Mr. Burnand once confided the following facts and circ.u.mstances for publication:--

"The astute proprietor of 'Fun,' in which I had achieved some success, observed that 'Mokeanna' wouldn't do. I am not sure but that he was right; but if he had been a literary editor he would have seen the idea in a rough copy, and would have suggested improvement. This good he did me, however--I read it to a friend, who thought some of it good and most of it the contrary, and so, in a temper, I burnt the entire ma.n.u.script, and, being quite sure of the humour of the idea, commenced rewriting it. Then I communicated with Mark Lemon; he jumped at the idea--determined to say nothing to anybody, except those who had to ill.u.s.trate it, and the first number of 'Mokeanna' appeared on February 21st, 1863, with an ill.u.s.tration by Sir John Gilbert, burlesquing his own style, whilst the page in _Punch_ was, in arrangement, a facsimile of the 'London Journal.' The proprietors rushed down to the office, terrified with the thought that, by accident, the 'London Journal' had been sewn up with _Punch_, and it took a lot of explanation in Mark Lemon's best manner to make them see the joke in its right light. The success of the experiment was immediate. Thackeray was supposed to have perpetrated the burlesque imitation, but Thackeray knew nothing whatever about it, though, as I have since learnt, he was greatly tickled by it and, subsequently, was personally most kind to the 'New Boy,' as he called me, on the _Punch_ Staff."

The illusion was complete, and the fun most apt and full of spirit. The various artists ("Phiz," Charles Keene, Mr. du Maurier, and Sir John Millais) each drew a picture for it, in every case burlesquing his own style and trotting out his peculiarities. The public laughed heartily--first, at itself for having been deceived by the verisimilitude to the "London Journal," and then at the work upon its merits; and "Mokeanna, or the White Witness" became the talk of the hour, and one of the good things of _Punch_. Charles d.i.c.kens was among those who most admired the execution of the _jeu d'esprit_, and he displayed considerable interest in the writer.

In due time Mr. Burnand was called to the Table. "My first appearance,"

he tells me, "was at the Inn at Dulwich where _Punch_ sometimes dined in the summer in those days. Thackeray drove there, and left early. He had come on purpose to be present on this occasion, and before quitting the room he paused, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the "New Boy!"' I felt, and probably looked, very hot and uncomfortably proud; and then he shook me warmly by the hand."

Mr. Burnand's next success--a phenomenal success, too, on which his reputation as a humorist will stand unshaken--was "Happy Thoughts." For popularity and for immediate advantage to the paper this clever series, with its exquisite fooling and keen appreciation of humour, was second only to the "Caudle Curtain Lectures," and among the greatest hits that _Punch_ has ever made. It has since been admirably translated into French by M. Aurelien de Courson under the t.i.tle of "Fridoline!"--"happy thought!" being, however, somewhat inadequately rendered "ingenieuse pensee!" Then followed his imitations of popular writers--including "Strapmore," by "Weeder," and "One-and-three," by "Fictor Nogo"--"Happy Thought Hall," with ill.u.s.trations by himself, "More Happy Thoughts,"

"Out of Town," and many others, which are still to be found on the bookstalls. His, too, was the song "His 'Art was true to Poll," which achieved so great a success when Mrs. John Wood introduced it into "My Milliner's Bill" many years after it first appeared in _Punch_.

And in addition to the ma.s.s of work he has contributed to _Punch_, there are "The Incompleat Angler," "The New History of Sandford and Merton,"

"The Real Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," more than a hundred burlesques--beginning with his exceedingly popular perversion of Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan"--and a number of comedies and adaptations: a total rivalling, and in some cases surpa.s.sing, the industry of the most hard-working of his predecessors in _Punch's_ editorial chair.

Moreover, he has been a lecturer with "realistic notions," as he proved on the occasion when he was giving a public reading dealing with a yachting cruise, and, as he stood behind his reading-desk, stooped and rose with a regular maritime motion, relieved by an occasional roll, until the more susceptible among his audience began seriously to ask themselves if they were good enough sailors to sit out the reading to its ground-swell, breezy end.

