CHARLES KEENE, R. F. SKETCHLEY, F. C. BURNAND, SHIRLEY BROOKS, TOM TAYLOR, HORACE MAYHEW, PERCIVAL LEIGH G. DU MAURIER, JOHN TENNIEL]

Tom merely looks in 'to hear what you fellows say about the Reform Bill,' which Dizzy introduced on Monday. So we begin discussing politics even with the venison. 'Ponny' Mayhew condemns the Bill: does nothing for the working man, he says. Tom thinks that people look to _Punch_ for guidance, and that we ought to be plain-speaking, and take a decided course. 'Professor' Leigh and Mark agree in thinking that we rather should stand by awhile, and see how the stream runs. All seem of opinion that Walpole acted as a man of honour in resigning, not being rich enough to make money of no matter to him.

'Seria mista jocis' being Mr. Punch's motto (though it never has been sanctioned by the Heralds' College), Shirley, apropos of money, asks, 'Why is Lord Overstone like copper?' 'Because he is a Lloyd with tin.'

Whereat Thackeray laughs heartily.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARTHUR a BECKETT'S INITIALS.]

Odd that there should now be three old Carthusians in Mr. Punch's Council of Ten. Thackeray observes this to the other two of them [J. L.

and H. S.], and proceeds to say, 'I went to Charterhouse the other day.

Hadn't seen School come out since I left. Saw a touching scene there--a little fellow with his hands held tenderly behind him, and a tear or two still trickling down his rosy cheek, and two little cronies with their arms around his neck; and I well knew what had happened, and how they'd take him away _privily_, and make him show his cuts!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: E. J. MILLIKEN'S INITIALS.]

'Talking of cuts, Mark, how about the Large one?' Thackeray suggests Lawyer, Doctor, and Schoolmaster, standing in a row as prize boys, and Dizzy presenting them with votes. I propose Diz trying to launch a lop-sided 'Reform' ship, with the t.i.tle 'Will it Swim?' Mark suggests D.

joining hands of artisan and yeoman, giving each of them a vote.

Thackeray thinks of workman coming among gentlemen of Parliament and asking, 'What have you done for _me_?' Professor Leigh considers situation might be shown by Bright and Dizzy poking up the British Lion, for clearly he wants rousing. 'Yes,' says Shirley, 'and when he's roused, you know, we can have another picture of him with his tail and monkey up.' Idea gradually takes shape, and is approved,[8] though Tenniel hardly likes it, and Leech wants to know if Ponny (Mayhew) would not prefer a good old-fashioned tragic cartoon of the virtuous and starving British Workman, with ragged wife and children, and Death a ghastly apparition in the background.

This leads to a little spar between Ponny and 'Pater' Evans. Ponny lets fly with great vigour: '_Punch_ is standing still now; used to take the lead, but no longer dares to do so. _Avancons!_' waving hand excitedly.

Pater calmly answers that the times are altered, and that _Punch_ is going with them. Strong words have done their work, and there's no longer need of them. n.o.body now talks about the trampled working man, nor goes trumpeting abroad the dignity of labour. Then Ponny shifts his ground, and complains that many clever fellows who are workers with the pen are now hardly earning more than many workers with the pickaxe.

'Well, it's their own fault,' says Pater; 'they might easily earn more if they were not so idle.' Penny replies they don't want luxuries, being men of simple tastes, and anything but Sybarites. 'So am I,' cries Leech; 'my tastes are very simple. Give me a good day's hunting, and some good claret after it--nothing can be simpler, and I'm really quite contented.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: GILBERT a BECKETT'S INITIALS.]

But Ponny harks back to his 'deuced clever fellows,' applauding one of them especially, a Bohemian friend of his, who, he says politely, is far cleverer a fellow than any at the _Punch_ Table. 'But what has he done?'

asks Leech. 'Tell you what he doesn't do,' says Shirley; 'he may write a lot, but he certainly doesn't wash much.' Somebody wonders, if he were proposed for White's Club, whether members would blackball him: and Shirley quotes Charles Lamb's remark, 'What splendid hands he'd hold, if only dirt were trumps!' Then Ponny shouts indignantly, 'There, never mind his hands: think what a clever head he has.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARRY FURNISS'S INITIALS.]

