John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2]

My first illustration represents a mamma and her two daughters in the serious business of selecting guests for an evening party.

“It is evening,” says Mr. Albert Smith; “mamma and her two daughters are seated at a table arranging the names of the visitors upon the back of an old letter, having turned out the dusty record of the card-basket before them in order that no one of importance may be forgotten.

“Ellen (loc.): ‘I am sure I don’t see why we should invite the Harveys, mamma. They have been here twice, and never asked us back again.’

“Fanny: ‘And we shall see those dreadful silver poplins again; they must be intimately acquainted with the cane-work of all the rout-seats in London.’

“Ellen: ‘And William Harvey is so exceedingly disagreeable; he always looks at the ciphers on the plate to see if it is borrowed or not.’

“Fanny: ‘And last year he declared the pine-apple ice was full of little square pieces of raw potato; and when Mr. Edwards broke a tumbler at supper he told him “not to mind, for they were only tenpence apiece in Tottenham Court Road.” The low wretch! he thought he had made a capital joke.’

“Mamma: ‘Well, my dears, I think your papa will be annoyed if they are left out; but never mind him – we won’t ask them.’”

The discussion respecting the guests goes on, opinion as to eligibility widely differing. Mamma proposes Mr. and Mrs. Howard and the four girls, to which Miss Ellen says:

“All dressed alike, and standing up in every quadrille. I declare I will get George Conway to put an ice in Harriet’s chair for her to sit down upon, in revenge for her waltzing last year, when she brushed down the Joan of Arc, and knocked its head off.”

This refined conversation continues till Miss Ellen speaks of her brother’s disposition to interfere with the invitation-list; she says:

“‘We must tell Tom not to overdo us so much with his own friends. I declare last year I did not know half the young men in the room; and it was so very awkward when you had to introduce them.’

“Fanny: ‘And they were not nice persons. Two of them were in the pit of the Lyceum the next night, and, seeing us in Mr. Arnold’s box, would stare us out of countenance. With a single glass, too!’”

“And in this style,” says our author, “the list is arranged, the hostess gradually becoming a prey to isinglass and acute mental inquietude, which gradually increases as the day draws nearer, until upon the morning of its arrival her very brain is almost turned to blancmange from the intensity of her anxiety!”

The whole house is, of course, turned topsy-turvy; and Leech gives us a picture of the master of the mansion surrounded by some of the consequences of giving an evening party.

“This state of things,” says the chronicler, “much delights the olive-branches of the family, who, left entirely alone, and quite overlooked in the general mêlée, divert themselves by poking their little puddy fingers into the creams, and scooping out the insides of divers patties with a doll’s leg,” etc., etc.

The ball begins under sundry difficulties. A most desirable person, “one for whom the party was almost given, sends a melancholy statement of the very acute attack of influenza under which they are labouring,” which they extremely regret will prevent their accepting, etc. Then one of the intended belles of the evening is obliged to go suddenly into the country, to see a sick aunt, but “she sends her two brothers – tall, gangling, awkward young men who wear pumps and long black stocks, and throw their legs about when they are dancing everywhere but over their shoulders,” etc., etc., says the author. Here is what Leech thinks of the two brothers.

I have never met with the word “gangling” before; is it an invention of Mr. Albert Smith’s? I can speak to the truth of the dress of these long brothers, for I who write have worn the long black stock and the peculiarly cut coat and waistcoats at many an evening party.

The numerous illustrations of “The Physiology” are such perfect examples of Leech’s earlier work, and in themselves so good, that I am induced to produce several more of them. I don’t know whether the fascinating person under the hands of the hair-dresser is Miss Ellen or Miss Fanny. I confess I can scarcely believe she would talk like either of them; happy barber! perfect you are as you ply your vocation; and in that vocation – insomuch as you have that sweet creature to contemplate – to be envied indeed!

Then we have the greengrocer, “who is to assist in waiting… He wears white cotton gloves with very long fingers, and was never known to announce a name correctly, so the astonished visitor is ushered into the room under any other appellation than his own.”

The band must not be forgotten. “The music arrives,” says the writer, “sometimes in the shape of a single pianist of untiring fingers and unclosing eyes; sometimes as a harp, piano, and cornopean, who are immediately installed in a corner of the room with two chairs, a music-stool, and a bottle of marsala.”

