John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 5

JUVENILE: "Oh, Charley, if you hear a report that I am going to be married to that girl in black, you can contradict it. There's nothing in it."]

1848 witnessed the fall of the French throne and the tottering of others in Europe. It was a terrible time, and though the English throne was safe enough, a great deal of vague alarm existed in this country.

The Chartists met in their thousands, and prepared a bill of grievances with signatures, making a doc.u.ment, it was said, some miles long. This pet.i.tion they announced their intention of presenting to Parliament, accompanied by a procession, which was really to be some miles long; but they reckoned without their host--of opponents. Special constables were enrolled (amongst whom was Louis Napoleon), soldiers were at hand, skilfully hidden by the great Duke, and the Chartist procession was peacefully stopped long before it got to Westminster.

There were firebrands then as now, and a meeting was called by one of them to be held in Trafalgar Square--see how history repeats itself!--where a ragam.u.f.fin a.s.sembly appeared; so did the police, and nothing came of it except a few broken heads and the inimitable drawings by Leech. How admirable they are!

The person who wanted more liberty, equality, and fraternity than was good for him or anybody else, was a Mr. Cochran, and his adherents were called Cochranites.

COCHRANITE: "Hooray! Veeve ler liberty!! Harm yourselves!! To the palis!! Down with heverythink!!!!"

In the second picture the Cochranite has collapsed. A stalwart policeman has taken him in hand, and he cries, "Oh, sir--please, sir--it ain't me, sir. I'm for G.o.d save the Queen and Rule Britannier.

Boo-hoo!--oh dear! oh dear!" (bursts into tears).

Below we have another result of the agitation, touched in Leech's happiest manner. A special constable endeavours to arrest an agitator, who evidently objects, and prepares for resistance.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

SPECIAL CONSTABLE: "Now mind, you know--if I kill you, it's nothing; but if you kill me, by Jove! it's murder!"]

A certain Master Jackey was a great favourite of Leech's. In an elaborate work this youth's pranks are chronicled under the heading of "Home for the Holidays." Whether the hero of those adventures is the same as he who is pictured in the work I present to my readers I know not. In all probability the taste for practical joking which flourished so vigorously in the holiday scenes began, as we see, in the nursery.

Master Jackey has been to the play, where he has witnessed the performances of a contortionist, and, emulous of rivalling the professor, he perils the limbs and lives of his brothers and sisters in his operations. We know of the tendency to imitate in all children, but when the propensity shows itself in the imitation of tricks that require long practice before they can be performed with safety, the game, though amusing to the players, may be very dangerous to the played upon. It is to be hoped that the rush of the terrified mother in this capital scene may be in time to save the baby from a perilous fall. The little brothers have already tasted the consequence of Master Jackey's imitation.

The accompanying drawing was suggested by myself during an after-dinner conversation at a friend's house. The talk had turned on the difficulty that the p.r.o.nunciation of certain words would prove to one who had dined not wisely but too well, when it occurred to me that "Plesiosaurus" or "Ichthyosaurus" would be troublesome, and I said so. Leech smiled, and said nothing, but in _Punch_ of the week following his idea of the difficulty appeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "RECREATIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY."

FIRST NATURALIST: "What, the s-s-she-sherpent a-an (hic!) Ich-(hic!)-thyosaurus! Nonshence!"

SECOND NATURALIST: "Who said Ich-(hic!)-Ichthy-o-saurus? I said Plesi-o-(hic!)-saurus plainenuff."]

The cabman who doesn't know his way about London is exceptional, but he is met with occasionally, and very provoking he is; but to have his little trap-door knocked off its hinges because he takes a wrong turning is a punishment in excess of his fault. The young gentleman pa.s.senger is of an impatient turn, and he will find that his impatience will have to be paid for unless the cabman is more good-natured than he looks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CABMAN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE TAKEN A WRONG TURNING, THAT'S ALL."]

Flunkeiana cannot be omitted in this short summary of Leech's work, more especially as the first of a long series is one of the best.

Nothing can be conceived more perfect than the man and the maid at the seaside--the girl, French from top to toe; the flunkey, a most perfect type of the cla.s.s.

