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

Leech was more fortunate than another artist of my acquaintance, for the officer listened to his explanation of the unusual way of entering his house, and, believing the statement, assisted him to "make himself at home." But my other friend, who had been "dining," finding something the matter with his latch-key – for do what he would he could not induce it to perform its usual office – mounted his area railings, and would very likely have fallen into the area if he had not been stopped by a policeman. The artist's attempts to explain his position were either incomprehensible by the officer, or they were not believed, for he was taken to the station and locked up for the night.

Leech gives us no hint by which we might guess in what condition of life the immortal Briggs made the fortune that enabled him to retire to his comfortable home in Bayswater; whatever his pursuit may have been, the taste for sport of every kind must have possessed the prosperous gentleman, to be indulged to the full – happily for us – when he had achieved independence.

Leech's powers are seen in their highest development in the Briggs drawings. Mr. Briggs is unfortunate in respect of horseflesh; the animals he selects are none of them free from vice, and in their various – and often successful – attempts to unseat their rider, they give the artist opportunities of showing his power of representing almost every action of which the horse is capable in the indulgence of that propensity. The enterprising sportsman chases the fox, coming in at the death, or soon after it – anyway, in time to give the huntsman half-a-sovereign for the brush, only he must "say nothing about it." He rides steeplechases, and though he is half drowned in a water-jump, and suffers other hindrances, he wins the race.

But it is in the shooting and fishing exploits that the sportsman and his illustrator shine most. Among so many triumphs of art and sportsmanship, it is difficult to say which of the many excellent examples is to be preferred; all are admirable, but I think the one I have chosen for illustration is my favourite. Mr. Briggs is deer-stalking, and though he occasionally suffers, even to prostration, from the heat of the weather, and the difficulties presented by hills, rocks, and heather, he really enjoys creeping and hiding with his gillies, until the royal hart, which the forester has seen through his glass, is well within rifle shot. He fires, misses; and behold the result!

In expression, drawing, character, and action, the figure of the forester is perfect; there is a tragic grandeur in the pose that would be appropriate in the gravest scene of misfortune. Poor Mr. Briggs plainly shows us that he not only suffers from the mortification of having missed so splendid an opportunity of distinguishing himself, but also from the misery his mishap has inflicted upon the forester. The skilful way in which this drawing is composed – the three figures separated from each other presenting a difficult problem to the artist – excites one's admiration. Without the connecting links afforded by the forms in the landscape, and the lines made by the dogs in the leash, held by the young gilly, the figures would be unpleasantly separated. As it is, with the masterly effect of light and shadow, this drawing is above all criticism.

My elderly readers may remember a certain Mr. Rarey, an American, I think, who "took the town" by his horse-taming feats. A horse named Cruiser, which was in the habit of indulging in every wickedness that could disgrace a horse, became docile under the Rarey treatment. The tamer's method was a profound secret; he allowed no one to witness the working of the charm by which a furious animal was changed into lamb-like meekness. In Cruiser's case, what was certain was, that a creature unapproachable without risk to limb and life, was transformed to such an extent that a child might – and did – ride him.

In a number of admirably humorous drawings, Leech pictures Mr. Briggs, who comes to grief in all his attempts to emulate Mr. Rarey. He evidently does not possess the secret, and though we laugh over his failures, we respect the courage which led to them. "Mr. Briggs tries his shooting pony" is an inimitable drawing. Mr. B. has no doubt been assured that the pony will take no more notice of a gun when fired from his back than "if you was to whistle a tune as you was riding of him." In perfect confidence in the truthfulness of the dealer's assurance, Mr. Briggs fires. The pony instantly flies, rather than gallops, away – without, however, unseating Mr. Briggs, who clings to the saddle, clutching his gun still smoking from the recent discharge.

Mr. Briggs goes to Scotland after salmon, as well as deer and grouse. As a fisherman he is more successful with the rod than he was as a deer-stalker with the gun. A huge salmon, for which "he would not take a guinea a pound," rewards him for a long and desperate struggle, in which he encounters obstacles in the shape of the slippery rocks and deep-water holes that distinguish a Highland river.

