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

"She couldn't – she shouldn't – she wouldn't have wood!Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood;And she swore an oath, or something as good,The proxy limb should be golden!So a leg was made in a comely mouldOf gold – fine virgin, glittering gold —As solid as man could make it;Solid in foot, and calf, and shank,A prodigious sum of money it sank;In fact 'twas a Branch of the family Bank,And no easy matter to break it."

The golden leg became the talk of the town, kicking away all other attractions. The new novel, the new murder, even "wild Irish riots and rum-pusses," were neglected; in fact, "the leg was in everybody's mouth," and a grand fancy ball was given at the Kilmansegg mansion to celebrate the heiress's recovery, as well as to exhibit the golden leg. All the world and his wife worship at the golden shrine:

"In they go – in jackets, and cloaks,Plumes and bonnets, turbans and tokes,As if to a congress of nations:Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks,Spaniards and Jews, Chinese and Turks —Some like original foreign works,But mostly like bad translations.    *      *      *      *      *But where – where – where? with one accordCried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord,Wang-Fong and Il Bondacani —When slow and heavy, and dead as a dump,They heard a foot begin to stump,Thump! lump!Lump! thump!Like the spectre in 'Don Giovanni!'"And lo! the heiress, Miss Kilmansegg,With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg,In the garb of a Goddess olden —Like chaste Diana going to huntWith a golden spear – which of course was blunt,And a tunic looped up to a gem in front,To show the leg was golden."

The fancy ball was a great success, and at supper – which the poet describes in glowing language – the heiress's health was proposed:

"'Miss Kilmansegg,Full glasses I beg.Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg!'And away went the bottle careering!Wine in bumpers! and shouts in peals!Till the clown didn't know his head from his heels,The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels,And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering!"

The party being over, and the last guest gone, Miss Kilmansegg went to bed and to dream:

"Miss Kilmansegg took off her legAnd laid it down like a cribbage-peg,For the rout was done and the riot;The square was hushed, not a sound was heardThe sky was gray, and no creature stirr'dExcept one little precocious birdThat chirped – and then was quiet.    *      *      *      *      *"And then on the bed her frame she cast,The time for repose had come at last;But long, long after the storm is pastRolls the turbid, turbulent billow."

She dreams:

"Gold! she saw at her golden footThe Peer whose tree has an olden root;The Proud, the Great, the Learned to boot,The handsome, the gay, and the witty —The man of Science – of Arms – of Art,The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart,And the man who deals in the City."

The poet now rhymes delightfully of the time – the perilous time – when a choice has to be made of a partner in life for the heiress. The dream was realized so far as regards the number of her suitors, for —

"to tell the rigid truth,Her favour was sought by Age and Youth,For the prey will find a prowler!She was followed, flattered, courted, address'd,Woo'd and coo'd and wheedl'd, and press'dBy suitors from North, South, East, and West,Like that Heiress in song, 'Tibbie Fowler.'"

The embarras de choix resulted, as often happens, in the selection of the worst of the group:

"A foreign Count – who came incog.Not under a cloud, but under a fog,In a Calais packet's fore-cabin,To charm some lady British-born,With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn,And his hooky nose, and his beard half shorn,Like a half-converted Rabbin.    *      *      *      *      *"He was dressed like one of the glorious trade —At least, when Glory is off parade —With a stock, and a frock, well trimmed with braid,And frogs – that went a-wooing."

He could

"act the tender, and do the cruel;For amongst his other killing parts,He had broken a brace of female hearts,And murdered three men in a duel."Savage at heart, and false of tongue;Subtle with age, and smooth to the young,Like a snake in his coiling and curling,Such was the Count – to give him a niche —Who came to court that heiress rich,And knelt at her foot – one needn't say which —Besieging her Castle of Sterling."

