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CHAPTER XXI.
AUTOGRAPH-HUNTERS AND OTHERS

No doubt all painters, poets, literary men, Churchmen – in short, all men who have attained to more or less celebrity – become the prey of the autograph-hunter, either in the form of a boy at school, a young lady whose life is made continuous sunshine by the contemplation of your pictures or the study of your delightful poems, or an elderly gentleman who has watched your career with intense interest from its beginning. Each of these applicants, strange to say, avers that he or she will be made happier by the possession of your name on a card or a piece of paper which is enclosed for your signature, and in addition to your "valued name," if you happen to be an artist, "if you will add a slight sketch," the gratitude of the hunter will know no bounds. I have been guilty on one or two occasions of complying with a desire that seems to verge upon the unreasonable; but my folly is as nothing compared to that of Edwin Landseer, who was a frequent and willing victim to such imposition. On one of the many occasions when I had the happiness of receiving Landseer at my house, the conversation turned upon the autograph-hunter, whose habits were strongly anathematized by some of us; the great painter defended the craze as harmless, easily gratified, and complimentary to the objects of it.

"Only this morning," said he, "I had an application from someone at Birmingham for my name, and for a sketch of a dog's head added to it; well, I complied with both desires."

I confess to my surprise when I heard this, and I was amused on hearing artists who were present exclaim loudly against such a proceeding, as creating a precedent that they would be expected to follow. Harmless, however, is the autograph pest in comparison with the really terrible album, which bids unblushingly for work that may consume many hours of the time of the painter or the poet. Here, again, Landseer was a great sinner; many a splendidly bound album lies at this moment on gilded tables in stately English mansions, the homes of our "old nobility," with delightful drawings of sporting scenes by that cunning hand; and there are instances, I am sorry to say, of the possessors being unable to resist the sums offered for the purchase of their treasures so cheaply acquired.

As I am speaking of Edwin Landseer, I seize the opportunity of expressing my great regret that my friend Mr. Sidney Cooper, R.A., in his recently published memoirs, should have created an impression in the public mind that Landseer was a drunkard. From my intimate knowledge of Landseer, I can aver that nothing could be further from the fact. I have dined in his company scores of times, and I have met him in all kinds of society, and under conditions which would have made the propensity, if it possessed him, irresistible; and never in a single instance did I, or anyone else, see Landseer even excited by drink. This was the habit of the man until about a year and a half before his death, when the brain disorder began which afterwards destroyed him. I cannot disguise from myself that if Mr. Cooper had questioned the physicians who attended Landseer in his last illness, he would have been told that a craving for drink of every kind is one of the peculiarities of the disease which every sufferer from it is quite unable to resist. I know that great care was taken to keep stimulants from the illustrious patient; but that he may have secretly possessed himself of wine or spirits on certain occasions, and in that way given a colour to the report of his drunken habits, is probable enough; but I venture to think a brother-artist – even if the charge of habitual intoxication could have been proved against this great painter – should have been mournfully silent; how much more careful, then, should he have been, if he desired – perhaps as a warning – to proclaim this terrible failing, to ascertain whether he had truthful ground to go upon.

I do not in the least apologize for the above, though it is "far wide" of the purpose of this chapter; but I feel that my complaint against albums is a little ungracious and ungrateful in the face of the admirable page of sketches with which my publisher has supplied me. (See note at the end of this chapter.)

Mr. Richard Bentley was the possessor of an autograph-book and album combined; but he did not solicit the aid of strangers to fill it, thereby creating a wide difference between himself and the ordinary album nuisance. "My father," says Mr. George Bentley, "started an autograph-book, and got Cruikshank, Leech, and some others to give a sketch, or, if not an artist, an autograph. Leech did one in colour. It was so superior to anything in the volume that I cut it out and framed it, and so see it every day in my life."

The idea is to reproduce some of the characters he was so fond of sketching, and some he had actually given; for instance, the girl in bed is, I think, from the scene where a man gets up at night to fire at some cats. The wife suddenly awakes, and finds him looking out of window, gun in hand, and imagines thieves. The voyez vous is delicious, and the old gentleman with "Now, it's my opinion," etc., I am pretty sure is taken from a sketch in some work he had illustrated.

