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

"'Now make the trumpets blast, and comrades follow fast,Smite them down unto the last,'Cried the knight.    *      *      *      *      *"Saint Mungo be my guide! it was goodly in that tideTo see the Bogle ride in his haste;He accompanied each blow with a cry of 'ah!' or 'oh!'As he always cleft the foeTo the waist."'George of Gorbals, craven lord! thou didst threat me with the cord;Come forth and brave my sword, if you dare!'But he met with no reply, and never could descryThe glitter of his eyeAnywhere."

The Gorbaliers were destroyed to a man, and in obedience to an order from Sir Launcelot the casks and empty flasks were removed by the "cellar master," but not without a shock —

"For he swore he heard a shriekThrough the door."When the merry Christmas came, and the Yule-log lent its flameTo the face of squire and dame in the hall,The cellarer went down to tap October brown,Which was rather of renown'Mongst them all."He placed the spigot low, and gave the cask a blow,But his liquor would not flow through the pin;'Sure, 'tis sweet as honeysuckles!' so he rapped it with his knuckles,But a sound as if of bucklesClashed within."'Bring a hatchet, varlets, here!' and they cleft the cask of beer —What a spectacle of fear met their sight!There George of Gorbals lay, skull and bones all blanched and gray,In the arms he bore the dayOf the fight!"

From Leech's contributions to the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" my third selection consists of an illustration of "The Lay of the Lover's Friend." The "Lay" is a capital skit on the propensity of certain lovers to inflict the sorrows caused by the loss of their hearts upon friends to whom the loss is a matter of indifference. Says the friend:

"'I would all womankind were dead,Or banished o'er the sea;For they have been a bitter plagueThese last six weeks to me.It is not that I am touched myself,For that I do not fear;No female face has shown me graceFor many a bygone year.But 'tis the most infernal bore,Of all the bores I know,To have a friend who's lost his heartA short time ago."'Whene'er we steam it to Blackwall,Or down to Greenwich run,To quaff the pleasant cider-cup,Or feed on fish and fun;Or climb the slopes of Richmond HillTo catch a breath of air —Then, for my sins, he straight beginsTo rave about his fair.Oh, 'tis the most tremendous bore,Of all the bores I know,To have a friend who's lost his heartA short time ago.'"

Judging from the angry face of "the lover's friend" as he stretches out his hand towards the claret, it will require even more than the consolation to be derived from the finest brand to enable him to endure his friend's moaning with common patience. One studies with wonder and admiration the few touches with which the story is told in this little drawing. See the handsome frowning face of "the lover's friend," so perfectly in contrast with that of the absorbed lover, whose voice can almost be heard expatiating on the beauty of the lost one, and the hardness of her heart!

CHAPTER XVII.

Sporting Novels (continued)

"Handley Cross" is another of the sporting novels so admirably illustrated by Leech. The hero of this book is a certain Mr. Jorrocks, a retired "great city grocer of the old school." A fortune gained in the grocery business enabled Mr. Jorrocks to retire into country life, where the sports of the field awaited him. He became a mighty hunter, the possessor of the finest horses and "the best pack of 'ounds in all the world," who would make the foxes cry "Capevi!" He is M.F.H., and so great an authority on sporting matters as to warrant his announcing himself as a lecturer on the duties of all concerned in the truly British sport of the chasing of the fox. Mr. Jorrocks's antecedents were such as to preclude the possibility of the display of brilliant oratorical powers. His mode of expression – including the absence of the letter "h," where it should be used, and its presence where it should not – was what might have been expected from the retired grocer whose little figure adorns the illustration.

Leech's old friend, Mr. Adams, tells me that a man named Nicholls, Lady Louise Clinton's coachman, was the model for Mr. Jorrocks. Leech never went anywhere, not even to church, without his little sketch-book; and on a special Sunday at Barkway Church, where Lady Clinton had her pew, she was followed by a little man who, after handing her ladyship her books of devotion, took his seat outside the pew, and became an unconscious study for Leech; who in a few minutes transferred an exact likeness to the sketch-book, which was afterwards as exactly reproduced in the "hunting lecture."

