rose. In May,1843, _Punch_ had removed from Wellington Street, Strand,
to 194, Strand, an office which he gave up to his young rival, "The
Great Gun," in January, 1845, in order to remove to 92, Fleet Street.
Here he only remained for a couple of months, and, migrating in March of
the same year, he set up for good and all in 85, Fleet Street, on the
very site in St. Bride's Churchyard of the tailor's house where Milton
once kept school. In the editorial office the _Punch_ Staff would often
write their articles, Thackeray especially taking advantage of the
convenience. "In three hours more," he wrote to Mrs. Brookfield in 1850,
"Mr. W. M. T. is hard at work at _Punch_ office."

The management of the weekly "copy," the arrangement for series, and the
dealing with outside applications of all sorts, quite apart from
artistic contributions, were together no light task for the Editor,
especially when one or other of the writers failed him, and the
illustrations that were to accompany their articles had to be retaken
into consideration. From the beginning outside contributions were
remorselessly discouraged; yet some remarkable poems and sketches have
come to _Punch_ unsolicited from famous and brilliant pens, as will
subsequently be seen. Still, the paper has always been a fairly close
borough--as, after all, it has a perfect right to be; and by that means
has been enabled to keep its distinctive colour--in contrast with the
"Fliegende Blätter," for example, whose staff may truly be said to
consist of the whole German people. To each writer was allotted a
certain space, which he was expected to fill; and when there was a
deficit in the amount of his contribution--which there generally was,
and a heavy one--it was duly entered up. Thus for a long while Douglas
Jerrold's half-yearly total was theoretically 162 columns (or a weekly
average of six and a quarter); Gilbert à Beckett's, 135 columns (five
and a quarter); Percival Leigh's, Tom Taylor's, and Horace Mayhew's, 54;
and Thackeray's, 46 columns; but few of them ever came up to their
proper total. In earlier days, before Albert Smith left, the following
were the weekly tasks: Jerrold, five columns; Gilbert à Beckett, four;
Smith and Leigh, two each; and after Smith's departure à Beckett
succeeded to Jerrold's figures.

The records of the Staff's contributions were kept as follows, their
relative proportions being exactly shown. I take one volume at random,
the seventh, that for the second half-year of 1844:--

  -------------+------+------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+-------
               |      |      |       |      |       |       |Total  |
               |      |      |Septem-|Octo- |Novem- |Decem- |of Six |Weekly
  Contributors | July |August|  ber  | ber  | ber   | ber   |Months |Average
  -------------+------+------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+-------
  Douglas      |      |      |       |      |       |       |       |
    Jerrold    |20-1/4|17-1/4| 23-1/2|27[30]| 20-1/4| 31-1/2|139-3/4| 5-1/4
  Gilbert      |      |      |       |      |       |       |       |
    à Beckett  |15-1/4|18    |  6-1/2|17-1/4| 17    | 19-3/4| 94-3/4| 3-1/2
  Percival     |      |      |       |      |       |       |       |
    Leigh      | 4-1/2| 8-3/4|  9    |  5   |  5-1/2|  6-1/4| 39    | 1-1/2
  Thackeray    | 8    | 5-3/4|  6    |  --  |   --  |  4-3/4| 24-1/2| 1
  Horace Mayhew| 2-1/2| 2-1/2|  3-1/2|  2   |  2-1/2|  3-3/4| 16-3/4|   1/2
  T. Taylor    |  --  |  --  |   --  |  --  |  3-1/4|  3    |  6-1/4|   1/4
  Ferguson     | 1[31]|  --  |   --  |   3/4|   --  |  1    |  1-3/4|  --
  Editor[32]   | 5    | 1-1/4|  3    |  1   |  2    |  8    | 20    |   3/4
  Oxenford     |  --  | 1-1/2|   --  |  --  |   --  |   --  |  1-1/2|  --
  Laman        |      |      |       |      |       |       |       |
    Blanchard  |  --  |  --  |   --  |  --  |  1-3/4|   --  |  1-3/4|  --
  H. Wills     |  --  |  --  |   --  |  --  |    1/2|    1/2|  1    |  --
  -------------+------+------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+------
  Total of columns in volume  347
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

A more comprehensive view may be had from a glance at the table on the
following page, which covers perhaps the most interesting period of
_Punch's_ early history.

From this table it will be seen that Douglas Jerrold contributed as much
as 139 columns to Vol. VII. and Gilbert à Beckett 122 to the next; and
that the Editor's section after Vol. VI. was to some extent split up
under the names of the individual contributors who composed it. In
addition to these names during the period covered by the table, there
may be added those of Tom Hood (3-3/4), T. J. Serle, Charles Lever,
Horace Smith, and Doyle.

Another source of trouble to the Editor was the holiday-time as it came
round, for the Staff would scatter itself and, though arrangements were
made of course beforehand, the paper was sometimes run in a
curiously undermanned condition. Thus, for example, on the week of
August 12, 1848 (No. 370), Jerrold was at Guernsey, Thackeray was at
Brussels, Horace Mayhew at Ramsgate, and Tom Taylor away on circuit. The
whole paper was in consequence written by three men--by Gilbert à
Beckett and Percival Leigh at home, and by Horace Mayhew, who
thoughtfully sent in more than four columns from the country, so that
his absence should not be felt.

  AMOUNT OF TEXT (IN COLUMNS) CONTRIBUTED BY THE WRITERS INDICATED FROM
  VOL. VI. TO VOL. XIV. INCLUSIVE--FROM JANUARY, 1844, TO JUNE 24, 1848
  (NINE VOLUMES).

  KEY:
  A - Douglas Jerrold
  B - Gilbert à Becket
  C - Percival Leigh
  D - W. M. Thackeray
  E - John Oxenfold
  F - Editor
  G - Horace Mayhew
  H - Tom Taylor

  -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+
    Vol. |   A   |   B   |   C   |   D   |  E   |   F   |   G   |   H   |
  -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+
     VI. | 81-1/4|113-1/4| 41-1/2| 36-3/4| 4-3/4| 49-1/2|   --  |   --  |
    VII. |139-3/4| 94-3/4| 39    | 24-1/2| 1-1/2| 20    | 16-3/4|  6-1/2|
   VIII. | 91-1/4|122-1/2| 36    | 24    | 1-3/4| 13    | 17-3/4| 11-3/4|
     IX. | 91    |108-3/4| 32-3/4| 43-1/4| 4-1/2| 15    | 28-1/2| 12    |
      X. | 71-3/4| 99-1/2| 39-3/4| 39-1/2| 2-3/4|  6-1/4| 20    | 18-3/4|
     XI. | 77-1/4| 92    | 35    | 51-3/4|  --  |  2    | 44-3/4| 28-3/4|
    XII. | 70-3/4| 94-1/4| 43    | 46| --|  --  | 47-1/2| 23-3/4|   --  |
   XIII. | 48-1/4| 95-1/4| 40-3/4| 30-3/4|  --  |   --  | 45    | 42    |
    XIV. | 58-1/4| 80    | 39-3/4| 39-1/2|  --  |   --  | 59-1/4| 32-1/2|
   Total |729-1/4|900-1/4|348-1/4|336    |15-1/4|105-3/4|270-1/2|175-3/4|
  -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+
  Average| 81    |100    | 39-2/3| 37-1/3|  --  |   --  | 31    | 19-1/2|
  per    |       |       |       |       |      |       |       |       |
  volume |       |       |       |       |      |       |       |       |
  -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+-------+-------+-------+

  I - Ferguson
  J - Laman Blanchard
  K - W. H. Wills
  L - Henry Mayhew
  M - Higgins (Jacob Omnium)
  N - Anonymous
  O - Mark Lemon
  P - MacGregor

  -------+------+-----+-----+----+-----+------+----+-----+---------
    Vol. |  I   |  J  |  K  | L  |  M  |  N   | O  |  P  |    --
  -------+------+-----+-----+----+-----+------+----+-----+---------
     VI. |  --  | --  | --  |--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
    VII. | 1-3/4|1-3/4|1    |--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
   VIII. | 4    |  3/4|  1/4|--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
     IX. | 1-3/4| --  |  1/2|--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
      X. | 9-1/4| --  | --  |--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
     XI. |   3/4| --  | --  |--  |2    |  --  |--  | --  |    --
    XII. |  --  | --  | --  |--  |1-3/4|  --  |--  | --  |    --
   XIII. |  --  | --  | --  |--  | --  | 4-3/4| 1/2| --  |    --
    XIV. |  --  | --  |  3/4|--  | --  |51-1/2|--  |3-3/4|    --
   Total |17-1/2|2-1/2|3-1/4| 1/4|2    |12    | 1/2|3-3/4|2,931-1/4
  -------+------+-----+-----+----+-----+------+----+-----+---------
  Average|  --  | --  | --  |--  | --  |  --  |--  | --  |    --
  per    |      |     |     |    |     |      |    |     |
  volume |      |     |     |    |     |      |    |     |
  -------+------+-----+-----+----+-----+------+----+-----+---------

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S FANCY BALL.

_Reduced from the Double-page Cartoon by John Leech (1847), showing the
Staff of "Punch" as Orchestra._ (See next page.)]

[Illustration: W. NEWMAN. RICHARD DOYLE. JOHN LEECH. W. M. THACKERAY.
HORACE MAYHEW. MARK LEMON. PERCIVAL LEIGH. GILBERT À BECKETT. TOM
TAYLOR. DOUGLAS JERROLD.

(_Detail of Portraits of the Staff in "Mr. Punch's Fancy Ball."_)]

At no time was Lemon's position an easy one, for his team, brilliant as
it was, was sometimes wont to jib, and even to kick over the traces, or,
most serious of all, to fall ill; whereupon the fountain of inspiration
and supply would immediately dry up. When one failed, another would have
to be made to fill the space; and all the while susceptibilities had to
be nursed and respected as carefully as the well-being of the paper.
Thackeray would now and then send a letter of apology instead of his
"copy," and Jerrold would fail for a week or two together; and then
Gilbert à Beckett with important contributions, and Horace Mayhew with a
mass of little ones, were the men who, in the early volumes, would rush
quickly to the rescue. Lemon was patience itself--he had no alternative
perhaps--and could humour his Staff just as their humour demanded, for
he was a born diplomatist as well as editor. Moreover, he had an
unerring instinct as to what should and what should not appear in the
paper; not alone on the ground of "good taste," as it was then
understood, but of public feeling. This invaluable quality was
acknowledged by the rest of the Staff, and was probably the secret of
Lemon's ability to retain his position so long and with so much dignity,
and to impose his will--_suaviter in modo_ as was his habit--on men who
would brook such imposition from no one else. It was his moral balance
they admired--that judgment which in all his long career of satiric
criticism kept him practically free from any action for libel after he
had taken his share in piloting the paper through its sea of early
troubles. He was watchful and discriminating, both as regards the
contents of the paper and the discussions at the board--where he would
smooth over such an occasional storm as might threaten, and be deaf to
anything that a less skilful tactician than himself might have taken
notice of. Nevertheless, Lemon could take his own part if occasion
required, and face his opponents with all the vigour of his authority.
The Proprietors themselves once felt the strength of his character when
they sought to challenge him on a vital point. Mark Lemon quickly
assured himself of the support of his Staff, and, rising from his seat,
he said in a tone of command, "Boys, follow me!" and made to leave the
room. The struggle was over, and Lemon triumphed. Similarly did he make
a _casus belli_ of the attempt of the Proprietors on his editorial
rights and dignity, when he was requested to appear at their meeting
instead of their attending in his room. And he went so far as to instal
himself in a room on the other side of the way until his point was
conceded. He was, on the whole, a consummate Editor, who could cater for
all men, and yet keep his pages practically clean and irreproachable,
and almost free from blunder; all the while enlisting for it more and
more of popular sympathy, and daily increasing its influence.