FRENCH MAID: "You like--a--ze--seaside--M'sieu Jean Thomas?"

JOHN THOMAS: "Par bokhoo, mamzelle--par bokhoo. I've--aw--been so accustomed to--aw--gaiety in town, that I'm--aw--a'most killed with arnwee down here."

The immortal Briggs made his first appearance in _Punch_ in the year 1849, and with one or two records of his career I regret to say I must close my selected list of Leech's early works. To say I regret this is to say little, for I am obliged to forego numberless delightful works, many as good as, and some perhaps better than, those I have presented to my readers. Mr. Briggs first appears with newspaper in hand in his snug breakfast-room, listening to a complaint from the housemaid that a slate is off the roof, and the servant's bedroom in danger of being flooded.

Mr. Briggs replies that the sooner it is put to rights the better, before it goes any further--and he will see about it. Mr. Briggs does see about it; he sees the builder, who tells him that "a little compo"

is all that is wanted. The drawings show that eight or ten men are required to manage the little compo, much to Mr. Briggs' astonishment.

In the next scene a huge scaffolding is raised, and a small army of labourers are at work on Mr. Briggs's roof. A noise enough to wake the dead has awoke Mr. Briggs at the unpleasant hour of five in the morning.

Flower-pots and bricks fall past his dressing-room window. He finds "no time has been lost, and that the workpeople have already commenced putting the roof to rights." The builder would not be true to his craft if he did not improve the occasion and show his employer how easy, now that the workpeople were about, it would be to make certain additions in the shape of a conservatory, etc., to the house. Briggs weakly listens to the voice of the charmer; walls are battered down to enlarge the dining-room, and the entrance-hall is enlarged. Mr. Briggs's health gives way, and he calls in the doctor, who prescribes horse exercise.

I think it was at one of those never-to-be-forgotten dinners at Egg's that, the talk having turned upon shooting experiences, d.i.c.kens said that the sudden rising of a c.o.c.k-pheasant under one's nose was like a firework let off in that uncongenial locality. The following week Leech subjected Mr. Briggs to the startling experience so admirably recorded in the drawing which faces this page.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

For a further acquaintance with Mr. Briggs's performances on horseback, as well as his escapades with gun and fis.h.i.+ng-rod, I must content myself with referring those curious on the matters to the pages of _Punch_, where they will find entertainment that is inexhaustible.

CHAPTER III.

MR. PERCIVAL LEIGH AND LEECH.

In the death of Mr. Percival Leigh, which took place a short time ago, the last member of the original staff of _Punch_ pa.s.sed away. Mr. Leigh never married, and died at a very advanced age. I frequently met him in society, where his refined and gentle manners, and his quaintly humorous conversation, were what might have been antic.i.p.ated from the author of "Pips his Diary," the "Comic Grammars," and other contributions to the paper to which he was so long and so faithfully attached. From the days of their fellow-students.h.i.+p at St. Bartholomew's (with a short interval), to the time of Leech's death, a firm friends.h.i.+p existed between these two distinguished men.

Much alike in their sense of humour, they also resembled each other in numberless amiable qualities of heart and mind. Leigh's pen was as free from personality, and as conspicuous for the gentleness with which it dealt with folly, as Leech's pencil. In early and late days, when Leech was in trouble, Leigh's was the hand--amongst others--ever ready to help; and to those who can read between the lines in the paper which Mr.

Leigh has contributed to this book, there will be little difficulty in discovering the "friend" who found purchasers for work that the producer was barred (in a double sense) from selling for himself.

I see little or no reason for weakening my a.s.sertion that Leech arrived at his supreme eminence without any art education; for the slight mechanical knowledge of the art of drawing upon wood which he acquired from Mr. Orrin Smith, a wood-engraver, is no more worthy the name of art-teaching, than the few lessons in etching given to Leech by George Cruikshank can be called art-education. Following the example of Sir John Millais, Mr. Percival Leigh (to whom, it will be remembered, Millais recommended my predecessor, Mr. Evans, to apply) furnished the following remarks for this memoir.

