John Leech, His Life and Work, Vol. 2 [of 2]

"Look well at the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs. How snug, quiet, and appropriate all the appointments are! What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs' is (in the Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose-box for those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, and warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim maid brings in the boots that horrify Mrs. B.! What a snug dressing-room he has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on that delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their drawing-room, Briggs reading a treatise on dog-breaking by a lamp, mamma and grannie with their respective needlework, the children clustering round a big book of prints – a great book of prints such as this before us, at this season, must make thousands of children happy by as many firesides! The inner life of all these people is represented. Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is your house and mine; we are looking at everybody's family circle. Our boys, coming from school, give themselves such airs, the young scapegraces! Our girls, going to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas – a social history of London in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such future students – lucky they to have a book so pleasant! – will regard these pages; even the mutations of fashion they may follow here, if they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and millinery as for horseflesh. How they change, these cloaks and bonnets! How we have to pay milliners' bills from year to year! Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850, which no lady could be without? Where are those charming waistcoats, those stunning waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few seasons back, and which caused 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of 'La Mode,' to ask Ellen for her tailor's address? 'Gus is a young warrior by this time, very likely facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happy, let us hope, superintending one of those delightful nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such tender humour. Fortunate artist, indeed! You see he must have been bred at a good public school, and that he has ridden many a good horse in his day; paid, no doubt out of his own pocket, for the originals of those lovely caps and bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and slumbers of his favourite little people.

"As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them – private jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special delectation. How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed the hairdressers of the present age! Mr. Tongs, whom that hideous old bald woman who ties on her bonnet at the glass informs that 'she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair comes off yet' – you can see the bears' grease not only on Tongs' head, but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him who is telling his client 'there is cholera in the hair,' and that lucky rogue whom that young lady bids to cut off a long thick piece – for somebody, doubtless. All these men are different and delightfully natural and absurd. Why should hairdressing be an absurd profession?

"The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr. Leech's pieces; his admirable actors use them with perfect naturalness. Look at Betty putting down the urn; at cook laying her hands upon the kitchen-table, whilst the policeman grumbles at the cold meat. They are cooks' and housemaids' hands without mistake, and not without a certain beauty, too. That bald old lady tying on her bonnet at Tongs' has hands which you see are trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are talking scandal; for what long years they have pointed out holes in their neighbours' dresses and mud on their flounces!

"'Here's a go! I've lost my diamond ring!'

"As the dustman utters this pathetic cry and looks at his hands, you burst out laughing. These are among the little points of humour. One could indicate hundreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages.

"There is a little snob, or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (the latter an immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless bullies), who is a favourite abomination of Leech, and pursued by that savage humourist into a thousand of his haunts. There he is choosing at the tailor's – such waistcoats! Yonder he is giving a shilling to the sweeper who calls him 'Capting.' Now he is offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the rain. They don't know their own pictures very likely; if they did, they would have a meeting, and thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One feels a pity for the poor little bucks.

"Just one word to the unwary specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings – homely drawings of moor and wood and sea-shore and London street – the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to nature as the actors themselves. Our respect for the genius and humour which invented both increases as we look and look again at the designs. May we have more of them – more pleasant Christmas volumes over which we and our children may laugh together! Can we have too much of truth and fun and beauty and kindness?"

In this delightfully appreciative spirit wrote Thackeray – a man of profounder genius than Leech – of his friend's work. It is said that when he was asked to name the most intimate and dearest friend of his life, Thackeray replied, "John Leech."

CHAPTER VIII.

DEAN HOLE

In 1858 a second series of "Pictures of Life and Character," and later a third, were presented to a delighted public. The history of the immortal Briggs, collected from Punch's pages, was also published in separate form. In this year Leech made the acquaintance of the Rev. S. Reynolds Hole, now Dean of Rochester, a kindred spirit, whose admiration of the artist's work had long created a burning desire for his personal acquaintance. It was upon Easter Monday that the first meeting took place, and thus Mr. Hole describes very correctly Leech's appearance:

"Well, he was very like my idea of him, only 'more so.' A slim, elegant figure, over six feet in height, with a grand head, on which nature had written 'gentleman' – with wonderful genius in his ample forehead; wonderful penetration, observation, humour, in his blue-gray Irish eyes; and wonderful sweetness, sympathy and mirth about his lips, which seemed to speak in silence."

