Chapter 48

_PUNCH'S_ ARTISTS: 1867-82.

Mr. Linley Sambourne--Mechanical Engineering Loses a Decorative Designer--Mr. Sambourne's Work--His Photographs--And Enterprise--Strasynski--Mr. Wilfrid Lawson--Mr. E. J. Ellis--Mr. Ernest Griset--Mr. A. Chasemore--Mr. Walter Browne--Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A.--An Undergraduate Humorist--A _Punch_ Initial Converted into an Academy Picture--Mrs. Jopling-Rowe--Mr. Wallis Mackay--Mr. J. Sands, Artist, Traveller, and Hermit--Mr. W. Ralston--Mr. A. Chantrey Corbould--Charles Keene's Advice--Randolph Caldecott--Major-General Robley--R. B. Wallace--Colonel Ward Bennitt--Mr. Montagu Blatchford--Mr. Harry Furniss--Origin of Mr. Gladstone's Collars--A Favourite Ruse--How It's Done--Mr. Furniss and the Irish Members--The Lobby Incident--Clever Retaliation--Mr. Furniss's Withdrawal--Mr. Lillie--Mr. Storey, A.R.A.--Mr. Alfred Bryan.

One day when Mr. Linley Sambourne made a successful appearance as Admiral Van Tromp at a fancy-dress ball, Mr. W S. Gilbert drily observed, "One Dutch of Sambourne makes the whole world grin!" The jest was wider in its application than he who made it, probably, had intended. The humour of the artist, his quaintness of fancy, wit, and touch, are appreciated by whoever looks for something more, even in a professedly comic design, than that which is at first and immediately obvious. When, early in 1867, Mark Lemon fell into admiration of a little drawing that was luckily thrust into his hand, and declared that the young draughtsman who wrought it had a great future before him, he proved himself possessed of a faculty of critical insight, or of an easy-going artistic conscience, uncommon even among editors. Few who saw Mr. Linley Sambourne's early work, even throughout the first two or three years of his practice, would have imagined that behind those woodcuts, for all their cleverness, there lay power and even genius, or that the man himself would soon come to be regarded as one of the greatest masters of pure line of his time.

At that time Mr. Sambourne had been working in the engineering draughtsmen's office of Messrs. Penn and Sons, of Greenwich. But the work was not congenial; the "pupil" spent most of his time in sketching, and there is a story--doubtless as apocryphal as it is malicious--that in one of his designs for a steam-engine, he sacrificed so much to "effect" as to carry his steam-pipe through the spokes of the fly-wheel. It was his office companion in misfortune, Mr. Alfred Reed, who secured his friend's release from the thraldom of the iron-bound profession, by seizing the sketch already alluded to and showing it to his father, German Reed. By that gentleman it was submitted to his friend Mark Lemon, who had about that time been writing an "entertainment" for the company at the "Gallery of Illustrations." The result was an editorial summons to the sketcher, and an engagement which has lasted to the present day. Thus it was that, with a sketch of John Bright tilting at a quintain under the title of "Pros and Cons," Mr. Sambourne found himself, at the age of twenty-two, a regular contributor to _Punch_--though he had still to wait until 1871 before he was rewarded with a seat at the Table.

Of artistic education he had had practically none. In the engineering drawing-office he had learned how to handle the pen and to put it to uses which have become a feature of his draughtsmanship. But besides a life-school attendance extending over not more than a fortnight, he had no other teachers than his own eyes and his own intelligence. In his earliest work with the pencil there was a curious use of the point. Suddenly he was called upon, through the unexpected absence of Charles Keene from town, for more important work than that with which he had hitherto been entrusted. This was the half-page head-piece and the tail-piece to the preface to Vol. LIII. Then came promotion to the "small socials" and "half-page socials." Some of the work he did fairly well, founding himself now upon Leech, now upon Keene; but his character and originality were too powerful to follow any man. He began to form a style of his own, and that style did not lend itself to the representation of modern life. It was suited better for decoration than for movement; while the beauty of line and of silhouette which he sought and obtained, in spite of his intense, almost aggressive, individuality, placed him absolutely apart from all the black-and-white artists of the day.

It was, I have said, to the example of his predecessor, Charles H. Bennett, who died in April, 1867 (the very month in which Sambourne's first drawing appeared), that we owe those wonderful initial letters to the "Essence of Parliament" of Shirley Brooks--those intricate drawings which, covering nearly a whole page, were such miracles of invention, of fancy, and of allusion, swarming with figures, overflowing with suggestion, teeming with subtle symbolism. But these things did not come at once. It was not until the "comic cut" idea was put entirely on one side and his imagination allowed full play, that Mr. Sambourne fully developed his powers--his strength of conception, design, and execution. And then it was that he revealed the fact that though a humorist--and invariably, too, a good-humorist--by necessity, he is a classic by feeling.