In the whole range of Leech's art, no more subtle realization of character can be found than this wonderful drawing presents; in every touch, in every line, can be read the savage brutality of the man to whom the happiness of Hood's poor rich heroine is confided. How evident is "the trail of the serpent" over features not unhandsome! The love that could fail to be warned by such a face must be blind indeed. The poet's comments, and the contrast he shows between the lots of those who "marry for money" and those in whom simple and true love have been the guiding stars, are delightful. I add an example:

"But, oh! the love that gold must crown!Better, better, the love of the clown,Who admires his lass in her Sunday gown,As if all the fairies had dressed her!Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth,Except that he never will part on earthWith his truelove's crooked tester!"Alas! for the love that's linked with gold,Better, better a thousand times told —More honest and happy and laudable,The downright loving of pretty Ciss,Who wipes her lips, though there's nothing amiss,And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss,In which her heart is audible."

The Count has been accepted; he has presented his betrothed

"With a miniature sketch of his hooky nose,And his dear dark eyes as black as sloes,And his beard and whiskers as black as those.The lady's consent he requited:And instead of the lock that lovers beg,The Count received from Miss KilmanseggA model, in small, of her precious leg —And so the couple were plighted!"

But a short time probably elapsed between the betrothal and the marriage, which was solemnized, with golden splendour, of course, at St. James's Church. Thus the poet sings:

"'Twas morn – a most auspicious one!From the golden east, the golden sunCame forth his glorious race to runThrough clouds of most splendid tinges;Clouds that had lately slept in shade,But now seemed madeOf gold brocade,With magnificent gold fringes.    *      *      *      *      *"In short, 'twas the year's most golden day,By mortals called the first of May,When Miss Kilmansegg,Of the golden legWith a golden ring was married.    *      *      *      *      *"And then to see the groom! the CountWith Foreign Orders to such an amount,And whiskers so wild – nay, bestial;He seemed to have borrowed the shaggy hair,As well as the stars, of the Polar Bear,To make him look celestial!"

Of course the church was crowded inside and out,

"For next to that interesting job,The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob,There's nothing that draws a London mobAs the noosing of very rich people.    *      *      *      *      *"And then, great Jove! the struggle, the crush,The screams, the heaving, the awful rush,The swearing, the tearing, the fighting;The hats and bonnets, smashed like an egg,To catch a glimpse of the golden leg,Which between the steps and Miss KilmanseggWas fully displayed in alighting.    *      *      *      *      *"But although a magnificent veil she wore,Such as never was seen before,In case of blushes, she blushed no moreThan George the First on a guinea!    *      *      *      *      *"Bravely she shone – and shone the more,As she sailed through the crowd of squalid and poor,Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion;Led by the Count, with his sloe-black eyes,Bright with triumph, and some surprise,Like Anson, in making sure of his prize,The famous Mexican galleon.    *      *      *      *      *"Six 'Handsome Fortunes,' all in white,Came to help the marriage rite,And rehearse their own hymeneals;And then the bright procession to close,They were followed by just as many beaux —Quite fine enough for ideals."And how did the bride perform her part?Like any bride who is cold at heart,Mere snow with the ice's glitter;What but a life of winter for her?Bright but chilly, alive without stir,So splendidly comfortless, just like a firWhen the frost is severe and bitter."Yet wedlock's an awful thing!'Tis something like that feat in the ringWhich requires good nerve to do it,When one of a 'grand equestrian troop'Makes a jump at a gilded hoop,Not certain at allOf what may befallAfter his getting through it."Such were the future of man and wife,Whose bale or bliss to the end of lifeA few short words were to settle:Wilt thou have this woman?I will – and then,Wilt thou have this man?I will, and Amen —And those two were one flesh in the angels' ken,Except one leg – that was metal."

Here we have the Count in profile, only more agreeable because the view affords less of his villainous face.

I confess I am disappointed with Leech's rendering of Miss Kilmansegg. I cannot see why she should be deprived of a portion of the sympathy one always feels for "beauty in distress." Why should she be represented as the commonplace, red-nosed creature who plays the part of the bride in Leech's drawing? To be sure, the contrast she affords to the sweet little bridesmaid behind her heightens that young lady's attractions; but I cannot help thinking the heiress is hardly treated.

I pass over the wedding-breakfast, which was composed of everything in season, and of much that was out of it —

"For wealthy palates there be that scoutWhat is in season for what is out,And prefer all precocious savour;For instance, early green peas, of the sortThat costs some four or five guineas a quart,Where mint is the principal flavour."