So far Mr. George Bentley, who shows that his father, who was the liberal employer of Leech, Dickens, Cruikshank, and so many others, had a raison d'être for his requests in favour of his album.

I supplement Mr. Bentley's remarks on this delightful page by calling my readers' special attention to that charming little boy and his dreadful old grandmother – "Will Charley come and live with his gran-ma?" Study well that little boy's face, beautiful as an angel's, as he looks wondering at the hideous old woman – will he live with her? not, I think, if he can help it. See, also, the lovely little group of the ill-assorted couple – old husband and young wife. More terrible the lady's fate there than Charley's with his "Gran-ma."

I have now to notice another album belonging to no less a person than the late Duke of Devonshire. Leech made the Duke's acquaintance while staying with Millais at the Peacock, Baslow, a place within easy distance of Chatsworth; where, by the way, Millais painted the perfect likeness of Leech which, by his kindness, is allowed to enrich this volume, and where, by Sir Joseph Paxton, I think, Leech was introduced to the Duke, and entertained with much kindness at Chatsworth. How the album was introduced to Leech, and whether the Duke asked for a sketch or the artist volunteered it, I have no evidence to offer; but that a design was made and repeated, the following letters from the Duke sufficiently prove:

"August 6, 1851.

"Dear Sir,

"I am so much charmed with your device that I must have a seal engraved from it. Perhaps you would have the kindness to renew the sketch for me on a smaller scale, as I am unwilling to extract the leaf made valuable by you from the book. The stone should not be larger than this, which, I fear, makes my request hardly possible.

"Most sincerely yours,

"Devonshire."

The reduced scale proved no obstacle, and the success was gracefully acknowledged as follows:

"London, April 14, 1852.

"Dear Sir,

"In these critical days of the Crystal Palace, let me request your acceptance of the seal for which you gave me the idea.

"And that you may not have any feeling as to depriving me of it, I must tell you that I have another.

"Believe me,

"Most sincerely yours,

"Devonshire."

But what was the subject of the drawing? In a courteous reply to my inquiry, I find from the present Duke that he has no such drawing in any of his books, and he knows nothing of the seal. In a postscript to one of Leech's letters to his friend Adams, however, I find the following mention of it:

"Look at the seal on this envelope. I told you, I think, some time ago about my making a little sketch for the Duke of Devonshire, and how kind he was about it, saying he must have a seal made of it. Well, he called here himself, and left me a most handsome and valuable seal the other day, of which, I confess, I am proud to send you an impression. As you say of some of your people, 'It's very nice to be treated so, isn't it?' The design of the seal is a spade turning up the Crystal Palace, in allusion to Paxton being a gardener.

"Ever yours, my dear Charley,

"John Leech.

"31, Notting Hill Terrace,

"April 20, 1852."

Though the present Duke of Devonshire knows nothing of the seal, or the drawing from which it was made, I am happy to say that I am able to present to my readers an impression from it, through the kindness of Leech's son-in-law, Mr. Gillett, to whom I applied in my perplexity.

Everybody may not know that Sir Joseph Paxton, the Duke of Devonshire's gardener, was the architect of the glass house of 1851, afterwards christened the Crystal Palace, which – greatly enlarged – now flourishes at Sydenham. I conclude this chapter with an extract from Notes and Queries, evidently written by a friend of Leech. The writer, under date November, 1864, says:

"Leech's success was owing to his almost daily practice of jotting in his note-book every remarkable physiognomy or incident that struck him in his rambles. Such, at any rate, was his practice at the commencement of his too brief career. On one occasion he and I were riding to town together in an omnibus, when an elderly gentleman in a very peculiar dress, and with very marked features, stepped into the vehicle, and sat down immediately in front of us. We were the only inside passengers. For whom or for what he took, or probably mistook, us, I know not; but he stared so hard, and made such wry faces at us, that I could hardly refrain from laughter. My discomfiture was almost completed when Leech suddenly exclaimed, 'By the way, did Prendergast ever show you that extraordinary account that has been recently forwarded to him?' and, showing me his note-book, added, 'Just run your eye up that column, and tell me what you can make of it.' Instead of a column, the features of the old gentleman were reflected upon the page with life-like fidelity. On another occasion I saw him strike off with promptitude and skill the scene of a quarrel between some dirty little urchins in a suburban village."

