John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2]. Frith William Powell
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that you came to see me yesterday, and me being in the green, you did not see me, so that made me still more unhappy, I beg you will come and see me on Saturday for I am very unhappy.
“I want to see you or Papa very much indeed.
“My dear Papa.
“You desired me to send you my report I have not had it since the last one. I went into be examined by Dr Russell yesterday but I did not get promoted but I did not lose more than one or two places. I will send you my next report. I hope you are quite well.
“Mamma and Brother and sisters the Same
“I would have written to you sooner but I had not time.”
Leech made no way at the Charterhouse; never approaching the position held by Thackeray, who was four years his senior: indeed, I doubt that they saw, or cared to see, much of each other, little dreaming that they would ultimately become dear and fast friends till death separated them, only to meet again, as we believe, after the sad, short interval that elapsed between the deaths of each.
I cannot say I believe in inherited talent, but the fact that the elder Leech was said to be a remarkable draughtsman seems to strengthen the theory held by some people. I have never seen any specimens of the father’s drawing, nor did I ever hear the son speak of it. Anyway, Leech père had no faith in the practice of art as a means of livelihood for his son, for he informed the youth, after a nine years’ attendance at the Charterhouse, that he was destined for the medical profession. There is no record of any objection on the part of Leech to his father’s decision, at which I feel surprise; for the flame which burnt so brilliantly in after-life must have been always well alight, and very antagonistic to the kind of work required from the embryo surgeon. Leech’s gentle yielding nature influenced him then as always; and he went to St. Bartholomew’s, where under Mr. Stanley, the surgeon of the hospital, he worked hard and delighted his master by his excellent anatomical drawings. From these studies may be traced, I think, much of the knowledge of the human form, and above all of proportion, always displayed in his work; for in those wonderful drawings, whether a figure is tall or short, fat or thin, whether he deals with a child or a giant, with a dog or a horse, no disproportion can be found.
It appears that the elder Leech’s affairs were already in such an embarrassed condition, that an intention to place his son with Sir George Ballingall, an eminent Scottish doctor, was abandoned, and after a time he was placed with a Mr. Whittle, a very remarkable person, who figures under the name of Rawkins in a novel written by Albert Smith and illustrated by Leech. Smith’s work, with the title of “The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury and his Friend Jack Johnson,” was first published in Bentley’s Miscellany.
“Mr. Rawkins,” says Albert Smith, “was so extraordinary a person for a medical practitioner that, had we only read of him instead of having known him, we should at once have put him down as the far-fetched creation of the author’s brain. He was about eight-and-thirty years old, and of herculean build except his legs, which were small in comparison with the rest of his body. But he thought that he was modelled after the statues of antiquity, and, indeed, in respect of his nose, which was broken, he was not far wrong in his idea – that feature having been damaged in some hospital skirmish when he was a student. His face was adorned with a luxuriant fringe of black whiskers, meeting under his chin, whilst his hair, of a similar hue, was cut rather short about his head, and worn without the least regard to any particular style or direction. But it was also his class of pursuits that made him so singular a character. Every available apartment in his house not actually in use by human beings was appropriated to the conserving of innumerable rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets. His areas were filled with poultry, bird-cages hung at every window, and the whole of his roof had been converted into one enormous pigeon-trap. It was one of his most favourite occupations to sit, on fine afternoons, with brandy-and-water and a pipe, and catch his neighbours’ birds. He had very little private practice; the butcher, the baker, and the tobacconist were his chief patients, who employed him more especially with the intention of working out their accounts. He derived his principal income from the retail of his shop, his appointments of medical man to the police force and parish poor, and breeding fancy rabbits. These various avocations pretty well filled up his time, and when at home he passed his spare minutes in practising gymnastics – balancing himself upon one hand and laying hold of staples, thus keeping himself at right angles to the wall, with other feats of strength, the acquisition of which he thought necessary in enabling him to support the character of Hercules – his favourite impersonation – with due effect.”
It is not to be wondered at that Mr. Whittle, alias Rawkins, should find that stealing his neighbours’ pigeons, together with his other unprofitable accomplishments, to say nothing of the sparseness of paying patients, could have only one termination – bankruptcy. Mr. Whittle ended his career in a public-house, of which he became proprietor after marrying the widow who kept it. Here he put off his coat to his work, and in his shirt-sleeves served his customers with beer. Leech and Albert Smith, and others of his pupils took his beer readily, though they had always declined to take his pills. It is said that he was originally a Quaker, and that he died a missionary at the Antipodes.
Leech stayed but a short time with the pigeon-fancying Whittle, whom he left to be placed under Dr. John Cockle, afterwards Physician to the Royal Free Hospital. Leech seems to have been a pretty regular attendant at anatomical and other lectures, and it goes without saying that his notes were garnished with sketches, for which his fellow-students sat unconsciously; and plenty of them remain to prove the impossibility of checking an inclination so strongly implanted in such a genuine artist as John Leech.
CHAPTER II
EARLY WORK
It was at St. Bartholomew’s that Leech made acquaintance, which soon ripened into friendship, with Albert Smith, Percival Leigh (a future comrade on the Punch Staff, and author of the “Comic Latin Grammar,” “Pips’ Diary,” etc.), Gilbert à Beckett and many others, all or most of whom served as models for that unerring pencil.
The impecunious condition of Leech senior before John had reached his eighteenth year was such as to make his chances of getting a living by medicine or surgery, even if successful, so remote as to place them beyond consideration. No doubt the elder Leech’s misfortunes were “blessings in disguise,” for we owe to them the necessity that compelled the younger man to devote himself to art.
The art of drawing upon wood, to which Leech in his later years almost entirely confined himself, dates back from very early times. Lithography, or drawing upon stone, is a comparatively modern invention, and, until the introduction of photography, was used for varieties of artistic reproduction. It was to that process we owe the first published work of Leech. The artist was eighteen years old when “Etchings and Sketchings,” by A. Pen, Esq., price 2s. plain, 3s. coloured, was offered tremblingly to the public. The work was in the shape of four quarto sheets, which were covered with sketches, more or less caricatures, of cabmen, policemen, street musicians, hackney coachmen with their vehicles and the peculiar breed of animal attached to them, and other varieties of life and character common to the streets of London. This work is now very rarely to be met with; it consisted chiefly, I believe, of characteristic heads and half-length figures. To “Etchings and Sketchings” the young artist added some political caricatures, also in lithography, of considerable merit. With these, or, rather, with the heavy stones on which they were drawn, we may imagine the weary wanderings from publisher to publisher; the painful anxiety with which the verdict, on which so much depended, was waited for; the hopes that brightened at a word of commendation, only to be scattered by a few stereotyped phrases, such as, “Ah, very clever, but these sort of things are not in our way, you see; there is no demand,” and so on.
1836, when Leech was still a boy, saw the production of works called “The Boy’s Own Series,” “Studies from Nature,” “Amateur Originals,” “The Ups and Downs of Life; or, The Vicissitudes of a Swell,” etc.
The delicate touch and the grasp of character peculiar to the