The inevitable honeymoon follows —

"To the loving a bright and constant sphereThat makes earth's commonest scenes appearAll poetic, romantic, and tender;Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump,And investing a common post or a pump,A currant-bush or a gooseberry clump,With a halo of dream-like splendour.""Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,When such a bright planet governs the fateOf a pair of united lovers!Tis theirs, in spite of the serpent's hiss,To enjoy the pure primeval kiss,With as much of the old original blissAs mortality ever recovers."

I hope my readers will agree with me, that amongst the pleasures we receive from this delightful poem, one of the greatest is the charming little sketch which it has suggested to Leech in these two happy lovers, completely wrapped up in each other, with love in the cottage, at the board, and all about them.

But the Kilmansegg moon!

"Now, the Kilmansegg moon, it must be told,Though instead of silver it tipped with gold,Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold;And before its days were thirty,Such gloomy clouds began to collect,With an ominous ring of ill-effect,As gave but too much cause to expectSuch weather as seamen call dirty."She hated lanes, she hated fields,She hated all that the country yields,And barely knew turnips from clover;She hated walking in any shape,And a country stile was an awkward scrape,Without the bribe of a mob to gapeAt the leg in clambering over."Gold, still gold, her standard of old —All pastoral joys were tried by gold,Or by fancies golden and crural,Till ere she had passed one week unblestAs her agricultural uncle's guest,Her mind was made up and fully imprestThat felicity could not be rural."

And the Count?

"To the snow-white lambs at play,And all the scents and sights of May,And the birds that warbled their passion,His ears, and dark eyes, and decided nose,Were as deaf, and as blind, and as dull as thoseThat overlook the Bouquet de Rose,The Huile Antique,And Parfum Unique,In a Barber's Temple of Fashion."And yet had that fault been his only one,The pair might have had few quarrels or none,For their tastes thus far were in common;But faults he had that a haughty brideWith a golden leg could hardly abide —Faults that would even have roused the prideOf a far less metalsome woman.    *      *      *      *      *"He left her, in spite of her tender regards,And those loving murmurs described by bards,For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cardsAnd the poking of balls into pockets."Moreover, he loved the deepest stakeAnd the heaviest bets the players would make,And he drank – the reverse of sparely!And he used strange curses that made her fret;And when he played with herself at picquet,She found to her cost —For she always lost —That the Count did not count quite fairly."And then came dark mistrust and doubt,Gathered by worming his secrets out,And slips in his conversation —Fears which all her peace destroyed,That his title was null, his coffers were void,And his French château was in Spain, or enjoyedThe most airy of situations."But still his heart – if he had such a part —She – only she – might possess his heart,And hold her affections in fetters.Alas! that hope, like a crazy ship,Was forced its anchor and cable to slipWhen, seduced by her fears, she took a dipIn his private papers and letters —"Letters that told of dangerous leagues,And notes that hinted as many intriguesAs the Count's in the 'Barber of Seville.'In short, such mysteries came to lightThat the Countess-bride, on the thirtieth night,Woke and started up in a fright,And kicked and screamed with all her might,And finally fainted away outright,For she dreamt she had married the Devil!"

In short, poor Miss Kilmansegg, or, rather, the "Golden Countess," was utterly wretched:

"Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim,And downward cast, yet not at the limbOnce the centre of all speculation;But downward drooping in comfort's dearth,As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth —Whence human sorrows derive their birth —By a moral gravitation."How blessed the heart that has a friendA sympathizing ear to lendTo troubles too great to smother!But friend or gossip she had noneTo hear the vile deeds the Count had done,How night after night he rambled;And how she learned by sad degreesThat he drank and smoked, and, worse than these,That he 'swindled, intrigued, and gambled'!    *      *      *      *      *"He brought strange gentlemen home to dineThat he said were in the Fancy Line, —And they fancied spirits instead of wine,And called her lap-dog 'Wenus.'"

Leech has pretty well marked the profession of the "strange gentlemen" in this admirable drawing; their attitudes, the cut of their clothes, the character in their figures, to say nothing of the sticking-plaster on a face that could belong to no one but a "fighting man," sufficiently proclaim their habits. The figure of the Count is tragic in its intensity of drunken self-abandonment.