Here Professor gives a little lecture on phrenology, impelled thereto by Penny's capital allusion. Talking like a book, as his frequent manner is, he expounds in fluent phrase his deeply-rooted faith in this neglected science. To give idea of its importance, he vows he wouldn't keep a housemaid who had a bad head. 'No more would I,' says Shirley; 'I'd send her to the doctor.' 'I mean, a head ill-shapen,' explains Professor blandly, being 'the mildest-mannered man that ever cut a throat'--in argument. 'A well-proportioned head betokens a fine brain: whereas a skull that is cramped contains probably a mean one.' Avows belief not so much in the localisation of organs as in their general development. Here Leech, who hates street music, professes horror at the possible development of organs, and wishes they were localised where n.o.body could hear them. Paying no heed to this flippancy, Professor explains gravely that peculiar formations incline to special acts, and that the development of certain cranial organs--vulgarly termed 'b.u.mps'--may be lessened or augmented in the course of early schooling.

'Well, I do believe in "b.u.mps,"' says Shirley, speaking with solemnity, 'yes, even in schoolboys' heads--if you knock them well together.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: H. W. LUCY'S INITIALS.]

Mark next has an innings, and tells some of his stage stories. He tells them very funnily, and imitates Macready and many other actors in their vocal mannerisms. And he mimics operatic singers capitally, with sonorous words in mock Italian ba.s.so recitative. Among his tales is one of a half-tipsy actor playing in the 'Corsican Brothers' and explaining their fraternal peculiarity--'My brother in Paris is now feeling--hic--precishly shame senshations--hic--as myshelf!' Also tells of his once bringing out a farce called 'Punch' at the Strand Theatre, wherein a parrot played a prominent part. One night a new parrot took its place, and used most dreadful language when the curtain rose.

Story-telling being now the order of the evening, Silver tells of the gun trick being tried in the Far West. One day, just as the conjuror had caught the bullet in his teeth, another whizzed close to his head, and a voice came from the gallery, 'Guess, I nearly had you then, old hoss!'

At the next performance a placard was displayed, and gentlemen were begged to leave their rifles with the doorkeeper. Shirley enjoys this, and says, 'Now, don't cry "_connu_" Ponny! You're always crying "_connu_" when anyone says anything. And you're always cracking up your chums. If a world was wanted anywhere, you'd say your brother had discovered one and had better be consulted.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANSTEY GUTHRIE'S INITIALS.]

Ponny then breaks out again with his bilingual vehemence and Parisian gestures. (Some people never can talk French without trying to shrug shoulders.) Brandishing his dessert-knife, he shouts, 'Avancons, mes amis! go ahead, my boys! En avant! Excusez-moi,' and scatters sc.r.a.ps of French about, till Leech cries, 'There, don't talk like a lady's-maid, Ponny; why can't you speak English?' And, to change the talk, he tells of a French sport'man taking his first fences here, with rather a fresh horse which has been lent him. After coming a couple of bad 'croppers,'

which he conceives to be the usual style of leaping here in England, he says a little sadly, 'My friend, I t'ank you for your 'orse, bot I t'ink dat I s'all jomp no more at present.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: E. T. REED'S INITIALS.]

Somebody caps this with tale of a 'Mossoo' who manifests deep sorrow at the death of an old hare, slain by an English visitor. 'Helas! il est mort enfin! Mon pauvre vieux! I have shot at him for years! He was all the game I had!'

And Leech tells another story of a foreigner of distinction hunting in the Midlands, and hearing the cry 'Stole away!' and shouting out excitedly, 'Aha, stole a vay, has he, de old t'ief! Den I suppose we s'all not find a vay to him, and so we must go home!' ... Which we do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: R. C. LEHMANN'S INITIALS.]