[Illustration: LID OF THE INKSTAND PRESENTED TO MARK LEMON BY THE
MEMBERS OF HIS STAFF IN 1845.]

_Punch_ did not engage his exclusive energies. He was the first editor
of the "Field." Then he edited the "London Journal," and in trying to
improve its tone and quality of literature by the republication in its
pages of the Waverley novels he well-nigh ruined it. These and other
matters he embarked upon, together with a number of small works, such as
his volume of "Prose and Verse" (which Jerrold said ought to have been
called "Prose and Worse"), and his "Jest Book," on the strength of
which, it is said, Hans Christian Andersen, when in England, sought an
introduction to him and paid him the compliment of saying, "I am so glad
to know you, Mr. Lemon--you are so full of comic!"

Moreover, Lemon acted as a sort of secretary to Herbert Ingram, whom he
served with great tact. Ingram was a good deal identified with the
_Punch_ circle, sometimes in a friendly and sometimes in a hostile way.
He was owner, before he sold it to William and Robert Brough, of "The
Man in the Moon," _Punch's_ arch-enemy, and in later years he started
the "Comic News," with Edmund Yates as editor, on purpose to oppose
him. Yet several of the _Punch_ men, notably Shirley Brooks, worked on
his "Illustrated London News," which was started in great measure to
push "Parr's Life Pills" (these were constantly mentioned and sometimes
attacked in _Punch_), and Douglas Jerrold found in him the capitalist
for the "Illuminated Magazine." Mark Lemon it was who took several of
his Staff down to Boston to speak for Ingram during his candidature, an
expedition that was a greater electoral than oratorical success; and he
again it was, so it is said, who persuaded Mr. Ingram to drop the "Comic
News," so that _Punch_ might be rid of what was already a troublesome,
and might have become a very damaging, rival.

With equal zeal and skill and genial friendliness to recommend him,
Lemon became a great favourite in his own circle, for "Uncle Mark" was
always ready to do his friends a good turn. In 1845 the Staff combined
to present him with a silver inkstand--an interesting relic now in
possession of Mrs. F. W. W. Topham, his daughter--a reproduction of the
lid of which is here given; while the locket which, with a more
substantial gift, was presented in 1866 to celebrate the Jubilee of
_Punch_ (_i.e._ his fiftieth volume) and to mark the withdrawal of the
Heads of the firm, was inscribed as follows: "To Mark Lemon from his old
friends W. Bradbury and F. M. Evans, on their retirement, given at a
dinner at Maidenhead, June 27th, 1866. Present--W. H. Bradbury, Shirley
Brooks, Wm. Agnew, G. du Maurier, F. C. Burnand, J. H. Agnew, C. H.
Bennett, John Tenniel, Horace Mayhew, F. M. Evans (Jim.), Henry Silver,
T. Agnew (Jim.), Percival Leigh, Chas. Keene, Mark Lemon, Wm. Bradbury,
F. M. Evans." There is no doubt that, as time went on, Lemon became more
and more popular with his Staff, and each fresh appearance in _Punch_ of
his jolly face under the low-crowned hat of John Bull, or the
snow-sprinkled peak of Father Christmas, identified him more closely
with the paper and endeared him to his workers. Yet they liked to "score
off" him when they could, in return for the jokes he played on them. The
story is told how, when he had run down for a few days' holiday by the
sea, he received the paper by post, and, tearing off its cover, was
horrified to find, not the cartoon they had agreed upon, but another,
execrable in taste and vile in execution, while undoubted libels and
other offences were sprinkled with hideous liberality about the pages.
Moreover, the cartoon was awry, the date was wrong, and a paragraph was
upside down. Lemon turned cold all down his spine, and gasping "This
comes from my being away!" he determined to return to town without the
loss of a moment. From this point historians differ. Some say that Mark
rushed to the station, quickly bought up every copy of the awful issue
that was for sale, and jumped into the railway-carriage with the bundle;
and that not before he was well on his way did he dare to open a copy to
gaze again on the hideous production; and when he did--he rubbed his
eyes, for everything was just as it should be! Then the light broke in
upon him that he had been egregiously "sold," and he realised that a
copy had been specially prepared for his pleasing edification! Other
commentators assert that before Uncle Mark had time to leave for the
station a telegram came, mercifully explaining a joke which, it was
felt, ought not to be carried too far. The reader will remember a
similar incident occurring in "Esmond;" and one wonders if the idea of
that dummy copy of the "Spectator" was not suggested by the hour's
torture lovingly inflicted upon the Editor of _Punch_ by his
affectionate and respectful Staff.

Mark Lemon died on May 23rd, 1870. He had been very ill on one or two
previous occasions; even as early as 1848 Jerrold had written to John
Forster that "Lemon has been at Death's door--but has kept on the
outside." For nine-and-twenty years he had been at the helm; and
although he may not have been as paramount on _Punch_ as some aver,
there can be no doubt that he entirely merited the compliment paid by
Mr. Gladstone to his memory when, awarding a pension of £100 from the
Civil List to Mrs. Lemon, he said that he had "raised the level of comic
journalism to its present standard." The proprietors, with generous
sympathy, recognising the immense services of their friend, at once set
about making a collection for the widow and unmarried daughters (for
Lemon had been unsuccessful in his investments and speculations) and,
with the ready help of the Staff, prosecuted it with so much energy and
goodwill that the sum of £1,500 was quickly raised.

He was lowered to rest in a coffin simply inscribed "Mark Lemon--Editor
of _Punch_;" for in _Punch_ he had lived his life. "He believed," said
Mr. Hatton, "in one God, one woman, one publication," as his surviving
colleagues well knew. "If this journal," they wrote by the hand of
Shirley Brooks, "has had the good fortune to be credited with habitual
advocacy of truth and justice, if it has been praised for abstinence
from the less worthy kind of satire, if it has been trusted by those who
keep guard over the purity of womanhood and of youth, we, the best
witnesses, turn for a moment from our sorrow to bear the fullest and
most willing testimony that the high and noble spirit of Mark Lemon ever
prompted generous championship, ever made unworthy onslaught or
irreverent jest impossible to the pens of those who were honoured in
being coadjutors with him." And in the poem that follows, testimony is
borne that--

  "... 'Twas his pride to teach us so to bear
    Our blades, as he bore his--keep the edge keen,
  But strike above the belt: and ever wear
    The armour of a conscience clear and clean."

[Illustration: HENRY MAYHEW.

_From a Photograph by Bedford, Lemere and Co., Strand, W.C._]

The character of Henry Mayhew, and his share in the production of
_Punch_, have already been somewhat fully set forth. An old friend of
his informs me that "he was lovable, jolly, charming, bright, coaxing,
and unprincipled. He rarely wrote himself, but would dictate, as he
walked to and fro, to his wife, whom he would also leave to confront his
creditors. She was deeply attached to him; and when his father died, she
found that the careful solicitor had left her a bequest of two pounds a
week, payable to _herself_." And Postans, after he had lost his sight,
would now and then exclaim--"Although he treated me so badly, I should
love to hear the sound of his dear voice again!" There can be no doubt
that Henry Mayhew was a genius, a fascinating companion, and a man of
inexhaustible resource and humour--though humour was but one side of his
brilliant mind. Indolence was his besetting sin; and his will was
untutored.

     "An admirable all-round talker," Henry Vizetelly wrote to me
     shortly before his death, "Henry Mayhew was brimming over with
     novel ideas on all manner of subjects, from artificial production
     of diamonds to the reformation of ticket-of-leave men. He was
     constantly planning some new publication or broaching novel ideas
     on the most out-of-the-way subjects. He would scheme and ponder all
     the day long, but he abominated the labour of putting his ideas
     into tangible shape. He would talk like a book on any subject for
     hours together if he could only find listeners, but could with
     difficulty be brought to put pen to paper. Most of his books were
     written from his ideas by his younger brother Augustus, or were
     dictated directly to his wife, who acted as his amanuensis.
     Although he made considerable sums by his writings, he never seemed
     to have a shilling; and most of the letters he received were from
     dunning creditors. These missives, however, never troubled him, for
     he never broke the envelopes of one of them, but handed all his
     correspondence over to his wife to do as she pleased with and
     answer such letters as she thought necessary. He was very
     temperate. Whether he smoked as a young man, I am not aware; but
     he never smoked at the periodical evening gatherings at his house,
     when the guests could hardly see each other for the clouds of
     tobacco-smoke. On these occasions the most abstruse subjects were
     often discussed, and all we young wiseacres present contributed our
     modicum of knowledge towards the elucidation of problems that
     sorely perplexed the thinkers of the epoch. Although Mayhew would
     sit up till any hour as long as anyone would stay and listen to
     him, he never allowed this to interfere with his early-rising
     habits."

The impression made by Mayhew upon his contemporaries was invariably
such as to command respect for his intellectual capacity. Considering
his deep, philosophic mind, says one critic, if his lines had been cast
in more serious places, he might have been a sociologist, the equal of
John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. There is proof enough of this in
that wonderful encyclopædic work of "London Labour and London Poor,"
which displayed his original mind and his power of research, as much as
other books displayed his marvellous invention, fancy, and initiative,
and it is the only one of his undertakings which he had perseverance
enough to carry through to a triumphant conclusion--so far as it can
claim finality. It was while he was engaged on this work that Landells
(according to a private letter) visited him and found him, in company
with his brother Augustus and William Jerrold, interviewing a
"coster"--"drawing him," while Horace Mayhew took down everything the
man said.

Such was the man who conceived _Punch_ as it came to be, and who wrote
of it when it was established, "I smell lots of tin thereabouts; but our
Lemon requires a great deal of squeezing." What was his connection with
_Punch_, how he agreed with Lemon as to the transfer to Bradbury and
Evans, how he found himself replaced by (or, as he considered, outwitted
by) Mark Lemon in the editorship has already been recited. Nevertheless,
he was retained as "Suggestor-in-Chief"--an office which suited him well
enough, considering his hatred of the drudgery of writing.

     "Mr. Henry Mayhew," writes _Punch's_ ex-Printer, "the special
     joke-provider for _Punch_, was a most jocular character. He would
     stand beside the compositor while he was working at his case, and
     closely watch every movement of his hand in picking up each letter.
     He said he could not make out how ever the compositor could keep
     the alphabetical order of each box in his memory. So to master the
     mystery he set to work and learned the boxes for himself, and would
     often find amusement, when waiting for a proof, in setting up a few
     lines, very slowly at first, but, shifting the composing rule and
     thoughtlessly laying down the stick the wrong way, generally upset
     all his work, and so he gave it up in despair. This Mr. Mayhew was
     very clever in creating and roughly sketching out many of the small
     comic column illustrations, and would write the witty inscriptions
     for them. These would then go to the artist, who sketched out the
     idea and so completed it. In _Punch_, as in many other similar
     works, the mind to invent the idea caricatured, and the hand that
     pencils it, belong to two very different persons and capacities.
     Mr. Mayhew was very clever in this way, and anything of a comic
     nature he saw he would at once sketch off and then have a cut made
     of it. Most of the inimitable cuts in the first few volumes of
     _Punch_ are of his invention. He was always sketching and taking
     rough notes of everything he saw. The great John Leech called him
     his indispensable 'Jack-all, or broad-grin provider.'"