A curious reader can study Mr. Jorrocks's lecture in the pages of "Handley Cross." He will there wonder with me how it came about, that so distinguished an audience of aristocratic men, and lovely women, could listen for many minutes to an oration which must have lasted at least two hours, and which ends with the following peroration: "So shall little Spooney jog on rejoicin'! Each succeedin' year shall find him better mounted, and at each fresh deal he will become a wiser and I 'opes a nappier man."

Mr. Jorrocks concluded amidst loud and universal applause.

Leech's mastery of character – unexaggerated, true to nature, without a trace of caricature – can be seen in the foreground figures of this etching. The man standing behind the lady with the lovely profile is a gentleman, though perhaps not a wise one; but what can the beautiful profile find in Mr. Jorrocks's discourse to amuse or enlighten her? And those pretty creatures in the distance, who certainly seem a little bored, how is it that they did not slip away with their cavaliers behind them, and so leave Mr. Jorrocks to talk about 'unting to 'is 'eart's content?

One of Mr. Jorrocks's sporting friends is Mr. Charley Stobbs, a good-looking young gentleman who finds himself belated after a hard day's hunting. He wanders about an unknown country, darkness comes upon him, and he endeavours in vain to find his way to Handley Cross. "The night was drear and dark, the wind whistled and howled with uncommon keenness, the cutting hail drifted with the sharpness of needles against his face. Horse and rider were equally dispirited," says the chronicler. This free and easy, or, rather uneasy, fox-hunter, determined to seek shelter for the night at the first house he came to, that promised from its appearance a comfortable bed, with, perhaps, an introductory supper. He soon found himself "under the lee of a large house, and having dismounted, and broken his shins against a scraper, he at length discovered a bell-pull in the door-post, which having sounded, the echoing notes from afar proclaimed the size and importance of the mansion." "A little maiden" gave Charley admission, and, with surprising alacrity, provided him with "ham sandwiches, hot water, lemon, nutmeg," etc., to say nothing of a bottle of sherry!

To the common mind the ease with which Mr. Charles Stobbs managed to procure for himself a supper and lodging in a stranger's mansion will be a matter of surprise; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he would have met with a very different reception. We rejoice in his success, because it gives us a likeness of his good-looking self, in conjunction with that of one of the prettiest and daintiest waiting-maids ever created by Leech's pencil.

Had I been permitted I should have selected a drawing from "Handley Cross," which heads a chapter called "The Waning Season," not from its subject (which has little interest), but because it is an admirable example of Leech's mastery of landscape. The figure of the old hedger, with his big gauntlets and bill-hook, is as true as possible to nature, well drawn, and perfect in action, as he stoops over the faggots he has collected; but I would call more attention to the drawing of the foreground and distance of the landscape; the stunted tree and the wattled fence in its perspective cunningly going off almost to the horizon – thus leading the eye into space – with its lines so skilfully broken by the leafless trees. The sky, too, though represented by a few lines, composes artistically with the forms in the distance and the rest of the wintry landscape.

With "Ask Mamma" – another of the many sporting books illustrated by Leech – I shall close my selections from that kind of literature for the present.

In the frontispiece of the book, which represents "The Ancestors of our Hero," the female ancestor is such a bewitching creature as to make a reproduction of her in this place irresistible. This charming person is Mrs. William Pringle, née Willing, about whose birth, parentage, and education history is silent. Her acquaintance is first made by the reader of "Ask Mamma" in the position of assistant in a milliner's shop, which she soon left for a shop of her own. In this venture Miss Willing failed disastrously, and, leaving dressmaking, she became a lady's-maid in the service of "the beautiful, newly-married Countess Delacey." "It was to the service of the Countess Delacey," says our author, "that Miss Willing was indebted for becoming the wife of Mr. William Pringle." The acquaintance between Miss Willing and Mr. Pringle, which soon ripened into love and marriage, began on the stage-coach, in which Miss Willing was journeying to London to buy dresses for her mistress, the Countess. Alas! it must be confessed that Miss Willing was an unscrupulous adventuress, and Mr. Pringle a very green goose indeed; for when he found Miss Willing installed in the Countess's house in Grosvenor Square, dressed in her mistress's emerald-green velvet costume, he believed her to be, as she represented herself, the mistress of the mansion. A big footman played into Miss Willing's hand, and "my lady'd" her to her heart's content, and to the delight of Mr. Pringle, as the refreshments were supplied to which the victim had been invited. Under the inspiring influence of brandy-and-water Mr. Pringle's love grew apace; and in reply to the lady's prudent inquiries as to his means of keeping her surrounded by the luxury to which she had been accustomed, she was assured that "she should have everything she wanted: a tall footman with good legs, an Arab horse, an Erard harp, a royal pianoforte, a silver tea-urn, a gold coffee pot, a service of gold, eat gold if she liked;" and, as he made this declaration, "he dropped upon his salmon-coloured knees, and with his glass of brandy in one hand and hers in the other, looked imploring up at her – a beautiful specimen of heavy sentimentality."

