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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2646-h.zip b/2646-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c072922 --- /dev/null +++ b/2646-h.zip diff --git a/2646-h/2646-h.htm b/2646-h/2646-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2da3953 --- /dev/null +++ b/2646-h/2646-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,924 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character, by William Makepeace + Thackeray + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2646] +Last Updated: December 17, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By William Makepeace Thackeray + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + * Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, <br /> by + permission of Mr. John Murray. + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, + old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had as + children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was + Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum + Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with + starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers; + there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and + bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there + was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody + Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and + grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to + the present day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and + dancing before a black background,—a melancholy museum indeed. + Smirke's delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general gloom. + We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and plenty + of lights and company were in the room. + </p> + <p> + Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the children of + the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is put out of their + way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your grandmother or grandaunts took + you there and said the pictures were admirable. You saw "the Woodman" in + worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the snow; the snow bitter + cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful: a gloomy piece, that made + you shudder. There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and + scowling warriors with limbs strongly knitted; there was especially, at + the end of a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any boy + not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. + </p> + <p> + Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing figures + of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale horse, used to + impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbey, the vaults at St. + Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning ferociously out of their + helmets, and wielding their dreadful swords; that superhuman Queen + Elizabeth at the end of the room, a livid sovereign with glass eyes, a + ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel: who + does not remember these sights in London in the consulship of Plancus? and + the wax-work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose + chamber of death is gay and brilliant; but a nice old gloomy wax-work, + full of murderers; and as a chief attraction, the Dead Baby and the + Princess Charlotte lying in state? + </p> + <p> + Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank (dear old + Frank!) had none; nor the "Parent's Assistant;" nor the "Evenings at + Home;" nor our copy of the "Ami des Enfans:" there were a few just at the + end of the Spelling-Book; besides the allegory at the beginning, of + Education leading up Youth to the temple of Industry, where Dr. Dilworth + and Professor Walkinghame stood with crowns of laurel. There were, we say, + just a few pictures at the end of the Spelling-Book, little oval gray + woodcuts of Bewick's, mostly of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the + Shadow, and Brown, Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little + tights; but for pictures, so to speak, what had we? The rough old + wood-blocks in the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds of + years; before OUR Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus—in Queen + Anne's time, who knows? We were flogged at school; we were fifty boys in + our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a cistern, + with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and water. Are OUR + sons ever flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, hair-oil, hip-baths, and + Baden towels? And what picture-books the young villains have! What have + these children done that they should be so much happier than we were? + </p> + <p> + We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. Smirke's + illustrations to the former are very fine. We did not know how good they + were then; but we doubt whether we did not prefer the little old + "Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by Uwins; for THESE books + the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagination does his own pictures + to Scott and the "Arabian Nights" best. + </p> + <p> + Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us children. + There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax": Doctor Syntax in a fuzz-wig, on a + horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making love, frolicking with + rosy exuberant damsels. Those pictures were very funny, and that + aquatinting and the gay-colored plates very pleasant to witness; but if we + could not read the poem in those days, could we digest it in this? + Nevertheless, apart from the text which we could not master, we remember + Doctor Syntax pleasantly, like those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the + Nineveh Court at Sydenham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible + stuff? give us the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over + their rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble gayly + off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst the + anerithmon gelasma of the fish. + </p> + <p> + After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorn, and + the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded—a wondrous history indeed + theirs was! When the future student of our manners comes to look over the + pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think of our + society, customs, and language in the consulship of Plancus? "Corinthian," + it appears, was the phrase applied to men of fashion and ton in Plancus's + time: they were the brilliant predecessors of the "swell" of the present + period—brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed. The + Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great deal too much in Tom + Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "life" in the gin-shops; of + nights, walking home (as well as they could), they used to knock down + "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns, guardians of the + streets of Rome, Planco Consule. They perpetrated a vast deal of boxing; + they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms; they "sported their prads" + in the Ring in the Park; they attended cock-fights, and were enlightened + patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. Besides these sports, the + delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the people, our patricians, of + course, occasionally enjoyed the society of their own class. What a + wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian Tom dancing with + Corinthian Kate at Almack's! What a prodigious dress Kate wore! With what + graceful ABANDON the pair flung their arms about as they swept through the + mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing round in their stars and + uniforms! You may still, doubtless, see the pictures at the British + Museum, or find the volumes in the corner of some old country-house + library. You are led to suppose that the English aristocracy of 1820 DID + dance and caper in that way, and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and knock + down watchmen; and the children of to-day, turning to their elders, may + say "Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as that, when you danced at + Almack's? There was very little of it, grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many + watchmen when he was a young man, and frequent thieves' gin-shops, + cock-fights, and the ring, before you married him? Did he use to talk the + extraordinary slang and jargon which is printed in this book? He is very + much changed. He seems a gentlemanly old boy enough now." + </p> + <p> + In the above-named consulate, when WE had grandfathers alive, there would + be in the old gentleman's library in the country two or three old mottled + portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of the comic + prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever had the fasces borne before + him. These prints were signed Gilray, Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and + some actually George Cruikshank—for George is a veteran now, and he + took the etching needle in hand as a child. He caricatured "Boney," + borrowing not a little from Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew + Louis XVIII. trying on Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in + its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public. + </p> + <p> + In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in the + library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the caricatures + used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite beyond our + comprehension. Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, with goggle eyes, + a huge laced hat and tricolored plume, a crooked sabre, reeking with + blood: a little demon revelling in lust, murder, massacre. John Bull was + shown kicking him a good deal: indeed he was prodigiously kicked all + through that series of pictures; by Sidney Smith and our brave allies the + gallant Turks; by the excellent and patriotic Spaniards; by the amiable + and indignant Russians,—all nations had boots at the service of poor + Master Boney. How Pitt used to defy him! How good old George, King of + Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to make + sport for their Majesties! This little fiend, this beggar's brat, + cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in those old + portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his family in rags, gnawing + raw bones in a Corsican hut; Boney murdering the sick at Jaffa; Boney with + a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the Turkish religion, &c.)