Forty Years Of Spy Part 9

"Hullo, Pellegrini! You've got a rival."

"Oh, that boy," replied the caricaturist, "I taught 'im all 'e know!"

This was news indeed to me, for as well as owing my education in drawing to the Academy Schools, I had caricatured from my earliest childhood. At the time I treated the a.s.sertion as a joke; but in later life, when the fiction was believed by journalists and set forth in print, I rather regretted my former indifference.

An episode occurred shortly after the publication of my caricature of the late Lord Alington, showing how easily such misunderstandings might gain credence. A friend of mine met me one day. "My dear fellow," he began, "there's a capital caricature in Sotheran's that you could study with advantage--you should go and have a look at it.

You may get a few tips from it." I stared a moment to make sure that he was not pulling my leg, then I understood. "My dear old fool," I said. "Go and have another look and at the signature to it--that particular drawing is mine."

Pellegrini was quite as individual in his outward appearance as he was by temperament. In person he was little and stout, and extremely fastidious. He always wore white spats, and their whiteness was ever immaculate, for he rode everywhere, a fact which probably accounted for his bad health in later years. His boots, too, were the acme of perfection, and his nails were as long and pointed as those of a Mandarin. He used to tell the story of his arrival in London, without the proverbial penny, and how he wandered about the streets unable to find a night's lodging, until, growing weary and desperate, he slept in a cab. There were other stories of how he fought with Garibaldi, having a charmed life while the bullets whistled past him, or of his destined career of diplomacy, and of his Medici descent. One of the most amusing characteristics of Pellegrini was the way in which he related an anecdote. His expressive eyes, which always seemed to be observing everything, would commence to flash before the words came; and his English, which was ever poor, stumbled and tripped, for although he was rather too quick to recollect slang terms, his grammar remained appalling, but delightfully nave. As the story progressed his eyes would roll and flash, and, working himself up into a frenzy as Neapolitans do, he would become extremely excited, until when the crisis came, the point of the story burst upon the listeners' ears with a bomb-like suddenness. His own description of how he would treat his enemy was inimitable. First he created his subject, and then imagined him lying in terrible agony and poverty by the wayside, and dying of thirst.

"I go up to 'im and I say, 'You thirsty?' and 'e say 'e die ... 'Ah!'

I reply, 'I go and fetch you some water.... I take it and 'old it to 'is lips ... then ... when 'is lips close on the brim ..." (here Carlo's eyes would flash and distend)" ... I take the cup away and 'e fall back and die!"

In reality, in spite of his melodramatic description, I expect Pellegrini would have been the first to help the sufferer, for he had a tender heart and the kindest of dispositions.

Our meeting at the Lawsons' was the beginning of a lasting friends.h.i.+p.

I became fond of "Pelican," as his friends called him, and always found his company refres.h.i.+ng. There are innumerable stories to tell of him, some hardly polite, but none the less entertaining. I think his quaint English added to the humour of his narrative, his nave self-glorification and childish conceit added not a little to the entertainment of his hearers.

A friend once said to him, "Pelican, I noticed in the picture of D---- (a Colonel in the Blues) that 'Spy' has left out the spurs!"

"Ah," replied Carlo, smiting his chest with a blow of conscious pride, "_I_ never make mistake in the _closes_."

As a matter of fact, D---- had stood in a position in which his spurs were concealed.

I scored off Pellegrini on another occasion, much to his amus.e.m.e.nt.

Weldon, "Norroy King at Arms," invited us to dine with him to meet Sandys the artist, who did not turn up. Pellegrini, who had a habit of sleeping after meals, partook of the excellent dinner, and then, taking a cigar and the most comfortable armchair, sank into a profound slumber, punctuated by violent snores. Weldon and I after attempting conversation, exchanged looks rather glumly across his sleeping body, when Weldon had an inspiration.

"I say, Ward," he exclaimed, "here's an opportunity, we may as well do something to amuse ourselves--do take a pencil and draw him!"

So I drew the caricaturist, who, waking presently from his slumbers, was immensely tickled by my sketch, and wrote across the corner "approved by C. P." The drawing now hangs in the Beefsteak Club.

Another episode _ propos_ of Carlo's slumbers occurred in there.