In Scottish scenery Leech is as much at home as he is in the turnip-field or the covert. No praise can be too extravagant for all the backgrounds that form so perfect a setting for the gem-like figures of Mr. Briggs. Nor must his attendants be forgotten. Witness the difference of character, so completely marked, between the snuff-taking bearer of the "gaff," with his Scotch bonnet, and the forester in his kilt, who so pathetically mourns Mr. Briggs' failure, and who afterwards makes him "free of the forest" by smearing his face with the blood of a stag which has died by the accidental discharge of his gun.

During the quarter of a century of Leech's work, the British public had its crazes – Bloomerism, crinoline, spirit-rapping, and other less dangerous absurdities than the last, seized upon the minds of large portions of the people, to be thrown aside and replaced by other ridiculous fancies. Even games, after a time, seem to pall upon the players: cricket, happily, bids fair to be perennial; but croquet, once so fashionable, is no more. When one looks at Leech's drawings, in which crinolines figure so prominently, it is really difficult to believe that the artist has not exaggerated a frightful fashion; from observation I can assure a doubter that Leech has frequently under, rather than over, done the swell of those voluminous skirts. Of course, whenever they are permitted to do so, servants will imitate their masters and mistresses, and it was by no means uncommon for the ribs of a housemaid's crinoline to assert themselves through the outer skirt, as we see in some of Leech's drawings.

I would draw attention to the opposite, or antithesis, of this. In some of the cuts, prior, I think, to the "crinoline mania," Leech's delightful girls wear jackets of a form that follows the lines of nature, and of a very picturesque shape. These have a very short reign, being discarded in their turn by that Goddess of Fashion, the dressmaker, for "something new" and outrageous. There is amongst the "Pictures of Life and Character" a drawing of a dinner-party in which the male guests are so hidden and covered by ladies' crinolines that their heads and a small portion of their shoulders only are visible. How the gentlemen's hands are to be used in the consumption of their dinners is left to the imagination of the beholder, and of the sufferers.

For the unexaggerated truth of this print I, who write, can vouch; for have I not again and again been obliged to solve the difficulty of using my knife and fork? In spite of the attacks upon it, crinoline had its day – and far too long a day it was.

The Bloomer costume – a Yankee invention – made but a feeble struggle for existence, though it had many advocates, notably a belle Americaine, one of whose lectures at the Hanover Square rooms I had the curiosity to attend. The lady wore a red velvet overcoat and loose trousers, a broad-brimmed black hat and feather, and looked and talked like a pretty boy.

Bloomerism afforded Leech many opportunities of showing that his pencil could invest eccentricity with beauty. A study of the Bloomer sketches will also show that the attempt to adopt the manly dress was, in his estimation, an insidious attempt to usurp manly work and offices. In proof of this see the charming Bloomer omnibus-conductor, who is threatened by an elderly male passenger with a summons for abusive language; or the group of Bloomer police, who fly from a riotous mob instead of arresting the ringleaders. Look at her again as "the man at the wheel" who must not be "spoken to." Those who have suffered from sea-sickness will see by the expression of the Bloomer's countenance why she should not be spoken to, and what the effect of conversation under the circumstances would most probably be. Leech gave his imagination full play in this fruitful theme. Granting the assumption of the masculine dress, he sees no reason why a proposal should not be made by the female lover instead of the male. Why, he seems to ask, should the gentleman have to undergo that terrible ordeal?

I advise my reader to seek in "Pictures of Life and Character" for a drawing of an elopement in which the positions of the principals are reversed. It is the lady who is pouring words of passionate persuasion into the ears of her frightened and half-reluctant lover, as he looks back at the home he is leaving for ever; she almost drags him to the carriage which is to bear the happy pair away to Gretna Green.

Spirit-rapping, table-turning, and the rest of it, fare badly at the hands of Leech. Happy was the thought that possessed him when, by a touch of his magic pencil, he changed the heads of a seance-party into those of geese. And how admirably humorous is the drawing in which furniture starts into life at the bidding of a medium, to the astonishment and dismay of the housemaid! Hats were supposed to "turn about and wheel about" under the influence of encircled hands round the brims. It would be a mistake to suppose that the handsome Guardsman who, with the assistance of the fingers of those pretty creatures, so patiently waits for the hat to move, has either the expectation or the desire that the experiment will be successful. No, he greatly enjoys the situation, and is eager to prolong it for any unreasonable time.