In August, 1880, after the death of Tom Taylor, Mr. Burnand, who had been acting-editor in his last illness, was called upon to take up the task of restoring to _Punch_ its ancient reputation for liveliness and fun, and with a dinner to every contributor, outside as well as Staff, the proprietors inaugurated the new era. Mr. Burnand at once made great changes among the outside contributors, and introduced new blood upon the Staff. For himself, he showed his chief strength as a punster of extraordinary ability; probably no one before him ever tied so many and such elaborate knots in his mother-tongue as he. "Mr. Burnand's puns are generally good, and sometimes very good," said a critic in the "Spectator;" "but they are really too plentiful.... When it comes to be a question of a volume of four hundred pages, with an average of ten puns to a page, the reader is likely to suffer from an indigestion ...

a cake that is all plums is likely to lie rather heavily on the person who eats it." But he was constrained to admit artistic merit in the humour of such pa.s.sages as this: "There was a dead pause in the room.

How long it had been there it was impossible to say, for it was only at this minute that the three became aware of it. And the Bishop sniffed uncomfortably, as though there was something wrong with the drainage."

But there was something of greater import brought in by Mr. Burnand's editorship than the literary tone. It was tolerance, political and religious, and wider sympathy than had lately been the case. The heavy political partisanship of Tom Taylor gave way to the more beneficent neutrality of Mr. Burnand--a personal neutrality, at least, even though Whig proclivities still coloured the cartoons to a certain, yet not unreasonable degree. And a larger religious tolerance and warmer magnanimity developed in _Punch_, such as comes chiefly from quarters where oppression has been known.

So he who has been called "the Commandant of the Household Brigade of British Mirth" has marched gaily along in _Punch's_ service for more than thirty years. Prodigal of his jokes, he sometimes makes the best of them outside the pages of his paper. Thus in November, 1893, he wrote to the press in contradiction of the statement made by a police-court prisoner named Burnand, that he was the brother of the editor of _Punch_: "I beg to say that I have no brother, and never had any brother. I have two half-brothers (this man is neither of them), but two half-brothers don't make one whole brother." And people chuckled as the little joke was copied from one paper to another all over the English-speaking world, and applauded the excellent quaintness of _Punch's_ Aristophanes. So, when a fict.i.tious dinner of the _Punch_ Staff at Lord Rothschild's was reported in the press, Mr. Burnand briefly dismissed the matter with the remark that the only dish was--_canard_.

Again, in the autumn of 1894, when he fell ill, alarming reports were spread. One of his colleagues on the Staff received a request for a column obituary notice of the dying man from the editor of a leading daily newspaper. But Mr. Burnand was much better, and was greatly cheered on learning the particulars. "Really," he said, "that's more than I expected. A column! Why, that's what they gave to Nelson and the Duke of York!"

Mr. J. Priestman Atkinson's literary achievements in _Punch_ are spoken of in the chapter where "Dumb Crambo's" pictorial contributions are treated. From August, 1877, to October, 1880, they are frequent, and consist for the most part of fanciful verse accompanied by cuts from the same hand. There is a charming prose story, however, in the Pocket-Book for 1879, seasonably ent.i.tled "The Invention of Roast Goose." But with Mr. Burnand's editorship Mr. Atkinson's energies were exclusively concentrated on humorous sketches and "Dumb Crambo" eccentricities.

In 1864 Mr. John Hollingshead--"Practical John"--was dramatic critic of the "Daily News." His notices attracted the attention of Shirley Brooks, with the result that he was invited to contribute to _Punch_. But it was in 1881 that he was taken on the salaried outside Staff, writing for the paper for several years, chiefly on the subject of social reform. He is the inventor, to whom Londoners should be grateful, of "Mud-Salad Market" and the "Duke of Mudford;" and the "Gates of Gloomsbury," "The Seldom-at-Home Secretary," and "The Top of the Gaymarket," are also his.

It was with his pen that _Punch_ attacked so l.u.s.tily our licensing system--or want of system; and from him, too, came the burlesque "Schopenhauer Ballads," and other contributions, which, many of them, have been reprinted in "Footlights," "Plain English," and "Niagara Spray."