As one looks at the comical figure of Mr. Pringle, it would be difficult to believe that, even with the golden advantages with which he surrounds himself, he could be rendered acceptable to the lovely creature of Leech's fancy; if a finger could not be put upon couples amongst our own acquaintances even more strangely contrasted.

With respect to personal appearance, Mr. Pringle fares better at Leech's hands in a drawing representing a halt in the stage-coach journey to London. The passengers have stopped for refreshment. The coachman attends for his fee. Mr. Pringle, "who was bent upon doing the magnificent, produced a large green-and-gold tasselled purse, almost as big as a stocking, and drew therefrom a great five-shilling piece, which he handed ostentatiously to the man, saying: 'For this lady and me,' just as if she belonged to him."

Here Mr. Pringle fairly resembles a good-looking buck of sixty years ago, and the coachman might have been one of those whom I remember on my own first journey to London, with his "Beg pardon, sir, I've drove you fifty miles," when his fee was less than he expected. The coat of many capes, the red cheeks and redder nose, the action of the man as he holds his hat and whip, are all true to life; here again without the least exaggeration. In composition, light and shade, and general effect, this drawing leaves nothing to wish for. The expression of Miss Willing, as she looks sideways at her victim, should be noted.

Mr. William Pringle did not long enjoy his married life, for his only son (the hero of "Ask Mamma") was but a child, when, "after an inordinate kidney supper, Mr. Pringle was found dead in his chair."

The widow was very rich, and after educating her son regardless of expense, she launched him into high life, and somehow or other brought about an acquaintance between "Billy" and a sporting nobleman, the Earl of Ladythorne. From that time "Ask Mamma" becomes a chronicle of sporting adventure, with which I shall not trouble my reader, beyond the explanation required for the understanding of one or two examples of Leech's work.

The noble Earl of Ladythorne seems to have been a very impressionable personage, in a constant state of suffering from "Cupid's shafts"; and though for some reason or other he objected to hunting ladies, an "equestrian coquette, Miss De Glancey, of half the watering-places in England, and some on the Continent," had but to show herself amongst the field and the noble lord was again transfixed; this time the dart seems to have gone through and through the tender heart, only to be released by an event which occurred shortly afterwards.

It appears that Miss De Glancey's love of hunting was affected, in order to further her designs upon the Earl; she really feared and hated it; and though on the fatal day, which was destined to extinguish her hope of becoming a Countess, she had ridden boldly by the Earl through what he calls "a monstrous fine run," she "found no fun in it at all," and was "monstrous glad when it was over." No sooner was the fox despatched, than the sky darkened, the lightning flashed, the thunder bellowed, and the rain came down in torrents. "Poor Miss De Glancey," says our author, "was ready to sink into the earth." There was nothing for it but to seek the nearest shelter, which seems to have been the Punch Bowl at Rockbeer, in search of which "my lord" and the coquette ride off together. "An opportune flash of lightning so lit up the landscape as to show the clump of large elms at the entrance to Rockbeer." The hard driving rain beats downways and sideways, frontways and backways – all ways at once. The horses know not which way to duck to evade the storm. In less than a minute Miss De Glancey is as drenched as if she had taken a shower-bath. "The smart hat and feather are annihilated; the dubious frizette falls out; down comes the hair; the bella-donna-inspired radiance of her eyes is quenched; the crinoline and wadding dissolve like ice before the fire; and ere the love-cured Earl lifts her off her horse at the Punch Bowl at Rockbeer, she has no more shape or figure than an icicle. Indeed, she much resembles one, for the cold sleet, freezing as it fell, has encrusted her in a rich coat of iced lace, causing her saturated garments to cling to her with the utmost pertinacity. A more complete wreck of a belle was perhaps never seen."

