During one of the "sittings" which Dickens gave me when I painted his portrait, I asked him if, when he drew the character of Pecksniff, any of his inspiration had arisen from a knowledge of the character, and even personal appearance, of an individual known to both of us, whose name I mentioned.
"Why, yes," was the reply; "I had him in my eye."
In like manner, I think, in his most favourite type of beauty, Leech was thinking of his wife, who was in all respects a charming woman. She permeates a little to the destruction of variety of character many of the lovely figures in Punch, where now and again may be found an excellent likeness of Mrs. Leech. That she was a striking person is evident from the fact that she struck Leech to the heart as he met her in the street; so hard was the blow, that the artist forgot his errand, and followed the enslaver to her own door. Inquiries were set on foot; an introduction followed; he came, he saw, conquered, and was married in 1843 to Miss Eaton, who made the best of wives and mothers.
It goes without saying that Leech was a worshipper of female beauty in all its bewitching variety. I remember watching with him the riders in Rotten Row, and after some startlingly lovely creatures had passed us, he said:
"Ah, my Frith, don't you wish you were a Turk, and able to marry all that little lot?"
Only two of Leech's children lived to maturity, and both survived him. His son, John Charles Warrington Leech—a fine boy, whom I well remember—was the darling of his father's heart, and the boy returned his love with all the fervour of his loving nature. If Leech had lived to learn that his son was accidentally drowned by the capsizing of a boat at South Adelaide—a deplorable event that took place in 1876—the intelligence would have broken his heart. This affliction was mercifully averted from him, as also was the death of his daughter, which occurred a few years ago, soon after she became a happy mother.
Leech's working coat was made of black velvet, something in shape like a shooting-coat; Leech the younger, at the age of five, was allowed to dress exactly like his father; and he might have been seen on most mornings, palette in hand, standing before a little easel, working away at copies of the engravings in the Illustrated London News, which he coloured literally with all the colours of the rainbow, whilst the father sat by with block and pencil. The young gentleman not only inherited his father's love of art, but also some of his humour; for he informed a new servant, who appeared for the first time in the nursery, that his papa said that he was "one of those children that can only be managed by kindness"—"So please go and get me some sponge-cake and an orange." This served Leech for an excellent cut in Punch.
Mr. Hole gives another instance of Master Leech's Leech-like cleverness. He says:
"My wife's maid had paid a long visit to the nursery for a chat with his lady-in-waiting, and when he began some display of disobedience, she said:
"'Really, Master Leech, if you won't be good, I must tell your mamma.'
"'And I shall tell her,' he rejoined, 'if you do, what a time you've been idling here.'"
I may add in this place an anecdote sent to me by an intimate lady friend of Leech's, who, after speaking of his devotion to his wife and children, tells me that she was taking luncheon with him one day at his house in Brunswick Square.
"His two children dined at the same time. Leech said with a very grave voice:
"'Now, children, say your grace.'
"Both children began to say it together as fast as they could. Leech said when they had finished:
"'Well run—Ada first, Bougie a good second.'"
Mrs. Hall, a daughter of Mr. Adams—the Chattie of Leech's letters—supplies me with an example, "one out of many instances of great kindness to her as a child," which I present to my readers:
"I was about eight years old," says Mrs. Hall, "and on one rough morning during my stay with him at Broadstairs I was sent in charge of a maid to play upon the beach. The wind carried away my bonnet. Regardless of danger, I rushed into the sea after it, and after many struggles I recovered it, but was horrified to find that a crowd had collected round me. I was taken home dripping, and feeling very guilty. You can imagine the relief it was to find my dear friend ready to comfort and not to scold; and I have a happy recollection of being snugly tucked up on his knee for some hours after the event, while he continued his drawing."
The publication of my desire for information respecting John Leech's youthful days has put into my possession one of his earliest drawings; for this I am indebted to one of his Charterhouse schoolfellows, a very young old gentleman indeed. Mr. Charles Maitland Tate's name may be found in the first division of the fourth form in the list of scholars of 1828. Mr. Maitland's first acquaintance with "little Johnny Leech" began at Brighton in 1823, where he found our embryo six-year-old artist learning equestrian accomplishments, with the help of a small pony and the instruction of "an old retired jockey," who was one of the stable servants of George IV. at the Pavilion.
"Leech was a gentle, dear little fellow," says Mr. Maitland. "I accompanied him on several of his pony excursions, and the more I saw of him, the better I liked him."
Leech was entered at Charterhouse in 1824, Maitland a year or two afterwards, having grown into a strapping boy of eleven. Mr. Maitland's father was a Dean of St. Paul's, able, no doubt, from his position to procure a presentation—as he did from Lord Grey—for his son, who entered as a Gown boy, thus taking, and maintaining, a higher position in the school than Leech ever succeeded in reaching. Young Maitland had been a few days in the Charterhouse, when he was accosted by a small boy, who was obliged to tell his name before his early friend could recognise him. Boy-like, Maitland immediately took young Leech under his protection, and threatened dire consequences to anyone who bullied or ill-treated him. The protector's prowess, however, was not wanted, for Leech never made an enemy then or afterwards.