Note.– To my great regret, I find that the material in which Mr. Bentley's drawing was executed made its reproduction impossible.

CHAPTER XXII.
ARTISTS' LIVES

"Silent, gentle, forbearing, his indignation flashed forth an eloquence when roused by anything mean or ungenerous. Manly in all his thoughts, tastes, and habits, there was about him an almost feminine tenderness. He would sit by the bedside, and smooth the pillow of a sick child with the gentleness of a woman. No wonder he was the idol of those around him, but it is the happiness of such a life that there is so little to be told of it."

I do not know to what friend of Leech's we are indebted for these few words; which are, however, sufficient to convey a perfect idea of the subject of them to those to whom he was only known by his works.

The lives of most artists are uneventful. Leech's short life was especially so. His incessant labour prevented his giving the time to what is called society – that is so often devoted to it – to the loss of the happiness that home always afforded to him. He was a self-sacrificing and most dutiful son, a good and loving father and husband, and a true and faithful friend. In the quotation above we read that there is little to be told of Leech's life. I have talked with those who had the happiness of greater intimacy with him than I can boast of, without being able to learn anything beyond the ordinary events of an everyday life, void of dramatic incident, commonplace in fact, except for the constant triumph of an unapproachable genius.

Leech had a large circle of friends and acquaintances, with here and there an aristocrat amongst the latter; but his intimates were few: between them and him, however, there were unusually strong ties of affectionate regard; his nervous, modest, retiring nature often conveyed a false impression of him to casual acquaintances. I have heard him described as haughty, "stand-offish," cold, and so on; and his manner to some of those who may have met him for the first time, occasionally admitted of that construction; but it arose from nervousness, or from an aversion to loud and ill-timed compliment, feeling, as he sincerely did, his "little sketches" deserved no such eulogium. Though Leech's life offers no field for the description of stirring events, the delightful nature of the man affords matchless opportunities for study, reflection, and emulation; and that study may be pursued in the examination of his works, in which, as in a looking-glass, the nature of their producer is reflected. There may be seen ever-recurring proofs of the artist's intense love of Nature in all her forms; whether he deals with woman, the most beautiful of all Nature's works, or with children in the endless variety of their attractiveness, absolute truth, tenderness and beauty are paramount; and not only are these creatures natural and beautiful, but the artist is at one with them in all their doings, from the sympathy peculiar to him with all that is simple, pure, and lovable. Side by side with this tenderness of heart, we have a robust manliness which shows itself constantly.

As a matter of course Leech's love of Nature was not confined to humanity, but was extended to the animal creation, to the trees and the fields, the sea-shore and the sea – in short, to every form of animate and inanimate nature. Think what a delight such a constituted heart and mind must be to the possessor of them! and not only to him, but to us to whom he so freely offers the results of his sympathies, making us certainly happier, and it is to be hoped better, by the taking in of so much that is exhilarating, healthy, and true. Evidence is frequent of pity for the sufferings of the poor and the oppressed. In many a scene Leech becomes a warm sympathizer with unmerited distress; and constantly his honest heart is stirred into indignation at some instance of injustice; then we find that the pencil which can deal so gently with childhood and woman can also, in indelible lines, stigmatize the stony-hearted oppressor.

Underlying the refined and delicate humour that distinguishes the greater part of Leech's work we frequently find some more or less serious social grievance smartly satirized. In "Servant-Gal-ism," for example, the airs and graces, the impudent assumption, and the dishonesty even, which sometimes disgrace those otherwise worthy people, are shown to us in drawings so humorous as to make us laugh heartily, but at the same time we feel the full force of the satire intended. In the encounters between servant-girls and their mistresses the ladies sometimes get the worst of it; notably in a drawing that represents a mistress and her maid in conflict respecting the dressing of their hair. The old lady has tortured her few remaining locks into miserable little ringlets, that make a shocking contrast to the long curls of her young and pretty servant; and no sooner does she catch sight of the girl's ringlets, than she angrily tells her she will not permit such bare-faced imitation of the way she chooses to wear her hair. Here I am afraid we cannot help feeling a certain amount of contempt for the blind vanity and tyranny of the mistress, while we sympathize with the maid.

Footmen afford a wide field for the good-humoured banter of Leech.