Here I cannot resist interposing a little anecdote of an experience of which I should like to have an explanation by the spiritualists. The incident took place on one of the many occasions when I served as a member of the dreaded Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy. As is well known, the Academicians have a vast variety of works of art offered for exhibition, perpetrated, as a rule, by human hands. But there is no rule without an exception, and it was my fate to witness the exception in the form of pictures painted by spirits, and sent for exhibition by their thrice-blessed proprietor. These were very striking works indeed. At first sight they looked like masses of many-coloured weeds, very weird vegetation, unlike anything "in heaven above or on the earth beneath." On nearer inspection, some childishly-drawn, half-naked figures were discernible amongst the weeds, intended to represent spiritual forms of departed friends, probably, who had been changed into these unfortunate figures. These works received our most careful examination, created laughter, and were rejected. Now, I respectfully ask what the spirits were about thus to subject themselves and their doings to the ignorant ribaldry of the Academicians? They must have known that we were in a state of darkest unbelief, and the least they could have done was to warn the owner of these works of their certain fate at our hands, and thus have saved him the trouble of sending them to Burlington House, to say nothing of the expense of the handsome frames in which they were enshrined. "I pause for a reply."

Archery and croquet afforded Leech opportunities for the display of beauty in many forms. His lady-archers are bewitching creatures, their male competitors always manly, graceful gentlemen. The pursuit of both amusements offered chances of love-making and flirtation, of which full advantage is sometimes taken; indeed, in one instance we see a game of croquet stopped altogether by a couple who find an interchange of – shall we say vows? – more interesting than the game; a feeling which, judging from the other players, is by no means shared.

Leech seems to have left no phase of human life and character untouched: whether he deals with the aristocrat or the plebeian, the Duchess or the beggar, the very poor or the very rich, the beautiful or the ugly, he is ever true to Nature; turning away from our vices, dealing lovingly with us in all ways, touching our follies lightly, humorously, and always good-naturedly – in short, invariably reflecting in his work his own disposition to what is pure, manly, and true.

CHAPTER XIX.

THOMAS HOOD AND LEECH

The difficulty of gauging public taste in matters literary and artistic can be proved by numberless examples. How often does the manager of a theatre place in trembling anxiety a piece before his audience which afterwards runs for hundreds of nights! "Our Boys" has had a long life upon the stage; but so doubtful was everyone connected with its production of its living for one night even, that another play was held in readiness to take the place of the damned one. Books that have made reputations for their authors have been refused by publisher after publisher. Engravings run the same perilous course. Print-sellers, from long experience of public wants, should know what will satisfy them; but they seem to find the difficulty that befalls publishers and the managers of theatres.

Many years ago a very pretty servant-maid became a part of my household. I induced her to sit for me, having noticed the graceful way in which her various duties were performed; and I made a half-length figure of her carrying a silver salver, on which was a decanter, thinking that the contrast between the silver, glass, and a pretty gray dress would make an effective scheme of colour. The picture was beautifully engraved by Holl, and offered for publication by a friend, who bought it, to one of the most experienced print-sellers in London. To please my friend, to whom the print-seller was under great obligation, he bought the right of publication; but having no faith in its success, my pretty servant was passed on – at a sacrifice – to another print-seller, and she afterwards found great favour with the public, and was highly remunerative to her proprietor, under the name and title of "Sherry, sir?" This title was the "happy thought" of the print-seller, who, on my remonstrating with him for vulgarizing my picture, informed me that the title had been the sole cause of the success of the engraving.

A print was published many years ago of three chorister boys in surplice and cassock, who, with open mouths and upturned eyes, are supposed to be singing. In a moment of inspiration the artist, who, I believe, was also the engraver, christened his subject, "We praise Thee, O Lord!" and then offered it at most of the principal print-shops in London, where it was invariably refused. The artist published "We praise Thee," etc., himself, and, I was told, made more than two thousand pounds by it.