"Brief as woman's love," says Shakspeare. That this remark will sometimes apply to man's love cannot be contested, for have we not an example before us in the rapid way in which our noble friend's passion was, so to speak, washed out of him? The love-stricken Earl "cured" by a shower of rain! We ought to be thankful for the downpour, for it was the cause of Leech's drawing, in which the unfortunate coquette is still, under the artist's tender treatment, an elegant creature, with grace and beauty in every line of her bedraggled form. How admirable, too, is the Earl! the rain dripping from the brim of his hat, and with every opportunity for making him ridiculous, he is still dignified, his face and figure noble, as he bends forward to meet the storm. It goes without saying that the horses are admirable in character and action, and that the whole scene exactly realizes a wet and stormy night.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MICHAEL HALLIDAY AND LEECH

"No man can put more into a picture than there is in himself," says Sir Joshua Reynolds. As an art student I have always felt the force of this aphorism. I would even go further, and add that no man can avoid the disclosure in numberless ways of what "there is in himself" of special mental organization, under the heads of taste, temper, delicacy, honesty, kindliness, and the true and full ap bpreciation of the beauties of nature.

"I cannot see nature as you represent it," someone is said to have remarked to Turner.

"Don't you wish you could?" was the reply.

It is not the subject of a great artist's work that we admire, but the artist's mind as reflected in his subject. Reynolds was fortunate in having for his sitters most of the beauties of the last century, and they were more fortunate still in falling into the hands of a painter who had such intense sympathy with their loveliness – so intense in some instances as to emphasize it somewhat to the sacrifice of individuality. It is what Turner sees in nature that we reverence, producing beauties for us to which we were blind, till they were called up by the spell of the great magician. Heads as fine as any of those painted by Vandyke can be seen any day, but there is no Vandyke to show us the impression they make upon him. Let anyone compare Vandyke's Charles I. with a contemporary rendering of that monarch, and he will feel with me that it is the great painter's power of penetrating the inner man before him, so to speak, added to his sympathy with the melancholy and dignified King, that, combined with his transcendent technical power, enabled him to present to us both the person and the mind of the unfortunate King. The contemporary painters give us but the husk and shell of him.

But of all artists who have reflected themselves in their works, Leech is the best example. Save when his hatred of injustice and oppression is aroused, the man's loving, tender nature, and his honest English, manly character, are apparent in everything he does. As he was to all who knew him well, he shows himself in his treatment of every theme he touches with his pencil. Of his life – quiet, studious, and ever observant – there is little to relate that cannot be gathered from his works. His passionate love of children and childish ways and tricks, his sympathy with beauty in all its forms, his eager participation in manly sports, with numberless other delightful qualities, are part and parcel of the man who was never tired of giving us unconscious revelations of himself in his drawings. Even when a certain amount of ridicule is attached to the principal incidents in the career of a ludicrous personage, we never have a feeling for him approaching contempt.

In the history of Messrs. Briggs and Tom Noddy these gentlemen present themselves in positions of laughable difficulty. Laugh at them we certainly do, but we never despise them; for do they not show the good qualities of courage and fortitude? Tom Noddy is thrown from his horse; nothing daunted, he instantly remounts. He drops his whip; he recovers it: is thrown again, and this time his horse gallops off; but though the little hunter pursues as fast as his little legs can go, the horse has the best of it and escapes. An ordinary being would despair and bemoan his loss; not so Tom Noddy, who gives up the pursuit for a time, and being no doubt a little tired, lights a cigar as he sits upon a stile. When refreshed by tobacco and repose he resumes his horse-chase, and ultimately succeeds in finding the animal in the possession of a rustic, who had amused himself by nearly galloping him to death. Tom Noddy is a delightful little creature; his numerous escapades are plentiful in "Pictures of Life and Character," and will be for all time a hearty, healthy pleasure to all who study them.