I ask my reader to note the individuality in the four faces in this drawing – and in the figures no less than in the heads – each a strongly-marked personality precisely appropriate to the instrument upon which he performs. How admirable is the cornet-a-piston gentleman contrasted with the pianoforte player!

The mistress of the house is described as making “uphill attempts at conversation” pending the arrival of a sufficient number of guests to make up a quadrille. Two old ladies, however, have already put in an appearance, and have taken possession of the best seats to “see the dancing,” from which all attempts to move them to the card-room are successfully resisted. There they sit, poor old wallflowers! with all the advantage that “false hair and turbans” can give them. Though the execution of this drawing lacks the perfection of workmanship of Leech’s later manner, he never surpassed it in expression and character.

The music “strikes up,” the lady of the house throws a comprehensive coup d’œil over her assembled visitors, and at last pitches upon a tall young man —whom some of you may have met before– with short hair, spectacles, and turned-up wristbands, as if he was about to wash his hands with his coat on. His fate is sealed, and she advances towards him, blandly exclaiming:

“Mr. Ledbury, allow me to introduce you to a partner.”

My own readers have heard of Mr. Ledbury; but as I think they are unacquainted with his personal appearance, I propose to introduce him to them, and here he is —

Mr. Ledbury is “presented to a bouquet with a young lady attached to it” – a Miss Hamilton – who freezes him completely. A quadrille is formed. Mr. Ledbury cudgels his brains for five minutes. The young partner seems to be “searching after some imaginary object amongst the petals of her bouquet.” The mountainous Ledbury brain is in labour. Behold the production!

“Mr. L. ‘Have you been to many parties this season?’

“Miss H. ‘Not a great many.’

Miss Hamilton continues the bouquet investigation. The gentleman invents another sentence.

“Mr. L. ‘What do you think of Alfred Tennyson?’

“Miss H. ‘I am sorry to say I have not heard his poetry. Have you?’

“Mr. L. ‘Oh yes! several times.”

Mr. Ledbury waits to be asked about “Mariana” and “Locksley Hall.” No inquiry, so he “rubs up an idea upon another tack”:

“Mr. L. ‘What do you think of our vis-à-vis?’

“Miss H. ‘Which one?’

“Mr. L. ‘The lady with that strange head-dress. Do you know her?’

“Miss H. ‘It is Miss Brown – my cousin.’”

Mr. Ledbury wishes he could fall through a trap in the floor.

The quadrille continues, with occasional attempts on the part of the brilliant couple to make conversation. The acme of imbecility seems to be reached when the lady asks if Mr. L. plays any instrument? He replies that he plays the flute a little. Does she admire it?

“Oh, so very much!” she says.

A waltz is proposed, but that form of dancing is, says our author, “never established without a prolonged desire on the part of everybody to relinquish the honour of commencing it. At last the example is set by one daring pair, timidly followed by another couple, and then by another, who get out of step at the end of the first round, and after treading severely upon the advanced toes of the old lady in a very flowery cap and plum-coloured satin (one of our faded wallflowers), who is sitting out at the top of the room, and who from that instant deprecates waltzing as an amusement not at all consistent with her ideas of feminine decorum.”

The young lady in this drawing has much of Leech’s charm; but I should scarcely have selected it were it not for the figure of the gentleman, which exactly resembles that of Leech himself as I first knew him. If conservatories, or even staircases, could speak, what flirtations they could chronicle, what love-tales they could tell! Mr. Smith says “you will have to confess your inability to imagine what on earth the gentleman with the long hair, who is carefully balancing himself on one leg against the flowerpot-stand, and the pretty girl with the bouquet, can find to talk about so long, so earnestly.”

I for one beg Mr. Albert Smith’s pardon. I can easily imagine what they are talking about.

It would be a grave omission if “The Belle of the Evening” were left out of these extracts from the “Physiology of Evening Parties.” Let me present her, then. Now listen to the flourish with which the author introduces her:

“Room for beauty! The belle of the evening claims our next attention, the lovely dark-eyed girl so plainly yet so elegantly dressed, who wears her hair in simple bands over her fair forehead, unencumbered by flower or ornament of any kind, and moves in the light of her own beauty as the presiding goddess of the room, imparting fragrance to the enamoured air that plays around her!”

