The History of "Punch" Part 3

Just before this lucky stroke, another not less fortunate as a _succes d'estime_, if nothing more, was "_Punch's_ Valentines"--at that time considered a most remarkable production; for there were no fewer than twelve half-page engravings within its full-page borders--a generous amount that puzzled the public far more than ten times as much and as good would do to-day. Kenny Meadows, "Phiz,"[6] Leech, Crowquill, Henning, and Newman, contributed each two "valentines," which were addressed to various sorts and conditions of people, accompanied by verses of considerable humour and more than average merit. Thus, to the lawyer--whom "Phiz" has represented as a mixture, in equal parts, of Squeers, Bra.s.s, and Quilp--the lines begin in a manner not unworthy of Hood himself:--

"Lend me your ears, thou man of law, While I my declaration draw, Your heart in fee surrender; As plaintiff I my suit prefer, 'Twould be uncivil to demur, Then let your plea be--tender."

The invocation which follows, to a gorgeous footman, by some love-smitten serving-maid, ends--

"But now fare thee well!--with your ultimate breath, When you answer the door to the knocking of Death, On your conscience, believe me, 'twill terribly dwell, If now you refuse to attend to the _belle_!"

In August, 1850, in the extra number called "_Punch's_ Holidays," that was done for the outskirts of London which eight years before had been done for the watering-places. It was ill.u.s.trated by Leech and Doyle, and, it may be added, the Hampton Court section was written by Thackeray. Then when the great Shakespeare Tercentenary was being celebrated, with singularly little _eclat_ so far as the Shakespeare Committee itself was concerned, _Punch_ produced his "Tercentenary Number." It was in all respects admirable, and Tenniel's double-page cartoon was a striking success--as might have been expected from a Staff so remarkably well versed in Shakespeare. In that cartoon the poet's triumphal car, drawn by twin Pegasi and driven by Mr. Punch, is followed by a motley procession, in which Mark Lemon, in the character of John Bull, appears adapted as Prospero (one of the best of the many portraits of the editor that have appeared in the paper), while a typically malignant organ-grinder is Caliban, and all the leading statesmen and sovereigns are represented in Shakespearian character appropriate to the circ.u.mstances; the "Standard" and "Morning Herald," two of _Punch's_ pet aversions and journalistic b.u.t.ts, bringing up the rear as the Witches in "Macbeth," Mesdames Gamp and Harris. The ill.u.s.trators of this exceptionally happy number were--besides Sir John Tenniel--Charles Keene, Mr. du Maurier, and Mr. Fairfield.

Then came the unwieldy "Records of the Great Exhibition, extracted from _Punch_" on October 4th, 1851. _Punch_ had made a dead-set against the exhibition in Hyde Park (until his friend Paxton was appointed its architect, subsequently earning 20,000 by the work), and, according to Mr. Justin McCarthy, "was hardly ever weary of making fun of it ... and nothing short of complete success could save it from falling under a mountain of ridicule. The Prince did not despair, however, and the project went on." And when it was a _fait accompli_, _Punch_, good man of business that he was, at once put it to the best possible advantage, by issuing his enormous "extra" of nine previously-published cartoons by Tenniel and Leech, and many other cuts besides--the whole, in point of its double-folio size, more suitable for street display than library reading. The price was sixpence, and with all the special matter it contained it was one of the cheapest productions ever issued from that office.

With the special Paris Exhibition number, produced in celebration of the Exhibition of 1889, the list of extra numbers issued by _Punch_ for general circulation comes to a close. Nearly the whole of the Staff, including the proprietors, travelled to Paris together--how luxuriously, Mr. Furniss's drawing of their dining-saloon gives a good notion; it contains (with Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Lucy) portraits of all who were present. Charles Keene had stayed at home; he felt unequal to the jaunt, and was, in fact, sickening for the mortal illness which soon had him in its grip. The "Paris Sketches" in the number that bear his signature were--like the "war correspondence from the front" concocted in Fleet Street--quietly drawn at home down at Chelsea. One thing primarily the number showed: that _Punch's_ national prejudices have mellowed with time, and that a Frenchman may be accepted as a cultivated gentleman and a genial companion--a very different being to him whom Leech habitually drew as a flabby-faced refugee in Leicester Square, "with _estaminet_ clearly written across his features," while Thackeray applauded the conception in his most righteous hatred and contempt for all things vile.