These words bring my old friend again before me, but I think Mr. Hole fails to notice the slight shadow of melancholy that was never long absent from his handsome face. Mr. Hole says that, vividly as the first interview comes back to him, he can recall but little of the conversation. It appears Leech had been out with the hounds on this special Monday, in company with his friend Adams, in the Belvoir country, where his presence soon became known to the "field"; and Leech as speedily discovered, by the whisperings among the sportsmen, that he was expected to perform acts of horsemanship which would throw those of "Herne the Hunter" into insignificance. "He being the quietest and most retiring of riders, much as he loved the sport, and never going over a fence if he could find a gap or a gate, it seemed, nevertheless, to be the general impression and belief of the yeomen who followed his Grace of Rutland's hounds that when a fox was found the celebrated Mr. Leech would utter a wild Irish yell, clench his teeth, put both spurs into his steed, and bound over the country like a mad buck. His complete inaptitude for these gymnastics, and the consequent disgust and disappointment of the agricultural interest when he made early deviation from the chase in favour of the King's highway, seemed to please him vastly."

Mr. Hole also speaks enthusiastically of his first meeting Thackeray at a dinner at Leech's, when he and Thackeray stood up together, like Thornhill and Olivia in the "Vicar of Wakefield," to see which was the taller. Mr. Hole won the day by proving himself to be two inches "longer" than Thackeray, who was six feet two, the longer gentleman being six feet four.

The story of Thackeray and a very tall friend going to see a giant, and being asked by the man at the door of the exhibition if they "were in the business," I have heard told differently. My friend Alfred Elmore, R.A., who was intimate with Thackeray, in speaking of that great writer's personal appearance (which, never prepossessing, had been injured by a broken nose acquired in the same way as that misfortune happened to Michael Angelo), told me that he – Thackeray – was passing by an exhibition of a giant, when the humour took him to ask the man at the door if he was in want of a giant.

"Well," said the man, "yes, we do; but not such a d – d ugly one as you."

"John Leech's consideration for others," says Mr. Hole, "was patent wherever he went; but his anxiety for his friends and their enjoyment and amusement in his own house was a very winsome sight to see… Far too much of a gentleman to be a gourmand, though he was wont to say he deserved a good dinner when he had done a hard day's work, and that, as a matter of economy, he was reluctantly compelled to eat and drink of the best lest he should injure his manipulation, he seemed to think, nevertheless, that his guests were bound to be greedy, and that it was his duty to provide the material. I remember that on one occasion the strawberries were so large that he put the largest on a plate and handed it to a servant, with a request that it might be carved on the sideboard."

Mr. Hole gives a charming picture of Leech and himself in the sunny glades of Sherwood Forest. After lamenting that the country might be dull to the artist with only his friend's company to amuse him, and expressing his anxiety on the subject, he says:

"I soon saw that my anxiety was foolish. It was evidently, as he said, a grand enjoyment to him simply to sit under a tree and rest; to hear the throstle instead of the hurdy-gurdy; to see the sun instead of the smoke… He could only sigh his admiration. Presently he opened his pocket sketch-book, and put a point to his pencil; but he turned from one bit of loveliness to another as he sauntered on, and soon closed his book in a kind of profound but calm resignation. 'Much too beautiful for work,' he said; 'I can do no work to-day.' So we sat among the bracken, and drank that delicious air…"

Mr. Hole was, and perhaps still is, a great rose-grower; and the day after the forest walk he gave a garden-party in honour of Leech and the roses. The roses, it appears, were not only brilliant in their summer glory on their native trees, but also glorious indeed on the faces of the young ladies who fluttered about Leech, "with evident expectation of having their portraits taken, for the future admiration of the world." All this was delightful to Leech, but not "to one young man of sullen temperament, who, after watching the idol of his heart 'making up,' as he called it, to Leech with her fascinations, retired to a shrubbery to smoke, and murmured a desire to 'punch that fellow's head.'…" I can well imagine the pleasure of Leech in all his kind friends' care to gratify him; and I can also imagine "the perplexity and annoyance" with which he listened to the lady – let us hope she was neither pretty nor young – who made him a speech in which she ended by telling him he was "the delight of the nation."