Amongst the scholars was one named Douglas, whose powers of sketching in caricature were very remarkable. Of this I convinced myself by a book of drawings in the possession of Mr. Maitland. Douglas's talent made him very attractive to Leech, and the boys became great friends.
"Leech copied several of his friend's drawings," says Mr. Maitland; but, as might have been expected, he soon abandoned copying and took to original work, a specimen of which I give below, as perhaps the earliest known drawing by Leech.[A]
If, before I had written the first portion of this book, I had known Mr. Maitland's story, I should have introduced it earlier; for this and other shortcomings and irregularities, I hope to be forgiven on the ground of my inexperience and ignorance of the laws of literary composition. With this apology I proceed to make more mistakes, but mistakes only in the order in which the truth should be told.
John Leech may be truly said to be sui generis; there has been nothing like him before his time, or since his bright and short career ended. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that existing between the works of Leech and those of his predecessors, at the head and front of whom must be placed Hogarth, who stands longo intervallo above any of his successors. In his terrible lashing of the vices and follies of his own time—vices and follies that are common to all time—Hogarth sometimes, though rarely, indulged in an exaggeration of character amounting to caricature. Leech dealt with the life about him in a totally different spirit; his was a lighter, a more genial, and a kinder hand. Unlike Hogarth, he made us laugh at the follies of our fellow-creatures, and would have nothing to do with their vices, though he has shown us in many examples how keen was his sympathy with the poor and the oppressed, and how intense was his hatred of the oppressor. The name of caricaturist is as inappropriate to Leech as it is to Hogarth, though instances may be found, as in Hogarth, of occasional indulgence in exaggeration. These examples are mostly to be found in the illustration of books which in themselves somewhat outrage the modesty of nature. Hogarth's pictures are often disfigured by a coarseness closely bordering on indecency; instances may, indeed, be found where the great artist has passed the border with revolting audacity. In the thousands of drawings by Leech, instead of the double entendre, we have some delightful trait of child-life; instead of the adulterous husband, we have paterfamilias living a healthy, happy life among his children, only amused at his schoolboy son's tricks played upon his sisters.
Consideration should, no doubt, be shown to Hogarth and his immediate successors in respect of the coarseness of the time in which they lived; certainly the works of Bunbury, Woodward, Rowlandson and Gillray require all the excuses that can be made for them. Compared to the two latter-named artists, the two former may be said to be harmless. In the hands of all four, however, caricature reigned triumphant.
Rowlandson had less excuse for the constant displays of vulgarity and ugliness that abound in his works, than the other designers, who were destitute of any sense of beauty. It was not so with Rowlandson. I have seen early drawings by him full of the charm of beauty in women: refined, and graceful. This power, which one would have thought was a part of the man's nature, vanished altogether as he advanced in life; swamped in the whirl of dissipation in which he lived, his originally better nature became utterly vulgarized by his surroundings. That Rowlandson had a certain very coarse humour, a facility in grouping masses of figures in large compositions, and a power of inventing faces and figures for which he had no authority in nature, cannot be denied; but there is always an intense vulgarity, in which the man seems to revel with as intense a pleasure.
Gillray altogether differed from Rowlandson, both in his subjects and in the way he treated them. In politics he was a savage partisan, lashing his opponents with merciless fury and cruel personality. Gillray was in art what Churchill was in literature. He had a grim humour all his own; witness his constant attacks upon Bonaparte, then, and always, the bête noire of this country. There are many examples in which the Corsican tyrant is made ridiculous, ferocious, or cowardly, according to the events of the time and the humour of the artist.
In a parody of Belshazzar's feast, Bonaparte, as Belshazzar, has caught sight of the writing on the wall; he looks with extended arms and an expression of cowardly horror at the warning. By his side sits the Empress, an outrage upon the fattest of fat women, ill-drawn and vulgar in the extreme. A man with a face hideous beyond the dreams of ugliness (caricature in excelsis) is devouring the Tower of London, which figures as a plat in the banquet; the rest of the guests round the monarch's table, vying with the dreadful gourmand in repulsiveness, are one and all caricatured out of nature. The meats provided for this singular entertainment consist of what may be called English fare, the pièce de résistance in front of Bonaparte, which he will presently demolish, being the Bank of England; and that indigestible dish is flanked by St. James's Palace. Then we have the head of Pitt, which is labelled "The Roast Beef of Old England," and served up appetizingly on a trencher, etc. Behind the Emperor stand his guards with huge uplifted sabres, from which blood is dripping, while behind the dropsical Empress stand her ladies-in-waiting, three female ghouls of wondrous hideousness, in dresses so décoletté as to shock persons less nice than Mrs. Grundy.
In another example the great Corsican is represented as "Teddy Doll, the great French Gingerbread Baker, drawing out a new Batch of Kings," while his man, Talleyrand, is making up the dough for others. Bonaparte is pictured in uniform, with boots and spurs, and a huge cocked-hat with an impossible feather, drawing out a batch of newly-made kings—Bavaria, Würtemburg, and Baden—from an enormous oven, labelled "New French Oven for Imperial Gingerbread." Beneath the oven-door is what is called "an ash-hole for broken gingerbread." Amongst the débris which has been swept into the ash-hole by a broom labelled "Corsican Besom of Destruction," Spain, a crowned death's head, is prominent; together with Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Venice, etc., "all in wild destruction blent." In the background Hanover is being destroyed by the Prussian Eagle, as Talleyrand is busy kneading up the dough to be presently passed from "the Political Kneading-Trough," to reappear in the shape of gingerbread kings of Poland, Turkey, and Hungary, after the manipulation of the King-maker and a visit to the French oven.