A leg of solid gold would, no doubt, if turned into cash, represent a large sum of money. It seems to have been the determination of the Countess, while still Miss Kilmansegg, to have reserved to herself all rights over the golden leg, for that auriferous limb was settled, as well as fixed upon herself, to be disposed of by will or otherwise, as she pleased. Says the poet:

"So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg,At her marriage refused to stir a pegTill her lawyers had fastened on her leg,As fast as the law could tie it."

Means which seem illimitable very speedily vanish when they fall into the hands of such people as the foreign Count. It was said of a famous roué of the last century that he "practised every vice except prodigality and hypocrisy – his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, and his matchless impudence from the second." Our Count seems to have surpassed his prototype, whose "impudence" may not have been of the brutal character from which the poor Countess suffered; whilst a slight dash of avarice might have prevented the golden leg from being all that was left of her golden fortune.

The following lines eloquently describe the Count's state of mind after his orgies:

"And then how wildly he used to stare,And shake his fist at nothing, and swear,And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair,Till he looked like a study of Giant DespairFor a new edition of Bunyan!"For dice will run the contrary way,As is well known to all who play,And cards will conspire as in treason."

At all events, cards, dice, and other expensive amusements had so reduced the Count that he had not a leg to stand upon, except his wife's golden one, and as that limb was in her own control, it was but a doubtful security. The Countess had made a will in which the leg was left to the Count, but life is uncertain – the Countess might outlive her husband; moreover, he was so placed that delay was not only dangerous, but inconvenient. The chronicler thus continues:

"Now, the precious leg while cash was flush,Or the Count's acceptance worth a rush,Had never excited dissension;But no sooner the stocks began to fall,Than, without any ossification at all,The limb became what people callA perfect bone of contention."For altered days made altered ways,And instead of the complimentary phraseSo current before her bridal,The Countess heard, in language low,That her precious leg was precious slow,A good 'un to look at, but bad to go,And kept quite a sum lying idle.    *      *      *      *      *"But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff,The leg kept its situation;For legs are not to be taken offBy a verbal amputation."Firmly then – and more firmly yet —With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat,The proud one confronted the cruel;And loud and bitter the quarrel arose,Fierce and merciless – one of thoseWith spoken daggers, and looks like blows —In all but the bloodshed a duel."Rash and wild, and wretched and wrong,Were the words that came from weak and strong,Till, maddened for desperate matters,Fierce as a tigress escaped from her den,She flew to her desk – 'twas opened – and then,In the time it takes to try a pen,Or the clerk to utter his slow 'Amen,'Her will was in fifty tatters!"But the Count, instead of curses wild,Only nodded his head and smiled,As if at the spleen of an angry child;But the calm was deceitful and sinister!And a lull like the lull of the treacherous sea —For Hate in that moment had sworn to beThe golden leg's sole legatee,And that very night to administer."

"That very night!" – one more night of golden dreaming, in the midst of which comes death; the deliverer from an existence which the worship of gold has made so pitiful:

