unsurpa.s.sed for its truth to life. It is generally understood that he took Mr. Stephen Price, of the Garrick Club, as the model for Captain Shandy, and that his type of the sporting sn.o.b was Mr. Wyndham Smith.

There is not much doubt that Thackeray was a little--if ever so little--of a sn.o.b himself, and Jerrold's suspicion of him was to that extent justified. He did not show it so much by going into Society, for, as he said to a friend, "If I don't go out and mingle in Society, I can't write"--just as Mr. du Maurier goes out in order to study his world, and as Leech rode to hounds for the sake of his health and work.

But Thackeray, who was the writer of some of the most caustic articles on "Jenkins"--(under which name _Punch_ habitually attacked the "Morning Post," the aristocratic airs of which were to him a perpetual provocation)--seemed to take a little more interest in Society than mere curiosity or policy required; and was once thrown heavily in an encounter with the "Post's" reporter. Henry Vizetelly retells the story well in his "Looking Back through Seventy Years":--

A favourite b.u.t.t for Hannay's savage satire was Rumsey Forster--the Jenkins of the "Morning," or, as Hannay dubbed it, the "Fawning Post"--who had supplanted the _ci-devant_ mids.h.i.+pman in the affections of some pretty barmaid at a London tavern which they both frequented. Forster was most energetic in his particular calling, and is said on one occasion to have obtained admission in the interests of the "Morning Post" to a Waterloo banquet at Apsley House, by getting himself up as one of the extra servants out of livery, called in to a.s.sist on these occasions. He was highly indignant with Thackeray for the way in which he persistently ridiculed him in _Punch_ under the cognomen of Jenkins; and I remember, after the author of "Vanity Fair" had become a celebrity, and began to be invited by other wearers of purple and fine linen, besides Lord Carlisle, to their aristocratic _soirees_, being highly amused by Forster telling me how he had taken his revenge.

"You should know, sir," he said solemnly, "that at Stafford House, Lady Palmerston's, and the other swell places, a little table is set for me just outside the drawing-room doors, where I take down the names of the company as these are announced by the attendant footmen. Well, Mr. Thackeray was at the Marquis of Lansdowne's the other evening, and his name was called out, as is customary; nevertheless, I took very good care that it should not appear in the list of the company at Lansdowne House, given in the 'Post.' A night or two afterwards I was at Lord John Russell's, and Mr.

Thackeray's name was again announced, and again I designedly neglected to write it down; whereupon the author of 'The Sn.o.bs of England,' of all persons in the world [it must be candidly confessed that Thackeray was himself a bit of a tuft-hunter], bowed, and bending over me, said: 'Mr. Thackeray;' to which I replied: 'Yes, sir, I am quite aware;' nevertheless, the great Mr.

Thackeray's name did not appear in the 'Post' the following morning."

In another version of the same story it is recorded that when Thackeray p.r.o.nounced his name to Rumsey Forster, the latter dramatically retorted, "And I, sir, am Mr. Jenkins"--an account far more artistic, if somewhat less faithful.

After the "Sn.o.bs" were finished and the evergreen "Mahogany Tree," in Volume XII., "_Punch's_ Prize Novelists" were begun in April, 1847. In their way these parodies have never been excelled, and the fourth of the series--"Phil Fogarty," by "Harry Rollicker"--was so excellent a burlesque that Charles Lever, on reading this story of the hero of "the fighting onety-oneth," good-humouredly declared that he "might as well shut up shop;" and he actually did change, thenceforward, the manner of his books. These "Prize Novels" continued into the following volume, in which "Travels in London" were begun. These ran into Volume XIV., 1848, in which year their author received from Edinburgh a testimonial from eighty of his Scottish admirers. This took the shape of a silver inkstand in the form of Mr. Punch's person, and greatly resembled that which a similar subscription had already procured for Mark Lemon. It drew from Thackeray a charming letter in acknowledgment. Then followed "A Dinner at Timmins's" (Volumes XIV.-XV.) and "Bow Street Ballads"

(Volume XV.), 1848, "Mr. Brown's Letters to a Man about Town" (Volume XVI.), and "Mr. Brown's Letters to his Son" (Volume XVII.), 1849; "The Proser" (Volumes XVIII.-XIX.), 1850, and "Important from the Seat of War" (Volumes XXVI.-XXVII.), 1854. These papers, with the exception of "Mr. Punch to an Eminent Personage" (Volume XXVII., p. 110) and "A Second Letter to an Eminent Personage" (Volume XXVII., p. 113), were the last Thackeray ever wrote for _Punch_. The statement of his biographers that in the year 1850, "If we except one later flicker in 1854, Thackeray's long connection with _Punch_ died out," is totally incorrect, for in 1851 there are forty-one literary items and a dozen cuts to his credit. But from that time until 1854 he only contributed "The Organ Boy's Appeal" (Volume XXV., p. 144), and thenceforward we hear no more of "Policeman X," of Maloney and his Irish humour, of the Frenchman on whom, in spite of himself, he was always so severe, no more of Jeames, Jenkins, or the rest of the puppets who lived for us under his manipulation.[40]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INKSTAND PRESENTED TO THACKERAY BY HIS EDINBURGH ADMIRERS.]