—this + Corsican monster, nevertheless, had some devoted friends in England, + according to the Gilray chronicle,—a set of villains who loved + atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness in general, like their French + friend. In the pictures these men were all represented as dwarfs, like + their ally. The miscreants got into power at one time, and, if we remember + right, were called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy + eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the rascals, was, + it appears, called Charles James Fox; another miscreant, with a blotched + countenance, was a certain Sheridan; other imps were hight Erskine, + Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As in our childish, innocence we + used to look at these demons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups; now + scaling heaven, from which the angelic Pitt hurled them down; now cursing + the light (their atrocious ringleader Fox was represented with hairy + cloven feet, and a tail and horns); now kissing Boney's boot, but + inevitably discomfited by Pitt and the other good angels: we hated these + vicious wretches, as good children should; we were on the side of Virtue + and Pitt and Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the + portfolios, the good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were some + prints among them very odd indeed; some that girls could not understand; + some that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those + prohibited pages. How many of them there were in the wild, coarse, + reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humor! + </p> + <p> + How savage the satire was—how fierce the assault—what garbage + hurled at opponents—what foul blows were hit—what language of + Billingsgate flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking over + Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly + Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, and have folks to + make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr with his pipe and dances and + gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and taught the rogue good + manners: or rather, let us say, he has learned them himself; for he is of + nature soft and kindly, and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy + habits; and, frolicsome always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten + into shame by he pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles + of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have + mentioned the famous name of one humorous designer who is still alive and + at work. Did we not see, by his own hand, his own portrait of his own + famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News the other day? + There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Teetotalers in + "Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we straightway recognized the old Roman hand—the + old Roman's of the time of Plancus—George Cruikshank's. There were + the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures + of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the + water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal cresses over + a plank to the table where the pledge was being administered. How often + has George drawn that picture of Cruikshank! Where haven't we seen it? How + fine it was, facing the effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Magazine + when George illustrated that periodical! How grand and severe he stands in + that design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like + St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the nose! The + collectors of George's etchings—oh the charming etchings!—oh + the dear old "German Popular Tales!"—the capital "Points of Humor"—the + delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the good time, OUR time—Plancus's + in fact!—the collectors of the Georgian etchings, we say, have at + least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we remember him in his + favorite Hessian boots in "Tom and Jerry" itself; and in woodcuts as far + back as the Queen's trial. He has rather deserted satire and comedy of + late years, having turned his attention to the serious, and warlike, and + sublime. Having confessed our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and + fanciful to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May + respect, and length of days, and comfortable repose attend the brave, + honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humorist, moralist! It was he first + who brought English pictorial humor and children acquainted. Our young + people and their fathers and mothers owe him many a pleasant hour and + harmless laugh. Is there no way in which the country could acknowledge the + long services and brave career of such a friend and benefactor? + </p> + <p> + Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus and his wicked satyrs + and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest haunts; and + Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humor, which may be doubted) might + take up our funny picture-books without the slightest precautionary + squeamishness. What can be purer than the charming fancies of Richard + Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't we walk as safely as + through Miss Pinkerton's schoolrooms? And as we look at Mr. Punch's + pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, at all the pictures in the + book-shop windows at this Christmas season, as oldsters, we feel a certain + pang of envy against the youngsters—they are too well off. Why + hadn't WE picture-books? Why were we flogged so? A plague on the lictors + and their rods in the time of Plancus! + </p> + <p> + And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in + hand—Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in the + collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. + It is an 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 + kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. + Time was, if we remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he did not wear + silk stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularity in + his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he). He + was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, which + he put up at corners of streets; associated with beadles, policemen, his + own ugly wife (whom he treated most scandalously), and persons in a low + station of life; earning a precarious livelihood by the cracking of wild + jokes, the singing of ribald songs, and halfpence extorted from + passers-by. He is the Satyric genius we spoke of anon: he cracks his jokes + still, for satire must live; but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and + perfectly presentable. He goes into the very best company; he keeps a stud + at Melton; he has a moor in Scotland; he rides in the Park; has his stall + at the Opera; is constantly dining out at clubs and in private society; + and goes every night in the season to balls and parties, where you see the + most beautiful women possible. He is welcomed amongst his new friends the + great; though, like the good old English gentleman of the song, he does + not forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and girls; relishes + the jokes of Jack the costermonger and Bob the dustman; good-naturedly + spies out Molly the cook flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid + as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at + guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; and was until latter days + very contemptuous in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has a natural + antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce demeanor. But now that the + guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies of "The Rag"—dandies no + more—are battling like heroes at Balaklava and Inkermann* by the + side of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter is changed to hearty + respect and enthusiasm. It is not against courage and honor he wars: but + this great moralist—must it be owned?—has some popular British + prejudices, and these led him in peace time to laugh at soldiers and + Frenchmen. If those hulking footmen who accompanied the carriages to the + opening of Parliament the other day, would form a plush brigade, wear only + gunpowder in their hair, and strike with their great canes on the enemy, + Mr. Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who meanwhile remains among + us, to all outward appearance regardless of satire, and calmly consuming + his five meals per diem. Against lawyers, beadles, bishops and clergy, and + authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather bitter. At the time of the Papal + aggression he was prodigiously angry; and one of the chief misfortunes + which happened to him at that period was that, through the violent + opinions which he expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he + lost the invaluable services, the graceful pencil, the harmless wit, the + charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the + biographer of Jeames, the author of the "Snob Papers," resigned his + functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present Emperor of + the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to + arouse. Mr. Punch parted with these contributors: he filled their places + with others as good. The boys at the railroad stations cried Punch just as + cheerily, and sold just as many numbers, after these events as before. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * This was written in 1854. +</pre> + <p> + There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech is + the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without Leech's pictures! What + would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who write the work must feel + that, without him, it were as well left alone. Look at the rivals whom the + popularity of Punch has brought into the field; the direct imitators of + Mr. Leech's manner—the artists with a manner of their own—how + inferior their pencils are to his in humor, in depicting the public + manners, in arresting, amusing the nation. The truth, the strength, the + free vigor, the kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand + are approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, a + woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What plump + young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contributor supplies + the old gentleman's pictorial harem! What famous thews and sinews Mr. + Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on the back of them, scampers across + country! You see youth, strength, enjoyment, manliness in those drawings, + and in none more so, to our thinking, than in the hundred pictures of + children which this artist loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, + good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and tender with the little + creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, and watches with + unfailing pleasure their ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, + caresses. Enfans terribles come home from Eton; young Miss practising her + first flirtation; poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, + or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as big as + herself—all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet with + kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with curious nicety by this + amiable observer. + </p> + <p> + We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print which used + to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spectators, and in which the + Prince of Wales (his Royal Highness was a Foxite then) was represented as + sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a voluptuous meal, and using a + great steel fork in the guise of a toothpick. Fancy the first young + gentleman living employing such a weapon in such a way! The most elegant + Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron fork—the heir of + Britannia with a BIDENT! The man of genius who drew that picture saw + little of the society which he satirized and amused. Gilray watched public + characters as they walked by the shop in St. James's Street, or passed + through the lobby of the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or + little better; his place of amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club held + its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You could not have + society represented by men to whom it was not familiar. When Gavarni came + to England a few years since—one of the wittiest of men, one of the + most brilliant and dexterous of draughtsmen—he published a book of + "Les Anglais," and his Anglais were all Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so + long practised to observe Parisian life, could not perceive English + character. A social painter must be of the world which he depicts, and + native to the manners which he portrays. + </p> + <p> + Now, any one 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 an anchovy toast + with the claret; who talk together in 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!" Look well at everything appertaining to the economy of the + famous Mr. Briggs: how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are! + What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the + Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the + surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for + those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, and warm his + breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings in the top-boots + which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he has, complete in all + its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the delightful + hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire! How cosy all the + Briggs party seem in their dining-room: Briggs reading a Treatise on + Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and Grannie with their respective + needleworks; the children clustering round a great book of prints—a + great book of prints such as this before us, which, at this season, must + make thousands of children happy by as many firesides! The inner life of + all these people is represented: Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers + depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is your house and + mine: we are looking at everybody's family circle. Our boys coming from + school give themselves such airs, the young scapegraces! our girls, going + to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas—a social history of + London in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, future students—lucky + they to have a book so pleasant—will regard these pages: even the + mutations of fashion they may follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. + Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. How + they change those cloaks and bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills + from year to year! Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no + lady could be without? Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" + waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons back, + and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode," to ask + Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by this time, very + likely facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty Ellen, and that love of a + sister of hers, are married and happy, let us hope, superintending one of + those delightful nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such tender + humor. Fortunate artist, indeed! You see he must have been bred at a good + public school; that he has ridden many a good horse in his day; paid, no + doubt, out of his own purse for the originals of some of those lovely caps + and bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and + slumbers of his favorite little people. + </p> + <p> + 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 + hair-dressers of the present age! Look at "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 bear's-grease not only on Tongs's 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 the 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 hair-dressing be an absurd profession? + </p> + <p> + 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 the urn down; at cook, laying her hands on the kitchen + table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the cold meat. They are cook's and + housemaid's hands without mistake, and not without a certain beauty too. + The bald old lady, who is tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands which you + see are trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are + talking scandal: for what long years past they have pointed out holes in + their neighbors' 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 hand, you burst out laughing. These are among the little points of + humor. One could indicate hundreds of such as one turns over the pleasant + pages. + </p> + <p> + There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears little + tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, smokes cigars on + tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts about with + Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless + bullies), who is a favorite abomination of Leech, and pursued by that + savage humorist into a thousand of his haunts. There he is, choosing + waistcoats at the tailor's—such waistcoats! Yonder he is giving a + shilling to the sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is offering a + paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the rain. They don't know + their own pictures, very likely; if they did, they would have a meeting, + and thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One + feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, when we close + this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen such. + </p> + <p> + Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the unwary + specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings—homely + drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London street—the scenes + of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to nature as the actors + themselves; our respect for the genius and humor which invented both + increases as we look and look again at the designs. May we have more of + them; more pleasant Christmas volumes, over which we and our children can + laugh together. Can we have too much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and + kindness? + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Leech's Pictures of Life and +Character, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF *** + +***** This file should be named 2646-h.htm or 2646-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/2646/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2646] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER + + +By William Makepeace Thackeray + + + +* Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by permission +of Mr. John Murray. + + + +We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, +old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had as +children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was +Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum +Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with +starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers; +there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and +bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there +was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody +Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and +grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful +to the present day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, +and dancing before a black background,--a melancholy museum indeed. +Smirke's delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general +gloom. We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and +plenty of lights and company were in the room. + +Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the children +of the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is put out +of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your grandmother or +grandaunts took you there and said the pictures were admirable. You saw +"the Woodman" in worsted, with his axe and dog, trampling through the +snow; the snow bitter cold to look at, the woodman's pipe wonderful: a +gloomy piece, that made you shudder. There were large dingy pictures +of woollen martyrs, and scowling warriors with limbs strongly knitted; +there was especially, at the end of a black passage, a den of lions, +that would frighten any boy not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and +accustomed to them. + +Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing figures +of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale horse, used to +impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbey, the vaults at St. +Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning ferociously out of +their helmets, and wielding their dreadful swords; that superhuman Queen +Elizabeth at the end of the room, a livid sovereign with glass eyes, a +ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel: +who does not remember these sights in London in the consulship of +Plancus? and the wax-work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame +Tussaud's, whose chamber of death is gay and brilliant; but a nice old +gloomy wax-work, full of murderers; and as a chief attraction, the Dead +Baby and the Princess Charlotte lying in