"'Tis a stern and startling thing to think,How often mortality stands on the brinkOf its grave without any misgiving:And yet in this slippery world of strife,In the stir of human bustle so rife,There are daily sounds to tell us that lifeIs dying, and Death is living!"But breath and bloom set doom at nought —How little the wretched Countess thought,When at night she unloosed her sandal,That the fates had woven her burial-cloth,And that Death, in the shape of a death's head moth,Was fluttering round her candle!"As she looked at her clock of ormolu,For the hours she had gone so wearily throughAt the end of a day of trial,How little she saw in the pride of primeThe dart of Death in the hand of Time —That hand which moved the dial!"As she went with her taper up the stair,How little her swollen eye was awareThat the shadow which followed was double!Or when she closed her chamber-door,It was shutting out, and for evermore,The world and its worldly trouble."Little she dreamt as she laid asideHer jewels – after one glance of pride —They were solemn bequests to Vanity;Or when her robes she began to doff,That she stood so near to the putting offOf the flesh that clothes humanity."And when she quenched the taper's light,How little she thought, as the smoke took flight,That her day was done and merged in a nightOf dreams and duration uncertain;Or along with her ownThat a hand of boneWas closing mortality's curtain!    *      *      *      *      *"Thus, even thus, the Countess slept,While death still nearer and nearer crept,Like the Thane who smote the sleeping;But her mind was busy with early joys,Her golden treasures and golden toys,That flashed a brightAnd golden lightUnder lids still red with weeping."The golden guineas in silken purse,And the 'Golden Legends' she heard from her nurse,Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage —And London streets that were paved with gold,And the golden eggs that were laid of old —With each golden thingTo the golden ringAt her own auriferous marriage!"And still the golden light of the sunThrough her golden dream appeared to run,Though the night that roared without was oneTo terrify seamen or gipsies —While the moon, as if in malicious mirth,Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth,As though she enjoyed the tempest's birth,In revenge of her old eclipses."But vainly, vainly the thunder fell,For the soul of the sleeper was under a spell,That time had lately embittered —The Count, as once at her foot he knelt —That foot which now he wanted to melt!But, hush! 'twas a stir at her pillow she felt,And some object before her glittered."'Twas the golden leg! she knew its gleam!And up she started and tried to scream;But even in the moment she started,Down came the limb with a frightful smash,And, lost in the universal flashThat her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash,The spark called vital departed."Gold, still gold, hard, yellow, and cold,For gold she had lived, and died for gold —By a golden weapon, not oaken;In the morning they found her all alone —Stiff, and bloody, and cold as a stone —But her leg, the golden leg, was gone,And the 'golden bowl was broken.'"Her Moral."Gold! gold! gold! gold!Bright and yellow, hard and cold,Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;Heavy to get, and light to hold;Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;Spurned by the young, but hugged by the oldTo the very verge of the churchyard mould;Price of many a crime untold;Gold! gold! gold! gold!Good or bad a thousandfold!How widely its agencies vary —To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless —As even its minted coins express,Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess,And now of Bloody Mary!"

The admirable design – the "tailpiece" to the legend of "Miss Kilmansegg and her Golden Leg" – which Leech calls "Bedtime," is reproduced, not only for its excellence as a composition, but also in evidence of the readiness of the artist's imagination to adopt an idea that has been suggested by the poem, and of the skill with which that cunning hand has realized it. The little old miser has been "counting out his money" with the delight that "time cannot wither, nor custom stale." His shrunken shanks, thin face and hands, betray his age. Death cannot be far off; but no thought apart from the treasure can be spared for the inevitable visitor who surprises the miser at last in the midst of his golden worship. He is far from being tired; but he must go to bed, and sleep the sleep that knows no waking. His skeleton nurse has come for him; her bony hands encircle him. His shroud is on her arm; she cannot wait – no, not for him to handle once more those glittering coins, on which his eye sparkles, and his claw-like fingers make vain attempts to reach.

CHAPTER XX.

DR. JOHN BROWN AND LEECH

Whether that charming writer, Dr. John Brown, knew Leech in the flesh or not, I cannot say; but that he knew and fully appreciated him in spirit is evident enough in a paper published in a collection of essays entitled "Horæ Subsecivæ." I gather from the concluding passages of the Doctor's brilliant essay that it had been his intention to have written Leech's life, having collected much material for the purpose, but that "ill-health put a stop to this congenial labour." How admirably the labour would have been executed may be shown by the following extracts:

"Leech," says Dr. Brown, "was singularly modest, both as a man and an artist. This came by nature, and was indicative of the harmony and sweetness of his essence; but doubtless the perpetual going to Nature, and drawing out of her fulness, kept him humble, as well as made him rich – made him (what every man of sense and power must be) conscious of his own strength. But before 'the great mother' he was simple and loving, attentive to her lessons as a child, for ever learning and doing."

Again: "Of all our satirists, none have such a pervading sense and power of girlish, ripe, and womanly beauty as Leech… There is a genuine domesticity about his scenes that could come only from a man who was much at his own fireside, and in the nursery when baby was washed. You see, he is himself pater familias, with no Bohemian trait or raffish turn. What he draws, he has seen; what he asks you to live in, and laugh at and with, he has laughed at and lived in. It is this wholesomeness and (to use the right word) this goodness that makes Leech more than a drawer of funny pictures, more even than a great artist. It makes him a teacher and an example of virtue in its widest sense, from that of manliness to the sweet devotion of a woman, and the loving open mouth and eyes of parvula on your knee."