Rather tall talk, this, but excusable, perhaps, as applied to the lovely creature Leech has drawn for us.

I feel I cannot close these extracts more appropriately than by allowing Mr. Ledbury to appear again at the moment of his departure from a scene in which he has so distinguished himself by his conversational, as well as by his terpsichorean, powers. He was destined to be guilty of one more folly – that of thinking he had but to ask for his hat to get it.

“He walks downstairs,” says Mr. Smith, “under the insane expectation of finding his own hat, or madly deeming that the ticket pinned upon it corresponds with the one in his waistcoat pocket.”

Here I take my leave of “The Physiology of Evening Parties” in presenting my reader with this charming little drawing, in which one scarcely knows which to admire most – the bewildered expression of Mr. Ledbury as he ruefully contemplates the rim of his hat, or the sympathetic, half-laughing face of the perfect little maid. The artistic qualities of this illustration are excellent. I say good-bye to “Evening Parties” only to meet Mr. Albert Smith again in a work by him called “Comic Tales and Pictures of Life,” published, I think, about the time of the “Evening Parties,” or perhaps earlier, for the illustrations are, on the whole, inferior to those in the latter production. The work under notice is composed of a series of short stories, in which love, comedy, and deep tragedy play alternate parts. Leech’s attention is mainly devoted to the comic scenes.

We are told of a Mr. Percival Jenks, whose frequent visits to the theatre have led to the loss of his heart to a beauteous ballet-girl. “The third ballet-girl from the left-hand stage-box, with the golden belt and green wreath, in the Pas des Guirlandes, or lyres, or umbrellas, or something of the kind, had enslaved his susceptible affections.”

No one knew who Mr. Jenks was, or what he was. Even his landlady’s information about him was confined to the idea that he was “something in a house in the City.” That idea proved to be well founded, for Mr. J. was discovered by the head-clerk at the house in the City, spoiling blotting-paper by drawing little opera-dancers all over it; thus neglecting his accounts, which he had to “stay two hours after time to make up. At half price, nevertheless, he was at the play again, his whole existence centred on an airy compound of clear muslin and white satin that was twirling about the stage.” Mr. Jenks burned to know his enslaver’s name with a view to an introduction; and for that purpose he haunted the stage-door, but utterly failed to recognise, amongst the faded cloaks, and drabby bonnets that issued from that portal, the angelic form of his charmer. He then took to haunting the places where minor actors and other employés of the theatre most do congregate for the purpose of social intercourse and refreshment; here at last he is rewarded.

“Do you know the young lady,” he says to a habitué, “who dances in the ballet with a green wreath round her head?”

“And a gilt belt round her waist?” asked the friend in turn. “Oh, it’s Miss – Miss – I shall forget my own name next.”

Percival was about to suggest Rosière, Céleste, Amadée, and other pretty cognomens, when his companion caught the name, and exclaimed:

“Miss Jukes; I thought I should recollect it.”

The name certainly was not what Percival had expected; still, what was in a name? Jenks was not poetical, and Jukes was something like it.

“Could you favour me with an introduction to her?” he asked.

“In a minute, if you wish it,” replied his companion.

“You know her intimately then?”

“Very; I buy all my green-grocery of her.”

The introduction takes place. Gracious powers! how a minute broke the enchantment of many weeks! “The nymph of the Danube was habited in a faded green cloak and straw bonnet, with limp and half-bleached pink ribbons clinging to its form. Her pallid and almost doughy face was deeply pitted with smallpox; her skin was rough from the constant layers of red and white paint it had to endure,” etc., etc. He fell back with a convulsive start.

From internal evidence I find the date of “Comic Tales,” etc., to be 1841, contemporary, therefore, with the establishment of Punch. There is a drawing of so pretty a conceit as to warrant my selecting it, though artistically it is inferior to Leech’s work even at that time. The drawing heads a paper entitled “Speculations on Marriage and Young Ladies,” and as it tells its own story, quotation from Mr. Smith is needless.

