Read Ebook: John Leech His Life and Work Vol. 2 [of 2] by Frith William Powell

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Ebook has 643 lines and 63196 words, and 13 pages

"Thank you with my best love for thinking of my birthday. I hope you will be able to wish me happy returns of the day for many and many a year to come. The children gave your kisses very heartily, I assure you. You will be glad to hear, I am sure, that they were never better.

"Thank God they are thriving beautifully, which is a great happiness to me. I wish you could see them making dirt pies and gardens on the sands. A great many people notice them--indeed, although I say it, between you and me, I don't see any nicer little folks down here. If either you or papa could come here for a time we would endeavour to take the best care of you. I am no great hand at pen-and-inking, as you know, so you will excuse a very short note. I thought, however, that you would like to know that I got from Ireland safe and sound, and always believe me,

"My dear mamma, "Your affectionate son, "JOHN."

"1, Crescent, Scarboro', "August 29, 1859.

"MY DEAR MAMMA,

"Your affectionate son, "JOHN."

"5, Pleydell Gardens, "Sandgate Road, Folkestone, "August 29, 1862.

"MY DEAR MAMMA,

"Many thanks for your note this morning. You will be glad to know, I am sure, that it found us all very well. May you be able to send me such a congratulation for many a year to come. And with best love to you, and to all at home, believe me ever,

"Your affectionate son,

"JOHN.

"Tell papa that if he would like to run down here, we can give him a bed. He would like to see a couple of little brown faces. I am going away for a few days ; so if any of you could keep Annie with the chicks, and keep her company while I am absent, it would be very nice, I think."

A great deal has been said--and with a certain amount of truth, no doubt--about the difference between a drawing on wood as it leaves the hands of the artist, and as it appears after its sufferings at the hands of the wood-engraver. Leech is reported to have replied to an admiring friend, who was extolling one of his drawings:

Mr. Swain, the wood-engraver, writes:

"For twenty-five years I engraved nearly all Mr. Leech's drawings. I always found him kind, and willing to forgive any of my shortcomings in not rendering his touches in all things. My work was always against time. I seldom had more time than two days to engrave one of his drawings in.

"Photographing drawings on wood was not known in his time, or it would have been a great advantage to him; instead of drawing on the block, he would then have drawn on paper, as most artists do in the present day, and had his drawings photographed on the wood, thus preserving the finished drawings, which would have been of great value now; besides, it would have been a great help to the engraver, always to have the original drawing to refer to in engraving the blocks.

"He never had any models, and rarely ever made any sketches. He showed me a little note-book once with a few thumb-nail sketches of bits of background, but he seemed never to forget anything he saw, and could always go back in his memory for any little bit of country street he might want for background, etc.

"It was generally very late in the week before he could get his drawings ready, which gave very little time to the engraver to do justice to his work.

"Mr. Leech was a man of very nervous temperament. I will give you an instance of this. Mr. Mark Lemon told me one day that Leech had been invited to a gentleman's house in the country for a few days' hunting. He arrived there in the evening. He was awakened early in the morning by a grating noise made by the gardener rolling the gravel under his window--noise he could never endure. This had such an effect upon his nerves, that he got up, packed his things, and was off to town before any of the family were aware of it. A barrel-organ was to him an instrument of torture.

"He had lived in Russell Square for many years, but for some time before his death he took a large house--6, The Terrace, Kensington.

INVENTORS AND ILLUSTRATORS.

In looking at the plethora of lovely women's faces in the "Pictures of Life and Character," the spectator may fairly ask himself to realize, if he can, anything more exquisite; and if he fail, he will also fail to imagine that the charming creatures could have suffered much in their passage from the wood to the paper.