In the same year came Mr. R. F. Sketchley, late Librarian of the Dyce and Forster collection in the South Kensington Museum, who was destined to become one of _Punch's_ Staff officers. "I find," he writes, "that I became a contributor to _Punch_ in 1864. At the beginning of 1868 I was honoured with an invitation from Mark Lemon to join the Table. I served also under his successors--Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, and Burnand; and finally retired of my own accord in 1880. I have seen it stated that in an illness of Shirley Brooks I did some of the 'Essence of Parliament.'

If I had been called on to take up the pen of that most brilliant man of letters, I should have been in despair. All I did was to turn the Queen's Speech on the opening of Parliament into verse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: R. F. SKETCHLEY.

(_From a Photograph by Hills and Saunders, Oxford._)]

"I was never a prominent member of the Staff, but I am, and always shall be, proud of having been connected with _Punch_. I wrote both prose and verse--more of the former than the latter--and my contributions ranged in extent from a column down to a single line. My subjects were generally 'topical,' sometimes 'imaginary,' and the verse included a good many parodies." Mr. Sketchley, it should be observed, is one of the few members of the inside Staff--at least, within the last forty years--who have ever resigned their appointments, Richard Doyle, Mr.

Henry Silver, and Mr. Harry Furniss being the others. His strong point was prose parody, the best, perhaps, being the quaint quasi-Gulliverian sketch called "A Fortnight in Sparsandria," which he contributed to _Punch's_ Pocket-Book. Sober in judgment and wise in counsel, he was greatly missed when his genial companionship was lost to _Punch's_ Knights of the Round Table.

Pa.s.sing over Mr. W. S. Gilbert's connection with the paper--which is described in the section devoted to artistic contributors--we find another humorist, equally distinguished, who identified himself with the paper the same year, Charles F. Browne, better known as "Artemus Ward."

He had arrived in England early in the year, and soon after his arrival he was invited by Mark Lemon to contribute. Ward was at that time in failing health, and, according to his secretary and manager Mr.

Kingston, two or three of the papers produced in accordance with the understanding that was entered into were written with painful effort--the reason, no doubt, why so little of his usually rollicking humour is to be found in them. Nowadays many Americans profess to regard _Punch_ with a sort of scornful amus.e.m.e.nt, and "Life," with an a.s.sumption of lofty disdain, is for ever sneering at it as a survival of the unfittest; and the same line is taken in England by New Journalists and Newer Critics. Not that the New American Journalist was unknown in Ward's day. He had already declared that "Shakespeare wrote good plase, but he wouldn't have succeeded as the Washington correspondent of a New York daily paper. He lacked the reckisit fancy and imagination." Anyhow, he did not live so near to the _fin de siecle_; nor was he ashamed to own that for years it had been his pet ambition to write for the "London Charivari." Unhappily, its realisation came too late to permit him to do justice to his talent and his humour; and he himself was only too conscious of his sad shortcoming, or, rather, of his failing powers.

Only eight papers had come from his hand when it closed in death. In September the first of his papers was published--"Personal Recollections;" the last in November--"A Visit to the British Museum;"

they are garrulous and discursive, and a good deal of the humour they contain was repeated from earlier works. That they should have contained any at all, under the circ.u.mstances, is the wonder; indeed, one is irresistibly reminded by them of his own humorous reference to one of the burlesque "pictures" ill.u.s.trative of his "Lecture." "It is by the Old Masters," he said, in his quaint, sad way; "it is the last thing they did before dying. They did this, and then they died."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ARTEMUS WARD."

(_From a Photograph by S. A. Walker._)]

It is, indeed, curious how many of _Punch's_ most valued contributors were working for the paper up to within a few hours, a few minutes, of being called away--Jerrold, Thomas Hood, C. H. Bennett, John Leech, Shirley Brooks, and Artemus Ward; and many a time have the public laughed aloud at jokes and pictures wrought when the hand was stiffening in death, when the brain that had imagined them had already ceased to think.

[Ill.u.s.tration: H. SAVILE CLARKE (_From a Photograph by the Woodburytype Company._)]

H. Savile Clarke, previously a "Fun" contributor, and a disciple of James Hannay, made his _Punch_ debut with a set of verses in August, 1867; but he did not follow them up, except in a very small way, until Mr. Burnand's editorship, in 1880, encouraged him to write regularly.