The artist's personality, as it should, impresses us first, powerfully and irresistibly. While under Mark Lemon, Mr. Sambourne, as an artist, was still unformed. Under Shirley Brooks was awakened his wonderful inventive faculty. Under the _régime_ of masterly inactivity--the happy policy of _laissez faire_--of Tom Taylor, the talent had burst forth into luxuriance, not to say exuberance. And under Mr. Burnand it was schooled and restrained within severer limits.

It was many years before regular political cartooning[64] fell to his lot. He illustrated several of Mr. Burnand's serials in _Punch_, and some of his work out of it. But afterwards he rose to the treatment of actuality. Upon the event of the hour his picture is formed, and each week his work _must_ be forthcoming. There can be no question of failure, no dallying with the subject, however elaborate or unpromising it may appear. A decision must be come to, and that rapidly; and there the artist sits, his watch hung up before him, "one eye on the dial and the other on the drawing-paper," knowing that at the appointed hour the work must be ready for the messenger. Thus the majority of his four thousand designs have been greatly hurried--hurried in thought as well as in execution. Many have been wrought in a single day; the great majority within two days; very few, indeed, have taken more. But when he has the time he wants, what amazing results are achieved! Sir John Tenniel once exclaimed to me: "What extraordinary improvement there is in Sambourne's work! Although a little hard and mechanical, it is of absolutely inexhaustible ingenuity and firmness of touch. His diploma for the Fisheries Exhibition almost gave me a headache to look at it--so full, cram-full of suggestion, yet leaving nothing to the imagination, so perfectly and completely drawn, with a certainty of touch which baffles me to understand how he does it."

For the rest, Mr. Sambourne's method, like his work, is unique. Keen of observation though he is, his memory for detail is not to be compared to that of Sir John Tenniel; and, actuated by that desire for accuracy which he holds desirable in a journal specially devoted to topical allusion, he avails himself extensively of the use of photography. In the cabinets in his studio, filled full of drawers, each labelled according to their contents, over ten thousand photographs are classified: every celebrity of the day, and to a certain extent of the past, British and foreign, at various ages, in various costumes, and in various attitudes; representatives of the Church, the Bench, and the Bar; of Science, Art, Literature, and the Stage; the beasts and birds and insects in and out of the Zoological Gardens; figures by the score, nude and draped; costumes of all ages and every country; soldiers, sailors, and the uniforms of every army and navy; land and sea and sky; boating and botany, nuns and clowns, hospital-nurses, musical instruments, and rifles, locomotives, wheel-barrows, shop-windows, and everything else besides--everything, in short, as he himself declared, "from a weasel to a Welshman"--all are photographed mostly by himself, and all are arranged by himself, in readiness against the demand for accuracy and the exigencies of haste. But when time permits, Mr. Sambourne goes to greater trouble still. Does he require a special uniform? he begs the War Office--not unsuccessfully--to lend him one or two men, or even a detachment; does he want to represent Mr. Gladstone--say, as Wellington (as he did November 2nd, 1889)? he procures the loan of the duke's own raiment, and only stops short at borrowing Mr. Gladstone himself. For his types, too, he takes pains not less thorough. For Britannia's helmet, he made working drawings of the unique Greek piece in the British Museum, and from that had a replica constructed--one of the most notable items in a notable "property" room.

At the back of his house is a paved courtyard, wherein his servant poses as every character under the sun while he is photographed by his master, who then runs inside to develop the plate and make a dash at his drawing. Or he will photograph himself, or the model in the desired attitude; or he will get his friends to pose. Among his sitters there is none more useful than the burly man who serves equally well for "Policeman A 1" or John Bull, for the Duke of Cambridge or Prince Bismarck. It was he who sat for one of the finest of Mr. Sambourne's "junior cartoons" on the occasion when the great ex-Chancellor had said: "I am like the traveller lost in the snow, who begins to get stiff while the snow-flakes cover him." This picture of the aged and forlorn statesman, accompanied only by his faithful hound, is perhaps the best of the artist's achievements of dignity and pathos--worthy of being named with "Dropping the Pilot" of Sir John Tenniel. His passion for realism is so great that, I remember, when he was engaged on his "Mahogany Tree" for the Jubilee number of _Punch_--one of the most popular drawings he ever made--he had just such a table duly laid for dinner in the courtyard, with one person sitting at it in order to show the proportion, and photographed it from a window of the house at the necessary elevation.[65] But for his love of accuracy he would not have done these things; nor, but for his love of naturalism, could he have given us his numerous fine studies of Nature. And but for this, Mr. Punch would never have printed one or two of his Norwegian sketches, such as "The Church-going Bell," in which there was not the slightest attempt at humour or fun--nothing but a calm and reposeful love of Nature, the deep, sad impression on the mind and heart of the artist as he watches the northern sun dip in sleepy majesty behind the panting waves.