Thus, for half a century has Wednesday evening been pa.s.sed in the editorial office of _Punch_, just when its readers are discussing the merits of the previous week's issue; and according to the verdict of those readers was attuned the merriment of the Staff. It is on record how Douglas Jerrold would go radiant to the Dinners as "Mrs. Caudle" was sending up _Punch's_ circulation at a rapid rate; "and was one of the happiest among them all." Thackeray, too, first tasted the delights of wide popularity in the success of his "Sn.o.b Papers," and he showed the pleasure he felt in his demeanour at the board. At one time these two men sat side by side, and there was as little love as s.p.a.ce between them; but with the good-humoured philosophy which is a tradition of that inst.i.tution, the occasional differences of opinion, and the harder knocks of wit, and sometimes, even, the still sharper encounters of temper, were all glossed over. As Thackeray so truly remarked himself--"What is the use of quarrelling with a man if you have to meet him every Wednesday at dinner?" Nevertheless, in course of time he changed his seat from between Jerrold and Gilbert Abbott a Beckett, and, crossing over, faced his friend the enemy, while Mark Lemon, watchful and alert beneath the cloak of geniality, was quick to cast a damping word on inflammable conversation and--so far as he could persuade them to listen to a man so greatly their inferior in genius and intellect--to stem the threatened outburst. As a matter of fact, Jerrold always regarded Thackeray as a bit of a sn.o.b and viewed his entrance into Society--against which Jerrold had for years been hurling his bitterest darts--with very grave suspicion. "I have known Thackeray," he would say, "for eighteen years, and I don't know him yet"--almost in the despairing words in which I have heard a distinguished Academician speak of his still more distinguished President. On the other hand, Mr. Arthur a Beckett has declared to me, "I never knew my brother so well as when I met him at the _Punch_ Table."

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE'S INITIALS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHIL MAY'S INITIALS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMMENCEMENT OF C. H. BENNETT'S MONOGRAM.]

In the earliest weeks of _Punch's_ existence Kenny Meadows had been the Nestor of the least; but when Jerrold joined the Staff three months later, he took by force of character and wit, and power of lung, a leading position on the paper and at the Table--a position which he never resigned. Notwithstanding his biting sallies, we may be sure that it was not Jerrold's primary object to make his victims wince. There is no doubt that the "little wine" that so stimulated him to witty and brilliant conversation full of flash and repartee, sometimes turned sour upon his lips, and changed the kindness that was in his heart into a semblance of gall. Mr. Sidney Cooper has gravely set it on record how on leaving the _Punch_ Dinner Jerrold would tie a label with his name and address upon it round his neck, so that, should he in his homeward course be tempted to stray into the path of undue conviviality, he might sooner or later be safely delivered at his destination. Although the statement is in a measure confirmed in the memoirs of Hodder and of Blanchard Jerrold himself, one cannot help being struck at the conflict between it and the story of Jerrold's reply to the drunken young sparks who met him in the street at midnight, and asked him the way to the entertainment known as "Judge and Jury"--"Straight on, straight on as you are going, young gentlemen--you can't miss them!" He was himself greatly pleased with his milder witticisms, and, it is said, chuckled complacently at the neatness of his conceit when toasting Mr. Punch, at one of the Wednesday Dinners, in which he declared that "he would never require spirit while he had such good Lemon-aid." He loved the paper as few others loved it, and very, very rarely missed the weekly gathering--attending it, indeed, up to within a week or so of his death.

Not less scrupulous in his attendance was Gilbert Abbott a Beckett, who, when residing at holiday-times at Boulogne, would regularly come up to town for their Cabinet Council; and if ill-chance unavoidably prevented his wished-for presence, he would write--after the custom adopted by many of his colleagues--a full explanation and apology. But the necessity very seldom arose. True son of his father, Gilbert a Beckett was equally faithful to the Table, and in spite of the paralysis of the legs from which he suffered (and for which he was for a time duly chaffed by the advice of Percival Leigh, lest there might be hysteria about the disease) he attended the Wednesday gatherings with what regularity he could up to within a fortnight before he died. Thackeray, too, for many years after he ceased writing for _Punch_ would weekly join the Staff, and always received a cordial and affectionate welcome.