Said Mr. Leigh: "Orrin Smith has been dead many years. How long Leech was with him I cannot say precisely. Perhaps a twelvemonth or thereabouts. Smith was a sociable and rather a clever man, but according to Leech, occasionally so economical that he would now and then try to get a little gratuitous work out of him. On one occasion Smith asked him to introduce a few figures, so as to put a touch of action into a drawing on wood, meant to ill.u.s.trate a serious little book, the work of a clergyman. The scene represented was a quiet churchyard. Leech improved it with a group of little boys larking and boxing.

"Of course these embellishments, on discovery, were objected to as painfully incongruous, and had to be cancelled. I forget whether or no they had been actually engraven before they were taken out."

Thus far Mr. Leigh. I think I can interpret the incongruity. I fancy I can hear Leech say, after previous unrequited sketches, "Oh, hang it!

this is too bad. Well, here goes; he shall have a few figures, and I hope he'll like 'em."

Mr. Leigh continues: "The post-office envelope was one of Leech's successes; so were the 'Comic Histories' of England and Rome, and the 'Comic Blackstone'; but his growth in popularity was gradual. He had previously ill.u.s.trated 'Jack Brag' for Bentley, and subsequently various articles for _Bentley's Miscellany_, particularly the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' as well as other ephemeral works of the same publisher; amongst them the 'Comic Latin' and 'English' Grammars, and the 'Children of the Mobility,' a travesty of the 'Children of the n.o.bility,' long since out of print. He also furnished coloured ill.u.s.trations to the 'Fiddle-Faddle Fas.h.i.+on-book,' a whimsical satire on the fopperies and literary absurdities of the period, also out of print."

I venture again to interrupt the current of Mr. Leigh's narrative with a word or two on the "Fiddle-Faddle" book. A copy of it, date 1840, has been lent to me. The literary portion, consisting mainly of a thrilling story of brigand life, the blood-curdling tenor of which may be imagined from the t.i.tle, "Grabalotti the Bandit; or, The Emerald Monster of the Deep Dell," is the work of Mr. Leigh. The story opens thus:

"Italia! oh, Italia! blooming birthplace of beauty! land of lazzaroni and loveliness! clime of complines and cruelty, of susceptibility and sacrilege, of roses and revenge! thy bright, blue, boundless skies serene I love; thy verdant vales, volcanoes, vines, and virgins! Thy virgins? ay, thy bright-eyed, dark-haired virgins. I love them--how I love them, though mine, alas! they ne'er can be! And there was one who, in earlier, happier hours, before these locks were--no matter. Let me proceed with the calmness becoming a narrator with my tale."

And he proceeds "with a vengeance" to let us know that the spokesman of the above is an artist who had "halted in a deep ravine in the Abruzzi (where, on each side, the cliffs frowned like fiends upon the quailing traveller) to transfer to my portable sketch-book a slight souvenir of the celestial scene. Absorbed in my enthralling occupation, I heeded not the approach of a visitant; it was therefore with surprise, not unmingled with alarm, that I was aroused by a tap upon the shoulders, accompanied by the following sarcastic greeting:

"'Is thy maternal parent, young man, aware of thine absence from home?'

"'Quite so,' I replied, in a tremulous tone, anxiously glancing round to behold the speaker.

"My acquaintance with literature--to say nothing of my constant attendance at the opera--at once convinced me that I was in the hands of a brigand."

Had there been "any possible doubt whatever," it would have been instantly dispelled; for after "smiling in demoniacal derision," the disturber of the sketcher said, "deliberately and tranquilly, as he levelled a pistol at my head:

"'Thy wealth or thy existence!'

"My sole remaining ducat was offered in vain. At the shrill sound of his whistle the crags bristled with bandits, and fifty carbines were pointed at my person. Blue with boiling agony, I made as a last resource the Masonic sign. It succeeded. At another signal every carbine was lowered, and breathless expectation brooded over the heart of its bearer."

The bandits, however, were not so easily satisfied; for "a murmur of impatience, mingled with discontent, arose, like the billows of emotion, amongst the troop, and some twenty weapons again kissed with their stocks as many manly shoulders.