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

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СКАЧАТЬ that took place at the execution of the Mannings produced a powerful letter to the press from Dickens, and an equally powerful article in the Daily News, by Mr. Parkinson. Parliament was aroused, and public executions ceased.

      The Leech drawing which follows appeared in 1845, some years before the Manning murder, and a considerable time previous to the agitation on the subject of hanging in public. If ever a moral lesson was inculcated by a work of art, this powerful drawing is an example. Who knows how much it may have done towards hastening the time when those horrible exhibitions ceased?

      Is this squalid group, with debauchery and criminality in evidence in each figure, likely to be morally impressed by the sight of a public hanging? What are they but types of a class that always frequented such scenes? The dreadful woman has carried her child with her; the little creature’s attenuated limbs point to the neglect and ill-usage sure to be met with from such parents.

      To those unacquainted with the “Caudle Lectures” by Douglas Jerrold, which appeared at this time in Punch, I recommend the perusal of those inimitable papers. One of their merits is their having given occasion for an admirable drawing by Leech. Lord Brougham was, in the eyes of Punch and many others, a firebrand in the House of Lords. He was irrepressible, contentious, and brilliant on all occasions, quarrelsome in the extreme, and a thorn in the side of whatever Government was in power unless he was a member of it. The Woolsack, more especially the object of his ambition, was made a very uneasy seat to any occupant. Behold him, then, as Mrs. Caudle – an excellent likeness – making night hideous for the unhappy Caudle, whose part is played by the Lord Chancellor – Lyndhurst – while the Caudle pillow is changed into the Woolsack.

“The Mrs. Caudle of the House of Lords.”

      “What do you say? Thank heaven! you are going to enjoy the recess, and you’ll be rid of me for some months? Never mind. Depend upon it, when you come back, you shall have it again. No, I don’t raise the House and set everybody by the ears; but I’m not going to give up every little privilege, though it’s seldom I open my lips, goodness knows!” – “Caudle Lectures” (improved).

      Whether such a scene as the following ever took place may be doubted; but that it might have happened, and may happen again, there is no doubt. One meets with strange seaside objects, and to bathe at the same time as one’s tailor is within the bounds of possibility. Leech evidently thought so, hence this delightful little cut, wherein we see the creditor – evidently a tailor – improving the occasion to remind his fellow-swimmer of his little bill. See the businesslike aspect of the one and the astonishment and alarm of the other, who in the next few vigorous strokes will place himself beyond the reach of his creditor.

      Full of sympathy, as Leech was, for human suffering, and frequently as he dealt with sea-sickness, he certainly never showed the least pity for the sufferers by that miserable malady. Its ludicrous aspect was irresistible to him, as numbers of illustrations sufficiently prove, and none more perfectly than the one introduced in this place, with the title of “Love on the Ocean,” representing a couple evidently married on the morning of this tempestuous day. “Why, oh why,” I can hear the unhappy bridegroom say to himself, “did we not arrange to pass our honeymoon in some pleasant place in England, and so have avoided crossing this dreadful sea?” To be ill in the dear presence of – oh, horror! And the lady is so unconscious, so serenely unconscious, of the impending catastrophe! She enjoys the sea, and, being of a poetical turn, she thus improves the occasion:

      “Oh, is there not something, dear Augustus, truly sublime in the warring of the elements?”

      Let anyone who suffers at sea fancy what it is to be spoken to at all, when the fearful sensations, the awful precursors of the inevitable, have full possession of him, and then to suffer in the very presence of the dear creature from whom every human weakness has been hitherto carefully hidden! The drawing is followed by a poem, in which the position of the unhappy Augustus is described. He could not speak in reply to his bride’s appeal; in the words of the poet:

      “She gazed upon the wave,

      Sublime she declared it;

      But no reply he gave —

      He could not have dared it.

      “Oh, then, ‘Steward!’ he cried,

      With deepest emotion;

      Then tottered to the side,

      And leant o’er the ocean.”

      Poor miserable Augustus! his face is pale as death, his treasured locks blown out of shape; his eyeglass swings in the wind; the distant steamer is making mad plunges into the heaving wave; the rain falls, and let us hope the romantic bride turns away as her young husband “leans o’er the ocean.”

      Only those who have passed from the tableland of life can recollect the passion for speculation in railways that took possession of the public in 1845 and the two or three following years. I myself caught the disease, and, acting on the advice of “one who knew,” I bought a number of shares in one of the new lines; these were £25 shares, on which £8 each had been paid. I was assured by my adviser that I should receive interest at the rate of eight per cent. till the year 1850; after that time the line would pay ten. I awoke one morning to find that a panic was in full blast, and all railway property depreciated. My feelings may be imagined, for I certainly cannot describe them, when I found, on reference to the Times, that my £8 shares – £17 being still due upon each – were quoted at half a crown apiece! My friend had the courage of his opinions, for he had invested the whole of his property in railway stocks. He was completely ruined in mind and body, and died miserably before the panic was over.

      Multiply these examples by thousands, and you will arrive at a clear idea of the nature of a panic, which seems to mystify the young gentleman immortalized by Leech in the drawing illustrating the following dialogue:

      “I say, Jim, what’s a Panic?”

      “Blowed if I know; but there is von to be seen in the City.”

      It has been my fate in the course of a long life to attend several fancy-dress balls, but I can scarcely call to mind a single example of the successful assumption of an historical character, or, indeed, of any character that could disguise the very modern young lady or gentleman who was masquerading in it. My first acquaintance with Mark Lemon, so long the esteemed editor of Punch, began in the Hanover Square Rooms, at a fancy-dress ball given by a society – chiefly, I think, composed of the better class of tradespeople – called the Gothics. On that occasion might have been seen a young gentleman in the dress of one of Charles II.’s courtiers, and looking about as unlike his prototype as possible – in earnest conversation with another courtier, of the time of George II. I was of the Charles’ period, Lemon of that of the Georges. Those who remember Lemon’s figure later in life would have been surprised by the change that time had made in it, if they could have witnessed the interview between the two young men, one scarcely stouter than the other. In proof of my idea that the greater number of guests were in trade, I might give scraps of conversation between Mary Queen of Scots and Guy Fawkes, or between Henry VIII. and Edward the Black Prince, that would leave no doubt on the subject; nay, later in the evening I had convincing proof of the correctness of my surmise, as you shall hear. I danced with a Marie Antoinette of surpassing beauty, with whom I fell incontinently in love. More than once I danced with her, and when supper was announced, my earnest appeal to be allowed to conduct her to the banquet was successful. My lovely friend was full of the curiosity peculiar to her sex, which showed itself in her anxiety to know who and what I was. To tell the truth, I was equally curious to know who she was, and what her friends were.

      “Well,” said I, “if you will tell me who you are, I will tell you who I am and what I am.”

      “Oh,” was the reply, “I think I know what you are; but what’s your name?”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