In my own profession I have observed, almost as a rule, that the artist who habitually invents his own subjects--in other words, draws upon himself for original ideas--generally fails, comparatively, in his attempts to realize the ideas of others. May I not say the same of many writers? Dickens, for instance, wrote of the life about him; but if, like Scott, he had attempted to revive the past, would he have produced work worthy to rank with "David Copperfield"? Scott seems to me a still more conspicuous supporter of my theory, for he tried modern life in "St. Ronan's Well," and produced a book incontestably inferior to "Kenilworth."

I fancy I can hear my readers say--And what has all this to do with John Leech? Well, this: Leech is now about to pose as the destroyer, in his own person, of my theory--he is, in fact, the exception to my rule; for though the incidents in Albert Smith's "Ledbury" and "Brinvilliers" bear no comparison in human interest with the delightful transcripts of real life to be found in such profusion in the pictures of "Life and Character," Leech's rendering of them could not be surpassed.

The tragic and humorous powers of the artist are fully displayed in the examples which follow. In the first, from "Ledbury," "Jack Johnson attempts to rescue Derval": the awful swirl of the river as it engulfs the drowning man, while his would-be rescuer, finding the stream too strong for him, clings frantically to a ring in the stonework of the bridge, a full moon lightning up the scene, and throwing the Pont Neuf which spans the Seine in the distance into deep shadow--all are combined with admirable skill into, perhaps, the most powerful etching and the most perfect illustration in the book.

In the second example the artist is in full sympathy with his author--"Mrs. De Robinson holds a Conversazione of Talented People;" and amongst them is "the foreign gentleman who executes an air upon the grand piano." Here we have Leech using the scene as a peg upon which he can hang the humorous character in which he takes such hearty, healthy delight. The performer himself is scarcely a caricature of the foreign pianist; while his audience, not forgetting the deaf old lady in the corner--includes the affected gentleman, whose soul is in Elysium; together with a variety of types, in which "lovely woman" is not forgotten.

"INGOLDSBY LEGENDS."

"Torquemada, meanwhile, with his cold, cruel smile, Sits looking on calmly, and watching the pile, As his hooded 'Familiars' Have by this begun to be 'poking their fun,' And their fire-brands, as if they were so many posies Of lilies and roses, up to the noses Of Lazarus Levi and Moses Ben Moses, And similar treatment is forcing out hollow moans From Aby Ben Lasco and Ikey Ben Solomons, Whose beards--this a black, that inclining to grizzle-- Are smoking and curling, and all in a frizzle; The King, at the same time, his Dons and his Visitors, Sit, sporting smiles, like the Holy Inquisitors!"

"16, Lansdowne Place, Brighton,

"September 3, 1863.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I have been obliged to make the 'Auto da F?' this size, as I found I could not possibly get the subject on to a small block. You will see, too, that I have altered the appearance of the victims. It occurred to me that a real human being burning alive was hardly fun, so I have made them a set of Guy Fawkeses, and added, I hope, to the humour while getting rid of the horror.

"Believe me, my dear Sir,

"Yours faithfully,

"JOHN LEECH.

"RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ."

In the second example we have the figure of a maid at a well, which Leech has given us with the charm that never fails him. Her astonishment at the head in the bucket might have been indicated more forcibly, but there, I fancy, the engraver must have been to blame; yet he gives the head of Gengulphus with such perfection of expression and character as to make one feel that the original drawing of it could scarcely have been better.

A LAY OF ST. GENGULPHUS.

"But scarce had she given the windlass a twirl, 'Ere Gengulphus's head, from the well's bottom said, In mild accents, 'Do help us out, that's a good girl!'

"Only fancy her dread when she saw a great head In her bucket--with fright she was ready to drop! Conceive, if you can, how she roared and she ran, With the head rolling after her, bawling out 'Stop!'"