state? + +Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank (dear +old Frank!) had none; nor the "Parent's Assistant;" nor the "Evenings +at Home;" nor our copy of the "Ami des Enfans:" there were a few just at +the end of the Spelling-Book; besides the allegory at the beginning, of +Education leading up Youth to the temple of Industry, where Dr. Dilworth +and Professor Walkinghame stood with crowns of laurel. There were, we +say, just a few pictures at the end of the Spelling-Book, little oval +gray woodcuts of Bewick's, mostly of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and +the Shadow, and Brown, Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and +little tights; but for pictures, so to speak, what had we? The rough old +wood-blocks in the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds +of years; before OUR Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus--in Queen +Anne's time, who knows? We were flogged at school; we were fifty boys in +our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a cistern, +with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and water. +Are OUR sons ever flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, hair-oil, +hip-baths, and Baden towels? And what picture-books the young villains +have! What have these children done that they should be so much happier +than we were? + +We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. Smirke's +illustrations to the former are very fine. We did not know how good +they were then; but we doubt whether we did not prefer the little old +"Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by Uwins; for THESE books +the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagination does his own pictures +to Scott and the "Arabian Nights" best. + +Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us children. +There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax": Doctor Syntax in a fuzz-wig, on +a horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making love, frolicking +with rosy exuberant damsels. Those pictures were very funny, and that +aquatinting and the gay-colored plates very pleasant to witness; but if +we could not read the poem in those days, could we digest it in this? +Nevertheless, apart from the text which we could not master, we remember +Doctor Syntax pleasantly, like those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in +the Nineveh Court at Sydenham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible +stuff? give us the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over +their rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble +gayly off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst +the anerithmon gelasma of the fish. + +After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry Hawthorn, +and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded--a wondrous history indeed +theirs was! When the future student of our manners comes to look over +the pictures and the writing of these queer volumes, what will he think +of our society, customs, and language in the consulship of Plancus? +"Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase applied to men of fashion +and ton in Plancus's time: they were the brilliant predecessors of the +"swell" of the present period--brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it +must be confessed. The Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great +deal too much in Tom Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "life" in +the gin-shops; of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they +used to knock down "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns, +guardians of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. They perpetrated a +vast deal of boxing; they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms; +they "sported their prads" in the Ring in the Park; they attended +cock-fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroyers of +rats. Besides these sports, the delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the +people, our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society of +their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of Corinthian +Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's! What a prodigious dress +Kate wore! With what graceful ABANDON the pair flung their arms about +as they swept through the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing +round in their stars and uniforms! You may still, doubtless, see the +pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the corner of +some old country-house library. You are led to suppose that the English +aristocracy of 1820 DID dance and caper in that way, and box and drink +at Tom Cribb's, and knock down watchmen; and the children of to-day, +turning to their elders, may say "Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress +as that, when you danced at Almack's? There was very little of it, +grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many watchmen when he was a young man, +and frequent thieves' gin-shops, cock-fights, and the ring, before you +married him? Did he use to talk the extraordinary slang and jargon which +is printed in this book? He is very much changed. He seems a gentlemanly +old boy enough now." + +In the above-named consulate, when WE had grandfathers alive, there +would be in the old gentleman's library in the country two or three old +mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of +the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever had the fasces +borne before him. These prints were signed Gilray, Bunbury, Rowlandson, +Woodward, and some actually George Cruikshank--for George is a veteran +now, and he took the etching needle in hand as a child. He caricatured +"Boney," borrowing not a little from Gilray in his first puerile +efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on Boney's boots. Before the +century was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was +amusing the public. + +In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in +the library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the +caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite +beyond our comprehension. Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, with +goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and tricolored plume, a crooked sabre, +reeking with blood: a little demon revelling in lust, murder, massacre. +John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal: indeed he was prodigiously +kicked all through that series of pictures; by Sidney Smith and +our brave allies the gallant Turks; by the excellent and patriotic +Spaniards; by the amiable and indignant Russians,--all nations had boots +at the service of poor Master Boney. How Pitt used to defy him! How +good old George, King of Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing +about in his tank to make sport for their Majesties! This little fiend, +this beggar's brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we +remember, in those old portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his +family in rags, gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut; Boney murdering the +sick at Jaffa; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted +the Turkish religion, &c.)--this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had +some devoted friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle,--a +set of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness in +general, like their French friend. In the pictures these men were all +represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The miscreants got into power +at one time, and, if we remember right, were called the Broad-backed +Administration. One with shaggy eyebrows and a bristly beard, the +hirsute ringleader of the rascals, was, it appears, called Charles +James Fox; another miscreant, with a blotched countenance, was a certain +Sheridan; other imps were hight Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, +Henry Petty. As in our childish, innocence we used to look at these +demons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups; now scaling heaven, from +which the angelic Pitt hurled them down; now cursing the light (their +atrocious ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a +tail and horns); now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by +Pitt and the other good angels: we hated these vicious wretches, as good +children should; we were on the side of Virtue and Pitt and Grandpapa. +But if our sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the good old +grandfather used to hesitate. There were some prints among them very odd +indeed; some that girls could not understand; some that boys, indeed, +had best not see. We swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. How many +of them there were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book +of old English humor! + +How savage the satire was--how fierce the assault--what garbage hurled +at opponents--what foul blows were hit--what language of Billingsgate +flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking over Woodward's +facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly +Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, and have folks +to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr with his pipe and +dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and taught the +rogue good manners: or rather, let us say, he has learned them himself; +for he is of nature soft and kindly, and he has put aside his mad +pranks and tipsy habits; and, frolicsome always, has become gentle and +harmless, smitten into shame by he pure presence of our women and the +sweet confiding smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old +pictorial satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous +designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own +hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the +Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper +of an assemblage of Teetotalers in "Sadler's Wells Theatre," and we +straightway recognized the old Roman hand--the old Roman's of the time +of Plancus--George Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll +faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures of 1820 sure enough. +And there was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the +world knows) handing some teetotal cresses over a plank to the table +where the pledge was being administered. How often has George drawn that +picture of Cruikshank! Where haven't we seen it? How fine it was, +facing the effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Magazine when George +illustrated that periodical! How grand and severe he stands in that +design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like +St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the nose! The +collectors of George's etchings--oh the charming etchings!