All this is introductory to the most astonishing example that could be conceived of the fallacy of what I may call expert opinion, on literary merit and public taste.

I am not sure of the precise date, but I think it was about 1848 or 1849 that Hood's "Song of the Shirt" appeared in Punch. There is, or was, a letter in existence from Hood to Mark Lemon, then editor of Punch, in which the writer tells his friend he has enclosed a poem that he may publish in Punch if he likes; but he "most likely won't like," and refuse it, as the publishers, one and all, to whom it has been offered, had done without hesitation. "In that case," said Hood, "tear it up, and put it in the waste-paper-basket; for I am sick of the sight of it." This was the "Song of the Shirt," one of the most powerful, touching, and pathetic poems in the English language.

My old friend, Willert Beale, whose recently-published "Light of Other Days" has charmed so many readers, sends me the following account of the introduction of the "Song of the Shirt" into Punch:

"Mark Lemon" (then editor of Punch) "was looking over the immense heap of Punch letters on his desk, when he opened one enclosing a poem, which the writer said had been rejected by three contemporaries, and if unavailable for Punch, he begged the editor, whom he knew but slightly, to consign the paper to his waste-basket, as he was sick of the sight of it. The poem was signed 'Tom Hood,' and entitled 'The Song of the Shirt,' now so famous among us all. Of a totally different character to anything that had previously appeared in the pages of Punch, most of the staff were dead set against the insertion of it; but Mark Lemon, whose quick appreciation of its merits made him unwilling to let so valuable a prize slip from his grasp, over-ruled all objections with quiet though firm determination, and brought it before the public through the medium of Punch. The insertion trebled the sale of the number. Mark Lemon was always very proud of this success, which was certainly attributable to his efforts.

"'Hood wants but one thing to make him famous,' he used to say, 'and that is death.'

"His words were verified, for in poverty and comparative obscurity died one of England's cleverest men."

In 1849 some very painful disclosures were made in the Metropolitan police-courts, when it appeared "that numbers of poor sempstresses were paid by the slop-sellers only three-halfpence for making a shirt, and in proportion for other articles of ready-made clothing." In all probability these disclosures suggested the "Song of the Shirt," as they assuredly did the charming designs by Leech, called "Pin-Money" and "Needle-Money." It seems to me almost an impertinence for a commentator on such admirable designs as these to point out the beauties so palpable to all who look at them. We sympathize with each of these classes of beings, for they are both the results of conditions that they have done nothing to create. It is certain that one of them is miserable, and it is by no means sure that the lovely girl's pin-money brings happiness with it.

There was everything in the shape of similarity of thought and feeling to have brought Leech and Hood into intimacy, but I doubt if they ever saw much of each other. Hood's comparatively premature death, preceded by much sickness and seclusion, took place while Leech was far from the position in public estimation that he afterwards reached. In proof of similarity of humour I give the following note from Hood to Dickens:

"17, Elm Tree Road, 1841,Saturday.

"Dear Dickens,

"As you are going to America, and have kindly offered to execute any little commission for me, pray, if it be not too much trouble, try to get me an autograph of Sandy Hook's. I have Theodore's.

"Yours very truly,"Thos. Hood.

"My boy does not wait for an answer."

"Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg: a Golden Legend," is perhaps one of the best, as it is certainly the longest, of Hood's poems, remarkable, indeed, for its puns and ingenious play upon words, its felicitous rhyming, and its underlying moral. Miss Kilmansegg was born with a golden spoon in her mouth, and her condition is shown in the charming drawing with which Leech illustrates the following lines:

"What wide reverses of fate are there!Whilst Margaret, charmed by the Bulbul rare,In a Garden of Gull reposes,Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street,Till – think of that, who find life so sweet! —She hates the smell of roses!"Not so with the infant Kilmansegg —She was not born to steal or beg,Or gather cresses in ditches;To plait the straw, or bind the shoe,Or sit all day to hem and sew,As females must – and not a few! —To fill their insides with stitches."

