Volume 153 — A Centenary.
Reading edition
JOHN LEECH.
Born August 29th, 1817.
I.—TO OUR GREATEST CONTRIBUTOR.
JOHN LEECH, a hundred years ago, When you were born and after, There shone a sort of kindly glow Of airy fun and laughter; It was a sound that seemed to sing, A universal humming That made the echoing rafters ring And so proclaimed your coming. It was not noted at the time: I was not there to note it, But now I set it down in rhyme That other men may quote it And still maintain the thing is true, Defying Wisdom's strictures, And lose all doubt by looking through A book of LEECH'S pictures. You drew our English country-folk As many others saw them— The simple life, the simple joke, But only you could draw them; The warp and woof of country joys In green and pleasant places; The mischievous and merry boys, The girls with shining faces. The Squires, the Centaurs of the chase And all the chase's patrons, Each in his own, his ordered place; The comfortable matrons— These were your stuff, and these your skill Consigned to future ages, And caught and set them down at will In Mr. Punch's pages. Besides, you bound us to your praise With many strong indentures By limning Mr. Briggs, his ways And countless misadventures. For these and many a hundred more, Far as our voice can reach, Sir, We send it out from shore to shore, And bless your name, JOHN LEECH, Sir. R.C.L.
II.—HISTORIAN AND PROPHET.
A hundred years ago to the very day was JOHN LEECH born. Mr. Punch came into the world on July 17th, 1841, and was thus twenty-four years younger. But in spite of any disparity in age the two great men were made for each other. JOHN LEECH without Mr. Punch would still have spread delight, for did he not illustrate those Handley Cross novels which his friend THACKERAY said he would rather have written than any of his own books? But to think of Mr. Punch without JOHN LEECH is, as the Irishman said, unthinkable. From the third volume, when LEECH got really into his stride, until his lamented early death in 1864, LEECH'S genius was at the service of his young friend: his quick perceptive kindly eyes ever vigilant for humorous incident, his ears alert for humorous sayings, and his hand translating all into pictorial drama and by a sure and benign instinct seizing always upon the happiest moment.
His three monumental volumes called Pictures of Life and Character constitute a truer history of the English people in the middle of the last century than any author could have composed: history made gay with laughter, but history none the less. And this leaves out of account altogether the artist's work as a cartoonist, where he often exceeded the duty of the historian, and not only recorded the course of events but actually influenced it.
To influence the course of events was however far from being this simple gentleman's ambition. What he chiefly wished was to enable others to share his own enjoyment in the fun and foibles of a world in which it is better to be cheerful than sad, and, in the process of passing on his amusement, to earn a sufficient livelihood to enable him to pay his way and now and then be free to follow the hounds.
All these praises he would probably wish unsaid, so modest and unassuming was he. Let us therefore stop and merely draw attention to the two pages of his drawings which follow, each of which shows JOHN LEECH in the light of a prophet.