--oh the +dear old "German Popular Tales!"--the capital "Points of Humor"--the +delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the good time, OUR +time--Plancus's in fact!--the collectors of the Georgian etchings, we +say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we remember +him in his favorite Hessian boots in "Tom and Jerry" itself; and in +woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has rather deserted satire +and comedy of late years, having turned his attention to the serious, +and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed our age and prejudices, we +prefer the comic and fanciful to the historic, romantic, and at present +didactic George. May respect, and length of days, and comfortable +repose attend the brave, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humorist, +moralist! It was he first who brought English pictorial humor and +children acquainted. Our young people and their fathers and mothers owe +him many a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no way in which +the country could acknowledge the long services and brave career of such +a friend and benefactor? + +Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus and his wicked +satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest +haunts; and Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humor, which may be +doubted) might take up our funny picture-books without the slightest +precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer than the charming fancies +of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't we walk as +safely as through Miss Pinkerton's schoolrooms? And as we look at Mr. +Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, at all the pictures +in the book-shop windows at this Christmas season, as oldsters, we feel +a certain pang of envy against the youngsters--they are too well off. +Why hadn't WE picture-books? Why were we flogged so? A plague on the +lictors and their rods in the time of Plancus! + +And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in +hand--Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in +the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at +Christmas. It is an 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 kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch +admirably. Time was, if we remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he +did not wear silk stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal +irregularity in his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a +tailor has he). He was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged +little booth, which he put up at corners of streets; associated +with beadles, policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated most +scandalously), and persons in a low station of life; earning a +precarious livelihood by the cracking of wild jokes, the singing of +ribald songs, and halfpence extorted from passers-by. He is the Satyric +genius we spoke of anon: he cracks his jokes still, for satire +must live; but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and perfectly +presentable. He goes into the very best company; he keeps a stud at +Melton; he has a moor in Scotland; he rides in the Park; has his stall +at the Opera; is constantly dining out at clubs and in private society; +and goes every night in the season to balls and parties, where you +see the most beautiful women possible. He is welcomed amongst his new +friends the great; though, like the good old English gentleman of the +song, he does not forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and +girls; relishes the jokes of Jack the costermonger and Bob the dustman; +good-naturedly spies out Molly the cook flirting with policeman X, or +Mary the nursemaid as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used +rather to laugh at guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; +and was until latter days very contemptuous in his behavior towards +Frenchmen. He has a natural antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce +demeanor. But now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies +of "The Rag"--dandies no more--are battling like heroes at Balaklava and +Inkermann* by the side of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter is +changed to hearty respect and enthusiasm. It is not against courage +and honor he wars: but this great moralist--must it be owned?--has some +popular British prejudices, and these led him in peace time to laugh +at soldiers and Frenchmen. If those hulking footmen who accompanied the +carriages to the opening of Parliament the other day, would form a plush +brigade, wear only gunpowder in their hair, and strike with their great +canes on the enemy, Mr. Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who +meanwhile remains among us, to all outward appearance regardless of +satire, and calmly consuming his five meals per diem. Against lawyers, +beadles, bishops and clergy, and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather +bitter. At the time of the Papal aggression he was prodigiously angry; +and one of the chief misfortunes which happened to him at that period +was that, through the violent opinions which he expressed regarding the +Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the invaluable services, the graceful +pencil, the harmless wit, the charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. Another +member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, the biographer of Jeames, the author +of the "Snob Papers," resigned his functions on account of Mr. Punch's +assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger +Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch parted with these +contributors: he filled their places with others as good. The boys at +the railroad stations cried Punch just as cheerily, and sold just as +many numbers, after these events as before. + + * This was written in 1854. + +There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech is +the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without Leech's pictures! +What would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who write the work +must feel that, without him, it were as well left alone. Look at the +rivals whom the popularity of Punch has brought into the field; the +direct imitators of Mr. Leech's manner--the artists with a manner of +their own--how inferior their pencils are to his in humor, in depicting +the public manners, in arresting, amusing the nation. The truth, the +strength, the free vigor, the kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit +of that hand are approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he +draws a horse, a woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like +a man. What plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief +contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem! What famous +thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on the back +of them, scampers across country! You see youth, strength, enjoyment, +manliness in those drawings, and in none more so, to our thinking, than +in the hundred pictures of children which this artist loves to design. +Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and +tender with the little creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, +and watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their sports, their +jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles come home from Eton; young +Miss practising her first flirtation; poor little ragged Polly making +dirt-pies in the gutter, or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her +nursechild, who is as big as herself--all these little ones, patrician +and plebeian, meet with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched +with curious nicety by this amiable observer. + +We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print which +used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spectators, and in +which the Prince of Wales (his Royal Highness was a Foxite then) was +represented as sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a voluptuous +meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a toothpick. Fancy +the first young gentleman living employing such a weapon in such a +way! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron +fork--the heir of Britannia with a BIDENT! The man of genius who drew +that picture saw little of the society which he satirized and amused. +Gilray watched public characters as they walked by the shop in St. +James's Street, or passed through the lobby of the House of Commons. +His studio was a garret, or little better; his place of amusement a +tavern-parlor, where his club held its nightly sittings over their pipes +and sanded floor. You could not have society represented by men to whom +it was not familiar. When Gavarni came to England a few years since--one +of the wittiest of men, one of the most brilliant and dexterous of +draughtsmen--he published a book of "Les Anglais," and his Anglais +were all Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long practised to observe +Parisian life, could not perceive English character. A social painter +must be of the world which he depicts, and native to the manners which +he portrays. + +Now, any one 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 an anchovy +toast with the claret; who talk together in 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!" Look well at everything appertaining to the economy of +the famous Mr. Briggs: how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments +are! What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in +the Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the +surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for +those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, and +warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings in +the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he has, +complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the +delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into the fire! How +cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room: Briggs reading +a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and Grannie with their +respective needleworks; the children clustering round a great book of +prints--a great book of prints such as this before us, which, at this +season, must make thousands of children happy by as many firesides! +The inner life of all these people is represented: Leech draws them as +naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland pigs and stables. +It is your house and mine: we are looking at everybody's family circle. +Our boys coming from school give themselves such airs, the young +scapegraces! our girls, going to parties, are so tricked out by fond +mammas--a social history of London in the middle of the nineteenth +century. As such, future students--lucky they to have a book so +pleasant--will regard these pages: even the mutations of fashion they +may follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for +tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. How they change those cloaks +and bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills from year to year! +Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could be +without? Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" waistcoats, +which our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons back, and which +cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode," to ask Ellen for +her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by this time, very likely +facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty Ellen, and that love of a +sister of hers, are married and happy, let us hope, superintending one +of those delightful nursery scenes which our artist depicts with such +tender humor. Fortunate artist, indeed! You see he must have been bred +at a good public school; that he has ridden many a good horse in his +day; paid, no doubt, out of his own purse for the originals of some of +those lovely caps and bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, +frolics, and slumbers of his favorite little people. + +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 hair-dressers +of the present age! Look at "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 bear's-grease not only on Tongs's 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 +the 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 hair-dressing 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 the urn down; at cook, laying her hands on the kitchen +table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the cold meat. They are cook's +and housemaid's hands without mistake, and not without a certain beauty +too. The bald old lady, who is tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands +which you see are trembling. Watch the fingers of the two old harridans +who are talking scandal: for what long years past they have pointed out +holes in their neighbors' 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 hand, you burst out laughing. These are among the +little points of humor. One could indicate hundreds of such as one turns +over the pleasant pages. + +There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears little +tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, smokes cigars +on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts +about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an immense woman, whom Snob +nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite abomination of Leech, and +pursued by that savage humorist into a thousand of his haunts. There he +is, choosing waistcoats at the tailor's--such waistcoats! Yonder he +is giving a shilling to the sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is +offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the rain. They +don't know their own pictures, very likely; if they did, they would have +a meeting, and thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. +Leech. One feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, +when we close this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen +such. + +Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the +unwary specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's +drawings--homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London +street--the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excellently true +to nature as the actors themselves; our respect for the genius and humor +which invented both increases as we look and look again at the designs. +May we have more of them; more pleasant Christmas volumes, over which we +and our children can laugh together. Can we have too much of truth, and +fun, and beauty, and kindness? + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Leech's Pictures of Life and +Character, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES *** + +***** This file should be named 2646.txt or 2646.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/2646/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character + +by William Makepeace Thackeray + + + + +* Reprinted from the Quarterly Review, No. 191, Dec. 1854, by +permission of Mr. John Murray. + + +We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, +old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had +as children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There +was Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, +glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, +Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing +quivering fingers; there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) +crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his +eyes; there was Hubert crying; there was little Rutland being run +through the poor little body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal +Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling +demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the present +day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and dancing +before a black background,--a melancholy museum indeed. Smirke's +delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general gloom. +We did not like to inspect it unless the elders were present, and +plenty of lights and company were in the room. + +Cheerful relatives used to treat us to Miss Linwood's. Let the +children of the present generation thank their stars THAT tragedy is +put out of their way. Miss Linwood's was worsted-work. Your +grandmother or grandaunts took you there and said the pictures were +admirable. You saw "the Woodman" in worsted, with his axe and dog, +trampling through the snow; the snow bitter cold to look at, the +woodman's pipe wonderful: a gloomy piece, that made you shudder. +There were large dingy pictures of woollen martyrs, and scowling +warriors with limbs strongly knitted; there was especially, at the +end of a black passage, a den of lions, that would frighten any boy +not born in Africa, or Exeter 'Change, and accustomed to them. + +Another exhibition used to be West's Gallery, where the pleasing +figures of Lazarus in his grave-clothes, and Death on the pale +horse, used to impress us children. The tombs of Westminster Abbey, +the vaults at St. Paul's, the men in armor at the Tower, frowning +ferociously out of their helmets, and wielding their dreadful +swords; that superhuman Queen Elizabeth at the end of the room, a +livid sovereign with glass eyes, a ruff, and a dirty satin +petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel: who does not remember +these sights in London in the consulship of Plancus? and the wax- +work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose +chamber of death is gay and brilliant; but a nice old gloomy wax- +work, full of murderers; and as a chief attraction, the Dead Baby +and the Princess Charlotte lying in state? + +Our story-books had no pictures in them for the most part. Frank +(dear old Frank!) had none; nor the "Parent's Assistant;" nor the +"Evenings at Home;" nor our copy of the "Ami des Enfans:" there were +a few just at the end of the Spelling-Book; besides the allegory at +the beginning, of Education leading up Youth to the temple of +Industry, where Dr. Dilworth and Professor Walkinghame stood with +crowns of laurel. There were, we say, just a few pictures at the +end of the Spelling-Book, little oval gray woodcuts of Bewick's, +mostly of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Dog and the Shadow, and Brown, +Jones, and Robinson with long ringlets and little tights; but for +pictures, so to speak, what had we? The rough old wood-blocks in +the old harlequin-backed fairy-books had served hundreds of years; +before OUR Plancus, in the time of Priscus Plancus--in Queen Anne's +time, who knows? We were flogged at school; we were fifty boys in +our boarding-house, and had to wash in a leaden trough, under a +cistern, with lumps of fat yellow soap floating about in the ice and +water. Are OUR sons ever flogged? Have they not dressing-rooms, +hair-oil, hip-baths, and Baden towels? And what picture-books the +young villains have! What have these children done that they should +be so much happier than we were? + +We had the "Arabian Nights" and Walter Scott, to be sure. Smirke's +illustrations to the former are very fine. We did not know how good +they were then; but we doubt whether we did not prefer the little +old "Miniature Library Nights" with frontispieces by Uwins; for +THESE books the pictures don't count. Every boy of imagination does +his own pictures to Scott and the "Arabian Nights" best. + +Of funny pictures there were none especially intended for us +children. There was Rowlandson's "Doctor Syntax": Doctor Syntax in +a fuzz-wig, on a horse with legs like sausages, riding races, making +love, frolicking with rosy exuberant damsels. Those pictures were +very funny, and that aquatinting and the gay-colored plates very +pleasant to witness; but if we could not read the poem in those +days, could we digest it in this? Nevertheless, apart from the text +which we could not master, we remember Doctor Syntax pleasantly, +like those cheerful painted hieroglyphics in the Nineveh Court at +Sydenham. What matter for the arrow-head, illegible stuff? give us +the placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their +rident horses, wounding those good-humored enemies, who tumble gayly +off the towers, or drown, smiling, in the dimpling waters, amidst +the anerithmon gelasma of the fish. + +After Doctor Syntax, the apparition of Corinthian Tom, Jerry +Hawthorn, and the facetious Bob Logic must be recorded--a wondrous +history indeed theirs was! When the future student of our manners +comes to look over the pictures and the writing of these queer +volumes, what will he think of our society, customs, and language in +the consulship of Plancus? "Corinthian," it appears, was the phrase +applied to men of fashion and ton in Plancus's time: they were the +brilliant predecessors of the "swell" of the present period-- +brilliant, but somewhat barbarous, it must be confessed. The +Corinthians were in the habit of drinking a great deal too much in +Tom Cribb's parlor: they used to go and see "life" in the gin-shops; +of nights, walking home (as well as they could), they used to knock +down "Charleys," poor harmless old watchmen with lanterns, guardians +of the streets of Rome, Planco Consule. They perpetrated a vast +deal of boxing; they put on the "mufflers" in Jackson's rooms; they +"sported their prads" in the Ring in the Park; they attended cock- +fights, and were enlightened patrons of dogs and destroyers of rats. +Besides these sports, the delassemens