This he soon began to do, his main work being Society verse, mostly bearing on medical and scientific subjects, for he was brought up as a doctor. "Songs of the Sciences," "Lyrics in a Library" (verse on books), verse on the minor picture exhibitions, clever trifles like the "Carmen Culinarium" (December, 1891), and the important and strikingly able and successful parody, "Modern Life in London, or Tom and Jerry Back Again,"

ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Priestman Atkinson--these formed the staple of his _Punch_ work. But he was not enthusiastic about writing for the paper, as the chance of gaining reputation by unsigned contributions was very small. "I feel strongly," he wrote to me years ago, "as many writers do on the paper, as to the inequality of authors and artists. It keeps very good men off it."

"Berkeley Square, 5 p.m." was a poem of five stanzas that formed Frederick Locker-Lampson's sole contribution to _Punch_; it was published at the same time as Savile Clarke's maiden effort (August, 1867), and was ill.u.s.trated by Mr. du Maurier. It was Locker-Lampson, it may here be mentioned, who sent in C. S. Calverley's ewe-lamb--a charade--to _Punch's_ pages.

On the 25th of July, 1868, a lady-contributor made her debut in _Punch's_ pages. This was Miss M. Betham-Edwards, who was already well known as the auth.o.r.ess of "A Winter with the Swallows," and whose travel "Through Spain to the Sahara," dealing with much the same scene, was then expected from the press. In the earlier part of the year a friend had shown to Mark Lemon a clever skit by the young lady, and the Editor forthwith commissioned her to write a series of papers to be called "Mrs. Punch's Letters to her Daughter"--a sort of belated sequel to Jerrold's "Punch's Letters to his Son." These letters, which ran through six numbers--the last in November 7th of the same year--are contributions of the worldly-wise order, cynical, satirical, and shrewd.

Two years later Mark Lemon died, and Miss Betham-Edwards dropped out of the outside Staff position which she was by courtesy supposed to occupy.

Certain contributions she sent in were returned; she took the hint, and the connection was severed.

It was about this time that Mr. du Maurier wrote his admirable "Vers Nonsensiques," and proved the literary talent which he afterwards displayed in so striking a manner in his lecture on "Social Satire" and in his novels. But, as has already been pointed out in several other cases, he is not by any means alone in having used both pen and pencil in the paper. Thackeray is the princ.i.p.al example of the twin-talent; but others, in very various degrees, are Cuthbert Bede, Watts Phillips, Thomas Hood (a single cut, and a wonderful one, too), Richard Doyle (a single contribution), John MacGregor, with Sir John Tenniel, and Messrs.

Alfred Thompson, Ashby-Sterry, W. S. Gilbert, W. Ralston (one literary effort), J. Priestman Atkinson, J. H. Roberts (one poem), Harry Furniss (a dramatic criticism), and Arthur A. Sykes. As a rule, however, artist and author has kept strictly within his own field, although a bold experiment of a curious kind was once proposed. On that occasion the literary Staff had been complaining, with malicious frankness, that the drawings in a certain issue--(it is not necessary to particularise)--were not up to the mark. They were at once challenged by the artists, who declared that they would strike--that _they_ would do the text, and allow the literary men to do the pictures. The idea was seized upon; the result, they thought, would be screamingly funny. But the Editor would not hear of it; he imagined, not without reason, that the public, who would be called upon (but would probably decline) to pay, would not see the point of the joke. Years after a similar discussion arose; and those who heard it are not likely to forget the mock-philosophic-gastronomic blank verse composed by Mr. Sambourne on the spur of the moment just to ill.u.s.trate how very easy clever verse-writing really is.

Whilst _Punch_ has been greatly indebted for much of its humour to Scotsmen, several Irishmen also have contributed not a little to its success. Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves is one of these, although it is long since he wrote for the paper. "I contributed to _Punch_" he says, "during Shirley Brooks's editorship. Tom Taylor was then secretary to the Local Government Board, and I was private secretary to the Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Home Office, Mr. Winterbotham.

Meeting on business, we struck up a friendly acquaintance, and, _Punch_ being then a close borough, Taylor smuggled in verses and jokes of mine for a while, till he thought I had established a claim to introduction to Shirley Brooks. My work only went on from 1871 to 1874, as I became so engaged on literary work of a severer kind, and educational work as an Inspector of Schools, that I had not time for _Punch_; and when I cared to return to it Taylor had gone, and the present Editor was surrounded by fresh men, so I have not resumed my connection with it."