In spite of his disappointment, Henry Mayhew remained with _Punch_ until
1845. His last literary contribution--"A Shaksperean Nursery Rhyme," on
the subject of Macready playing Shakespeare in Paris before Louis
Philippe and Prince de Joinville--appeared in February of that year; but
he still attended the Dinners and made suggestions for cartoons, of
which twelve were accepted in that year. With his proposal, however, of
the cartoon of "Don Roebucis," which was drawn by Leech (14th March,
1846), his last word was said; and from that time forward his connection
with _Punch_ ceased absolutely. He had given the paper its character and
tone; he had suggested its first great success, the Almanac; he had
supported its transfer, whereby it was firmly established; and he had
cracked its biggest joke--the joke which is universally quoted to this
very day.[33] He died in 1887, at the age of 75, and his old friend
celebrated him in verse, none too correctly, though in the kindliest
manner, ending thus:--

            ".... Farewell!
  The record of the age's course will tell
  Of him whose name a double honour bore,
  Comrade of _Punch_ and champion of the poor."[34]

[Illustration: J. STIRLING COYNE. (_From a Photograph by Lombard and
Co._)]

There was a fund of Irish humour in Joseph Stirling Coyne. He had proved
it by his plays long before he undertook his share of the co-editorship
which was offered him at that "Edinburgh Castle" meeting where so much
of _Punch's_ present and future was arranged. He was at that time
eight-and-twenty years of age; and although he was dramatic critic of
the "Sunday Times," the drama rather than the press was his natural
field of action--indeed, he wrote no fewer than five-and-fifty pieces of
various kinds, besides plays in collaboration, and was secretary of the
Dramatic Authors' Society, until his death. Nevertheless, he belonged in
a manner to the inner circle of the "_Punch_ set," and frequented the
taverns that were their clubs; and he even went in double harness with
Mark Lemon as co-editor, _vice_ "Alphabet" Bayley, of "The Bude
Light"--an English imitation of "Les Guêpes." He was, in fact, a man of
some celebrity who had already gained public reputation beyond the band
of men, brilliant, no doubt, but, for the most part, with their
successes yet to come--so that he was accorded the important rôle which
he filled with peculiar modesty. He wrote extremely little, but he seems
to have formed some distinct notion of his share in the foundation, for
Edmund Yates records how his father once came home and, throwing the
first number of _Punch_ on the table, said, "Here is Stirling Coyne's
new paper!" At last Coyne was charged by Lemon (who always referred
contemptuously to him as "Paddy") with stealing one of his "Puff Papers"
from a Dublin paper. At _Punch's_ transfer Coyne quietly, though
discontentedly, retired from duties which had hitherto brought him
neither reputation nor pleasure, and only a hundred pounds in cash from
Landells, and from Douglas Jerrold--as I learn from one who heard it--a
savage _mot_, referring to his somewhat uncleanly appearance, which will
undoubtedly adhere--"Stirling Coyne? _I call him Filthy Lucre!_"

[Illustration: GILBERT ABBOTT À BECKETT.]

From no choicer spirit than Gilbert Abbott à Beckett could Mayhew have
sought for assistance and literary support. He was the first applied to,
and of all the Staff he had had by far the most experience in the
production of "comic papers," although he was only thirty years of age.
His brother, the late Hon. T. T. à Beckett, has told how he and his chum
Henry Mayhew, his junior by a year, with a consolidated share capital of
three pounds and a mortgage to a printer of future profits, prepared to
start a "satirical paper," to be called "The Cerberus"--the joint
editors being then still young boys. As it happily befell, Mr. à
Beckett, senior, discovered a proof of the first number, and with his
solicitorial eye discovered some forty-three clear libels in the four
columns. He hastened to the address on the imprint, and set the matter
plainly before the printer, who was only too glad to cancel the whole
matter that had been "set" upon payment of the bill. So deeply were the
lads affronted by this unwarrantable interference with their
journalistic spirit and liberty of the subject that they ran away from
home to Edinburgh, walking all the way; but soon returned in a woeful
plight. From that moment, Gilbert turned journalist--it came to him as a
second nature--and thenceforward supported himself by his pen, while
establishing a very fair position at the Bar, thanks to the support of
his father's firm.

It was in 1831 that he presented himself prominently before the public.
Jerrold's "Punch in London" had not yet begun its little life of
seventeen numbers, so that the moment was propitious for à Beckett to
embark on a venture of his own; and on December 10th it made its first
appearance. This was "Figaro in London," in which his youthful ardour
and plain speaking found energetic vent. He was always ready, in a
humorous, bombastic sort of spirit, to smash the aristocracy, to chaff
Alfred Bunn, to abuse low-class Jews, and to discuss the theatre. In
these agreeable vocations he hit the popular taste, and certainly
achieved a considerable circulation, which, Timbs declares, reached at
one time 70,000 copies. Small topical cuts, grandiloquently set down as
"magnificent caricatures," were well arranged as a rule, and things were
going well enough when editor and artist fell out; Robert Cruikshank
took Seymour's place--and à Beckett's monthly adulation of his old
"cartoonist's" work turned suddenly to contempt.

All this was meant more than half in fun; it was too violently personal
to be serious. Anyway, à Beckett declared in the paper that "it is not
true that Robert Seymour has gone out of his mind--he had none to go out
of," and Seymour retaliated heartily with a "sharp _cut_." In due course
Seymour resumed his place on "Figaro," and retained it to the end. In
December, 1834, à Beckett had handed over the paper, in the height of
its prosperity, to Henry Mayhew, who continued it for a time, and in
1839 it came to an end. Yet on so slender a basis as this has been
brought against à Beckett the cruel charge that it was these assaults
which did at a subsequent period drive Seymour out of his mind and led
to his unhappy suicide.

After "Figaro" died, and indeed partly during its continuance, à Beckett
launched out into an extraordinary series of extraordinary papers,
editing for other proprietors "The Wag," "The Evangelical Penny
Magazine," Dibdin's "Penny Trumpet," "The Thief" (under the engaging
frankness of whose title we may see the forerunner of "Public Opinion"),
"Poor Richard's Journal," and "The People's Penny Pictures;" while on
his own account he ran successively "The Terrific Penny Magazine," "The
Ghost," "The Lover," "The Gallery of Terrors," "The Figaro Monthly
Newspaper," "The Figaro Caricature Gallery," and "The Comic Magazine."
But in spite of all this ingenuity in title-devising, and of all this
dogged perseverance--though one can hardly call it seriousness--not one
of these journals obtained public support. As a matter of fact, they
were the journalistic wild oats of a born journalist and an exuberant
littérateur, who, as a youthful playwright and a budding barrister, now
had his hands quite full, yet--such was the fever of his industry--never
full enough.

His first contribution to _Punch_, according to W. H. Wills' statement,
was "The Above Bridge Navy" (p. 35, Volume I., 1841); but it is
practically certain that "Commercial Intelligence" in the first number
is his. "I recollect well," says the Hon. T. T. à Beckett, in his
Reminiscences, "my brother--who wrote for it from the first number to
the last that appeared in his life-time--bringing me away from my office
on an assurance that if I accompanied him as far as the Strand, he would
show me something that would fill me at once with gratification and
amazement. He kept me in suspense until I reached Catherine Street, when
he stopped short and said, 'Now you shall see me draw a pound from
_Punch_, and if that don't amaze you and gratify you, you must have but
a poor sense of the marvellous and very little brotherly sympathy.'"

Just about the period when the negotiations were being carried on with
Bradbury and Evans, à Beckett began to fall off in the amount of his
contributions, and for a time practically ceased altogether. At this
time he edited the "Squib" (28th May, 1842), a folio sheet published at
three-halfpence, very respectably conducted and printed, and owned by
Last _Punch's_ old printer, illustrated by Henning, Hamerton, and
Newman, _Punch_ artists, treating many of _Punch's_ pet subjects in the
_Punch_ spirit, including "Physiologies," which the older paper had made
its own. It was also stated that several of the _Punch_ Staff were among
its contributors. However this may be, the "Squib" went off in December
of the same year, and à Beckett thenceforward worked loyally for _Punch_
for the rest of his life, and bequeathed moreover his two sons to
_Punch's_ service.

His popular "Songs for the Seedy," a series of eight poems, were
published in this year in _Punch_, as well as "Songs of the Flowers;"
and soon his "Ballads of the Briefless" made a considerable stir in
_Punch's_ circle. À Beckett had been called to the Bar some time before,
so that his ballads as well as the articles from his hand which
appeared--and, from time to time, continued--over the signature of "Mr.
Briefless," had a touch of verisimilitude which went straight to the
soft places in the hearts and imagination of the Great Unbriefed. "Mr.
Briefless" became an institution in the paper, as, in other journals,
Mr. O. P. Q. Philander Smiff, and again, in a lower social scale, Mr.
Alfred Sloper, became recognised by a later generation. This unfortunate
gentleman of the Bar--a gentleman always, in spite of his weakness of
intellect and character--was shown in all the difficulties germane to
his barren profession, and in all the ludicrous situations that came
natural to the man. Many of his quaint aphorisms are still remembered,
such as that, elsewhere recorded--"As my laundress makes my bed, so I
must lie upon it," and "The clerk brings down his master's grey
horsehair wig in sorrow to the Court." Yet he was not without
self-respect, not to say vanity, for on the occasion of a great
political crisis, when the resignation of the Ministry was impending,
"Mr. Briefless" somewhat injudiciously left his retreat at Gravesend and
came up to London, in order to be on the spot should he be called upon
to form or to join the future Cabinet. The only summons he received,
however, was from his tailor, and, with the unfailing judgment and good
sense that characterised him, he withdrew once more into the country.
"Mr. Briefless" and "Mr. Dunup," his friend, were creations that were at
once recognised, and were welcomed during the fifteen years of their
occasional appearance.

In 1843 his "_Punch's_ Heathen Mythology" followed Wills' chapters on
the same subject, and in the following year his "Comic Blackstone"--one
of the cleverest burlesques of its kind in the language--served another
purpose than to amuse his readers: it forced him to study the
commentaries--for the first time, it was facetiously said--and so made a
better lawyer of him, and helped to fit him for the magisterial bench,
to which he was soon to be summoned. His "Comic Bradshaw" was another
success, which Mr. Burnand repeated and improved upon years after in his
inimitable "Out of Town." Mr. Arthur à Beckett, speaking of his father's
work, tells me: "I remember on one occasion when my father had written a
drama descriptive of the mysteries of Bradshaw, Leech, to whom it was
sent for illustration, introduced a series of portraits of the author.
Lemon, noticing this, suggested that the drama should end by the hero
getting his head shaved, more clearly to understand the intricacies of
railway traffic. My father adopted the suggestion, and Leech followed
the 'copy.'"

It was not in these series that his chief work lay, however, but in the
enormous mass of matter he turned into _Punch's_ pages month by month.
He was by far the most prolific of all the contributors, almost up to
the time of his death. Articles humorous and pungent on every variety of
topic, verse graceful, bright, and comic, sparkling puns innumerable,
with increasing thought and sense as the man grew older and realised
more and more the responsibility of his position and _Punch's_--all
flowed from him in an unceasing, easy stream, distinguished always for
its fun and facility. As his average contribution to each volume was a
hundred columns, it will be seen that in the time he was working for
_Punch_ his total of prose and verse amounted to three thousand feet,
or a column nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower! There was, besides, the
amount of "outside" work that came from his pen--he was leader-writer to
the "Illustrated London News," and as such was the literary father of
Shirley Brooks, the grandfather of Mr. Sala, and the great-grandfather
of Mr. James Payn. He was also leader-writer on the "Times," and on one
occasion actually wrote all the leaders of the day's issue. This strange
coincidence arose from his having had a leader "crowded out" from the
day before, which was naturally set down for use the next day, when he
contributed his usual article without any question arising; and then a
sudden appeal upon a subject with which he was specially familiar
brought into the paper a third article from him--and that in the days,
now fifty years ago, when the influence and position of the "Times" were
perhaps even greater, relatively, than they are to-day: at least, when
there was no competitor that could seriously pretend to share them. In
addition to this he edited Cruikshank's "Table Book," and wrote the
Comic Histories of England and Rome. It was, it is generally said, on
the occasion of the first of these books being announced that Douglas
Jerrold wrote to Charles Dickens: "_Punch_, I believe, holds its
course.... Nevertheless, I do not very cordially agree with its new
spirit. I am convinced that the world will get tired (at least, I hope
so) of this eternal guffaw at all things. After all, life has something
serious in it. It cannot all be a comic history of humanity. Some men
would, I believe, write a Comic Sermon on the Mount. Think of a Comic
History of England; the drollery of Alfred; the fun of Sir Thomas More
in the Tower; the farce of his daughter begging the dear head, and
clasping it in her coffin on her bosom! Surely the world will be sick of
such blasphemy!... When, moreover, the change comes, unless _Punch_ goes
a little back to his occasional gravities, he'll be sure to suffer." And
Dickens replied in a letter thanking him for sympathetic reviews, in
_Punch_--"Anent the 'Comic ----' and similar comicalities, I feel
exactly with you."