There is much grim humour in this piece, and humour as well as a deeper meaning in the parody of "Belshazzar's Feast"; but, turning from such work and the thoughts that arise from it to that of Leech is like turning from a slaughter-house to a flower-garden, from ugliness to beauty.
From the time of Gillray to that of Leech, there is little to be said of the caricaturists, with one splendid exception, "Immortal George." I do not agree with those who place Cruikshank above Leech. Cruikshank was essentially a caricaturist; Leech was not. Comparisons, as Mrs. Malaprop says, are "odorous," but we are sometimes forced into them; and, while admitting that there were certain paths—heights, perhaps—which Cruikshank ascended with honour, and on which Leech could not have found foothold, there was a highroad, bordered by beautiful things, on which he would have easily distanced his formidable rival.
In my young days the political drawings of "H. B.," the father of Richard Doyle, were much esteemed and in great request. They dealt solely with the political events of the hour, and, though feebly drawn and ineffective as works of art, the designer managed to produce unmistakable likenesses of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, et hoc genus, with remarkable certainty, and always without a trace of caricature.
The reader has only to look at the early numbers of Punch to see how inferior were the drawings compared to Leech's work, or to that of the excellent artists now at work on Punch. Kenny Meadows was perhaps the best; indeed, he was a fellow of excellent fancy, quaintly humorous at times—seen, I think, at his best in his Shakespeare illustrations; which, in spite of some extravagance, are full of character, and, as in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," almost poetical in their realization of the scenes of that immortal play. But Kenny was a sad Bohemian, a jovial soul, loving company and the refreshments that attend it, in which he indulged in happy forgetfulness till "all but he departed."
In illustration of Kenny's habits, I introduce a little story told to me by himself. Long years ago Mr. Carter Hall edited a book of British ballads, and engaged a number of artists to illustrate them; Kenny Meadows amongst the rest. I also had the honour of supplying a contribution. When the drawings were finished, we were invited one evening to the Rosery—as Mr. Hall called his Brompton cottage—to submit our work for his criticism, and approval or condemnation, as the case might be. Our refreshment was coffee and biscuits, a repast very unsatisfactory to all of us, more or less—to Meadows especially. Kenny bore his disappointment very well till we left the Rosery—this we did at the earliest moment consistent with good manners—when he said, after criticising our entertainment in strong language:
"There is a house close by where we can get supper. What do you fellows say?"
We all said "that was the place for us."
Under Meadows' guidance, we found an inn and an excellent supper, and about midnight, when the fun was getting fast and furious, I left; Meadows remaining with two or three other choice spirits—how long I only knew when I met him a few days afterwards. The time of his return home may be guessed by what follows. Day was breaking as Meadows stealthily entered his bedroom, almost praying that Mrs. Meadows might be asleep; but that lady awoke, and, catching sight of her husband, said:
"You are very late, Meadows."
"Oh no," said Meadows, "I am not; it's quite early."
("So it was, you know," said the Bohemian to me, as he told me of his reception.)
"Early!" exclaimed the wife. "Why, what o'clock is it?"
"Oh, about one, or a little after," said Kenny.
Unluckily, at that moment the peculiar but unmistakable cry of the milkman was heard—"and that pretty well settled the time, you know, Frith."
The extreme difficulty—in some instances the impossibility—of procuring copies of some of the books illustrated by Leech makes exact chronological sequence impossible in any attempt to describe the career of the artist. I hope to be pardoned, therefore, for the irregularity of my dates.
In 1852 a "Comic History of Rome" appeared, written by Gilbert à Beckett, with "ten coloured etchings and numerous woodcuts by Leech." Rome fares pretty much the same as England at the hands of both writer and illustrator. In Mr. À Beckett's part of the work the history of Rome becomes a very comic history indeed, and Leech, of course, enters into the spirit of the fun with all his exuberance of fancy and irresistible humour. Visitors to the National Gallery, should they be curious to see the difference of treatment of the same subject by different minds, can be gratified by comparing Rubens' "Rape of the Sabines" with Leech's rendering of that famous historical event.
In one particular the illustration of the scene is identical in both pictures. Rubens dresses the ladies in the costume peculiar to his own time; Leech in the time of Queen Victoria. In the great Fleming's work the principal victim of the Roman youth is the wife of the painter, in the dress of Rubens' day; in Leech's drawing, strange to say, we have an excellent likeness of Mrs. Leech, as she sits complacently on the shoulders of a Roman youth. Rubens, however, pays more attention to truth in the habiliments of his ravishers, for if they, in all probability, did not much resemble Roman soldiers in their habits as they lived, they present a tolerable resemblance to the ancient Roman as we know him. Whereas Leech—while preserving something like the form of the upper part of the Roman costume—cannot be said to be correct when he puts Hessian boots upon one man, hunting-tops upon another, and consigns the nether portion of a third to the military trousers, boots and spurs of the modern Life-Guardsman. Nobody, I think, will believe that umbrellas were known to the Romans, as Leech would have us to understand, by putting one as a weapon into the hands of the stout, very modern woman belabouring the Roman who is carrying off her daughter.