It was in the evening of the day of the rose-show that Leech proposed a visit to Ireland for a fortnight's holiday, begging his friend to go with him. To this Mr. Hole consented, little dreaming that on the following morning, just as he was leaving, Leech would say to him, "You must write your impressions, and I will illustrate." Mr. Hole's modesty took alarm, but with no reason, as the "Impressions" subsequently proved. The result of this trip was the publication, in 1859, of a volume entitled, "A Little Tour in Ireland; being a visit to Dublin, Limerick, Killarney, Cork," etc., by an "Oxonian." The "Oxonian" was, of course, Mr. Hole; and the illustrations showed Leech in his happiest vein. These were in the form of coloured folding-plates and numerous woodcuts.

The travellers did a great deal in the fortnight. They saw "Dublin, Galway, the wild grandeur of Connemara, the scenery of the Shannon from Athlone to Limerick, the gentle loveliness of Killarney, the miniature prettiness of Glengariff, and that 'beautiful city called Cork.' … Ah me, how happy we were! Looking from the steamer at the calm phosphorescent waves (so thankful they were calm, for we were miserable mariners, though Leech had represented himself in a letter as revelling in stormy seas), or gliding along the rails, or riding in cars, or rowing in boats; listening to quaint carmen, oarsmen, and guides; talking and laughing in genial converse with each other, or silent in the serene fruition of the exquisite scenery around…"

Mr. Hole had ample opportunity for seeing Leech's method of making notes from nature. It was not sketching from nature in the true sense of the phrase, but simply memoranda, in a kind of shorthand, which was afterwards elaborated into backgrounds, which are as true to nature as the figures they relieve and foil. The same with faces that attracted the artist from their peculiarities of character or expression; a few touches were sufficient as guides for the finished heads and figures. I have some examples in a sketch-book in my possession.

"Nothing," says Mr. Hole, "escaped him that was in any way absurd, abnormal, incongruous, or in any way ridiculous; and a touch of his elbow or a turn of his thumb drew my attention continually to something amusing in the aspect or the remarks of those about us at the table d'hôte, or the steamer, or public car, which else, in my obtuseness, I had never relished… It was always his rule, however pressed for time, surrounded with engagements, or enticed by pleasures, never to 'scamp' his work. Sometimes his rapidity of execution was marvellous, but there was never haste. I have known him to send off from my own house three finished drawings on the wood, designed, traced, and rectified, without much effort, as it seemed, between breakfast and dinner. How I wish that the world could have seen those blocks! They were entrusted, no doubt, to the most skilful gravers of the day, but the exquisite fineness, clearness, the faultless grace and harmony of the drawing, could not be reproduced. If the position of an eyelash was altered, or the curve of a lip was changed, there might be an ample remainder to convey the intention and to win the admiration of those who never knew their loss, but the perfection of the original was gone. Again and again I have heard him sigh as he looked over the new number of Punch; and as I, seeing nothing but excellence, would ask an explanation, he would point to some almost imperceptible obliquity which vexed his gentle soul."

Mr. Hole continued to be the intimate friend of Leech during the latter part of a life that was indeed "too short for friendship, not for fame"; and he speaks of the many eminent men whom he met at Leech's house, with the gratification that might be expected from one who was fully able to share in the "flow of soul" that distinguished those meetings.

CHAPTER IX.

TYPES

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.1

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.

CHAPTER X.

LEECH AND HIS PREDECESSORS

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.