Of course, with the exception of the latter part of Jerrold's outburst,
wherein he was undoubtedly right, all this protest is exaggerated
nonsense--at least, as applied to à Beckett. One would think that
neither Jerrold nor Dickens could bear a burlesque in good
taste--Jerrold of all men! But it is just as likely that Jerrold was not
referring to à Beckett at all, but to Thackeray, whose "Miss
Tickletoby's Comic History" had already made its appearance in _Punch_,
and had been incontinently stopped. In any case, the public did not
agree with him, for both works are still popular favourites. Moreover,
he liked à Beckett too well to harm him in the mind of a common friend;
and he was unquestionably aware that the loftiness of à Beckett's aims
and character rendered him unassailable against a charge of irreverence
or lack of respect. Certain it is, at least, that when à Beckett died at
Boulogne Jerrold felt the blow so deeply that he gave up that town
thenceforward as a place of residence, nor would he ever visit it again.

It was at the early age of thirty-eight that à Beckett was appointed
police-magistrate, chiefly owing to the masterly report he drew up as
Poor-Law Commissioner in respect to the notorious Andover Union
Workhouse scandals[35]--"one of the best," said the Home Secretary,
"ever presented to Parliament." The appointment was much discussed, for
the general feeling had been educated in the views of Lord Selborne, who
asserted that no "person" connected with the Press nor any "gentleman in
the wine trade" could be permitted to attain to such an honour as the
Bench--an absurdity which has long since been dismissed. On one
occasion, it is said, when à Beckett lived at No. 10, Hyde Park Gate
South, Kensington Gore, he was instructed to hold himself in readiness,
as magistrate, to answer a summons to read the Riot Act in Hyde Park to
the unruly mob whose methods of protest against a popular grievance
constituted the "Beer Bill Riots" of 1855. That summons never came,
luckily for him; for later in the day he discovered, to his dismay,
that his careful and solicitous wife, with greater respect for her
husband's skin than for the needs of Government, Police, and Proletariat
combined, had gone out early, after securely locking the unconscious
magistrate in his library, and had prudently carried off the key.

À Beckett had been one of the shyest and most nervous men that ever
lived, but his appointment to the police-court--first at Greenwich, then
at Southwark--removed much of his undue modesty, and he was recognised
as being energetic, sagacious, and humane. He was a tremendous worker,
incomparably quick, and above all was absolutely punctual in his
delivery of "copy"--a virtue quite sufficient to account for his
popularity with publishers, who also were attracted by his retiring and
distinguished manners. Though his conversation was bright, he preferred
to keep his witticisms for his public or private writings, as when, in
sending in a parcel of "copy" to Mark Lemon, he wrote on the outside:--

  "Dear Mark--I do herewith enclose
  Some 'copy' both in verse and prose.
  'Tis neither very bright nor terse--
  The verse is bad--the prose is worse.
  But you, of course, will read and check it.
      Yours ever, G. etcet'ra Beckett."

This paper passed, as a wrapper, from Lemon to Mr. Birket Foster, and
from the hands of that gentleman to an autograph-hunter undiscoverable.

À Beckett's wit was exceedingly nimble, and as a consequence he was a
facile punster. One of his happiest jokes of the kind has been set on
record. When the election of Louis Napoleon appeared likely, the policy
of _Punch_ in respect to it was anxiously discussed at the Table. One of
the Staff--Thackeray most likely--declared that it would be wisest to be
indefinite. "Nonsense," said à Beckett, "if you're not definite, you'd
better be dumb in it!"

While occupied in writing a series of papers called "Mr. Punch's Guide
Books to the Crystal Palace," illustrated by Tenniel, Gilbert à Beckett
died at Boulogne from typhus fever, his youngest son Walter predeceasing
him by two days from the same complaint--the grief of any knowledge of
it, however, being happily spared the father. He was buried in Highgate
Cemetery, and the inscription engraved upon the tombstone was reproduced
in an abbreviated and modified form from the touching obituary notice in
which his brother-workers, through Jerrold's pen, testified to his
merits and to their affection: "Endowed with a genial, manly spirit;
gifted with subtlest powers of wit and humour, they were ever exercised
to the healthiest and most innocent purpose. As a Magistrate, his wise,
calm, humane administration of the law proved that the fulfilment of the
gravest duties is not incompatible with the sportiveness of literary
genius. 'His place knows him not,' but his memory is tenderly
cherished."

The connection of Angus Bethune Reach with _Punch_ was not of very long
duration. With Albert Smith he had been joint editor of "The Man in the
Moon," and with Shirley Brooks was one of the special correspondents of
the "Morning Chronicle" in the South of France, as well as its
Parliamentary reporter. He had followed up Albert Smith's series of
"Natural Histories," of "The Gent," "The Flirt," and other specimens of
English Society, with "Bores" and "Humbugs," which ran through several
editions. He had joined "The Puppet Show" in 1848, while still quite a
youth; he had written "The Comic Bradshaw" (which found an echo in
_Punch_ years later) and one or two successful novels, and had with
Brooks laid siege to a position on _Punch's_ Staff. This, it might
almost be said, he carried, as Brooks did, by assault; and having given
up the editorship of "The Man in the Moon" with its twenty-eighth number
(1849), he was duly summoned to the _Punch_ Table.

His life was at that time hardly a pleasant one, though his industry
(for the craze of work was upon him) was as great as his versatility,
and his field of labour as wide as his knowledge. When he came to the
_Punch_ Table, he found his haven; but he was heckled, of course, by
Douglas Jerrold, on the score of his name and its quaint pronunciation.
Concerning this name (pronounced Re-ach in the German manner, _anglice_
Re-ack), Angus once asked his father, a Writer to the Signet, in the
hearing of my informant, the late H. G. Hine, what on earth it meant.
"As in Highland Scotch," was the reply, "'Dhu' means 'black' and 'Roy'
means 'red,' so Reach means half-and-half, or 'brown.'" He therefore
insisted on its proper pronunciation; with the natural result. Jerrold
delighted in teasing him about it, and at a Dinner at the "Ship" at
Brighton, where the _Punch_ Staff held one of their meetings,
Jerrold[36] leant forward at dessert and asked--"Mr. Re-ack, may I pass
you a pe-ack?" And on another occasion, when Reach protested against
Jerrold's persistent ill-treatment of his name, the wit replied, "Oh, I
see. Re-ack when we speak to you, but _reach_ when we read you!"

At last, in 1854, Reach's incorrigible industry bore its Dead-Sea fruit;
broken down with over-work, his mind utterly gave way. Thereupon his
friends of the Fielding Club, reinforced by Albert Smith of "The Man in
the Moon," joined together to play for his benefit Smith's pantomime
burlesque, "Harlequin Guy Fawkes; or, a Match for a King," at the
Olympic Theatre, April, 1855. Arthur Smith, Albert's brother, played
pantaloon; Bidwell was harlequin; Joseph Robins, clown; Albert Smith,
Catesby; Edmund Yates, the lover; and Miss Rosina Wright ("always Rosy,
always Wright," wrote Smith) was columbine. The rush, said E. L.
Blanchard, was unprecedented, and stalls were cheap at ten pounds. The
great broadsword fight between Smith (Catesby) and Robins (Guy Fawkes),
in the rich traditions of the Surrey-Crummles School, was the hit of the
evening, and has been immortalised by Sir John Tenniel in his drawing
for _Punch_ (p. 149, Volume XXVIII.), entitled "The Amateur Olympians."
But Reach did not benefit long from the efforts of his friends, and died
before he was thirty.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] See p. 2.

[30] Douglas Jerrold writes to Hodder under date September 9th:--"I have
been worked to death for _Punch_, having it all on my shoulders, Mark, à
Beckett, and Thackeray being away. Nevertheless, last week it went up
1,500." Jerrold, it may be added, would at that time undertake some of
the editorial as well as the literary work.

[31] This was "The Little Frenchman's Second Lesson," an important poem
occupying a whole page.

[32] Under "Editor" were entered all, except very special, contributions
coming from outside.

[33] See p. 141.

[34] An example of Henry Mayhew's quaint presentation of his own
experiences is to be found in the paragraph he contributed under the
title of "TAVERN CHARGES AT DOVER":--"Waiter! How much is my glass of
brandy-and-water?" "The bill, sir." "What! 10s. 6d.?" "Yes, sir,
brandy's 2s.; never charge less." "Well?" "Sugar 6d.; never charge
less." "Go on." "Waxlight and apartment, 5s." "Why, I've only been here
five minutes." "That's not our fault, sir; we never charge less." "Go
on." "Servants, 2s." "What?" "Me, boots and chambermaid; never charge
less." "Well, what next?" "The use of plate, glass, and linen, 1s."
"What do you mean?" "Teaspoon, tumbler, and table-cloth; never charge
less; but--we makes you a present of the biling water." "Very well,
there's your 10s. 6d., and I shall write to the 'Times.'" "Yes,
sir--pen, ink, and paper, 1s.; never charge less."

[35] A "Petition," supposed to come from the inmates (written by
Percival Leigh), appeared in _Punch_ (p. 101, Volume IX.), in which the
petitioners begged that some of the kitchen refuse and pigs'-wash,
hitherto used to _over_fatten swine, might be reserved for them. This
petition had an admirable effect.

[36] Hodder incorrectly gives the _mot_ to Thackeray.

CHAPTER XIII.

_PUNCH'S_ WRITERS: 1841.

     H. P. Grattan--W. H. Wills--R. B. Postans--Bread-Tax and
     Tooth-Tax--G. Hodder--G. H. B. Rodwell--Douglas Jerrold--His
     Caustic Wit--The "Q Papers"--A Statesman _pour rire_--His Sympathy
     with the Poor and Oppressed--Wins for _Punch_ his Political
     Influence--Ill-health--"_Punch's_ Letters"--The "Jenkins" and
     "Pecksniff" Papers--"Mrs. Caudle"--Jerrold's Love of Children,
     common to the Staff--He Silences his Fellow-wits--And is Routed by
     a Barmaid--He sends his Love to the Staff--And they prove theirs.

The remaining contributors to the first number were Joseph Allen, H. P.
Grattan, and W. H. Wills. The contribution of the first-named has
already been indicated. H. P. "Grattan"--whose real name was Plunkett,
and whose occasional pseudonym was the familiar "Fusbos"--worked well
for the first numbers and for the Almanac. He was a witty versifier and
clever dramatist, but he soon tired of the paper and directed his
energies into other channels. W. H. Wills--"Harry Wills" he was always
called--was a more important and a more faithful contributor. His first
verses were "A Quarter-day Cogitation" (p. 5), and for some time he was
the regular dramatic critic of _Punch_, in which a considerable amount
of space was accorded to the review of amusements of all kinds, and not
a little to Charles Kean and his histrionic deficiencies. Besides
"_Punch's_ Theatre," he wrote paragraphs, verses, and criticisms
innumerable, including the series of "_Punch's_ Natural History of
Courtship," illustrated by the pencils of Sir John Gilbert, Newman, and
Gavarni; "_Punch's_ Comic Mythology," "_Punch's_ Information for the
People," as well as "_Punch's_ Valentines," and lively skits like "The
Burst Boiler and the Broken Heart," and the verses in praise of
pawnbrokers, "The Uncles of England." After helping the Almanac for
1846, his _Punch_ connection was interrupted for a period through his
being called to Edinburgh to edit "Chambers's Journal;" but on his
return to London two years later he resumed his position in a modified
form. He became secretary to Charles Dickens, who was then editing the
"Daily News," as well as his assistant editor on "Household Words," and
subsequently on "All the Year Round," so that little time was left him
for humorous composition--though he certainly found leisure to issue
"The Family Joe Miller." When he was in Edinburgh he married Robert
Chambers' sister--a lady possessed of true Scottish wit, some of whose
pithy remarks are still remembered, such as "The ladies who agitate for
women's rights are generally men's lefts."