Like Rabelais, he can use the pencil to greater ends under cover of the motley, and encase bitter truths with the gilt of a printed jest. Like Giotto and his legendary feat, he can draw you a perfect circle with his pen--and perhaps he is the only man in the country who can do it. His is the rare gift that in him sense of fun, of dignity, and of art is equal. He will brook nothing more serious in his sallies than chaff and banter; and yet his kindly art, based upon Nature and observation of the work of others, has, by its very truth, made him enemies even on foreign thrones. Nevertheless, it is less as a politician and a satirist that he claims recognition; it is primarily as an artist that he will assuredly be remembered when his place among his countrymen has to be determined.

A Polish artist, with Mr. Sambourne's initials, L. Strasynski by name, also began in 1867, and during that and the following year contributed nine cuts, very foreign in feeling and firm in touch. Then, after an anonymous draughtsman, "M.S.R.," had appeared with a single cut ("Candles"), Mr. F. Wilfrid Lawson, the elder brother and teacher of Cecil Lawson, contributed a sheetful of initials and vignettes which dribbled forth in the paper up to 1876; and Mr. T. Walters, a half-a-dozen, up to 1875. Mr. E. J. Ellis, now better known in other fields than comic draughtsmanship, began on December 12th, 1867. He had received an introduction to Mark Lemon through Mr. (now Sir) Algernon Borthwick, and found the Editor "good-natured enough," as he himself says, "to allow me to do a dozen or so of initials, and a quarter-page illustration. They were all more or less pinched and painful things, and Mr. Lemon did not conceal from me that 'he was not knocked over by them.' But they were drawn on the block--not on paper--and from the strangeness and discomfort of it came the tight-elbowed style of the work. Of what I did altogether, only about a third were printed; half were paid for; but what they paid for they did not print, and what they printed they did not pay for." At that time Mr. Ellis caught the fever of decorative art, classic and romantic, which culminated in the "interpreted" edition of Blake's "Prophetic Books," in collaboration with Mr. Yeats; and _Punch_ lost a promising recruit.

The experience of Mr. Ernest Griset, who is first seen on p. 61 of Vol. LIV., was more extensive but less gratifying. He excelled at comic animals--his human figures are most of them of one ragged type--but on Bennett's sudden disappearance he was quickly encouraged to take up the dead man's work, and was enabled to show in many of his three-and-sixty drawings of that year the full range of his talent, his remarkable invention and ingenuity. Mr. Griset, though born in Boulogne, was educated in England, and after studying art under Gallait, intended to follow water-colour painting, taking subjects by preference of a Glacial Prehistoric kind. But the foundation of "Fun" gave him the opportunity of comic draughtsmanship, and the work he did for the paper brought him Mark Lemon's invitation to call upon him. A cordial reception and a flattering tribute to his ability were followed by an understanding of regular employment, and the young draughtsman became a _Punch_ artist unattached. But he did not remain long in favour. His work, perhaps, was not highly popular, and Mark Lemon perceptibly cooled towards him. So, finding he was no longer wanted, Mr. Griset, who was then no more than twenty-four years of age, retired, and consoled himself in other directions--notably by illustrating "Æsop's Fables," which had attracted Bennett and Sir John Tenniel before him.

At the end of the index to Vol. LIII. is a little tail-piece that marks the advent of Mr. A. Chasemore. This draughtsman was welcomed by Mark Lemon with the words: "You may try your hand at a large drawing, but let it be broad fun. We don't want any more ladies and pretty children." That was in 1868--yet ladies and pretty children do not even now seem to have lost their popularity! The original drawing was not a success, and had to be touched up by Keene. It is mentioned here as affording another good example of the careful way in which sketches are adapted. The subject was a recruit joining a volunteer corps. The adjutant inquires: "What company would you wish to be in?" to which the recruit replies: "Oh, gentleman's co'pany, of course!" The recruit was left untouched, but the adjutant was re-drawn by Keene. "I'm afraid there's not much humour in the idea," wrote the artist with quaint modesty; "still, I hope it's good enough for _Punch_!" Up to 1875 Mr. Chasemore contributed thirty-three drawings, and in addition there was a belated one in 1879; and then he passed over to "Judy," to which paper he thereafter devoted himself.