Two other special means has _Punch_ adopted with the view of pleasing his const.i.tuents and confounding his enemies, exclusive of the mock Mulready envelope known as the "Anti-Graham Envelope" and the "Wafers,"

which are elsewhere referred to. The first of these was the music occasionally printed in his pages from the hand of his own particular maestro, Tully, the well-known member of the _Punch_ Club, whose musical setting of "The Queen's Speech, as it is to be sung by the Lord Chancellor," appeared in 1843; the polka, at the time when that dance was a novel and a national craze, dedicated to the well-known dancing-master, Baron Nathan; "_Punch's_ Mazurka," in Vol. VIII. (1845); and one or two other pieces besides. The other was a coloured picture representing a "plate"--a satire on the poor and inartistic "coloured plates" then being issued by S. C. Hall's "Art Union." It was a clever lithographic copy of an ordinary "willow pattern" plate; a homely piece of crockery, broken and riveted, beneath which is inscribed: "To the Subscribers to the Art Union this beautiful plate (from the original in the possession of the Artist) is presented, as the finest specimen of British Art, by _Punch_." It was designed by Horace Mayhew; but the edition was extremely limited--not a hundred copies, it is understood--on account of the expense, which it was thought was not justified by the excellence or the likely popularity of the joke.

Such have been some of _Punch's_ efforts outside the usual routine, and the result has been the continual popularisation of the paper. Volume after volume, too, in various forms, has been republished, culminating in the "Victorian Era," "Pictures from _Punch_," and "Sir John Tenniel's Cartoons;" and each one has but served to attract the favourable notice of the public to the ordinary issue. So _Punch_ has developed his power and his resources. To him one might almost apply what a Welshman said of his friend: "I knew him when he wa.s.s a ferry poor man--quite a poor man walking about in the village; and now he drives in his carriage and twice!"

FOOTNOTES:

[5] When the purchase was completed, a curious making-up of accounts proceeded between the parties as to the wood-blocks which were to accompany the paper. These accounts, referring to the t.i.tles of the engravings, read curiously enough. Here is a specimen:--

No. 22. 12 10 6 Deduct Collared Beef 4 6 --- --- 12 6 0

No. 25.

Brown's wrapper (_i.e._ Frontispiece drawn by "Phiz"--Hablot K. Browne) 15 12 6 12 12 0 Deduct 2 7 0 --- --- 13 5 6 No. 32.

_Deduct._ s. d. _Add._ s. d.

Bald Head 0 8 0 Concert-piece 0 5 0 Great Sale in Beer 0 4 0 Collared Beef 0 4 6 Highwayman 0 5 0 All round my hat 0 10 0 Leg of Mutton 0 5 0 Tall Lady 0 8 0 Turning over a Page 0 3 0 Adder-up 0 5 0 14 18 0 Betrayed 0 5 0 Letter P 0 15 0 --- --- 2 7 0

These cuts were for the most part drawn by Brine, Hine, and Newman.

[6] It is a curious fact that the biographer of Hablot K. Browne is altogether silent on his _Punch_ work, although it lasted with intervals over a quarter of a century. The particulars of this work are referred to further on, when _Punch's_ artists are pa.s.sed in review.

CHAPTER III.

"Here let us sport, Boys, as we sit; Laughter and wit Flas.h.i.+ng so free.

Life is but short-- When we are gone, Let them sing on, Round the old tree."

_--Thackeray's "Mahogany Tree."_

THE _PUNCH_ DINNER AND THE _PUNCH_ CLUB.

Origin and Antiquity of the Meal--Place of Celebration--The "Crown"--In Bouverie Street and Elsewhere--The Dining-Hall--The Table--And Plans--Jokes and Amenities--Jerrold and his "Bark"--A Night at the Dinner--From Mr. Henry Silver's Diary--Loyalty and Perseverance of Diners--Charles H. Bennett and the _Jeu d'esprit_--Keene Holds Aloof--Business--Evolution of the Cartoon--Honours Divided--Guests--Special Dinners, "Jubilee,"

"Thackeray," "Burnand," and "Tenniel"--Dinners to _Punch_--The _Punch_ Club--Exit Albert Smith--High Spirits--"The Whistling Oyster"--Baylis as a Prophet--"Two Pins Club."