of gentlemen mixing with the +people, our patricians, of course, occasionally enjoyed the society +of their own class. What a wonderful picture that used to be of +Corinthian Tom dancing with Corinthian Kate at Almack's! What a +prodigious dress Kate wore! With what graceful ABANDON the pair +flung their arms about as they swept through the mazy quadrille, +with all the noblemen standing round in their stars and uniforms! +You may still, doubtless, see the pictures at the British Museum, or +find the volumes in the corner of some old country-house library. +You are led to suppose that the English aristocracy of 1820 DID +dance and caper in that way, and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and +knock down watchmen; and the children of to-day, turning to their +elders, may say "Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as that, when +you danced at Almack's? There was very little of it, grandmamma. +Did grandpapa kill many watchmen when he was a young man, and +frequent thieves' gin-shops, cock-fights, and the ring, before you +married him? Did he use to talk the extraordinary slang and jargon +which is printed in this book? He is very much changed. He seems a +gentlemanly old boy enough now." + +In the above-named consulate, when WE had grandfathers alive, there +would be in the old gentleman's library in the country two or three +old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, +full of the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever had +the fasces borne before him. These prints were signed Gilray, +Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and some actually George Cruikshank-- +for George is a veteran now, and he took the etching needle in hand +as a child. He caricatured "Boney," borrowing not a little from +Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on +Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we +believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public. + +In those great colored prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in the +library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the +caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite +beyond our comprehension. Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, +with goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and tricolored plume, a crooked +sabre, reeking with blood: a little demon revelling in lust, murder, +massacre. John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal: indeed he +was prodigiously kicked all through that series of pictures; by +Sidney Smith and our brave allies the gallant Turks; by the +excellent and patriotic Spaniards; by the amiable and indignant +Russians,--all nations had boots at the service of poor Master +Boney. How Pitt used to defy him! How good old George, King of +Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to +make sport for their Majesties! This little fiend, this beggar's +brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in +those old portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his family in +rags, gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut; Boney murdering the sick +at Jaffa; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the +Turkish religion, &c.)--this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had +some devoted friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle,-- +a set of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and +wickedness in general, like their French friend. In the pictures +these men were all represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The +miscreants got into power at one time, and, if we remember right, +were called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy +eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the rascals, +was, it appears, called Charles James Fox; another miscreant, with a +blotched countenance, was a certain Sheridan; other imps were hight +Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As in our +childish, innocence we used to look at these demons, now sprawling +and tipsy in their cups; now scaling heaven, from which the angelic +Pitt hurled them down; now cursing the light (their atrocious +ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail +and horns); now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by +Pitt and the other good angels: we hated these vicious wretches, as +good children should; we were on the side of Virtue and Pitt and +Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the +good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were some prints among +them very odd indeed; some that girls could not understand; some +that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those +prohibited pages. How many of them there were in the wild, coarse, +reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humor! + +How savage the satire was--how fierce the assault--what garbage +hurled at opponents--what foul blows were hit--what language of +Billingsgate flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking +over Woodward's facetiae or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the +slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, +and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr +with his pipe and dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, +clothed, and taught the rogue good manners: or rather, let us say, +he has learned them himself; for he is of nature soft and kindly, +and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits; and, +frolicsome always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into +shame by he pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding +smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial +satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humorous +designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own +hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the +Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that +paper of an assemblage of Teetotalers in "Sadler's Wells Theatre," +and we straightway recognized the old Roman hand--the old Roman's of +the time of Plancus--George Cruikshank's. There were the old +bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures +of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the +water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotal +cresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being +administered. How often has George drawn that picture of +Cruikshank! Where haven't we seen it? How fine it was, facing the +effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Magazine when George +illustrated that periodical! How grand and severe he stands in that +design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like +St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the nose! The +collectors of George's etchings--oh the charming etchings!--oh the +dear old "German Popular Tales!"--the capital "Points of Humor"--the +delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the good time, OUR +time--Plancus's in fact!--the collectors of the Georgian etchings, +we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we +remember him in his favorite Hessian boots in "Tom and Jerry" +itself; and in woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has +rather deserted satire and comedy of late years, having turned his +attention to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having +confessed our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful +to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May +respect, and length of days, and comfortable repose attend the +brave, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humorist, moralist! It +was he first who brought English pictorial humor and children +acquainted. Our young people and their fathers and mothers owe him +many a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no way in which +the country could acknowledge the long services and brave career of +such a friend and benefactor? + +Since George's time humor has been converted. Comus and his wicked +satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest +haunts; and Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humor, which may be +doubted) might take up our funny picture-books without the slightest +precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer than the charming +fancies of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't +we walk as safely as through Miss Pinkerton's schoolrooms? And as +we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, +at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas +season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy against the +youngsters--they are too well off. Why hadn't WE picture-books? +Why were we flogged so? A plague on the lictors and their rods in +the time of Plancus! + +And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject +in hand--Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in +the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at +Christmas. It is an 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 kindred humorists, with +pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. Time was, if we +remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he did not wear silk +stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularity in +his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he). +He was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little +booth, which he put up at corners of streets; associated with +beadles, policemen, his own ugly wife (whom he treated most +scandalously), and persons in a low station of life; earning a +precarious livelihood by the cracking of wild jokes, the singing of +ribald songs, and halfpence extorted from passers-by. He is the +Satyric genius we spoke of anon: he cracks his jokes still, for +satire must live; but he is combed, washed, neatly clothed, and +perfectly presentable. He goes into the very best company; he keeps +a stud at Melton; he has a moor in Scotland; he rides in the Park; +has his stall at the Opera; is constantly dining out at clubs and in +private society; and goes every night in the season to balls and +parties, where you see the most beautiful women possible. He is +welcomed amongst his new friends the great; though, like the good +old English gentleman of the song, he does not forget the small. He +pats the heads of street boys and girls; relishes the jokes of Jack +the costermonger and Bob the dustman; good-naturedly spies out Molly +the cook flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid as she +listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at +guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; and was until latter +days very contemptuous in his behavior towards Frenchmen. He has a +natural antipathy to pomp, and swagger, and fierce demeanor. But +now that the guardsmen are gone to war, and the dandies of "The +Rag"--dandies no more--are battling like heroes at Balaklava and +Inkermann* by the side of their heroic allies, Mr. Punch's laughter +is changed to hearty respect and enthusiasm. It is not against +courage and honor he wars: but this great moralist--must it be +owned?