Of the other two writers who aided in the founding of _Punch_--Postans
and George Hodder--there is little to say. The first-named, indeed, has
already been sufficiently dealt with, but it may be added that his last
contribution was his verses--"A Contribution by Cobden"--on the subject
of the removal by Sir Robert Peel of the tax on artificial teeth.
Postans saw his chance, for the Repeal of the Corn Laws was already
being agitated, and the tooth-tax troubled his mouth less than the tax
on bread. His final verse ran--

  "Reverse your plan," the Goddess [Commerce] said,
    And smiling stood in all her beauty;
  "Give me untaxed my daily bread,
    And tax my teeth with double duty."

Besides his ambassadorial assistance, and in spite of his presence at
the _Punch_ Club, Hodder was not of much account on the paper, either in
its formation or its literary production. He was, however, related to
_Punch_ by marriage, being the husband of Henning's beautiful daughter,
the niece of Kenny Meadows' wife. His last appearances in its pages were
in 1843, when four contributions (including "_Punch's_ Phrenology") came
from him; and then he resumed his usual work of journalist, became
Thackeray's secretary for a time, and died through the upsetting of a
coach in Richmond Park.

Passing by Leman Rede and G. H. B. Rodwell (composer, playwright, and
ballad writer), neither of whom, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, has left any appreciable trace on _Punch_, we come to the
man to whom, more than to anyone else, the paper owed the enormous
political influence it once enjoyed, and to whom it is indebted for much
of the literary reputation it still retains--Douglas Jerrold.

[Illustration: DOUGLAS JERROLD

(_From the Portrait by Sir D. Macnee, F.R.S.A., in the National Portrait
Gallery._)]

If he was not exactly the wit of his day--for his mind lacked the wider
sympathy, the greater grasp, and gentler refinement of Sydney
Smith's--he was certainly the most brilliant professional humorist of
his generation--"a wit, if not first, in the very first line." Something
of the bitterness and savagery of Gillray's rampant pleasantry afflicted
his _vis comica_; and when a happy thought, however unhappy and painful
for the hearer, came to the tip of his tongue, he could no more resist
slipping it off than he could wilfully have done him injury.

Mark Lemon used to say, "_Punch_ and I were made for each other." With
far more reason could that notion of reciprocity be applied to Jerrold.
No man ever gained so much from the paper in which he worked. He simply
frolicked in its pages, that fitted his talent as accurately as his
genius suited the times in which he lived. It is doubtful whether he
would make the same mark in it were he alive to-day; he would have to
seek another publication and another public, or else adopt an utter
change of tone. But in those lively times, when, obeying the summons
addressed to him in Boulogne, he sent his first political
paper--beginning characteristically with the introduction of Peel, in
time for the second number--he gave his powers full play. And his
sparkle was the brighter for its setting and its surroundings. His wit
was for the most part caustic and saturnine, and in no other journal
could it have so completely identified itself with the _ensemble_ of
tone. Without _Punch_, Jerrold would certainly not have been so
distinguished a man; yet he somewhere says in one of his works, with a
touch of ingratitude: "If you'd pass for somebody, you must sneer at a
play, but idolise _Punch_"--as though this were the height of
priggishness. He was a keen judge of things, and might have held that
view; but it was hardly for him, of all men, to publish it.

It is not surprising that, with the enormous reputation for wit which he
enjoyed, and up to which he lived with such triumphant ease, all the
smarter orphan-jokes of the day were fathered upon him. But there was a
ring about the true Jerroldian humour which the connoisseur could hardly
mistake. And the public soon became good enough judges of it too,
studying it regularly in _Punch_, and refusing for the most part to be
led away to look for it in the other journals which Jerrold edited, with
but indifferent success so far as their circulation went. Although his
fame was already established as a dramatist before _Punch_ was born, I
doubt, without _Punch_, he would ever have earned the reputation in pure
literature which his "Q Papers" helped to found.

It was with these "Q Papers" that he began, and he threw into them some
of his strongest and most withering writing, and oftentimes some of his
weakest sense. With his soft heart melting for the poor, and his fiery
hatred of oppression warping his better judgment, he was led into that
unreasoning attack upon property and authority to which Thackeray
deprecatingly alludes. Because the poor are unhappy, according to his
philosophy, therefore are the rich, most of them, their direct
oppressors, and ruling bodies, tyrants. Fiercely upright and
aggressively impulsive in his championship of the lowly, he was anything
but sound and thorough in his premisses; and had he the power he might
have wielded later, his defects as a political economist would
infallibly have brought about disaster. "His Radicalism," his son has
told us, "was that of a humorist"--that is to say, all his power and all
his wit as a writer (and they had few, if any, equals in the press), all
his genius for invective and ridicule, and all his commanding influence
with the public, were directed against Society and the powers that were,
simply from a playful sense of humour! Luckily, the evil, or at least
the danger, thus found a corrective for itself; for although Jerrold's
power, and with it _Punch's_, grew with amazing rapidity among all
classes, his tirades were felt to come more from the humorist's heart
than from the statesman's brain. It is thus easy to draw a comparison
between Jerrold and Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, of whom Carlyle says:
"He is a humorist from his inmost soul; he thinks as a humorist, he
feels, imagines, acts as a humorist. Sport is the element in which his
nature lives and works.... A Titan in his sport, as in his earnestness,
he oversteps all bounds, and riots without law or measure." The words
might almost have been written of Jerrold himself. But, for all that, he
was generally recognised as a leading champion of the people's rights
and reformer of their wrongs; and to this passionate earnestness, to
this keen wit and shrewd sincerity of the unconsciously special pleader,
_Punch_ owed most of the early notice he obtained, and much of his
influence in the worlds of politics and Society.

These papers, then, of which the first was "Punch and Peel" (July 24th,
1841), were, in fact, political leading-articles, satirical, ironical,
bitter, and more often demagogic than humorous, though of wit and humour
both there was a generous undercurrent. _Punch_ showed himself at once a
fighting man who meant to be in the thick of the fray, a politician as
impulsive as Macaulay; and though Jerrold did not begin to sign his
articles until the ninth week (which has given grounds to some writers
to assert that "Peel Regularly Called In" was the first of his
contributions), he soon succeeded in setting up "Q" as a personality
every bit as important and influential amongst his readers as _Punch_
himself. The Court, the Church, the Political and Social arena, he
included them all in his comprehensive gaze, and not an injustice, a
sham, an affectation, or a blunder--or what he happened to regard as
such--but came in for exposure and castigation. It was fortunate for him
and for _Punch_, no doubt, that he was "a humorist;" for his own
blunders and misjudgments were regarded with the more indulgence for it,
or were condoned as the excusable excesses of a chartered jester running
playfully amok. But it must not be imagined that though a humorist he
was not desperately sincere. His own early struggles, his ghastly
experience, as he ever thought it, when as a midshipman in the Navy he
saw how authority had to be enforced by flogging, and witnessed all the
revolting horrors of the cockpit during an engagement, had imparted
intense earnestness to his mind; and he focussed all his brilliancy on
the opportunity _Punch_ afforded of tilting at the windmills in the
plain. The fact seems to be that Jerrold's heart, and sometimes his
logic and his judgment as well, were a good deal of a woman's;
distinguished by every estimable and admirable quality, but with little
statesmanlike perspicuity and moderation. Such may truly be said of
those early "Q Papers," by which, nevertheless, he was able to effect
much, then and thereafter, greatly to the good of the people, yet often
wrought some of that intolerance and injustice which he was too ready to
ascribe to others.

It was he, more than anyone else, who forced on _Punch_ that admixture
of Radicalism with his Whiggery which did not wear off for the first
years of his life, and which was often enough preached with that
picturesqueness of expression which we nowadays would smile at as
"high-falutin." But the lofty ideas of the writer carried off this fault
of style. His creed was simple and clear: Cant was devilish and
Samaritanism godly; to him hypocrisy was the blackest of the vices, and
kindness the sum of all the virtues. It mattered little that that
kindness misplaced might bring a train of evils in its place; sympathy
was the one thing wanted; the quinine of stern justice (except against
the great and rich) should ever be watered down with mercy. It was, in
fact, the religion less of the practical politician and true reformer,
than of the worthy, upright, kind-hearted, unthinking Christian. His
very fearlessness made men fear him, as his motives and ability
compelled their respect; and the majority, who cared less for political
philosophy than for political fervour, applauded him blindfold, and in
due time accorded to _Punch_ a place in their esteem second only to that
enjoyed by the "Times." Of course, "bitterness" was expected in the
satirical papers of that day; and it is not pretended that Jerrold was
ever so unreasonable or so anarchical in the pages of _Punch_ as William
Brough revealed himself in the brilliant attacks on the propertied
classes in which he indulged in his Liverpool journal. He lost, of
course, no opportunity of assailing the Duke of Wellington, and Louis
Philippe, and the "Morning Post" (articles in which he attacked the
snobs of England before Thackeray did), and other of _Punch's_ permanent
butts; but his chief merit lies in his having set up the hereditary sins
of Society as targets, and shot his barbed darts into them with unerring
accuracy of aim. Of his bitterness it was said that it was
"healthy--healthy as bark," just as Thackeray--was it not?--had
previously said of his own writings in "Britannia."

It was not till a year afterwards (1842) that he began his "_Punch's_
Letters to his Son." They were tender enough, and show little evidence
that they were written in weakness and in pain. His health, indeed, gave
him periods of agony of a rheumatic character, pain in his hands so
great that at one time he could not write, and at another his whole
racked body practically paralysed, until a "cure" at Malvern gave him
back control of it. On another occasion, but that was in later years,
when he was asked how he was, he replied, "As one that is waiting and is
waited for," and he often wrote, said his son, when the movement of the
pen was fierce pain to him. We may see in this physical torment,
perhaps, the mainspring of much of his caustic humour. Mr. Cooper, R.A.,
would ascribe to over-indulgence much of Jerrold's suffering. "His
countenance was open and bright (when sober!), and showed nothing of
that satirical bitterness for which he was so eminent.... In accordance
with the fashion of the time the man who could not drink his bottle and
remain sober, drank his bottle and got drunk." But the Academician, like
most teetotalers, would often see drunkenness where Jerrold saw merely
drink, and probably knew nothing of the latter's own feelings towards
undue indulgence. "Habitual intoxication," wrote Jerrold himself, "is
the epitome of every crime;" and elsewhere, "The bottle is the devil's
crucible." Yet it must be admitted that he was not averse to what in his
day was called "true conviviality," which, as I have heard it remarked,
never yet made a man a drunkard, though it may sometimes have made him
drunk. "If Bacchus often leads men into quagmires deep as his vats, let
us yet do him this justice--he sometimes leads them out. Ask your
opponent to take another glass of wine." And did not Thomas Hood
suggest, when he was told that by his love of wine he was shortening his
days, that anyhow he was lengthening his nights?