The gentle Leech--who, according to Shirley Brooks, attended the Dinner for more than twenty years without uttering an unkind or an angry word--was at the Table within a few days of his death, but, in Brooks's words, "scarcely seemed to understand what was going on." And yet another member of the Old Guard, who stood by his post to the end, was "The Professor," Percival Leigh, whose sense of wit was dulled with age, but whose mind was otherwise as bright as ever. But at the Dinners the genial, courteous old gentleman was listened to, as ever, with deference by his younger collaborators, and from them he never had cause for suspicion that his powers were failing--

"Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he."

Another of _Punch's_ favourite sons was Charles H. Bennett. His life was a hard yet happy one, and his career was short, though not too short for fame; and the last two years during which he sat at the Table were perhaps the merriest of them all. But his attendances, really owing to the illness which ultimately bore him down, were irregular. This irregularity, combined with his habit--then commoner even than now among artists--of wearing his hair very long, brought him one day a letter from his friends and fellow-diners in the following terms:--

"Punch" Council, October 24th, 1866.

Present:--LEMON W. H. BRADBURY EVANS G. DU MAURIER HORACE MAYHEW EVANS FILS TOM TAYLOR S. BROOKS LEIGH TENNIEL

"Resolved"--

That this meeting deeply sympathises with C. H. Bennett on the state of his hair.

That this meeting appreciates the feeling which detains the said Bennett from the Council until his hair shall have been cut.

That this meeting deplores the impecuniosity which prevents the said Bennett from attending a Barber.

That this meeting, anxious to receive the said Bennett to its bosom, once more organises a subscription to enable him to attend the said Barber.

That this company, having (limited) confidence in Mr.

Mark Lemon, entrusts him with the following subscriptions in aid of the above object, and requests him to communicate with the aforesaid Bennett to the end that he may have his dam hair cut and rejoin the a.s.sembly of the brethren.

s. d.

(Signed) MARK LEMON 0 0 1 FREDERICK EVANS 0 0 1 PERCIVAL LEIGH 0 0 1 HORACE MAYHEW 0 0 1 TOM TAYLOR 0 0 1 W. H. BRADBURY 0 0 1 GEORGE DU MAURIER 0 0 1 F. M. EVANS 0 0 1 SHIRLEY BROOKS 0 0 1 J. TENNIEL 0 0 1 -------- Stamps enclosed 0 0 10 ========

And these ten penny stamps, together with the letter, are to this day treasured by the artist's son.

It was not surprising that Bennett was missed; his animal spirits and his bright good-humour counted for a good deal at the Table; and when he died, his colleagues organised elaborate theatricals and collected a large sum for those whom he loved and left behind in the pinch of poverty.

If for some time before his death Charles Keene deserted the dinner-table, it was owing, as he has himself confessed, in no slight measure to political motives which developed about the time of the Russo-Turkish War. Keene was what Tories call a patriot and Liberals a "Jingo;" and in his quiet way he felt so deeply that he thought it best to stay away--not that he loved _Punch_ less, but he loved his convictions more. "I am sorry to say," he wrote, with doubtful accuracy, "_Punch_ is 'Musco' to a man except C. K., so he keeps away from that Liberal lot at the present conjunction." There certainly was, however, another reason, quite independent of politics, which kept Keene from the Table during the latter years of Mr. W. H. Bradbury's life. He was not, as his biographer, Mr. Layard, has pointed out, of much use in suggestion at the business function of the Dinner, and he looked less to his colleagues than to his friends outside for the jokes to which he drew his pictures; so that his presence was not a necessity.

Nevertheless, he would attend, now and again, until age began to tell upon him; and his companions love to think of him, clutching his short-stemmed pipe to his mouth, puffing gravely, saying little, thinking much, quick at appreciating a joke, slow at making one, with an eye full of humour, and its lid and corresponding corner of his mouth quickly responsive to any quip or crank that might let fly. Eclectic in his humour as in his art, disposed to condemn any cartoon suggestion not thoroughly thought out as "d.a.m.n bad," he was in the weekly a.s.sembly at the Table like the 'cello in the orchestra--not much heard, yet when there indispensable to the general effect and the general completeness, even though he only went "for company."