The last recruit of the year was "Phiz'" young son, Walter Browne, who, through his father's influence with Mark Lemon, was allowed to contribute a few drawings, the first of which appeared on p. 148, Vol. LV., and the last on November 20th, 1875. He was hardly out of his studentship at the time--he was a pupil of Bonnat--and his work was "young;" but he might have risen on _Punch_ had he not allowed himself to be tempted away by a delusive offer of Tom Hood's of constant work on "Fun," so that he closed the door in his own face, and had thenceforward to look to news-drawing and book-illustration for advancement.

Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A., appeared in the month of January, 1868. Few who have followed his career as painter would detect in him the inveterate humorist; yet it was in that direction that his bent led him while he was still a boy. When at Oxford he had amused himself of an evening with making humorous illustrations in pen-and-ink, and a book which he then so drew was shown by him in 1868 to his friend Mr. G. L. Craik, one of the partners in the house of Macmillans, and the husband of John Halifax, Gentlewoman. This book Mrs. Craik sent to Mark Lemon, who invited the young graduate to the _Punch_ office, and adopting the grotesque illustrations to "Mazeppa" at once, gave him a sort of running commission to do incidental work, to which Mr. Riviere gladly responded by a total of the twenty-three cuts--chiefly of wild animal subjects--contributed by him through 1868 and 1869. Not only was the work congenial, but the artist at the time was entirely dependent upon illustration for his livelihood, for he was newly-married, and the picture-buying public had not yet been educated up to purchasing his canvases. His illustrations--in chief part for American publications--were all done at night, as his days were delivered over to earnest though unremunerative painting. But directly his pictures began to make way, he dropped illustration, which had made inroads upon his health and had permanently injured his left eye through the strain of the artificial light. So Mr. Riviere ceased his _Punch_ connection, the proprietors, moreover, consenting to suppress those blocks which had not yet appeared, as the painter feared that they would do harm to himself professionally, and no particular good to the paper. Yet he has always expressed his pride that he should have been one of the outside "_Punch_ Staff," and he has proved it by elaborating the initial "M," which was published on p. 217, Vol. LVI., in "_Punch's_ Derby Sporting Prophecy," into his picture "Of a Fool and His Folly there is no End," which was painted and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890.

A couple of drawings from Mr. Cooper, and an initial by "W. V." (the cipher of Mr. Wallis Mackay, whose sketch and subsequent work did not appear for a couple of years) were next sent in, and then came Mr. J. Moyr Smith, whose long series of clever mock-Etruscan drawings continued with few breaks for the space of ten years. Although the spirit that runs through them becomes monotonous after a while, the draughtsmanship and the excellence of the fooling always elicit admiration. Mr. Smith had served his time to architecture; but natural love of figure-drawing, intensified by the study of Sir John Tenniel's comic illustrations of the historical costume, faithfully and even learnedly delineated and perfectly drawn, settled his career, and "Fun," under Tom Hood's editorship, witnessed his start in humorous life. Referred to Mark Lemon by "Pater" Evans, he obtained a ready hearing, and for a couple of years drew for the paper; but he did not work regularly, during an interval of three years, until 1872. From this time forward he was one of _Punch's_ recognised outside contributors, though he worked for it only when not engaged in making designs for art-manufacturers. It was under Shirley Brooks's editorship, and later under Tom Taylor's, that he gave full rein to his passion for classic treatment, and his ornament, which gave a distinct _cachet_ to _Punch_ up to 1878, was not founded on a mere grotesque treatment of classical subjects, but was the fruit of a close study of and easy familiarity with heathen mythology, classical, Egyptian, and, in particular, Norse. The fun was not particularly broad, but Tom Taylor was especially tickled by his attempts to find amusement in the extraordinary head-dresses worn by ladies of Ancient Egypt--such as that in the cut (July 11th, 1874) learnedly inscribed "Oos Yer Atter?"

Mrs. Jopling-Rowe, then Mrs. Frank Romer, was the only new arrival in the year 1869. The death of her husband had left her under the necessity of supporting herself and her children, and as niece of Mark Lemon she might have obtained easy admittance to _Punch_, had she not found portrait-painting a more remunerative occupation. Under the initial of her name she made but four drawings of little importance, the most ambitious being an illustration of the "Song of Sixpence," which was treated as a subject from "Nursery History." It appeared on page 56 of