In explanation of the following cut, I may remind readers of Roman history that Romulus sent cards of invitation to attend certain games to the Latins and Sabines, with their wives and daughters.
"The weather being propitious," says Mr. À Beckett, "all the Sabine beauty and fashion were attracted to the place, and the games, consisting of horse-racing, gave to the scene all the animation of Ascot on a Cup-day. Suddenly, at a preconcerted signal, there was a general elopement of the Roman youth with the Sabine ladies, who were in the most ungallant manner abandoned to their fate by the Sabine gentlemen. It is true the latter were taken by surprise, but they certainly made the best of their way home before they thought of avenging the wrong and insult that had been committed. Had they been all married ladies who were carried off, the cynic might have suggested that the Sabine husbands would not have objected to a cheap mode of divorce; but—to make use of an Irishism—there was only one single woman who happened to be a wife in the whole of that goodly company."
An Etruscan ruler named Porsenna had a difficulty with Rome. He speedily besieged that city, frightening the people in the suburbs "out of their wits and into the city, where he never enjoyed a moment's peace till peace was concluded." Presently a treaty of peace was negotiated, greatly to the advantage of Porsenna; for not only was Rome compelled to restore the territory taken from the Veii, but the victor also "claimed hostages, among whom were sundry young ladies of the principal Roman families. One of these was named Clælia, who, with other maidens, having resolved on a bold plunge for their liberty, jumped into the Tiber's bed, and swam like a party of ducks to the other side of the river."
This delightful drawing reminds one of many a seaside sketch in "Pictures of Life and Character," leaving us wondering how a few pencil-lines can call up such visions of beauty.
Everyone knows of the tradition of Rome's being saved from the Gauls by the cackling of geese, and my readers are here presented with Leech's historical picture of the event.
"The Gauls," says Mr. À Beckett, "crept up, one by one, to the top of the rock, which was the summit of their wishes. Just as they had effected their object, a wakeful goose commenced a vehement cackle, and the solo of one old bird was soon followed by a chorus from a score of others. Marcus Manlius, who resided near the poultry, was so alarmed at the sound that he instantly jumped out of his skin—for in those days a sheep-skin was the usual bedding—and ran to the spot, where he caught hold of the first Gaul he came to, and, giving him a smart push, the whole pack behind fell like so many cards to the bottom."
The late Frederick Tayler, whose water-colour drawings are familiar to all lovers of art, was a guest for some days at the mansion of the Duke of Athole—an elderly gentleman thirty years ago, but how nearly connected with the present Duke I am unable to say. According to Tayler, the old Duke was a very eccentric person; one of his whims being an insistence upon all the male guests at his castle wearing the Scottish national dress. On my friend's pleading that he could not wear a costume that he didn't possess, he was supplied with the kilt and the rest of it, from a store kept for unprovided visitors—"and," said Tayler, "I was immediately compelled to ride about eighteen miles in a condition of discomfort that may be imagined." Another little peculiarity was scarcely less distressing, for dinner was never served till near midnight. Hungry guests were kept waiting till, folding-doors being thrown open, the major-domo appeared, holding a wand, and in solemn tones announced "His Grace!"
In 1850 this remarkable Duke "took it into his head" to close his beautiful Glen Tilt to tourists. I was fortunate enough to have passed through it before this decree was issued; but multitudes—noisy multitudes, as they proved themselves—not having had my advantage, became clamorous for their right, as they believed, of unobstructed passage through the lovely glen. Many letters from indignant tourists appeared in the press, which almost universally condemned the Duke's action, Punch's baton being brought into play in the tourists' cause; and to this weapon was added Leech's pencil, which, in a vigorous drawing, portrayed the old Duke as a dog in the manger, with a snarl on his face that portended a bite if his position was assailed. The drawing was entitled "A Scotch Dog in the Manger," and was immediately followed by another blow, happily paraphrasing Scott's lines in the "Lady of the Lake," and supposed to apply to "a scene from the burlesque recently performed at Glen Tilt":
How far these drawings were the means of causing the Duke to reverse his decision I know not; but it was reversed, and that he took Leech's somewhat severe treatment good-humouredly is shown by his treatment of the artist, whom he met near the glen soon after the drawings appeared. Leech was alone, sketch-book in hand, no doubt noting, by pencil and observation, for future use, some of the beauties around him, when a horseman approached, attended by a groom. Leech was probably on forbidden ground, for the rider, who was the Duke of Athole, immediately asked his name and "what he was doing there." Under ordinary circumstances Leech would have said, "What is your name?" for the matter of that, "and what do you want to do with mine if I give it to you?"; but whether the manner of his questioner impressed him, or conscious guilt shook him, I cannot say. It is certain, however, that he replied he was an artist, and that his name was Leech.
"Not John Leech?" said the Duke.
"Yes, John," was the reply.