I must mention first of all an extraordinary accomplishment of Pellegrini's, which I do not remember ever having noticed in any other man--the habit of retaining a cigar in his mouth while he slept and snored. One day as he slept by the fire I watched him drawing in his breath and letting it go in his usual queer fas.h.i.+on ... when the cigar fell out of his mouth! Feeling that a subst.i.tute was needed, I, in a spirit of curiosity, replaced it by a cork; the indrawing and expanding continued as before; then he snored--- once--twice--thrice; and suddenly the cork shot out, and, making a noise like a pop-gun, flew with considerable force into the fire. Pleased with my experiment, I rescued it, but it was rather too burnt to replace. Then an irresistible piece of devilry made me dab the tip of his nose with it. Stirring in his sleep, he brushed his face with his hand with the action of one who brushes away a fly. I made another little dab in a carefully chosen spot, with the same result. The men sitting at the other end of the room began to giggle, and the caricaturist in burnt cork began to grow interesting. Presently Carlo awoke, stretched, and giving his face a final rub, stood up, accompanied by a roar of laughter. Going to the nearest gla.s.s, Pellegrini saw his comic reflection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PELLEGRINI ASLEEP.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A looker-on at Wimbledon Common during a Volunteer Review, 1867_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Ballet Dancer, Manchester Theatre. ("The Ballet of Hens"), 1871_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PELLEGRINI "APE." _"My fellow, what I care! I say to 'im, 'you go to----'_]

"Oh!" he said, dramatically, "I do not accept apologize--you no longer remain member 'ere!--write to the Committee--most unclubbable that--you wait ... we shall see!"

I tried to pacify him, but he waved me aside. The next morning he wrote me the following letter:--

Studio, 53, Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square.

DEAR LESLIE,

Forgive me if I took the joke of last evening too much _au srieux_.

Ever yours, PELLEGRINI.

During my first years on _Vanity Fair_ (or thereabouts) Pellegrini was engaged in making an excellent series of caricatures of the members of the Marlborough Club, in which the Prince of Wales was much interested. His Royal Highness enjoyed Pellegrini's genius and his company. The drawings were reproduced in the most costly manner, and the collection was still unfinished when, owing to a disagreement, Pellegrini refused to complete them.

The famous caricaturist numbered some eminent men amongst his friends.

Paolo Tosti and the late Chevalier Martino (Marine Painter in Ordinary to the King) I remember especially. In the early days Pellegrini was constantly to be seen at Pagani's, where there gradually gathered a coterie of well-known Italians and Englishmen. In this way the restaurant became the _rendezvous_ of interesting people, and Pagani's undoubtedly owed its fame to Pellegrini.

In later years, illness barred him from many pleasant places, and kept him a prisoner in nursing homes. He suffered from a variety of ailments, and not the least amongst them was lumbago.

I was at the Fielding Club one evening when "Pelican" came crawling in, looking white and ill; blue circles round his eyes accentuated his look of misery.

"Come along, Pelican," I said, thinking to cheer him, for we frequently played together, "come and play billiards."

"Ah!" he groaned, his hand on his back. "I cannot play billiard to-night, my boy, I 'ave lumbago!"

Later the hospital claimed him, and it was sad to visit an old friend whose sufferings were acute, in such changed surroundings at Fitzroy Square.

The King of Italy decorated him, and when I came with my congratulations, he said, "Oh! Don't! It come too late!"

There is yet another memory of him in brighter circ.u.mstances which comes to me quite clearly across the years. One of my sisters was staying at my studio in William Street, when the Neapolitan came in full of his quaint humour. Looking at her gallantly, he smiled, and said, with a soft sigh and with such child-like admiration as to be irresistibly comical, "Oh, those beautiful cat's-eye!"

I remember the day was glorious and the season at its height. We were going out, when he said, "I _must_ carry your sunshade." This was only an excuse for foolery, for he took it and, walking with it, a.s.sumed a mincing gait to the accompaniment of remarkably comic grimaces. My sister, remonstrating, said, "Really, Mr. Pellegrini, I can't walk with you like this."

"Very well," he replied, and crossing over with the same absurd gestures, he walked on the other side of the road, twirling the red sunshade all the way to Gunter's, where he continued his fooling by trying to persuade the waitress to supply him with a liqueur (which was decidedly forbidden).