Many attempts were made to betray Leech into personality. Subjects were suggested, and offers were made to him, by persons who had real or imaginary grievances, to place well-known public characters in positions ridiculous or contemptible. Those attempts would not have been made if the proposers had known Leech; such suggestions were always rejected, and sometimes in terms very unpleasant to their proposers. I was not aware that Tom Noddy had a prototype until I was informed by my old friend, Mr. Holman Hunt, in a paper of Leech reminiscences, originally intended for this memoir, that Mike Halliday, a man I knew well forty years ago, was the original Tom Noddy. Halliday's figure was intended for an ordinary-sized man, but when Nature had produced his head and shoulders she seemed to have changed her intention, and the rest of his figure was that of a diminutive form, a full foot shorter altogether than an ordinary middle-sized man. When I first became acquainted with Halliday he was a clerk in the House of Lords. "He then," says Holman Hunt, "took to poetry, to love that never found its earthly close, and to our art – for he found time for all. So well did he succeed in picture-making that he once completed an oil-painting of two lovers sitting under a ruined abbey window, habited in contemporary costume, the gentleman intent on taking the size of the lady's marriage-finger."

I remember this picture being exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1856; I thought highly of it, and looked, but in vain, for a repetition of a success so complete as to cause the purchase of the picture by a well-known dealer, who had an engraving made from it, the print meeting with extensive popularity. Halliday's face was a very plain one, but totally unlike that of Tom Noddy: his hair was pale yellow, "a vapoury moustache joining a soft beard, long but sparse whiskers;" he was slightly lame, and altogether an elf-like quaintness in his appearance made him quite a remarkable little figure.

"Leech," says Mr. Hunt, "became intimate with him, and so under many names and ingenious disguises did Leech's public make his acquaintance – Tom Noddy, and a variety of names he figured under. Leech told of an expedition which formed a small party with Halliday one evening in the country, where there was to be a meet with the hounds next morning. As they dined and chatted, the attractions became greater every minute to the cavalier instincts of Halliday's youth. Leech and the others had horses coming, and on inquiry it was found that it would be possible for Mike to find a mount at hand, and so it was pointed out that he could sleep there and have a good day on the morrow.

"'No,' said Halliday, 'I must find a train from town in time to be at the cover.'

"'Why, in the name of mystery – why go to town?' said they all.

"But all was useless – the little man would go, and would come back by a train starting very early from town; and so, to the bewilderment of all, he did. The next morning the friends went to see the train come in. As it stopped, down jumped the little Nimrod, decked out in carefully preserved pink, well-stained cords, with top-boots, and falling over the rim a tassel of ribbons in emulation of Sixteen-stringed Jack, as dandy hunting-men had dressed twenty years before. He was capped with hunting-helmet, and he carried a magnificent riding-whip in hand. Seeing him thus walking and skipping with that outward turn of the feet, which is denominated in horsey parlance 'dishing,' Leech said that with all the desire in the world to treat the matter with supreme seriousness, as Halliday did, it was almost impossible for him to curb his provoked risibility."

Leech, in speaking of Halliday at a party, of which Holman Hunt made one, said:

"Mike is a mine of resource to me. Whenever I am in difficulties I can remember something of him that it is possible to turn into a 'subject'; and," he added earnestly, "I do hope he never recognises the resemblance, for I often put some point to prevent recognition."

The surprise at this innocence made the whole table burst into laughter, but in undeceiving Leech we were able to assure him that Halliday was by no means pained by the darts which had struck him; that he wore them proudly as decorations, and so disarmed the ill-nature that might be disposed to take advantage of the chance. He often achieved this by drawing the attention of his visitors to the last addition to his gallery of Punch portraits, exhibited on the walls of his studio.

It must have been from some peculiarity of dress or manner, to which Halliday's attention was called by "a candid friend," that he discovered that in drawing Tom Noddy Leech "had him in his eye"; for, as I said before, his face was as unlike that of Tom Noddy as Leech's own face was unlike the round, good-humoured physiognomy of Mr. Briggs, though some of the escapades of Briggs had their origin in Leech's personal experiences: a happy accident to the roof of Leech's house, and the noise and varied troubles caused in repairing it, was the suggestion of the famous scene of the Briggs disaster; and it was Leech himself who was caught by the leg by a policeman as – finding his front door blocked by scaffolding – he was attempting to enter in what that functionary considered a burglarious manner.