And Leech now, feeling sure that he was in the presence of the Duke, and that he was about to hear some strong language about his daring to caricature so august a personage for merely asserting his rights, proceeded to explain that he would not intrude further, but return at once to his inn, where he intended to pass the night.
The Duke turned to his groom, and told him to dismount, and called to Leech to take the servant's place.
Leech obeyed, when the Duke said, "No, sir; no inn for you to-night: you must dine and sleep at my house. I am the Duke of Athole." Further hesitation on Leech's part was met by a warmer and more pressing invitation.
Leech yielded, and the two rode off together. The road to the castle lay through some rather perilous country, culminating in a narrow and broken path, with cliff on one side and a precipice on the other. The artist hesitated; the Duke called upon him to come on. "Has he brought me here to revenge himself by breaking my neck?" thought Leech. He timidly advanced, and reached the Duke, who had stopped for him at a point where the path was most dangerous.
"Are you, sir, the man who has maligned me in Punch?" fiercely demanded the Duke.
The fearful position in which Leech found himself, terrible to anyone, but to a nervous man especially frightful, extorted from him an apologetic confession, excusable under the circumstances.
"Your Grace," said he, "we—we—that is, nearly everyone—has done something that he—he—regrets having done. I am very sorry I have—— I regret very much that anything I have done should have given you any annoyance."
The Duke's affected fierceness was exchanged for the jovial manner said to be peculiar to him, and the pair rode off pleasantly together.
The castle was reached, and Leech was shown to a dressing-room, where he made himself as presentable as he could under the circumstances, in anticipation of the usual announcement that dinner was served. I can imagine my friend's feelings as he waited in hungry expectation. "As he could not manage to break my neck," thought Leech, as hour after hour passed without a summons to dinner, "he means to starve me."
At last, thinking that perhaps his room was too far off for the sound of the gong to reach him, he rang the bell. A servant appeared.
"I am afraid," said Leech, "that I did not hear the dinner-bell; is dinner ready?"
"Not yet, sir; you will be informed when it is."
Another hour passed. Leech became desperate; starvation seemed to stare him in the face. Again he rang the bell; again the servant answered it, and the reply was again, "Not yet."
The clock had struck ten before the welcome sound of the gong reached the famished man. If Mr. Frederick Tayler is to be believed, the Leech dinner with the Duke was an early one. No explanation was ever given to Tayler of these abnormal dinner-hours, but Leech was told that "his Grace" always took a nap after his rides, and his guests were fed when he awoke.
Leech was fond of telling of this adventure with the Duke, whose likeness can be seen in more than one of Landseer's pictures.
At the time when the troop of artists and literary men were stumping the country with their theatrical performances, Leech lived in Alfred Place, which he soon left for a charming little house in Notting Hill Terrace.
Dickens wrote an amusing account of one of the amateur excursions, which the immortal Mrs. Gamp is supposed to join, and about which she discourses to her friend Mrs. Harris, not forgetting her opinion of the artists, Cruikshank and Leech:
"If you'll believe me, Mrs. Harris, I turns my head, and sees the very man" (George Cruikshank) "a-making pictures of me on his thumb-nail at the window; while another of 'em" (John Leech), "a tall, slim, melancolly gent, with dark hair and a bage voice, looks over his shoulder, and with his head o' one side, as if he understood the subject, and coolly he says:
"'I've drawed her several times in Punch,' he says, too. The owdacious wretch!
"'Which I never touches, Mr. Wilson,' I says out loud—I couldn't have helped it, Mrs. Harris, if you'd took my life for it—'which I never touches, Mr. Wilson, on account of the lemon!'"
From the nature of Leech's work, he was never able to take a holiday in the true sense of the word. To say nothing of the numberless works which he had engaged himself to illustrate, the inevitable Punch must appear every week, and almost equally inevitable was the appearance of one or two of Leech's drawings in it. Proof is abundant of the rapidity with which those inimitable works were executed; but it must be borne in mind that they were the outcome of a sensitive organization—a power of seeing and seizing the humorous and the beautiful in the everyday incidents of life; in short, of a mind always on the watch for subjects for illustration.
When one thinks of the constant wear and tear of such a life, it is scarcely a matter for wonder that it was so lamentably short.
The localities of Leech's so-called holidays can easily be recognised by his drawings, or rather by their backgrounds, which showed, in admirable truthfulness, whether the artist was at Scarborough or Broadstairs, at Folkestone, Dover, Lowestoft, or Ramsgate, or, by their unfamiliarity to us, at some less frequented place.
It was in 1848, and while Mr. and Mrs. Leech were staying with the Dickens family at Brighton, that a very unpleasant incident of the visit took place: no less than the sudden insanity of the landlord of the house in which the party lodged, resulting in as sudden an exeunt of the lodgers. But before the people still in their senses could take themselves off, there was a duty to be done. A doctor must be fetched; and no sooner did he appear than the madman attacked him, and would very soon have made a vacancy in the list of M.D.'s if Dickens and Leech had not rushed to the rescue. In a letter to Forster, Dickens gives a humorous description of Mrs. Leech and Mrs. Dickens doing their best—in their fear for their husbands' safety—to assist the maniac in his murderous endeavours by pulling their husbands back just as the doctor had fainted from fear. More assistance, however, arrived, and the mad landlord was soon rendered harmless.