In one amusing paper in “Comic Tales,” the author treats us to “an Act for amending the representation of certain public sights, termed equestrian spectacles, in the habit of being represented at a favourite place of resort, termed the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge.” The paper is framed in the form of an Act of Parliament, and the author forbids the use of ancient jokes or stereotyped phrases in a very humorous manner.

“Be it enacted,” he announces, after condemning a variety of objectionable practices, “that the clown shall not, after the first equestrian feat, exclaim: ‘Now I’ll have a turn to myself!’ previous to his toppling like a coach-wheel round the ring; nor shall he fall flat on his face, and then collecting some sawdust in his hand, drop it down from the level of his head, and say his nose bleeds; nor shall he attempt to make the rope-dancers’ balance-pole stand on its end by propping it up with the said sawdust; nor shall he, after chalking the performers’ shoes, conclude by chalking his own nose, to prevent his foot slipping when he treads upon it; nor shall he pick up a small piece of straw, for fear he should fall over it, and afterwards balance the said straw on his chin as he runs about; neither shall the master of the ring say to the clown, when they are leaving the circus: ‘I never follow the fool, sir!’ nor shall the fool reply: ‘Then I do!’ and walk out after him.”

I would draw attention to the figure of the clown in this cut, which is simply perfect in expression and character. The affected strut of the ring-master also is admirably caught.

A paper on Christmas pantomimes is illustrated by such a perfect clown that I cannot resist my inclination to present him to my readers.

“Comic Tales and Pictures of Life” contains, at least, one drawing that is equal to Leech at his best. The cut illustrates an article on “Delightful People,” a short essay, amusing enough.

Music, whether performed by the band or by musical guests, is an important factor in an evening party. Mr. Albert Smith tells us that “a lady of his acquaintance” had secured those “Delightful People, the Lawsons,” for a large evening party she was about to give; and after lauding the charming qualities of Mr. and Mrs. Lawson, she put a final touch to the Lawson attractions by informing her friend that their daughter, Miss Cinthia Lawson, was not only a delightful girl, but that “she sings better than anyone you ever heard in private.” In the interval of dancing Cinthia sings. “The young lady now dressed in plain white robes, with her hair smoothed very flat round her head à la Grisi, whom she thought she resembled both in style of singing and features, and consequently studied all her attitudes from the clever Italian’s impersonation of Norma… At last the lady begun a bravura upon such a high note, and so powerful, that some impudent fellows in the square, who were passing at the moment, sang out ‘Vari-e-ty’ in reply. Presently, a young gentleman, who was standing at her side, chanced to turn over too soon, whereupon she gave him such a look, that, if he had entertained any thoughts of proposing, would effectually have stopped any such rash proceeding; but her equanimity was soon restored, and she went through the aria in most dashing style until she came to the last note, whose appearance she heralded with a roulade of wonderful execution.”

I remember Grisi, and I cannot share Miss Lawson’s conviction of her resemblance to that great singer – personal resemblance, I mean – and, in all probability, she had as feeble a claim to an equality of genius; but that she had a powerful voice, and that she gave it full effect, is evident by Leech’s perfect rendering of that wonderful mouth, from which one can almost hear the roulade. All the lines of the figure, with the movement of the hands, and the backward action of the singer, are true to Nature. The assistant at the music-book and the stolid old gentleman are also excellent.

With this, the best of the drawings in “Comic Tales,” I take my leave of the book.

CHAPTER VI

JOHN LEECH AND THE ETON BOY

I had been told that a friend whose acquaintance I made many years ago was in possession of some correspondence with Leech of considerable interest. I wrote to him on the subject, and received the following reply:

“Dear Mr. Frith,

“I had intended waiting till my return to town to see whether I could find John Leech’s letters before writing to you; but as you ask for the story, here it is, to the best of my recollection, and it is heartily at your service. When I was a boy at Eton I sent to Punch an incident which happened at a dance. Young Oxford complaining to his partner of the dearth of ‘female society’ at the University, she retorts, ‘What a pity you didn’t go to a girls’ school instead!’ Its appearance beneath an illustration of Leech’s caused great excitement in our house at Eton, and as great tales of Mr. Punch’s liberality were current – as, for example, that the sender of the advice ‘To persons about to marry —don’t,’ had received £100 – I began to look anxiously for some tip for my contribution. An enterprising pal said, ‘It’s a beastly shame; and if you’ll go halves, I’ll write to Punch and wake ’em up.’ This speedily resulted in the receipt of a post-office order for two guineas from John Leech, accompanied by a rather dry note, to the effect that Mr. Punch considered that he had already done enough in providing an original illustration to my joke. I was indignant, and wrote back to Leech returning the money, but he would not hear of this. He told me I could buy gloves with the money for the young lady if I liked – which I am afraid I didn’t. Several kind letters from him followed, with an invitation, gladly accepted, to call and see him in the holidays, and a present, which I still treasure, of two volumes of his ‘Life and Character.’