The christening of the golden child was an affair so splendid as to tax the poet's invention for tropes and figures worthy of the occasion:

"Gold! and gold! and nothing but gold!The same auriferous shine beholdWherever the eye could settle!On the walls – the sideboard – the ceiling – sky – ,On the gorgeous footmen standing by,In coats to delight a miner's eyeWith seams of precious metal."Gold! and gold! and besides the gold,The very robe of the infant toldA tale of wealth in every fold —It lapped her like a vapour!So fine! so thin! the mind at a loss,Could compare it to nothing except a crossOf cobweb with banknote paper."

Powerful as the poet's imagination shows in these glittering rhymes, it fails him in his endeavour to find a prefix in the form of a name worthy of accompanying Kilmansegg. He says:

"Then the babe was crossed and blessed amain,But instead of Kate, or Ann, or Jane,Which the humbler female endorses —Instead of one name, as some people prefix,Kilmansegg went at the tails of six,Like a carriage of state with its horses."

The names, therefore, are left to the imagination of the reader, who may learn, if he will, some particulars of the nameless Kilmansegg's childhood:

"Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg,Cutting her first little toothy-pegWith a fifty-guinea coral —A peg upon whichAbout poor and richReflection might hang on a moral."Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed,Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd, and lapp'd from the firstOn the knees of Prodigality,Her childhood was one eternal roundOf the game of going on Tiddler's ground,Picking up gold in reality.    *      *      *      *      *"Gold! and gold! 'twas the burden still!To gain the heiress's early goodwillThere was much corruption and bribery.The yearly cost of her golden toysWould have given half London's charity boysAnd charity girls the annual joysOf a holiday dinner at Highbury."

The kind of education permitted to this unfortunate heiress may be gathered from the following extracts:

"Long before her A B and CThey had taught her by heart her £ s. d.,And as how she was born a great heiress;And as sure as London was made of bricksMy Lord would ask her the day to fixTo ride in a fine gilt coach and six,Like her Worship the Lady Mayoress."The very metal of merit they told,And praised her for being as 'good as gold'!Till she grew as a peacock haughty;Of money they talked the whole day round,And weighed desert like grapes, by the pound,Till she had an idea from the very soundThat people with naught were naughty."Gold! still gold…Gold ran in her thoughts and filled her brain,She was golden-headed, like Peter's cane,With which he walked behind her."

Leech's drawings which decorate "Miss Kilmansegg" display his appreciation of beauty and character, and are, in some examples, of great artistic excellence – notably in the portrait of the foreign gentleman who became the husband of the heiress. Some of them are, of course, deficient in the artistic qualities with which his long practice enabled him to enrich his latest work.

My space will not permit of my making many extracts from Hood's admirable work – only, indeed, so far as to explain Leech's drawings; but to those of my readers who make Miss Kilmansegg's acquaintance for the first time in these pages, I heartily recommend a perusal of the poem, and envy them the pleasure they will find in reading it.

Of course Miss Kilmansegg

"… learnt to sing and to dance,To sit on a horse although he should prance,And to speak a French not spoken in FranceAny more than at Babel's building."

The steed was a thoroughbred of great spirit —

"A regular thoroughbred Irish horse,And he ran away, as a matter of course,With a girl worth her weight in guineas."

I think it would be very difficult to find a description of any event in any book to equal Hood's account of the mad career of the Irish horse and its unfortunate rider:

"Away went the horse in the madness of fright,And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight;Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light,Or only the flash of her habit?"Away she flies, and the groom behind" —

encountering all the perils of London streets, till the inevitable catastrophe takes place:

"On and on! still frightfully fast!Dover Street, Bond Street, all are past!But – yes – no – yes! – they're down at last!    *      *      *      *      *There's a shriek and a sobAnd the dense dark mobLike a billow closes around them!'She breathes!''She don't''She'll recover!''She won't.''She's stirring! she's living by Nemesis!'Gold, still gold, on counter and shelf,Golden dishes as plenty as delf,Miss Kilmansegg's coming again to herselfOn an opulent goldsmith's premises!"

The heiress recovers; but, alas! in her fall she broke her leg, and as "the limb was doomed it couldn't be saved." A substitute must be found. Of what, then, shall the "proxy limb" be made?