Among the Parliaments of Wits and the Conclaves of Humorists the weekly convention known as "the _Punch_ Dinner" holds highest rank, if importance is to be judged by results and pre-eminence by renown. For three-and-fifty years have these ill.u.s.trious functions been held, fifty to the year. And those two thousand six hundred and fifty meals mark off, week by week, the progress of English humour during the Victorian era--not the humour of literature alone, but the humour, as well as the technical excellence, of one of the n.o.blest and most vigorous and delightful of all the sections of English art.

This solemn festivity, therefore, has a solid claim to being included among the scenes of English artist-life. If it be conceded, as I think it must, that _Punch_ has been for half a century an effective, even a glorious, school of art--of drawing in black-and-white and of wood-cutting alike--it follows that the weekly repast which has helped to bring these things about claims attention and respect among the Diets of the world, and demands a first place in virtue of public service and by right of artistic performance.

But it is not in the spirit nor with the fas.h.i.+onable view of the Royal Academicians and their imposing banquet that the members of the _Punch_ staff hold their weekly junket. "We English," said Douglas Jerrold, "would dine to celebrate the engulfing of England." Yet if "the Punchites" share the feeling of old Timon that "we must dine together,"

it is neither for purposes of self-congratulation, nor yet of hospitality. Though good-fellows.h.i.+p is near the genesis of the inst.i.tution, work and serious aim are at the root of it all, and in the midst of all the merry-making are never for a moment forgotten.

Nevertheless, conviviality, you may be sure, counted for something in the arrangement when Queen Victoria's reign was young. Clubs there were not a few about Fleet Street and the Strand, where the men who founded _Punch_, and their friends and enemies alike in similar walks of life, would hob-n.o.b together, and where the sharp concussions of their diamond-cut-diamond wit would emit the sparks and flashes that were remembered and straightway converted into "copy." In those early days the flow of soul was closely regulated by the flow of liquor, and the most modest of Dinners was food at once to body and to mind. "What things," wrote Beaumont in his Letter to Ben Jonson--

"What things have we seen Done at the 'Mermaid'! Heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtile flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life."

As in Elizabethan times, so in the days of Victoria. The _Punch_ Dinners of the last few decades would, in their excellence and refinement, have astonished the merry crew of old; but the entertainment is now but the prelude to business, and not, as in the earlier struggling months, the powder that served to fire off the great guns of humour. The weekly Dinner was evolved from the gatherings that were held nearly every evening, as well as Sat.u.r.day-nightly, in the anxious days that preceded--and immediately succeeded, too--the laboured birth of _Punch_. The first of these--the very first "_Punch_ Dinner," strictly so-called--was held at "La Belle Sauvage," Ludgate Hill, on the spot now occupied by the publis.h.i.+ng firm of Ca.s.sell and Company. Hine was one of those present at this historic feast, having been already impressed by Landells into the service of the paper. I may add, as a matter of minor history, that Mr. Price, the owner of the hostelry, advertised his house in the early numbers of _Punch_: a fact which suggests (perhaps unjustly) a mysterious financial understanding on the score of his bill--especially as Mr. Price was a brother-in-law of Bradbury the First. These tavern repasts were soon divided up between those who wished to work and those who wished to play; and the _Punch_ Dinner and the "_Punch_ Club" were in due course established as separate inst.i.tutions. For all that, the meetings of both were held in the "Crown Inn" in Vinegar Yard, just off Drury Lane, and the "Club" was not long after (1843) celebrated in the pages of _Punch_ itself by the "Professor," Percival Leigh, in his choicest dog-Latin--his most elegant _latin de cuisine_--or, as he himself called it, "Anglo-Graeco-Canino-Latinum." The lines, a parody of Goldsmith's "Retaliation," begin thus:--

"Sunt quidam jolly dogs, Sat.u.r.day qui nocte frequentant Antiqui [Greek: Stefanon] qui stat prope moenia Druri, [Greek: Boulomenoi] c.u.m prog distendere rather, Indulgere jocis, necnon Baccho atque tobacco..."

--lines which, with a few of the succeeding ones, I may render thus, the spirit and the text being followed as closely as may be:--

"Some jolly dogs on Sat.u.r.days at fall of night are fain To haunt the 'Crown' beside old Drury, hard by Drury Lane; Their object, to expand themselves with dainties of the feed And give the hour to jest and wine, and smoke the fragrant weed.

Such fellows, sure, ne'er graced before that jovial mundane hole.

To them I sing this song of praise--those mighty men of soul, Whose fame henceforth shall spread abroad, so long as time shall roll.

"The 'Crown' stands in a quiet yard, yet near the noisy street; 'Tis their local habitation--in its dining-room they meet.