Mr. Graves--the author of the popular "Father O'Flynn," perhaps the best of all his Irish songs--wrote for _Punch_ "The Tea-Table Tragedy," "The Ballad of the Babes in the Wood," and those admirable "Lines of Farewell to the Irish Humorist, Baron Dowse, on leaving the House of Commons"--

"d.i.c.k Dowse, d.i.c.k Dowse, Is it lavin' the House?"

Then there is "On St. Patrick's Day falling on a Sunday," and in _Punch's_ Pocket-Book the lines on "A Frog," and "A Cauliflower"--a parody of "The green, immortal Shamrock." But another merit in Mr.

Graves was his coaching of Charles Keene on the subject of his Irish jokes, for which the former was greatly responsible in the years of his _Punch_ connection.

Nursery jingles newly adapted and applied to the morals and manners of the day are always a favourite vehicle of satire with the public, and have been freely used by professional humorists. _Punch_ offers many instances of happy examples of the work. The first of a long series of "Nursery Rhymes for the Times" was begun by Mr. Charles Smith Cheltnam on January 9th, 1875, as well as in the Almanac of the same year. The writer forthwith became a busy contributor. About fifty of these rhymes appeared in _Punch_ in quick succession, and there were many other pieces besides. "The Infallible Truth," a comment in verse on the pa.s.sage at arms which was then (November 13th, 1875) taking place between Lord Redesdale and Dr. Manning on the subject of infallibility, showed that _Punch's_ "papal aggression" was still rankling in his bosom. Mr. Cheltnam remained a contributor until the death of Tom Taylor, when he transferred his pen to the service of "Fun."

On April 1st, 1872, the Rev. F. D. Maurice died, and _Punch_ contained a set of verses to his memory, in which the beauty and the strength of his character were set forth with deep sympathy, and not without power or poetical thought. They were from the hand of the Rev. Stainton Moses, of Exeter College, Oxford, for seventeen years an a.s.sistant master at the University College School. He was the editor of the leading London organ of Spiritualism. The more ribald of his pupils and acquaintance declared that his spiritualism was of another sort; but there is no doubt that he was very popular with all men, and exercised great influence among the faithful.

Eighteen years after the death of Gilbert Abbott a Beckett, his son, Arthur W. a Beckett, restored the family name to _Punch's_ Staff. He had been nominated to the War Office by Lord Palmerston, but he soon found that he could walk in no other path but that which his father had trodden. Like him, he became an editor at twenty, by a.s.suming for a s.p.a.ce the direction, relinquished by Mr. F. C. Burnand, of an evening paper called the "Glow-Worm"--whose light, after Mr. a Beckett left it, steadily refused to burn with the requisite effulgence. Mark Lemon was then approached; but he would have nothing to say to--or, rather, nothing to do with--the sons of his old friend, who thereupon sought elsewhere the encouragement they had hoped for in _Punch's_ show. Mr.

Arthur a Beckett started a satirico-humorous paper of great ability and promise, the staff including himself and his brother, Matt Morgan, Frederick Clay, and Frank Marshall, with Messrs. Alfred Thompson, Austin, T. G. Bowles, and T. H. Escott--most of them Civil Servants. But in the full tide of its success its financial foundations were weakened by one in the managerial department, and the whole thing came to the ground. After a few years of an active journalistic career he was invited by Tom Taylor, who had succeeded to the command, to contribute to _Punch_. A curious success attended his opening chapters. His first paper on a "Public Office" (p. 226, Vol. LXVI.), as well as the twelve following--that is to say, his contributions to thirteen consecutive numbers--were all of them quoted in the "Times," though whether or not through Taylor's intermediary did not appear. After the fourth number Mr. a Beckett was put on the salaried Staff, and in August, 1875, was invited to join the Table. Since Mr. Burnand's promotion to the editorship Mr. a Beckett has acted as his _loc.u.m tenens_, just as Shirley Brooks did to Lemon, and Percival Leigh to Brooks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARTHUR a BECKETT.