--has some popular British prejudices, and these led him in +peace time to laugh at soldiers and Frenchmen. If those hulking +footmen who accompanied the carriages to the opening of Parliament +the other day, would form a plush brigade, wear only gunpowder in +their hair, and strike with their great canes on the enemy, Mr. +Punch would leave off laughing at Jeames, who meanwhile remains +among us, to all outward appearance regardless of satire, and calmly +consuming his five meals per diem. Against lawyers, beadles, +bishops and clergy, and authorities, Mr. Punch is still rather +bitter. At the time of the Papal aggression he was prodigiously +angry; and one of the chief misfortunes which happened to him at +that period was that, through the violent opinions which he +expressed regarding the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he lost the +invaluable services, the graceful pencil, the harmless wit, the +charming fancy of Mr. Doyle. Another member of Mr. Punch's cabinet, +the biographer of Jeames, the author of the "Snob Papers," resigned +his functions on account of Mr. Punch's assaults upon the present +Emperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was +unpatriotic to arouse. Mr. Punch parted with these contributors: he +filled their places with others as good. The boys at the railroad +stations cried Punch just as cheerily, and sold just as many +numbers, after these events as before. + + +* This was written in 1854. + + +There is no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch's cabinet John Leech +is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without Leech's +pictures! What would you give for it? The learned gentlemen who +write the work must feel that, without him, it were as well left +alone. Look at the rivals whom the popularity of Punch has brought +into the field; the direct imitators of Mr. Leech's manner--the +artists with a manner of their own--how inferior their pencils are +to his in humor, in depicting the public manners, in arresting, +amusing the nation. The truth, the strength, the free vigor, the +kind humor, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are +approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, +a woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What +plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief +contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem! What +famous thews and sinews Mr. Punch's horses have, and how Briggs, on +the back of them, scampers across country! You see youth, strength, +enjoyment, manliness in those drawings, and in none more so, to our +thinking, than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist +loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he +becomes quite soft and tender with the little creatures, pats gently +their little golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their +ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans +terribles come home from Eton; young Miss practising her first +flirtation; poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, +or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as +big as herself--all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet +with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with curious +nicety by this amiable observer. + +We remember, in one of those ancient Gilray portfolios, a print +which used to cause a sort of terror in us youthful spectators, and +in which the Prince of Wales (his Royal Highness was a Foxite then) +was represented as sitting alone in a magnificent hall after a +voluptuous meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a +toothpick. Fancy the first young gentleman living employing such a +weapon in such a way! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged +with a two-pronged iron fork--the heir of Britannia with a BIDENT! +The man of genius who drew that picture saw little of the society +which he satirized and amused. Gilray watched public characters as +they walked by the shop in St. James's Street, or passed through the +lobby of the House of Commons. His studio was a garret, or little +better; his place of amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club held +its nightly sittings over their pipes and sanded floor. You could +not have society represented by men to whom it was not familiar. +When Gavarni came to England a few years since--one of the wittiest +of men, one of the most brilliant and dexterous of draughtsmen--he +published a book of "Les Anglais," and his Anglais were all +Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long practised to observe +Parisian life, could not perceive English character. A social +painter must be of the world which he depicts, and native to the +manners which he portrays. + +Now, any one 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 an anchovy toast with the claret; who talk together +in 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!" Look well at +everything appertaining to the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs: +how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments are! What a +comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in the +Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the +surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box +for those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, +and warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings +in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he +has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears +trying on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings into +the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room: +Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and +Grannie with their respective needleworks; the children clustering +round a great book of prints--a great book of prints such as this +before us, which, at this season, must make thousands of children +happy by as many firesides! The inner life of all these people is +represented: Leech draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch +boors, or Morland pigs and stables. It is your house and mine: we +are looking at everybody's family circle. Our boys coming from +school give themselves such airs, the young scapegraces! our girls, +going to parties, are so tricked out by fond mammas--a social +history of London in the middle of the nineteenth century. As such, +future students--lucky they to have a book so pleasant--will regard +these pages: even the mutations of fashion they may follow here if +they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as fine an eye for tailory and +millinery as for horse-flesh. How they change those cloaks and +bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills from year to year! +Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850 which no lady could +be without? Where those charming waistcoats, those "stunning" +waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few brief seasons +back, and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of "La Mode," +to ask Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior by +this time, very likely facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty +Ellen, and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happy, let +us hope, superintending one of those delightful nursery scenes which +our artist depicts with such tender humor. Fortunate artist, +indeed! You see he must have been bred at a good public school; +that he has ridden many a good horse in his day; paid, no doubt, out +of his own purse for the originals of some of those lovely caps and +bonnets; and watched paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and +slumbers of his favorite little people. + +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 hair-dressers of the present age! Look at "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 bear's-grease not only +on Tongs's 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 the 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 hair- +dressing 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 the urn down; at cook, laying +her hands on the kitchen table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the +cold meat. They are cook's and housemaid's hands without mistake, +and not without a certain beauty too. The bald old lady, who is +tying her bonnet at Tongs's, has hands which you see are trembling. +Watch the fingers of the two old harridans who are talking scandal: +for what long years past they have pointed out holes in their +neighbors' 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 hand, you burst out laughing. These are among the +little points of humor. One could indicate hundreds of such as one +turns over the pleasant pages. + +There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears +little tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, +smokes cigars on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the +streets, struts about with Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an +immense woman, whom Snob nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite +abomination of Leech, and pursued by that savage humorist into a +thousand of his haunts. There he is, choosing waistcoats at the +tailor's--such waistcoats! Yonder he is giving a shilling to the +sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is offering a paletot to a +huge giant who is going out in the rain. They don't know their own +pictures, very likely; if they did, they would have a meeting, and +thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr. Leech. One +feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two, when we +close this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen +such. + +Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the unwary +specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings-- +homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London street-- +the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to +nature as the actors themselves; our respect for the genius and +humor which invented both increases as we look and look again at the +designs. May we have more of them; more pleasant Christmas volumes, +over which we and our children can laugh together. Can we have too +much of truth, and fun, and beauty, and kindness? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character +by William Makepeace Thackeray + diff --git a/old/jlplc10.zip b/old/jlplc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bb84d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/jlplc10.zip |