Though Leech had a good part in "Every Man," strange to say, I have no recollection of his performance; though that of Dickens, Jerrold, Egg, and others remains vividly in my memory. Dickens gave proofs in Bobadil, and in many other characters, that he might have been a great actor. The same, nor anything like it, could not be said with truth of Leech, if he played his other parts no better than he did that of Slender in the "Merry Wives of Windsor." It is only in that character that I can remember him, though I must have seen him in others. The tone in which he said "Oh, sweet Anne Page!" can I ever forget? There was a ring of impatience in his performance, a kind of "Oh, I wish this was all over!" that was plainly perceptible to those who knew him intimately. Leech's tall figure and handsome face told well upon the stage, but with those his attractions as an actor ceased. In Lord Lytton's play Leech had no part, I think, but my old friend Egg played that of a poor poet, who is discovered in a miserable attic when the curtain rises, and the poet soliloquizes to the effect that "Years ago, when under happier circumstances"--something or other. Egg always begun, "Here's a go, when under," etc. Unlike Leech, Egg was fond of acting, but, like Leech, he displayed no capacity for the art.

DICKENS AND THACKERAY ON LEECH.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Leech and the caricaturists who preceded him, as well as those who were his contemporaries, was shown in the part that beauty played in every drawing in which it could be appropriately introduced; he may be credited with the creation of many of the loveliest creatures that ever fell from the pencil of an artist. Leech revelled in beauty as Gillray and Rowlandson revelled in ugliness.

In 1841 a work appeared, in book-form, of sketches by Leech, entitled "The Rising Generation," in which the rising youth, with their mannish manners, were satirized. Of this book Dickens wrote:

It was in December, 1846, that "The Battle of Life" made one of the series of Christmas stories. In Leech's unfortunate illustration, which represented the flight of the bride, he made the mistake of supposing that Michael Warden had taken part in the elopement, and introduced his figure with that of Marian. Leech's error was not discovered until too late for remedy, the publication of the book having been delayed to the utmost limit expressly for those drawings; and it is highly characteristic of Dickens, and of the true regard he had for the artist, that, knowing the pain he must inflict, under the circumstances, by complaining, he never reproached Leech; excusing him, no doubt, on the ground of the hurry and confusion under which so much of his work was produced; but anyone who reads the story carefully will see what havoc the mistake makes of one of the most delicate turns in it.

"This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is one enduring plum-cake, which you may eat, and which you may slice and deliver to your friends, and to which, having cut it, you may come again, and welcome, from year's end to year's end. In the frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his gallery--a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentleman, in a white neck-cloth and a polite evening costume, smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has very good reason to smile at the work and be satisfied with the artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some hundred humorists, with pencil and pen, have served Mr. Punch admirably. There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man.

"Now, anyone who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that the social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable little drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug libraries, we enter! What fine young gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little dandies, who wake up gouty old grandpapa to ring the bell; who decline aunt's pudding and custards, saying that they will reserve themselves for anchovy-toast with the claret; who talk together behind ball-room doors, where Fred whispers Charley, pointing to a dear little partner seven years old, 'My dear Charley, she has very much gone off; you should have seen that girl last season!'

"As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them--private jokes, as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special delectation. How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed the hairdressers of the present age! Mr. Tongs, whom that hideous old bald woman who ties on her bonnet at the glass informs that 'she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair comes off yet'--you can see the bears' grease not only on Tongs' head, but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him who is telling his client 'there is cholera in the hair,' and that lucky rogue whom that young lady bids to cut off a long thick piece--for somebody, doubtless. All these men are different and delightfully natural and absurd. Why should hairdressing be an absurd profession?

"The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr. Leech's pieces; his admirable actors use them with perfect naturalness. Look at Betty putting down the urn; at cook laying her hands upon the kitchen-table, whilst the policeman grumbles at the cold meat. They are cooks' and housemaids' hands without mistake, and not without a certain beauty, too. That bald old lady tying on her bonnet at Tongs' has hands which you see are trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are talking scandal; for what long years they have pointed out holes in their neighbours' dresses and mud on their flounces!

"'Here's a go! I've lost my diamond ring!'

"As the dustman utters this pathetic cry and looks at his hands, you burst out laughing. These are among the little points of humour. One could indicate hundreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages.

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