I vividly recollect the alarm that the news of an accident to Leech—in which it was rumoured that he had been seriously, even dangerously, injured—caused to everyone, and acutely to his friends. A huge wave was said to have struck him while bathing—killing him on the spot, according to some reports; fracturing his skull, or producing concussion of the brain, from which recovery was hopeless, according to others. These alarming accounts came to us from the Isle of Wight, where Leech was staying with Dickens in the autumn of 1849. The fact was, that one of the tremendous waves that, under certain atmospheric conditions, roll in upon the shore at Bonchurch, struck Leech on the forehead, and rendered him senseless.
"He was put to bed," said Dickens, "with twenty of his namesakes upon his temples."
The day following, congestion of the brain became unmistakable, accompanied by great pain; ice was applied to the head, and bleeding again was thought necessary, this time in the arm. For some days Leech was in great danger, Dickens sitting up with him all night on more than one alarming occasion. He says, in a letter to Forster:
"My plans are all unsettled by Leech's illness, as of course I do not like to leave this place so long as I can be of any service to him and his good little wife. Ever since I wrote to you he has been seriously worse, and again very heavily bled. The night before last he was in such an alarming state of restlessness, which nothing could relieve, that I proposed to Mrs. Leech to try magnetism. Accordingly, in the middle of the night, I fell to, and, after a very fatiguing bout of it, put him to sleep for an hour and thirty-five minutes. A change came on in his sleep, and he is decidedly better. I talked to the astounded Mrs. Leech across him, when he was asleep, as if he had been a truss of hay."
Whether from Dickens' magnetic efforts or the efforts of Nature, Leech gradually, but very slowly, recovered. On being questioned about his accident, Leech is reported to have said that he remembered an enormous angry, white-topped wave coming at him, and, in what seemed to him the next moment, he found himself in bed in great pain—the interval having been some days.
In corroboration of this, I may mention an accident that happened to Mr. Elmore (brother of the R.A. and great friend of Leech), who was terribly injured by a blow on the head in a railway accident on the Marseilles line.
"I was reading a novel," said Mr. Elmore to me, "and the next instant, as it seemed, I found myself suffering great pain in a strange bed, with strange surroundings, in what I afterwards found was a French cottage."
The sufferer also found that more than three weeks had elapsed between the blow and the recovery of consciousness from it. Where, in my blind ignorance I venture to ask, was the ever-living soul all this time?
One of the amusements of the visitors at Folkestone consists in watching the arrival of the French packet; and I have noticed that the more stormy the day, the greater is the crowd that forms itself into an avenue, through which the voyagers must pass in landing. This amusement, I think, is not very creditable to us, because it is derived from an enjoyment arising from the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. The rosy passenger, who is evidently "a good sailor," attracts no attention—we rather resent his condition as inappropriate to the occasion; but the man from whose face every vestige of colour has flown, whose legs can scarcely support him as he walks up the gangway, is an object of great delight to us. We are generally—not always—silent in our enjoyment, scarcely ever receiving a poor sea-sick creature as Leech was once welcomed at Boulogne.
In 1854, Leech and his wife went to Boulogne to stay with Dickens. The day was stormy, and when the artist stepped ashore, he was received with cheers by a crowd of people, mostly English, who loudly congratulated him as looking more intensely miserable than any of the wretched passengers who had preceded him. Leech told Dickens that he had realized at last what an actor's feelings must be when a round of applause greets his efforts.
"I felt," he said, "that I had made a great hit."
My intimacy with Leech led to the usual exchange of hospitalities. I recall with pleasure the occasions on which I had the great delight of welcoming him at my house in London or at the seaside. He never varied from the simple, modest demeanour of the perfect gentleman, was never noisy or argumentative, and always considerate of the feelings of others; prodigal in his praise of his brother artists; never, if he could avoid it, speaking of himself or his works, but if, in course of conversation, allusion had been made to some cut more than commonly attractive, he would meet it with: "Glad you like it, my dear fellow; don't see anything particularly funny in it myself;" or, "Ah! I wish you could have seen it on the wood; they seem to me to have cut all the prettiness out of the girl's face."
The first time I dined with Leech was at his house in Notting Hill Terrace, on the occasion of some Highland sports that took place in Lord Holland's park hard by, out of which Leech made some capital sketches, that afterwards appeared in Punch. Leech's dinners, without being too lavish or extravagant, were always unexceptionable as to food, and notably so as to wine; of the latter, being no judge himself, he took care it should be supplied by "one who knew," and who was also reliable. One of the guests at this particular dinner was the Rev. Mr. White, whose acquaintance our host had made at the Isle of Wight. I mention this gentleman because he was not only a very jovial clergyman, but a great friend of Leech and Dickens, and the author of some plays which had more or less success—one of them, with the title of "The King of the Commons," was played under Phelps' management, and had a considerable run.
"White," Leech whispered to me, "is a great judge of port. I hope to goodness he will like some I have got on purpose for him—and for you, my boy; only you know nothing about it, do you?"
"Not a bit," said I.