Amongst the many striking proofs of the genius that distinguished him, is one that to me, as an artist, is astonishing. I allude to the individual character with which Leech invests each of his servant-girls and footmen, as well as every type that comes under his hand. I have not counted the number of servants of "all sorts and sizes" that appear in "Pictures of Life and Character," but I am quite sure that a comparison of one with another will prove that not one can be found in the slightest degree to resemble another; each is an individual by himself or herself, separate and distinct – a footman from top to toe; take away his uniform, and, from some peculiarity of manner or action, he is unmistakably a footman still. The same may be said of the maid-servants, in whom Leech's wonderful power of individualizing is shown even more palpably; for the cook is a cook, and perfectly distinct from the scullery-maid and the charwoman; and no two cooks or kitchen-maids resemble each other personally, but only in their offices.

The same may be truly said of numberless types immortalized by Leech; but, strange to say, it cannot be said of the young ladies: they almost all have a family likeness to one another – a resemblance that can be traced to Mrs. Leech. This fault, for it is a fault, and a grave one, is as strange to me as the infinite variety shown in his representation of all sorts and conditions of men and women is astounding. In marking this I point to the only shortcoming in all Leech's work, and though, as I think (I may be wrong), he has this fault in his treatment of young ladies, it is absent in his drawings of elderly or old ones; the aristocratic or plebeian old women are as well marked in personal contrast with each other as the rest of his delightful creations.

The rest of his creations! What a dazzling, bewildering mass of humanity crowds upon the mind when one attempts to point out special scenes for examination and criticism! If I were to say a tithe of what I feel about hundreds of Leech's drawings, I should greatly exceed the space permitted to me in this book, and I should also show how inferior my powers of analysis are to those of Dickens and Thackeray, and others whose delightful appreciation of beauty, humour and character are so eloquently set forth elsewhere in this memoir; and perhaps I may add that I have sufficient respect for the intelligence of my readers to convince me that they require no directions from me as to when they should laugh and when look grave, or where to discover the point of a joke that is palpable to the "meanest capacity."

With Leech's work in an artistic sense I have more to do. Considering the limited means employed, the results produced are very wonderful. Nothing is left to desire in character or expression; the story is perfectly told in every drawing; and it can be read without reference to the few lines beneath, which in the wording of them appear to me as perfect as the cuts themselves. The composition of groups and figures, which looks so simple and natural, is the result of consummate art. The drawing, notably of figures and animals in action, is always correct. Chiaroscuro is too comprehensive a word to apply to the light and shadow of Leech's drawings; but in what we call "black and white," or, in other words, in the distribution of the masses of dark, and what I may term semi-dark, and light, they are always skilfully effective.

I have been told that Leech's work, in the opinion of a high authority in matters of art, resembles, and successfully rivals, the silver-point drawings of the old masters. I have seen many examples of those beautiful drawings, but I have never seen one that bore the faintest resemblance to the way in which Leech "lays his lines." The same judge tells us that Leech's work betrays an ignorance of the principles of effect – in other words, a neglect of the laws that should guide an artist in the selection of his scheme of light and shadow. An intelligent glance at any of Leech's drawings will show the fallibility of that judgment.

CHAPTER XXIII.
LEECH EXHIBITION

About the year 1860 – or thereabouts – there was exhibited in London a huge picture of Nero contemplating the ruins of Rome, by a German artist named Piloti. On seeing the picture I was much struck by a certain somewhat coarse vigour in the work, which asserted itself in spite of crude and harsh colouring; the principal figure – as often happens – was disappointing and theatrical. Nero stood in a melodramatic posture, with his arms folded, enjoying the destruction of the city. Leech, accompanied by his friend, the late Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A. (the eminent sculptor who made an admirable statuette of Leech), saw the picture, and after a long study of it he turned to Boehm and said: "I would rather have been the painter of that picture than the producer of all the things I have ever perpetrated!" Leech's friend received this avowal with incredulous laughter, and, pointing out some of the glaring faults of the Nero, endeavoured to convince his companion that one of his drawings was worth acres of such work as Piloti's; in which I, for one, entirely agree with him.