While we ate our ices, he conquered the girl with high-flown and exaggerated compliments, and finally had his way; and as for the liqueur, success found him more or less indifferent to its consumption, for the jest had been nearly all bravado.

James J. Tissot was an occasional contributor to _Vanity Fair_. His work can hardly be called caricature; for the sketches were rather characteristic and undoubtedly brilliant drawings of his subjects. He was achieving considerable popularity (especially with dealers) by painting lively scenes--usually in grey tones--of Greenwich breakfast parties, modern subjects with a pretty female figure as the centre of attraction. Tissot had a strong personality, and from the psychological point of view his story is extraordinary. The woman to whom he was devoted (and who figured so frequently in his pictures) died, and Tissot, overcome with grief, perhaps with remorse, left England and went to the East to seek distraction in foreign travel. In Palestine he stayed and painted; and here he drew a series of religious pictures ill.u.s.trating the life of Christ. They were exhibited at the Dor Gallery on his return to England, and showed an extraordinary change of outlook. He became at first extremely religious, and then the victim of religious mania. Later, he surprised his world by becoming a monk, driven by his devotion to the memory of the dead woman to the extremities which often arise when a strong character is suddenly disrupted by great sorrow. Finally, he entered a monastery, where he eventually lost his reason and died.

He used to say in his sane days, when talking about his work, and about art in general, "If you feel the drapery or the hang of a garment in a drawing is shaky, and your model cannot understand the subtleties of the pose you require, get a cheval gla.s.s, pose yourself, if possible, and sketch your reflection. Sometimes it is astonis.h.i.+ng how successful the result is."

Before I proceed any further with my recollections of _Vanity Fair_ I think perhaps I might jog the reader's memory by a few reminiscences of the early days of that paper, which was almost the first paper which could be called a society journal. _The Owl_ was the first to be published of that type, and out of this pioneer arose _Vanity Fair_. In those days the eager public paid a s.h.i.+lling for their weekly publications; and _Vanity Fair_ was founded by Mr. Gibson Bowles (better known as "Tommy"), since a member of Parliament, and at that time the best editor the paper ever had. He had the gift of the right word in the right place; and it may be remarked that a dislike of d.i.c.kens prevented any quotations from that well-known author from entering the pages, and that he opposed the fas.h.i.+on of that period of alluding to a lady of t.i.tle with the Christian name as a prefix.

Among the earliest contributors were the late Colonel Fred Burnaby and the late Captain Alexander c.o.c.kburn, a son of the late Chief Justice, Lady Desart, Lady Florence Dixie (who was editress at one time), and the late Mr. "Willie Wyllats." The latter, an even more brilliant writer than many of the rising men of that generation, also wrote for _Vanity Fair_ at that period.

The caricatures in _Vanity Fair_ were supplemented by very terse and extremely clever comments upon the lives of the subjects portrayed by the cartoonist. These were signed "Jehu, Junior," and were in themselves enough to attract the reader by their caustic wit.

Looking back to-day it is strange to read in the light of great events these miniature biographies of politicians now forgotten, of others who left their party to go over, of statesmen, of judges who sat on important cases and are now only remembered in connection with a trivial poisoner, an impostor in a claim, of careers then unproved but now s.h.i.+ning clearly in the light of fame, and of others whose light is extinguished--all within so short a lapse of time.

In those days I stalked my man and caricatured him from memory. Many men I was unable to observe closely, and I was obliged to rely upon the accuracy of my eyesight, for distance sometimes lends an entirely fict.i.tious appearance to the face. I listened to John Stuart Mill at a lecture on "Woman's Rights"; and then as he recited pa.s.sages from his notes in a weak voice, it was made extremely clear that his pen was mightier than his personal magnetism upon a platform. A strange protuberance upon his forehead attracted me; and, the oddly-shaped skull dipping slightly in the middle, "the feminine philosopher" just escaped being bereft not only of his hair when I saw him, but of that highly important organ--the b.u.mp of reverence.

His nose resembled a parrot's, and his frame was spare. In fact, he was ascetic and thin-looking generally; but his manner and personality breathed charm and intellect.

With Anthony Trollope I was more fortunate, for my kind friend, Mr.