When the port appeared we watched the clergyman, and, judging by his expression, the port was successful; but Leech was not satisfied till in reply to his inquiry as to its qualities the clergyman, smacking his lips, said:
"Sir, the Church approves."
At one of the delightful dinners at Leech's double-windowed house—double-windowed to keep out noise, which distressed him all his life—on the Terrace, Kensington, I first met Shirley Brooks, thus commencing a life-long friendship with one of the most charming companions, one of the wittiest men and the best story-tellers that ever made "the hours go by on rosy wing." One of the strongest men on the Punch staff—afterwards editor—Brooks and Leech became somewhat intimate, but whether the intimacy ever became merged into close friendship, I doubt. I frequently dined at Brooks's, but never met Leech there—indeed, from what I have heard, I am pretty sure that, with the exception of his old fellow-student, Percival Leigh, who was one of his nearest and dearest friends, Leech's feeling towards his brother members of the Punch staff never reached friendship in the true meaning of the word. Albert Smith, of whose entertainments Leech said one of the severest things I or anyone ever heard him say—"After all, Frith, it is only bad John Parry"—was a loud, and, to me, a rather vulgar person—too antagonistic to the gentle Leech for the growth of friendship. At the Punch meetings, however, I have it from one who was occasionally present, that Albert Smith always addressed Leech as "Jack," being the only one of the company who used the familiarity. This provoked Douglas Jerrold, who had often winced under the infliction, to ask Leech one day, "How long is it necessary for a man to know you before he can call you 'Jack'?"
After this remark "Jack" was less frequently heard. My authority for the above is the late Mr. George Hodder, an author who I fear has left no "footprints in the sands of time." It was said of him that, on being introduced to a very distinguished artist, he remarked—perhaps feeling the necessity of making a complimentary speech—"Art is a grand thing, sir." This unfortunate gentleman died from injuries received by the upsetting of a coach in Richmond Park.
It is not at all uncommon for middle-class entertainers—though they may possess a fair staff of servants—to seek outside assistance when they gather an unusual number of guests round their hospitable boards. On one occasion—and very likely oftener—Leech sought such supplementary aid, and found it in the form of his parish clerk, a solemn person who was not too proud to add to his stipend by "going out to wait." As is usual with his class, the clerk-waiter arrived in good time to help in furnishing forth the dinner-table, having an eye to the placing of the flowers, plate, etc. The guests, amounting to ten or twelve, were announced in due course, all old acquaintances, and all expecting their dinners with the punctuality for which their host was noted. Hungry men, though they may be good talkers under happier circumstances, are seldom brilliant; on this occasion, though Dickens and Jerrold may have been amongst the guests, the conversation languished at last into silence. Half an hour passed. What could have happened? Suddenly one of the guests—was it Dickens or Jerrold?—sprang from his chair, and going to Leech, with extended hand, said:
"Well, it's getting late; I'm afraid I must go. Thank you, dear boy, for a delightful evening; the dinner was capital, the turtle first rate—never tasted finer salmon; and as to the champagne——"
The puzzled looks of Leech and his guests ended in a roar of laughter, in the midst of which a black and solemn figure appeared, and in the tones in which he would have given the responses at church, said:
"Dinner is served."
The assembled guests received the welcome announcement with a chorus of "Amen!"
Amongst the many books illustrated by Leech are some sporting novels, written, I think, by a Mr. Surtees. "Ask Mamma," "Handley Cross," "Plain or Ringlets," "Mr. Romford's Hounds," etc., owe their origin to this prolific gentleman. As these works are ornamented by coloured steel engravings and innumerable woodcuts by Leech, it has been my duty to look into them; read them, I cannot. I hope if the author is still living he will attribute my want of appreciation to a want of sympathy with his heroes and heroines, though I admit, in the portions I have read, that he shows considerable humour as well as power in expressing it. This, from one who knows his own ignorance of the subject in question, should be gratifying to Mr. Surtees.
Though to my mind Leech is quite at his best in "Pictures of Life and Character," there are examples of his powers in all these books which quite justify my selection of some of them for the gratification of my readers. "Mr. Romford's Hounds" is "embellished" with twenty-five large steel plates, in one of which a certain Mr. Facey, who has a charming Miss Lucy for his hunting companion, is checked by an obstacle which causes him to exclaim to Lucy, "Dash it! this is a rum customer," "as he stood in his stirrups, looking at what was on the far side."
"Oh, throw your heart over it," said Lucy, "and then follow it as quickly as you can."
"Heart!" muttered Facey. "I shall never find it again if I do. It would be like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay."
"Let me try, then," said Lucy.
It would be difficult indeed to surpass the beauty of the girl's figure in this drawing, exquisitely drawn, true in character and action as it is. Mr. Facey's expression, too, exactly conveys the idea that the longer he looks at the awkward place the less he likes it. The horses—notably the action of the one ridden by the young lady—are in every way admirable. The background, with a few slight touches, gives us a stretch of country—a withered tree, a flock of birds, and the cloudy sky, with no doubt the southerly wind that "proclaims the hunting morning."