What may be called the "Jenkins" and the "Pecksniff" papers belong to
the same year. The former were directed against the "Morning Post,"
which, with other loyal journals, in those days adopted a tone towards
Court and Society hardly in keeping with modern ideas of manly
independence, and of course its politics were to match. Thackeray and à
Beckett joined later in the sport. But Jerrold, while believing in
Thackeray's hatred of the snob, more than suspected him of being a snob
himself; and Thackeray felt not less convinced of the hollowness of
Jerrold's "stalwartness." "Thackeray had neither love nor respect for
Jerrold's democracy," Vizetelly tells us. "I remember him mentioning to
me his having noticed at the Earl of Carlisle's a presentation copy of
one of Jerrold's books, the inscription in which ran: 'To the Right
Honourable the Earl of Carlisle, K.G., K.C.B., etc. etc.' 'Ah!' said
Thackeray, 'this is the sort of style in which your rigid,
uncompromising Radical always toadies the great.'" And yet both men were
honest toady-haters to the core. It was this very hatred of snobbism
which inspired Jerrold with his cutting retort to Samuel Warren, author
of "Ten Thousand a Year," who complained that at some aristocratic house
at which he had recently dined he could positively get no fish. "I
suppose," said Jerrold, "they had eaten it all upstairs!"[37]

The "Pecksniff" papers, as already stated, very nearly involved _Punch_
in its first libel action. The object of its criticism was, of course,
Samuel Carter Hall, who, tradition says, was the origin of Dickens's
immortal conception. This creation--the symbol of cant and
hypocrisy--was after Jerrold's own heart, and, thinking less of charity
this time than of justice, he smote the luckless editor of the "Art
Journal" hip and thigh, and revelled in his attacks. Hall's articles on
the industrial art of England were supposed to be dictated more by the
complacency and generosity of manufacturers than by the artistic
excellence of their wares. Sometimes Jerrold would use the image of
"Pecksniff" for other and more serious purposes than the baiting of Mr.
Hall and his little ways, as when, in 1844, he made this biting
onslaught on the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel:

"We have heard that Mr. Charles Dickens is about to apply to the Court
of Chancery for an injunction to prevent Sir Robert Peel continuing any
longer to personate, in his character of Premier, the character of Mr.
Pecksniff, as delineated in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, that character being
copyright. We hope this rumour is unfounded, as the injunction would
certainly be refused. Sir Robert Peel is in a condition to prove that
the part in question has been enacted by him for a long series of years,
and was so long before any of Mr. Dickens's works appeared; in short,
that he, Sir Robert Peel, is the original Pecksniff."

The year 1843 was a notable one in _Punch's_ calendar, for in it Jerrold
struck that note of sympathy and tenderness that was almost immediately
to culminate in Hood's tragic poem. "The Story of a Feather" was begun,
and was the greatest success the paper had scored up to that time, with
the exception of the first Almanac. Dickens, who watched for it and read
it as it came out, wrote privately to him that it was "a beautiful
book," and his verdict was endorsed by the ever-increasing circle of
_Punch's_ readers. "Our Honeymoon" was Jerrold's last series of the
year--a year which drew from him plenty of outside work. He edited Mr.
Herbert Ingram's admirable but short-lived "Illuminated Magazine," and
wrote for it the "Chronicles of Clovernook" and the "Chronicles of a
Goosequill." It is astonishing, in looking back at Jerrold's remarkable
work at this period, to think that the public reads his books no more,
and prefers to ruin its literary taste on fifth-rate romances rather
than on the virile novels of a recent past.

For a little while nothing of special note, though still a great mass of
work, came from Jerrold's pen, until 1845, when, as prophesied by Hal
Baylis (_see_ p. 97), "Mrs. Caudle" burst upon the town. In common with
a few other things achieved by _Punch_, it created a national _furore_,
and set the whole country laughing and talking. Other nations soon took
up the conversation and the laughter, and "Mrs. Caudle" passed into the
popular mind and took a permanent place in the language in an incredibly
short space of time.

"Some years after I had ceased my connection with _Punch_," says Landells
in one of his autobiographical papers now in my hands, "I met Douglas
Jerrold at the corner of Essex Street in the Strand. It was the time
when the first number of the 'Caudle Curtain Lectures' appeared. In the
course of conversation I remarked that I did not read _Punch_ regularly,
but I had by chance perused the opening chapter of his new subject, and
I thought, if he followed up the series in the spirit he had begun, they
would be the most popular that have ever appeared in its pages. He
laughed heartily and replied--'It just shows what stuff the people will
swallow. I could write such rubbish as that by the yard;' and he added,
'I have before said, the public will always pay to be amused, but they
will never pay to be instructed.' The Caudle Lectures did more than any
series of papers for the universal popularity of _Punch_, and there is
no doubt but they added greatly to Jerrold's reputation, although he
always affected not to think so."

The origin of Mrs. Caudle--one of those women interminably loquacious
and militantly gloomy under fancied marital oppression, who (as Jerrold
said of another) "wouldn't allow that there was a bright side to the
moon"--was the result of no mental effort. Henry Mayhew's son has said
that the character was evolved from the relations of Mr. and Mrs.
Landells; but to anyone conversant with them the suggestion is palpably
absurd. Moreover, Jerrold, himself a good authority, one would have
thought, declared that she was "the result of no thought;" she was
merely "wafted into his brain." The reason of the immediate success of
these "Curtain Lectures" was said to be that every woman in the land
recognised in the lecturer a gratifying resemblance to someone in her
own circle. It was primarily, no doubt, the _intime_ character of the
papers, rather than their inherent humour, that tickled the public
taste--though at the same time it gave some offence. A reminiscence of a
literary _protégée_ of Jerrold's--Mrs. Newton Crosland--seems to bear
this out. In company with her mother, she was dining at Jerrold's house,
when, "towards the close of the meal, a packet arrived--proofs, I fancy;
at any rate, Douglas Jerrold opened a letter which visibly disturbed
him. 'Hark at this,' he said, after a little while; and he then
proceeded to read a really pathetic though not very well expressed
letter from an aggrieved matron, who appealed to him to discontinue or
modify the Caudle Lectures. She declared they were bringing discord into
families and making a multitude of women miserable."

But they made a greater multitude of men merry, and _Punch_ proceeded
with them--indeed, he continued so long that his rivals protested
loudly, as well they might in their own interests. They published
engravings of handsome sarcophagi, and gave similar unmistakable hints
that they considered the interment of Mrs. Caudle's corpse a long time
overdue; while "Joe Miller the Younger" represented him as "The Modern
Paganini playing on One String: 'Caudle--without variations.'" But
Jerrold, who had lately moved from Regent's Park to his house, West
Lodge, at Putney Lower Common, continued there to write Caudle Lectures
"by the yard"--alternating the locale, according to Mark Lemon, with a
tavern in Bouverie Street. And he laughed to see how his papers were
translated into nearly every Continental language, and were transferred
to the stage both in London and the provinces. Mrs. Keeley made a
life-like Mrs. Caudle at the Lyceum--only perhaps a little too fresh and
charming; the character in the provinces being often undertaken by male
impersonators, such, for example, as Mr. Warren. John Leech executed
upon stone a couple of admirable portraits of the conjugal pair, which
were sold, coloured, for a shilling; but they were soon pirated and
hawked about the streets, and the unprincipled conductors of "The Penny
Satirist," and similar abominations, traded largely not only on the
identity of the Caudles, but on the words of Mrs. Caudle herself--so
freely that legal steps had to be taken to stop the nuisance. The latest
edition of this _jeu d'esprit_ is that which has been illustrated by
Charles Keene, and it can hardly be doubted that in his drawings he
often touches the high-water mark of his artistic execution.

In due time Douglas Jerrold, as in duty bound, made the _amende
honorable_ to the sex he had maligned. He was invited to take the chair
at a great public meeting held at Birmingham in his honour, when the
whole audience rose at him. He was asked to speak without fear, "as
there was no Mrs. Caudle in Birmingham." He responded that he "did not
believe that there was a Mrs. Caudle in the whole world," and the
gracefulness of his reference set him at peace with womankind once more.
In point of fact, he was no more pleased, artistically, with the success
of Mrs. Caudle among his books than he was pleased with the position of
"Black-eyed Susan" among his plays, as he was well aware that he had
done much better work in both branches. But for _Punch's_ sake he was
delighted. So after the death of Mrs. Caudle, which in decency could no
longer be delayed, Jerrold attempted to carry on the idea by marrying
the widower to the lady of whom his wife had been so jealous; so that
Mr. Caudle--his head turned by his new-born liberty--might, in the
"Breakfast Talk" levelled at his second spouse, avenge the oppression
he had suffered from his first. But the experiment, which took place in
the Almanac of the following year, fell flat, and Mr. and Mrs. Caudle,
too, dropped out of Mr. Punch's doll-box for good and all.

Then followed, in 1846, "_Punch's_ Complete Letter-writer," which in
consequence of the odium incurred a short time before by Sir James
Graham, the Home Secretary,[38] by the opening of certain letters while
they were passing through the post, Jerrold sarcastically dedicated to
the heckled baronet. He did this on the ground that Sir James, having
the whole run of the Post Office and the fingering of all the letters,
must therefore possess "a most refined, most exquisite taste for the
graces of epistolary composition," and could thoroughly appreciate them.
This was another version of Hood's lines--

  "A daw's not reckon'd a religious bird
  Because he keeps a-cawing from a steeple,"

and is the pattern on which Mr. Whistler's effort was founded--that the
mere company of pictures can impart no feeling or knowledge of art, else
the policeman in the National Gallery must be the best of critics. But
at this time better work of Jerrold's, "St. Giles's and St. James's,"
was appearing in his "Shilling Magazine" (newly started by Bradbury and
Evans), as well as in the "Daily News," under the title of the "Hedgehog
Papers;" while "Time Works Wonders" raised his reputation higher than
ever upon the stage.

In the same year appeared the commencement of the series "Mrs. Bibs'
Baby"--but it was not a success, and was entirely thrown into the shade,
as it appeared, by Thackeray's first triumph, the "Snob Papers." The
chief charm about "Mrs. Bibs' Baby" is that it was the outcome of
Jerrold's passionate love of children. This delightful trait in
Jerrold's character--as in Steele's, Fielding's, Goldsmith's, and
Dickens's--has been common to many of the _Punch_ Staff, as we know in
their lives and have seen in their works. We all know how Thackeray
never saw a boy without wanting to tip him--a practical form of sympathy
which found great approval. Leech loved all children, even the terrible
ones, and makes us feel it in his drawings. Mr. du Maurier adores the
nice and the pretty ones, and even has a fatherly sort of pity for the
stupid and the ugly. Mr. Harry Furniss's "Romps" reflects his keen
delight in young people, the wilder the better. Shirley Brooks loved to
read the "Jabberwock" to them, and Sir John Tenniel, like his old chief,
Mark Lemon, loved them for their childhood's sake--or he would never
have been able to give us "Alice in Wonderland." Of course, there may be
others on the Staff who have no particularly pronounced feeling in this
direction; but Jerrold would often go out of his way to introduce babies
into his serious articles. He speaks somewhere of something "sweeter
than the sweetest baby"--and once said that "children are earthly idols
that hold us from the stars." So he began "Mrs. Bibs' Baby," and felt
humiliated and disappointed when the public showed no glimmer of
interest in it, and he was soon induced by his own good sense and the
editorial hint to desert his latest offspring.

Then came "The Female Robinson Crusoe," and the last (modified) success,
"Twelve Fireside Saints;" but outside undertakings were almost
monopolising his attention. His "Weekly Newspaper," founded on the
strength of his "Q Papers," had been born and was already dead. His
powerful novel "A Man Made of Money" made his next unqualified success;
then in 1850 he became attached to the "Examiner," and two years later
"Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper" brought him an editorship and a thousand
pounds a year--and he knew at last, and for the first time, the meaning
of freedom from care. He became, moreover, independent of the publishers
of _Punch_, to whom he was pecuniarily indebted, although they had more
than once raised his salary (once in order to enable him to dispense
with working for the "Pictorial Times"); but his indebtedness he felt as
a tie, which was none the less irksome that it was a golden fetter which
bound him to his friends. Still, to the end he sent in his satires,
couplets, and epigrams--stinging, brilliant, and original--jokes and
sarcasms by the score, but extremely few puns.