Lady: “Are you at Eton?”

Young Oxford: “Aw, no! I’m at Oxford.”

Lady: “Oxford! Rather a nice place, is it not?”

Young Oxford: “Hum! – haw! pretty well; but then I can’t get on without female society!”

Lady: “Dear! dear! pity you don’t go to a girls’ school, then!”

“At the time I remember my schoolfellows considered me a born caricaturist, an opinion I naturally shared. Leech was most indulgent to my early efforts – gave me some wood-blocks to work upon, and encouraged me to persevere, which, alas! I have not done, etc.

“Yours truly.”

Here follows Leech’s “dry note”:

“32, Brunswick Square, London,“June 6, 1859.

“Dear Sir,

“The editor of Punch is the person who should be addressed upon all money matters connected with that periodical. However, in the present instance, perhaps it will answer every purpose if I adopt the suggestion of your ‘great friend and confidant,’ and ‘do the handsome and send a tip direct,’ which I do in the shape of a post-office order for one guinea; or, as your ‘entirely disinterested’ young friend is to have half of what you get, it will be even better if I make the order for two guineas instead, as I do, only you must not look upon this as a precedent. I am afraid Mr. Punch would have considered that the trouble and expense he was at to have an original design made to your few lines would have been ample recompense. In future send to the editor your notion of what you expect for any contribution, and he will accept or reject accordingly, I dare say.

“Yours faithfully,“John Leech.”

The Eton boy was “indignant, and wrote back to Leech returning the money,” to which Leech replied as follows:

“32, Brunswick Square,“November 8, 1859.

“Dear Sir,

“No, no; it must be as it is; besides, the order is made out in your name, and can be used by no one else. After all, your contribution was very amusing, and pray consider yourself as quite entitled to the sum offered. If you have any doubt as to how you should spend the money, why, then, buy some gloves for the young lady who said the smart thing to the Oxford man. As to my being offended, dismiss the notion from your mind at once. Your first note I consider perfectly good-natured, and your second as frank and gentleman-like. I hope you will do me the favour to accept two volumes of my sketches, in which I hope you will find some amusement.

“I will direct the volumes to be sent to you this afternoon.

“Believe me, dear sir,“Yours faithfully,“John Leech.”

Encouraged by Leech’s kindness, and being, as he says, “a born caricaturist in the opinion of his friends,” the Eton boy sent some sketches for Leech’s opinion. To this application he received the following reply:

“32, Brunswick Square,“June 11, 1859.

“My dear Sir,

“I am very busy, so you must excuse a rather short note. Your sketches I have looked at carefully, however, and I have no hesitation in saying that they show a great perception of humour on your part. They seem to me to be altogether very good; and I have no doubt that with practice you might make your talent available in Punch and elsewhere. I don’t know about your taking lessons, except from Nature, and learn from her as much as possible. Try your hand at some initial letters – if drawn on the wood clearly, so much the better – and I will, with great pleasure, hand them to the editor of Punch. ‘The Pleasures of Eton’ is capital; the style, I take it, founded a little upon Doyle’s works. I would not do that too much. You have quite cleverness enough to strike out a path of your own, and with my best wishes for your success,

“Believe me,“Yours faithfully,“John Leech.”

In sending these letters the Eton boy of old says he is “sure that nothing would more thoroughly exemplify Leech’s genial wit and courteous kindliness than these replies to an unknown schoolboy.” I suppose the letter in which my friend was invited to call upon Leech “in the holidays” is not to be found. But that he did call and received a present of “wood-blocks to work upon,” accompanied by “encouragement to persevere,” which, alas! he has not done, we have from himself.