"Mr. Romford's Hounds" gives us another sportsman, who rejoices in the name of Muffington. This gentleman is possessed for the moment of a horse called, or, rather, miscalled, Placid Joe, whose former name, Pull Devil, seems better-suited to his propensities, as shown in the drawing, in which Placid Joe has taken the bit between his teeth, to the discomfiture of Mr. Muffington. From the following telegram it would seem that Placid Joe had been borrowed for the day's hunting. Thus it ran:
"Mr. Martin Muffington, at the White Swan, Showoffborough, to Mr. Green, Brown Street, Bagnigge Wells Road, London.
"That brute Placid Joe has no more mouth than a bull. He's carried me right into the midst of the hounds, and nearly annihilated the huntsman. I will send him back by the 9.30 a.m. train to-morrow, and won't pay you a halfpenny for his hire."
The character of Mr. Muffington, together with his action as he tugs in vain at Placid Joe, are admirable; but the horse, good as it is in action, appears to me less well proportioned than Leech's horses almost invariably are, the head and neck being too small. But what could surpass the huntsman and his steed just recovering from the "cannoning" received from Placid Joe? The scattered hounds, the riders behind, and the landscape leave nothing to be desired.
"Plain or Ringlets" contains twelve coloured plates and no less than forty-three woodcuts. Judging from a slight acquaintance with the letterpress and a careful study of the illustrations in this book, I find that the author deals less exclusively with the feats of the hunter than in "Mr. Romford's Hounds"; shooting, racing, etc., are allowed to figure prominently, and the pursuit of "lovely woman"—in which there seem to be as many false scents and heavy falls as beset the chasing of the fox—plays an important part in "Plain or Ringlets." Unlike the policeman's, I have often thought that the riding-master's life must "be a happy one." I am borne out in this, I think, by the illustration, in which Leech is delightfully at home. Says our author:
"Smiling, cantering bevies of beauties, with their shining hair in gold or silver beaded nets, and party-coloured feathers in their jaunty little hats, alone imparted energy to the scene as they tit-tupped along with quickly following tramp, led by the most magnificent and affable of riding-masters, who thus advertise their studs, just as Howes and Cushing advertise their grand United States Circus. Bless us, what a pace some of them go!"
What life and motion there are in this group! How is it, by what occult influence do we find those two lovely creatures right and left of the riding-master, instead of one place of honour being reserved for the stout middle-aged lady, who, strange to say, seems quite contented with her position? I don't believe those two girls want any teaching, for do they not sit their horses with perfect grace, as safely at home in their saddles as they would be in one of the lounges in their drawing-rooms, which either of them would fill so charmingly? Look what pretty creatures the magician Leech can call up for us by a few scratches of his pencil, in the rear of this cantering procession!
The Duke of Tergiversation (Phœbus, what a name!), says the author of "Plain or Ringlets," found on inheriting his estate that "the life had been eaten out of it" before the death of his father put him in possession of his ancestral property. The Duke, however, seems to have made the acquaintance of a banker, named Goldspink, who yielded to his persuasions and promises to the extent of allowing his aristocratic customer to overdraw his account to such a formidable amount as seriously to imperil the stability of the bank. Mr. Goldspink then seeks an interview with his Grace, which the Duke, after endeavouring by all sorts of shifts to avoid, was at length compelled to grant.
"Ah, my dear Mr. Goldspink!" exclaimed the Duke, advancing with outstretched hands and all the cheerful cordiality imaginable as our "crab-actioned" friend followed the smoothly-gliding butler, Mr. Garnett, into the presence. "Ah, my dear Goldspink, this is indeed most kind and considerate! First neighbour that has come to greet us. How, may I ask, is your worthy wife and your excellent son?" taking both the banker's hands and shaking them severely.
The banker makes a mental calculation of the Duke's liabilities, with a clear understanding that "his Grace is on the gammon-and-spinach tack," and then says:
"Thank your Grace—his Grace—my Grace—that is to say—they are both pretty well. Hope the Duchess and Lord Marchhare——"
"The Duchess and Marchhare are both at this moment enjoying a quiet cup of tea in her pretty little boudoir, where, I am sure, they will be most happy to see Mr. Goldspink," said the Duke, motioning him to the gilt-moulded white door opposite.
This cut seems to me to show Leech's power of marking the difference of character in the persons represented in a degree noticeable by the most ordinary observer. The Duke is an aristocrat from top to toe; the insincerity of his welcome even is apparent; while the squat and "crab-like" figure of the banker is no less true to nature; his delight at shaking hands with a Duke making him forget for the moment the serious issues dependent upon the interview.
At the eleventh hour I find myself forbidden to show my readers any of the admirable drawings which illustrate this book.
I will here leave the sporting novels for a time and introduce my reader to the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," and if he make his first acquaintance with that work through this introduction, I respectfully advise him to improve it by a more intimate knowledge, for he will not only find excellent reading, but illustrations by Richard Doyle and others, scarcely inferior to those by Leech.
It will be remembered that at the time of the Papal aggression Lord John Russell, according to Leech, chalked "No Popery" on Cardinal Wiseman's door and then ran away. In the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" we find his lordship face to face with Cardinal Wiseman, disguised as a friar, in Sherwood Forest, where Little John is supposed to reign in place of Robin Hood, deceased. The ballad is entitled "Little John and the Red Friar," and begins: