John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2]. Frith William Powell
![John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2] - Frith William Powell](limg_read227485.jpg "John Leech, His Life and Work. Vol. 1 [of 2] - Frith William Powell")
struggle for bread for himself and others must have been terrible at this time; indeed, up to the establishment of Rowland Hill’s penny post, when, by what may be called a brilliant opportunity, Leech attracted for the first time the public attention, which never deserted him.
The title of this book is “The Life and Work of John Leech.” Of the former, as I have shown, there is little to tell; on the latter, volumes, critical, descriptive, appreciative, might be written. An artist is destined to immortality or speedy oblivion according to his work, and it was my earnest hope, on undertaking this memoir, that I should be able to prove, by the finest examples of Leech’s genius, that an indisputable claim to immortality was established for him. To a great extent I have been permitted to do so; but the law of copyright has debarred me from the selection of many brilliant pictures of life and character on which my, perhaps unreasonably covetous, eyes had rested. The proprietors of Punch and also of the copyright of most of Leech’s other works are, no doubt, properly careful of their interests, and I can imagine their surprise at the extent of my first demands upon their good-nature. In my ignorance I had thought that as my object was the honour and glory of John Leech – a feeling, no doubt, shared by them – the treasures of Punch would be spread before me, with a request that I would help myself. I do not in the least complain that I found myself mistaken. There are, no doubt, good reasons for the limits to which I was restricted, though I am unable to see them; and, granting the existence of those reasons, I should be ungrateful if I did not express my thanks for the small number of illustrations from Punch and other sources which I am allowed to use. I confess I was delighted to find that the first few years of the existence of Punch were free by lapse of time from copyright protection, and as some of Leech’s best work appears in the volumes between 1841 and 1849, I am able to show my readers further proofs of the justice of the artist’s claim to be remembered for all time.
Leech’s hatred of organ-grinding began very early in his career.
“Wanted, by an aged Lady of very Nervous Temperament, a Professor, who will undertake to mesmerize all the Organs in her Street. Salary, so much per Organ.”
The drawing which appeared in Punch in 1843, with the above title, was the first of the humorous series that continued almost unbroken for more than twenty years. It is pitiable to think of the long martyrdom that Leech suffered from an abnormal nervous organization, which ultimately made street-noises absolute agony to him. In the illustration the singular difference of dress in the organ-grinder of fifty years ago and him of the present time is noticeable, as also are the perfect expressions of the small audience. Leech’s chief contributions to Punch at this time were the large cuts, in which Peel, Brougham, the great Duke of Wellington, and others, play political parts in matters that would be of little interest to the reader of to-day, nor are the drawings of exceptional merit.
In 1844 there appeared an irresistible little cut, the precursor of so many admirable variations of skating and sliding incidents.
What could surpass the impudence of the vigorous youngster, or the expression of the guardsman of amused wonder as he looks down upon the audacious imp, as Goliath might have looked upon David?
The sensation created by the first appearance of the dwarf Tom Thumb remains vividly in my memory. I saw him in all his impersonations; that of Napoleon, in which he was dressed in exact imitation of the Emperor, was very droll. The little creature was at Waterloo, taking quantities of snuff from his waistcoat pocket, giving his orders for the final charge which decided his fate; and when he saw that all was lost, his distress was terrible: he wrung his little hands and wept copiously, amidst the uproarious applause and laughter of the audience. Then he was at St. Helena, and, standing on an imaginary rock, he folded his arms, and gazed wistfully in the direction of his beloved France. After a long, lingering look, he shook his little head, and with a sigh so loud as to astonish us, he dashed the tears from his eyes, and made his bow to the audience, some of whom affected to be shocked by the laughter of the unthinking, and loudly expressed their sympathy with the great man in his fall. I well remember the great Duke going to see the amusing dwarf, but why Leech should have represented him in the dancing attitude, as shown in the illustration, seems strange. Surely a more serious imitation of a Napoleonic attitude would have been more telling and more comic.
The next print illustrates a paper in Punch called “Physicians and General Practitioners.”
“The physician almost invariably dresses in black,” says the writer, “and wears a white neck-cloth. He also often affects smalls and gaiters, likewise shirt-frills” (fancy a physician in these days thus dressed!). He appears, no doubt very properly, in perpetual mourning. The general practitioner more frequently sports coloured clothes, as drab trousers and a figured waistcoat. With respect to features, the Roman nose, we think, is more characteristic of physicians; while among general practitioners, we should say, the more common of the two was the snub.
The general practitioner and the physician often meet professionally, on which occasion their interests as well as their opinions are very apt to clash; whereupon an altercation ensues, which ends by the physician telling the general practitioner that he is an “impudent quack,” and the general practitioner’s replying to the physician that he is “a contemptible humbug.”
How perfectly Leech has realized the scene for us the drawing abundantly shows. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that he never surpassed in drawing, expression, and character, these two admirable figures; full of contempt for each other, the emotion is expressed naturally, and with due regard to the peculiarities, widely varying, of each of the disputants.
More years ago than I care to remember, I met at dinner Mr. Gibson, the Newgate surgeon. At that time an agitation was afoot respecting public executions, the advocates maintaining that the sight of a fellow-creature done to death acted as a deterrent on any of the sight-seers who were disposed to risk a similar fate, the objectors declaring that the exhibition only made brutes more brutal, and was in no way a deterrent. As Mr. Gibson had had a long experience of criminals and their ways, it was thought worth while to ask his opinion of the matter in dispute. The surgeon said that, feeling strongly on the subject of public hanging, he had made a point of asking persons under sentence of death if they had ever attended executions, and he found that over three-fourths – he told us the exact number, but I cannot trust my memory on the point – had witnessed the finishing of the law. So much for the deterrent effect. The disgraceful scenes 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.
“What do you say? Thank heaven!