The hankering after oil-colours which always possessed Leech was destined to be gratified; for soon after this – in 1862 – he came before the public as the painter of a series of "sketches in oil," being reproductions of his own drawings in Punch. These – almost virgin – attempts were exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, where they were visited by thousands of admiring spectators, who left several thousand pounds behind them. Everyone knows what a few inches of space are taken up by one of Leech's drawings as it appears in "Pictures of Life and Character." A sketch of such small dimensions would have been ineffective in colours, and it was owing to an invention by which the originals were enlarged, that the artist was enabled to offer to the public copies of drawings four or five inches square, increased in some instances to three feet by two.

"'The idea originated,' says Dr. Brown, 'with Mr. Mark Lemon, Leech's friend and colleague, who saw that by a new invention – a beautiful piece of machinery – the impression of a block in Punch being first taken on a sheet of indiarubber, was enlarged; when by a lithographic process the copy thus got could be transferred to the stone and impressions printed upon a large sheet of canvas. Having thus obtained an outline groundwork, consisting of his own lines enlarged to some eight times the area of the original block, Leech proceeded to colour these. His knowledge of the manipulation of oil-colours was very slight, and it was under the guidance of his friend Millais that his first attempts were made, and crude enough they were. He used a kind of transparent colour, which allowed the coarse lines of the enlargement to show through, so that the production presented the appearance of indifferent lithographs slightly tinted. In a short time he obtained great mastery over oil-colour, and instead of allowing the thick, fatty lines of printer's ink to remain on the canvas, he, by the use of turpentine, removed the ink, particularly with regard to the lines of the faces and figures. These he redrew with his own hand in a fine and delicate manner. To this he added a delicacy of finish, particularly in flesh-colour, which greatly enhanced the value and beauty of his later works."

The catalogue to the sketches in oil is prefaced by a few modest words by the artist, who concludes some remarks upon their production thus:

"These sketches have no claim to be regarded, or tested, as finished pictures. It is impossible for anyone to know the fact better than I do. They have no pretensions to a higher name than the name I give them, 'Sketches in Oil.'"

The exhibition consisted of sixty-seven works, and the room containing them was filled all day long by a laughing crowd. Leech shrank from crowds at all times, and an assembly drawn together by his own works would have special terrors for him. After the opening of the gallery he was never known to visit it, mainly from his innate modesty, but also from his dread of being "caught and talked at by enthusiastic people."

A story is told of a visit of a sporting lord who took his huntsman – whose judgment of hounds and horses was celebrated for its acumen – to give his verdict on the Leech Exhibition in general, and on dogs and horses in particular.

"'Ah, my lord, nothin' but a party as knows 'osses could have drawed them there 'unters.'"

If the huntsman offered an opinion on other features of the exhibition, it is not recorded; he criticised only what he understood – therein giving a much-needed example to many critics.

In the few remarks in the way of criticism on the Leech Exhibition which I allow myself to make, I claim to be in the position of the huntsman whose experience of the horse made his opinion of that animal valuable; my own experience of pictures, as it extends over fifty years, may fairly claim for me the right of judgment, and I acknowledge myself to be one of those who thought the exhibition of "Sketches in Oil" did not increase Leech's reputation; though it happily did increase his own fortune, or the fortune of somebody else.

Dr. Brown says that Leech "obtained a great mastery over oil-colours." The huntsman may have thought as much; if he did, he was as much in error as Dr. Brown. The sketches lost much charm by their enlargement, and they were further greatly damaged by the crude and inharmonious way in which they were coloured. The girls' lovely faces, which delight us so thoroughly in their pencilled forms, became almost vulgar under the artist's attempts to paint flesh – the most difficult of all things to render truly. When he first gives them to us fresh from the wood block, conveying to us, as he does, the most ravishing beauty by a few pencil-marks, we paint the faces for ourselves with the colours and brushes of the mind, with a result unattainable by the colourman's tools unless they are in the hands of a Reynolds or a Vandyke. Leech's delightful backgrounds, too, were terribly spoilt by his oil-paints: air and distance disappeared altogether in many of them. But it is time my grumbling gave place to what Mr. Thackeray had to say about the Leech Exhibition in the Times of June 21, 1862:

"Now, while Mr. Leech has been making his comments upon our society and manners, one of the wittiest and keenest observers has been giving a description of his own country of France in a thousand brilliant pages; and it is a task not a little amusing and curious for a student of manners to note the difference between the two satirists – perhaps between the societies they describe. Leech's England is a country peopled by noble elderly squires, riding large-boned horses, followed across country by lovely beings of the most gorgeous proportions, by respectful retainers, by gallant little boys emulating the pluck and courage of the sire. The joke is the precocious courage of the child, his gallantry as he charges his fences, his coolness as he eyes the glass of port, or tells grandpapa he likes his champagne dry. How does Gavarni represent the family father, the sire, the old gentleman, in his country – the civilized country? Paterfamilias, in a dyed wig and whiskers, is leaning by the side of Mademoiselle Coralie on her sofa in the Rue de Bréda. Paterfamilias, with a mask and a nose half a yard long, is hobbling after her at the ball. The enfant terrible is making papa and mamma alike ridiculous by showing us mamma's lover, who is lurking behind the screen. A thousand volumes are written protesting against the seventh commandment. The old man is for ever hunting after the young woman; the wife is for ever cheating the husband. The fun of the old comedy never seems to end in France, and we have the word of their own satirists, novelists, painters of society, that it is being played from day to day.

"In the works of that barbarian artist, Hogarth, the subject which affords such playful sport to the civilized Frenchman is stigmatized as a fearful crime, and is visited by a ghastly retribution. The English savage never thinks of such a crime as funny, and, a hundred years after Hogarth, our modern 'painter of mankind' still retains his barbarous modesty, is tender with children, decorous before women, has never once thought he had the right or calling to wound the modesty of either.

"Mr. Leech surveys society from the gentleman's point of view. In old days, when Mr. Jerrold lived and wrote for that famous periodical, he took the other side; he looked up at the rich and great with a fierce, a sarcastic aspect, and a threatening posture, and his outcry or challenge was: 'Ye rich and great, look out! We, the people, are as good as you. Have a care, ye priests, wallowing on a tithe pig and rolling in carriages and four; ye landlords, grinding the poor; ye vulgar fine ladies, bullying innocent governesses, and what not – we will expose your vulgarity, we will put down your oppression, we will vindicate the nobility of our common nature,' and so forth. A great deal has to be said on the Jerrold side, a great deal was said, perhaps, even, a great deal too much. It is not a little curious to speculate upon the works of these two famous contributors to Punch, these two 'preachers,' as the phrase is. 'Woe to you, you tyrant and heartless oppressor of the poor!' calls out Jerrold as Dives' carriage rolls by. 'Beware of the time when your bloated coachman shall be hurled from his box, when your gilded flunkey shall be cast to the earth from his perch, and your pampered horses shall run away with you and your vulgar wife and smash you into ruin.' The other philosopher looks at Dives and his cavalcade in his own peculiar manner. He admires the horses and copies, with the most curious felicity, their forms and action. The footmen's calves and powder, the coachman's red face and flock wig, the over-dressed lady and plethoric gentleman in the carriage, he depicts with the happiest strokes; and if there is a pretty girl and a rosy child on the back seat, he 'takes them up tenderly' and touches them with a hand that has a caress in it. The artist is very tender to all these little people. It is hard to say whether he loves girls or boys most – those delightful little men on their ponies in the hunting field, those charming little Lady Adas flirting at the juvenile ball, or Tom the butcher's boy on the slide, or ragged little Emily pulling the go-cart, freighted with Elizerann and her doll. Steele, Fielding, Goldsmith, Dickens, are similarly tender in their pictures of children. We may be barbarians, monsieur; but even savages are occasionally kind to their papooses. 'When are the holidays?' Mothers of families ought to come to this exhibition and bring the children. Then there are the full-grown young ladies – the very full-grown young ladies – dancing in the ball-room or reposing by the sea-shore: the men can peep at whole seraglios of these beauties for the moderate charge of one shilling, and bring away their charming likenesses in the illustrated catalogue (two-and-six). In the 'Mermaids' Haunt,' for instance, there is a siren combing her golden locks, and another dark-eyed witch actually sketching you as you look at her, whom Ulysses could not resist. To walk by the side of the much-sounding sea and come upon such a bevy of beauties as this, what bliss for a man or a painter! The mermaids in that haunt, haunt the beholder for hours after. Where is the shore on which those creatures were sketched? The sly catalogue does not tell us.