(_From a Photograph by A. Ba.s.sano, Limited._)]

Being called to the Bar in 1881, Mr. a Beckett was enabled to revive the humours of his father's "Mr. Briefless," by the filial creation of the happily-named "A. BRIEFLESS, Junior." The "Papers from Pump Handle Court" from this self-sufficient, inflated, and utterly hopeless Junior, have been a feature in _Punch_ for years past, and by them the author has--so says an expert--"charmingly illuminated the legal profession by his queer fancy." One of the best papers in the collection is an account of a visit to the studio of a well-known firm of West-End photographers in the character of a legal celebrity, which is wittily called "A Matter in Camera." Up to December, 1894, he had contributed to a thousand and eighty consecutive numbers, his work including many "series," besides the usual topical subject-articles.

Mortimer Collins became an occasional, and by no means a prolific, contributor of verse from the year 1874. The sonnet in _Punch_ on p.

237, Vol. XI. (December, 1846), has been ascribed to him, but there is no ground for the statement (he would then have been only nineteen years of age), nor did he contribute otherwise than from 1874 to 1876. His light lyric touch may be traced in many a poem. In "Where shall we go?"

(p. 105, Vol. LXIX., September 11th, 1875) his dainty pen is to be recognised; as in "Lady Psyche's Garden Party," and various other verses of similar style and pleasant flavour. The attack on Mr. Whalley and "Crede Byron" (July 20th, 1875) are his, and the verses on the Burnham Beeches, and, in September, "Causidicus ad Canem." The charming "Sonnets for the s.e.x" (June 17th, 1876) and, on July 8th, the humorous prose in praise of goose-quill and sealing-wax, ent.i.tled "Mr. Oldfangle's Opinion," were full of pleasing turns of thought--little presaging the writer's death three weeks later. When he died, _Punch_ contained an obituary notice of the writer (p. 57, Vol. LXXI., August 12th, 1876), in which it is said, "He wrote the 'Secret of Long Life,' to teach men to live a century, and himself died at forty-nine." He was in this respect a curious echo of Thomas Walker, who wrote his "Art of Attaining High Health" in his paper "The Original," and did not survive the completion of his task; and the prototype of the Duke of Marlborough, who died while engaged on an essay on the "Art of Living" for the "Nineteenth Century." Had he lived, he would certainly have been promoted to the Staff; and the fact that his funeral was officially attended by Tom Taylor, Percival Leigh, and Mr. Arthur a Beckett, on behalf of _Punch_, is testimony of the respect in which his co-operation was held.

The literary post on _Punch_ which corresponds with that of Chief Cartoonist has for years past been occupied by Mr. Edwin J. Milliken.

The position is an onerous one, and carries great responsibility with it. He who fills it is at once "the _Punch_ Poet" _par excellence_ and the big drum, so to speak, of the political orchestra. For many years Mr. Milliken has written the letterpress explanatory of the Cartoon, either in verse or prose, as well as the preface to each succeeding volume. To his pen, too, we have owed during the same period those verses which it has been the graceful practice of _Punch_ to devote to the memory of distinguished men. Remarkable for their tact, dignity, and good-sense--instinct with lofty thought and deep feeling--these poems are often masterpieces of their kind, models of taste and generous sympathy. In particular, those published upon the deaths of Lord Beaconsfield, John Bright, and Lord Tennyson, may be remembered as worthy of the men they were designed to honour, as well as for the felicity with which they set down what was in the heart of the nation, and the eloquence with which its sentiment was expressed.

On January 2nd, 1875, there appeared in _Punch_ some lines ent.i.tled "A Voice from Venus," the planet's transit having at that time just occurred. They were Mr. Milliken's first contribution--a bow drawn at a venture--for he was entirely unknown to anyone connected with the paper.

Tom Taylor asked for a guarantee of the originality of the verses--in itself a flattering distrust--and, receiving the necessary a.s.surance, printed them forthwith. From that time forward the young writer contributed with regularity, and for two years was put severely through his paces by the Editor, who, in order to "try his hand," as he said, gave him every sort of work to do. Then came a personal interview of a gratulatory nature, in which Taylor promised to invite Mr. Milliken to the Table as soon as a vacancy occurred. At the end of the second year of probation this promise was fulfilled, and early in 1877 "E. J. M."

cut his initials on the board.