The ma.s.sive table, brightly spread, groans with the mighty feast.

The viands change. To-day 'tis beef with Yorks.h.i.+re pudding dressed; Next week perchance the dish that Hodge will grinningly define As 'leg o' mutton, boiled, with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.' Heartily they dine.

Here flows the Double X, and flows the Barclay-Perkins brew; Nor is there lack of modern sack that best is known to you When waiters call it 'off-n-off'--which waiters mostly do."

Here it was that the wits of pen and pencil first laid their heads together in the service of Mr. Punch; and when they left for more private, if not more venerable, quarters, the room was occupied, first, by comrades of the same order of wit--among whom Augustus Mayhew, James Hannay, Watts Phillips, and others started a short-lived comic broad-sheet called "The Journal for Laughter;" and then by "The Reunion Club"--a coterie which, in 1857, was to become far more widely known under the style and t.i.tle of the "Savage Club." It was situated next door to the "Whistling Oyster," and faced a side entrance to Drury Lane Theatre--a fairly large first-floor room, looking larger by reason of its low ceiling, but well lighted by its three high windows. When I visited it in 1893, the wooden staircase had been replaced by a steep stone-way; but the approach and the ascent were still steep enough to make one wonder how the portly Lemon could, without difficulty or fear of accident, scale the cla.s.sic heights, and twist his body to the needful turns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ FIRST DINING-ROOM, "CROWN INN," VINEGAR YARD.]

Although, as I have said, conviviality and convenience were essentially identified with the _Punch_ Dinner, especially in its embryonic stage, when frequent interviews were necessary and the daily occupations of many of the Staff precluded an earlier attendance, it was quickly seen that the chief practical use and effect of the Dinner was to broaden the men's view of things, to produce harmony of tone and singleness of aim, to keep the Editor constantly in touch with his whole Staff, and through them with the public; and thus to secure the fullest advantage which their combined wit and counsel could afford. When the transfer of the paper was completed from Ebenezer Landells to the house of Bradbury and Evans, the regular Dinners were soon established at No. 11, Bouverie Street, E.C., now given over to the Posts and Telegraphs. The second floor was considered not too undignified for the purpose; but the descent to the first was made in good time, Mark Lemon taking the vacated room for his editorial office; and when in 1867 a general removal was effected to No. 10, the present dining-room--or Banqueting-Hall, as it was finely called--was specially constructed for its high purpose. At first these repasts were held on Sat.u.r.day night, when the paper was made up and sent away to press. But when the true value of the meetings became apparent, the day was changed to Wednesday.

The Dinner was established ostensibly for the discussion and determining of the "big cut," and the function became as exclusive and esoteric as a Masonic initiation. From that day to this it has, with few exceptions, been held _januis clausis_; and beside it the Literary Ladies' Dinner and Bluebeard's Chamber are as open to the world and free from mystery as the public streets at noon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ PRESENT DINING-HALL IN BOUVERIE STREET, WHITEFRIARS.]

The room in which it was held, so long the Temple of the Comic Muse, had little in itself to command the attention of the superficial observer.

The stairs which Thackeray trod, and which resounded to the quick light step of Jerrold and to the heavier tread of Leech, exist no longer; but the cla.s.sic shrine is practically as it was when the "Fat Contributor,"

pus.h.i.+ng roughly past the young 'prentice engraver who opened the door to his ring, gave no thought to him who was soon to make the name of Birket Foster famous in the land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARK LEMON'S MONOGRAM, CUT ON THE _PUNCH_ TABLE.]

To-day a large--one might say an imposing--apartment on the first floor looking upon the street is approached, as most front offices in London City are approached, from a landing leading through an open office. Upon the table are a water-jug and a couple of goblets of cheap and distinctly unlovely Bohemian gla.s.s. A tobacco-box, hardly less ugly (coeval, one would say, with the room itself), a snuff-box, and long pipes serve to recall that respect for the past and for tradition which is one of the most delightful, as it is one of the most successful, elements in _Punch's_ composition. Here you may see Sir John Tenniel's long churchwarden, with his initials marked upon it, and Charles Keene's little pipe--for these two men would ever prefer a stem between their teeth to a cigar-stump. Statuettes in plaster of John Leech and of Thackeray, by Sir Edgar Boehm, as well as a bust of Douglas Jerrold, decorate the mantelpiece or the dwarf-cupboard; and on the walls are many frames of abiding interest.