Sometimes, reviving the memories of his early trade, he would enter the
compositors' room, and, while waiting for a proof, would seize a
"stick," set up some concluding lines or a fresh paragraph in type, and
even make his own corrections in proof, almost driving the "reader" out
of his mind, until he learned how the corrections and additions had been
effected.

That Jerrold's wit ran in a higher groove than mere verbal quips and
cranks is proved by the retorts and epigrams that have been preserved
and ticketed in cases like a collection of brilliant butterflies. When
one March or April he tumbled backwards into water where, but for the
unseasonable weather, no water ought to have been, he suggested that the
accident was "owing to the backward spring;" reminding us of that
similar witticism of Henry Compton's, when fine hot weather followed
suddenly on March snows--"We have jumped from winter to summer without a
spring." His reply was characteristic to the poet Héraud's enquiry as to
whether he had seen his "Descent into Hell" (then newly published)--"I
wish to Heaven I had;" together with his well-known retort to Albert
Smith, who, before he left the paper, protested coaxingly against
Jerrold's merciless chaff, adding, "After all, you know, we row in the
same boat." "True," answered Jerrold, quick as thought, "but not with
the same skulls."

But he did not always come off scot-free; and, like many a wit whose
tongue is feared, he could be silenced by a well-directed thrust which,
for want of practice and experience in defence, he knew not how to
parry. Mr. Charles Williams tells me the story, recounted to him by
Thackeray, of how, when one wet night they were all at a little
oyster-shop then facing the Strand Theatre, the barmaid Jane, thoroughly
out of humour at Jerrold's chaff, slapped down before the little man the
liquor he had ordered, with the words, "There's your grog and take care
you don't drown yourself;" with the effect of damping his spirits for
the rest of the night. When Alfred Bunn retaliated with "A Word with
Punch,"[39] Jerrold made no reply, to the astonished delight of the
rival press. No man had greater courage than he; but he probably found
that he had nothing more to say, seeing that from week to week for years
past he had written against Bunn all he knew or could think of. And when
Shirley Brooks struck at him in "The Man in the Moon" in the course of a
mock election-address beginning--"I hate the humbug of the 'wrongs of
the poor man' class of writing when any sneaking rascal is found
poaching and punished for it"--Jerrold held his peace, and in due time
voted to have the damaging assailant invited to join _Punch's_ Staff.
Mrs. Landells, without straining their friendship, called him "the
little wasp" to his face; but, as Leigh Hunt more justly said, if he had
the sting of the bee, he also had the honey. When Jerrold said in his
wife's presence that a man ought to be able to change a spouse like a
bank-note--change one of forty for two of twenty--he indulged in kindly
chaff which she well understood and could appreciate; and when, on the
occasion of a party at their house, he replied to a question as to who
was dancing with his wife, "Oh, a member of the Humane Society, I
suppose," she had no objection to Leech making it into a picture for
_Punch's_ pages. When Jerrold said anything witty he would always laugh
frankly and unreservedly at it, and, like Dickens, he would burst out
laughing as he wrote, when he struck upon a comic idea for _Punch_.

The report that Mark Lemon said of Douglas Jerrold that "he was
doubtless considered caustic because he blackened every character he
touched" is probably apocryphal--though Jerrold's occasional treatment
of Lemon might perhaps have justified some sort of retaliation from his
genial Editor. Still, it was Jerrold's firm belief, as he declared to
Mr. Sidney Cooper, R.A., that he had never in his life said or written a
bitter thing of anyone who did not deserve it. But when he was on his
death-bed, the day before he died, he sent a last affectionate message
to his old comrades at the Table: "Tell the dear boys that if I've ever
wounded any of them, I've always loved them." Horace Mayhew was with him
when he passed away, and thence from the bedside brought the dead man's
love to them as a token to wipe out the sting of words which, if they
had not been forgotten, had been forgiven long ago.

After 1848 Jerrold wrote less and less for _Punch_; but until 1857, the
year of his death, he faithfully attended at the Table, and exerted
himself in _Punch's_ behalf. And when he died--the greatest blow _Punch_
had hitherto suffered by death (for Dr. Maginn was never on the
Staff)--Henry Mayhew (his son-in-law), Thackeray, Horace Mayhew, Mark
Lemon, and W. Bradbury were his pall-bearers, and Leech, Shirley
Brooks, Tom Taylor, John Oxenford, Percival Leigh, James Hannay,
Landells, Kenny Meadows, Albert Smith, and John Tenniel attended at his
graveside. Dickens took a prominent part in raising a fund for the
benefit of the widow, and with Thackeray and Dr. W. H. (now Sir William)
Russell gave readings, while Dickens' Amateurs made a public appearance,
and T. P. Cooke returned to the stage for the occasion--with a result
amounting to £2,000. Tom Taylor's feeling address, which was spoken at
the Adelphi Theatre by Albert Smith, between whom and Jerrold a kindlier
feeling had latterly sprung up, concluded thus:--

                                  "... If one joy
  From earth can reach souls freed from earth's alloy,
  'Tis sure the joy to know kind hands are here
  Drying the widow's and the orphan's tear;
  Helping them gently o'er lone life's rough ways,
  Sending what light may be to darkling days--
  A better service than to hang with verse,
  As our forefathers did, the poet's hearse.

  Two things our Jerrold left, by death removed--
  The works he wrought: the family he loved.
  The first to-night you honour; honouring these,
  You lend your aid to give the others ease."

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Dr. Strauss's attribution of this repartee to Robert Brough in
reproof of James Hannay appears to be quite without foundation.

[38] See p. 113 _et seq._

[39] See p. 227 _et seq._

CHAPTER XIV.

_PUNCH'S_ WRITERS: 1841-2.

     Percival Leigh--His Medical Shrewdness--Unsuspected Wealth--His
     Ability and Work--His Decay--Kindness of the Proprietors to the Old
     Pensioner--Albert Smith--Inspires varied Sentiments--Jerrold's
     Hostility--"Lord Smith"--Parts Company--H. A. Kennedy--Dr.
     Maginn--John Oxenford--W. M. Thackeray--His First
     Contribution--"Miss Tickletoby" Fails to Please--He Withdraws--And
     Resumes--Rivalry with Jerrold--As an Illustrator--A Mysterious
     Picture--Thackeray's Contributions--And Pseudonyms--Quaint
     Orthography--"The Snobs of England"--He Tires of _Punch_--His
     Motives for Resignation--The Letter--Death of "Dear Old
     Thack"--_Punch's_ Tribute to his Memory.

How Percival Leigh (otherwise called "Paul Prendergast" in those early
days) was sought out by George Hodder, on the strength of the "Comic
Latin Grammar," and how, after a judicious pause, he joined the Staff of
_Punch_, has already been made known. He was twenty-four when, in 1835,
he took his M.R.C.S. He had been a medical student of "Bart's," but had
already abandoned, in great measure, the lancet for the pen. He sent in
as his first contribution the article to accompany Leech's "Foreign
Affairs;" and though he became best known as a humorist, as a doctor he
was in his early days equally to be respected. Mr. Arthur à Beckett
tells the following stories of his powers in the direction of diagnosis
and surgery:--

     Although he had given up practice for a number of years, he was an
     excellent doctor. Sir James Paget has told me that when he and "the
     Professor" [Leigh's nickname at the Table] were fellow-students at
     "Bart's," the latter was considered quite the best man of his year.
     He was admirable at diagnosis, and I shall never forget one of his
     prognostications. He was in the company of a number of
     _littérateurs_ and artists who were dining together. A well-known
     dramatist was expected, and did not turn up to time. The absentee
     was allowed ten minutes' grace, and then dinner was commenced
     without him. After a while he came in full of apologies. He had
     missed one train (he lived in the suburbs), and would have missed
     another had he not run for it. And then he laughingly explained to
     "the Professor" that he thought he had sprained his leg. Percival
     Leigh, who had been looking at him with keen attention since his
     entrance, asked him a couple of questions; and having received
     replies to them, spoke as follows: "My dear fellow, if you will
     take my advice, you will go home at once in a cab and get to bed.
     Send for your doctor and make him overhaul you. But call special
     attention to the sprain." The dramatist, who was one of "the
     Professor's" oldest friends, obeyed orders and departed. Then the
     rest of the company twitted the doctor on the clever ruse "of
     getting rid of one who deserved to be punished for keeping the soup
     waiting." Of course, it was only chaff, but "the Professor" took it
     seriously. "No, my boys," he replied, very gravely, "I did not send
     him away on our account, but in his own interest. Of course, while
     there is life there is hope; but, unless I am very greatly
     mistaken, we shall never see him again." And "the Professor" was
     right. Within a month the dramatist had joined the silent majority.

     The second story about my dear old friend is not so grim as its
     predecessor.

     Mr. Percival Leigh, when he was more than seventy years old, was
     knocked down by a passing vehicle as he was crossing the road. He
     was immediately picked up by a policeman and conveyed in a cab to
     the nearest hospital. "The Professor," who was covered in mud,
     asked to be taken home, but the constable would not listen to him.
     So he was carried into the accident ward. After a while he was seen
     by the house-surgeon and his assistant. The two medicos entirely
     ignored "the Professor," and gave their exclusive attention to his
     leg. "I think you are wrong," said Mr. Leigh, in a mild tone of
     voice, after he had listened to their conversation for a few
     moments. The doctors paid not the slightest attention to the
     observation, and continued their investigations. Now "the
     Professor" was the most mild and kindly of gentlemen--courteous to
     a degree, and as polished as a traditional Frenchman--but when he
     was roused he was--well, emphatically roused. He attempted a second
     remonstrance, but with the same result. The two medicos calmly
     ignored him. "Drop that leg, you confounded blockheads!" he
     thundered out suddenly. "Can't you see, you idiots, that I have
     fractured my ----," and then he supplied a highly technical and
     scientific description of his accident. The two medicos stared at
     "the Professor" in blank astonishment. Then "the Professor"
     abandoned his incognito, and gave his name and quality. "You see,
     gentlemen," he said, resuming his customary courteous tone, "I
     venture to believe that I know more about my leg than you do. It
     has been under my personal observation all my life, and I
     consequently have given more time to studying its constitution and
     idiosyncracies than you, naturally (with all your numerous
     engagements), could afford to devote to such a purpose!"

Leigh had a philosopher's head and a fine face. In later life he was
extremely careless in his person--so much so that when he died Mr.
Bradbury, with his usual thoughtfulness, went to the funeral with a
cheque-book in his pocket, intending, if necessary, to pay the
undertaker's expenses. His surprise, therefore, was great when he
learned that "the Professor" had died worth from ten to eleven thousand
pounds. Leigh, who lived for some years in Hammersmith Road, in a house
which, judged from its exterior, promised little comfort within, was a
profound Shakespearean and a good classical scholar, and from these
attainments he earned the sobriquet by which he was known. He vied with
Jerrold himself in his knowledge of the Bard, and was fond of spouting
the poets, classic and English, with the least possible excuse, breaking
out into verse with a loud voice, utterly oblivious of his companions.
It was he who introduced into the pages of _Punch_ the assumption of
scholarship in its readers, and so acquired at once for the paper a
position never held by any other humorous journal in this country. His
work, which for many years averaged a column and a half each week,
included nearly every sort of contribution known to _Punch_, including,
in 1845, his striking "Pauper Song"--the wail of the poor man who
prefers the prison to the workhouse, the second stanza running thus:--

  "There shall I get the larger crust,
    The warmer house-room there;
  And choose a prison since I must,
    I'll choose it for its fare.
  The Dog will snatch the biggest bone,
    So much the wiser he:
  Call me a Dog;--the name I'll own:--
    The gaol--the gaol for me."

In 1843 Leigh began his effectively satirical "_Punch's_ Labours of
Hercules," and in 1849 "Mr. Pipps's Diary" appeared as the text
accompanying Doyle's pictures of "Ye Manners and Customs of ye
Englyshe." The extraordinary success of this admirable parody was,
perhaps, the greatest he ever won, though he achieved many. He was
essentially a "safe man" at his work, and for that reason he would act
as _locum tenens_ to Shirley Brooks when that Editor was away; and the
only occasions on which he failed (so far as I can ascertain) except
towards the end, was in May, 1847, when his wife died, and in April of
the following year, when he lost his father. He always had a strong
feeling for art, both in subject and treatment, and was always very
fastidious about his work; he would touch up a poem over and over again,
and take the utmost pains with metre and "swing" until he was satisfied.

But as he grew old it became evident that the "Professor" was beyond his
work, and although he attended the Table with the utmost regularity up
to the very end, the decay of nature robbed him of his value as a member
of the Staff. Then came an example of the kindliness of spirit that has
animated for so long the little côterie of humorists of Bouverie Street
and the generosity of the men for whom they work. For a long while
before his death "the Professor's" copy had been practically useless to
the Editor; yet everything was done to spare him the pain of rejection.
At first Mr. Burnand or Mr. Arthur à Beckett would rewrite the
paragraphs; and Leigh's delight when they were printed was sad to see.
But soon it was impossible to conceal the fact that they were utterly
useless; and so for some years it was the practice to set his "copy" up
in type and to send him proofs, which he duly corrected and returned.
But they never appeared in the paper, nor was ever question asked nor
explanation offered. Did the old gentleman forget all about them? Or was
he hoping against hope that some day room might again be found for him
in the pages to which he had contributed with so much applause? Or did
he appreciate the real motive and kindly feeling of the proprietors,
who, though they could not use his work, actually increased his salary?
Whatever the cause, "the Professor" to the last maintained a pathetic
silence. He died at Oak Cottage, King Street, Hammersmith, on October
24th, 1889, and was laid to rest in the Hammersmith Cemetery in the
presence of a circle of old _Punch_ friends. For one thing, at least, he
had laid the paper under a deep debt of gratitude--he had introduced to
it his hospital chum and life-long friend, John Leech, and that was a
service which could never be forgotten.

[Illustration: ALBERT SMITH.
(_From an Engraving by Cook._)]

The third of the medical trio was Albert Smith, a writer who was not
fortunate in making a good impression on the majority of his associates.
With Leech, with whom he had shared rooms in his "sawbones days," he
remained a steadfast friend; but it is probable that that friendship was
maintained by the artist by reason of the other's good nature, and in
spite of his manner. Henry Vizetelly, who evidently bore him no
particular goodwill, wrote to me his recollections of the man in these
words: "He was not the amiable person depicted by Yates in his
'Recollections.' He was vulgar and bumptious in manner until he became
polished by concerting with 'swells' after the success of his
entertainments. He always had a keen eye for the main chance, and never
neglected an opportunity for self-advertisement. Jerrold and Thackeray
detested him, though only Jerrold showed this openly--which he
occasionally did to Smith's face, in the most offensive manner. Albert
Smith retained his position on _Punch_ for some time after Jerrold's
animosity had declared itself--first, because his copy was always
certain; and secondly, because he and Leech were great friends, and
Leech was then a power--though not in the same degree as Jerrold, who
was almost absolute." These strictures are repeated in Vizetelly's
autobiography. Smith's "Physiologies," he says, which were some of them
enlarged from the _Punch_ sketches, brought him great popular favour, in
spite of their slight intrinsic worth. Thackeray was invited by
Vizetelly to produce similar sketches at a hundred pounds apiece--which
was double the amount he was then receiving for the monthly parts of
"Vanity Fair;" but he declined to do anything "in the Albert Smith
line," and he similarly refused to write for "Gavarni in London," of
which Smith was editor. "Pigmy as Jerrold physically was, Albert Smith
quailed before him;" for Jerrold's stinging attacks and repartees were
merciless. So Smith bought a toy-whip, which he playfully produced to
his friends with the explanation that he intended to apply it to "Master
Jerrold;" but he was never known to bring it out in his tormentor's
presence. Jerrold's "skull" witticism has already been recorded; and of
the same kind was his loud enquiry over the _Punch_ dinner-table--when
Smith's obtrusive foible of calling his acquaintances by their
abbreviated Christian names became intolerable--"I say, Leech, how long
is it necessary for a man to know you before he can call you 'Jack'?"
When Jerrold first saw Smith's initials, he had said that he believed
they were "only two-thirds of the truth"--and he continued to act upon
the assumption until Smith left _Punch_ and had become a successful
"Entertainer." Then a truce was called, for his Mont Blanc ascent and
the "Entertainment" he made out of it (of which Leech himself said,
"It's only bad John Parry") had made of Smith one of the lions of the
day, and of his St. Bernard, which had accompanied him, the most petted
beast in the metropolis. But to the end he remained, generally speaking,
the best-abused humorist of his day. He did not even succeed in escaping
the quiet scorn of his occasional companion, Dickens, whose literary
style it was reported he was trying to copy. The novelist, who much
enjoyed Albert's sobriquet of "Lord Smith," simply shrugged his
shoulders as he replied--"We all have our Smiths." It is believed by
those who should know best that the cause of the final rupture between
Smith and _Punch_ was the discovery that some of his articles were
simply adaptations from the French; and this belief is still current in
the _Punch_ office.

Smith's connection with _Punch_ was through his engagement for the
"Cosmorama," on which Landells and Last committed infanticide at the
starting of _Punch_. He sent his first paper from his temporary rooms at
Chertsey; it was the burlesque, "Transactions and Yearly Report of the
Hookham-cum-Snivey Literary, Scientific, and Mechanics' Institute" (12th
September, 1841). This was succeeded in the following month, with the
opening of his "Physiology of a London Medical Student," which was
rather laughable in itself, while displaying a wonderful intimacy with
the rough and noisy world with which it dealt. The idea, however, had
already been sketched by Percival Leigh in "The Heads of the People."
Smith was now living at 14, Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, in an
unpalatial lodging, where he nominally carried on the profession of
surgeon-dentist; but his best energies were thrown into his literary
work, and there is no doubt that that work was to the taste of the
_Punch_ readers. Mr. Walton Henning has told me how his father, A. S.
Henning, calling upon Smith concerning his work, found him like a
typical Bob Sawyer, with his heels upon the table, playing the cornet as
a grand finale to his breakfast. Then he would don his French workman's
blouse and scribble for dear life. The "Physiology of London Evening
Parties," which was originally written by him in 1839 for the "Literary
World," was illustrated by Newman, who was still a far more important
man on _Punch_ than Leech; and the series was followed by "Curiosities
of Medical Experiences," the less successful "Side-scenes of Everyday
Society," and "Physiology of a London Idler"--which, taken together,
were voted the most entertaining descriptions of social life that
_Punch_ was publishing, even at a time when _Punch_ was declared to be
vastly entertaining. Verse, epigram, jokelets, and articles on current
events came from Albert Smith's pen before the strained relations
between the parties and the irresistible hostility of Jerrold bore him
down, though it is probable that the practical joke on him described
among the proceedings of the _Punch_ Club had some part in bringing
matters to a head; and on January 7th, 1844, his last contribution
appeared--"Important and Telegraphic." _Punch_, in reply to a criticism
of the "Boston Atlas," declared that Smith left in December, 1843; but
Albert Smith himself wrote (November 20th, 1845) to Mr. James Silk
Buckingham (who was protesting to him against _Punch's_ attacks): "I
have not written or suggested anything for _Punch_ since January,
1844.... I withdrew in consequence of being unable to agree with Mr.
Mark Lemon, the editor. Indeed, I have been attacked since then through
my novel of 'The Marchioness of Brinvilliers' both in _Punch_ and in
'Jerrold's Magazine,' for which I do not care a straw."

It was after his retirement from _Punch_ that, in conjunction with A. B.
Reach, he started "The Man in the Moon," with the express purpose of
making himself obnoxious to _Punch_ in general and Jerrold in
particular, in which laudable desire he in part, at least, succeeded;
while at the same time he turned his attention to the publishers by
bringing out a little Christmas volume entitled "A Bowl of _Punch_." But
in time all bitterness disappeared; Albert the Great, as Smith was
called, had "discovered" Mont Blanc and Chamonix, and peace prevailed,
though to the end Smith had no further access to _Punch's_ pages.

The last regular contributor of the year 1841 whose name has been
preserved is H. A. Kennedy, whose parodies of Horace were as good as
anything Leigh ever did of the kind. The parody of Horace's "Donec
gratus" is worth preserving, and that (p. 20, Volume II.) of "Ad
Lydiam"--becomingly rendered into a tender ode "To Judy"--is hardly
less excellent.

Dr. Maginn's connection with _Punch_ began with the first Almanac, while
he was, with James Hannay, in residence in the "Fleet." The doctor, as
one of the most versatile writers of the day, was looked upon by
the "Punchites" as useful for their purpose as he was for any of
the rival papers with which he was connected. "He would write a leader
for the 'Standard' one evening," it is said in J. F. Clarke's
"Auto-biographical Recollections," "answer it in the 'True Sun' the
following day, and abuse both in the 'John Bull' on the ensuing Sunday."
Such a man could not be without a sense of humour, especially with ample
gin and water to enrich it and poverty to point it. He was the brilliant
Morgan O'Doherty of "Fraser" and "Blackwood," and was nearly, but not
quite, "Captain Shandon" in "Pendennis." Thackeray had an affectionate
admiration for his talents. But the times and the doctor were out of
gear; he lost sympathy through his persecution of "L.E.L.," and his
misfortunes led him to follow a class of journalism out of all
consonance with his powers and better feeling; he is credited with
having been the forerunner of scurrilous society-journalism. But no hint
of these defects is apparent in his work for _Punch_, in which, perhaps,
he saw an opportunity for some degree of re-instatement; and he conveyed
his gratitude in a five-stanza poem in praise of the paper (p. 131, Vol.
II.), "Verses by a Bard--Much be-rhymed in _Punch_." But he was near his
end; and when he died a year afterwards, _Punch_ devoted to him the
first of his little black-bordered obituaries.

The year 1842 was the stormiest and most threatening in _Punch's_
history; so that, with an empty till and growing liabilities, there was
no disposition towards introducing new contributors involving the
principle of "cash down." Only three names belong to this year, but all
were men of great importance, each in his own line--John Oxenford, W. M.
Thackeray, and Horace Mayhew. In common with Coyne, Oxenford had a
stronger sympathy for the stage than for periodical literature, so that
after the tenth volume he ceased to be even an occasional contributor.
His first paper was "Herr Döbler 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
'Illustrated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good
work in his day, and his contributions to _Punch_ assisted greatly to
increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water."

[Illustration: 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 Shirley 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 entitled "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 à 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."

[Illustration: 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 circumstances 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 pass 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-title 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 assured by Mr. Cuthbert Bradley ("Cuthbert Bede's"
son), but Jerrold, who, in Mark Lemon's hearing, crushingly 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-passenger declaiming
against the wickedness and profanity of _Punch_.

[Illustration: 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 nobility and gentry. The
principal 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 illustrated
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 à 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 illustration 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' _tête-à-tête_ 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 Dickens not finding his art good enough to illustrate
"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 draughtsmanship--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 "snob." Trollope declares that Thackeray
"never learned to draw--perhaps, never could have learned;" but he did
not see that in the art of illustration, 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 astonishing delicacy of
touch; and I have seen the Lord's Prayer written by him one day at the
_Punch_ Table, within the space 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 illustration 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 entitled
"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
Shirt"--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 substitute 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 à 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 Titmarsh 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 "Assumption of
Aristocracy," which has hitherto been credited to him, but was really
sent in by Gilbert à 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 "Titmarsh," "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 passage 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 title 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 Titmarsh 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
butt 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 assistans 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
(attaché to the Egglish Legatiob at Washigtol) 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 Snobs 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 class, 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 embarrassed, he asked him abruptly, "Have you
read my 'Snob 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