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About this time my old friend Frank Stone had painted two pictures in illustration of his favourite theme--love. They were called "The First Appeal" and "The Last Appeal." In the first a kind of peasant lover is beseeching his "flame" to listen to his vows. She listens, but without encouraging a hope in the swain that he will prevail. Time is supposed to pass, leaving terrible traces of suffering--apparently to the verge of consumption--in the young man, who, on finding the girl at a well, makes his last, almost dying, appeal. He seizes her hand; but she turns away, deaf to his passionate beseeching.
In the Leech drawing the composition of Stone's picture is exactly preserved; but in place of the lady we have Sir Robert Inglis, who turns away in horror from a young gentleman of a very marked Jewish type indeed.
It remains for me to note some of the instances in which Leech's powers were brought to bear upon the social questions of the time--questions admitting of a humorous or a pathetic treatment, apart from those of a merely political character.
The neglect of our troops during the Crimean campaign afforded the artist many humorous and tragic subjects. The Government was accused, rightly or wrongly, of many sins of omission and commission; amongst the rest, of not providing the army with clothing suitable to the terrible winter which it was sure to have to pass in front of Sebastopol. And one of Leech's most telling drawings represents two ragged soldiers shivering in the snow. One tells the other that news has arrived of a medal that is to be awarded. "Yes," says his comrade; "but they had much better send us a coat to put it on."
Two pictures may be noted--one by Tenniel, which is infinitely pathetic, the other by Leech, ghastly in its contrast to the humorous side of the author's powers. The first represents a fashionable lady, whose magnificent ball-dress has just been fitted upon her by the dressmaker, who says:
The sufferings of the workers, through which their employers so often became rich, touched the tender heart of Leech, and he never lost an opportunity of pointing out the selfish tyranny of both the men and women traders who almost ground the life out of their unhappy assistants.
It was, of course, open to any member to suggest a subject, and in the early Leech days it is said that the discussions on a proposed theme waxed fast and furious, Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold generally taking opposite sides. The dinners were usually held in the front room of the first-floor of No. 11, Bouverie Street--the business-place of the proprietors of the paper--and the Bedford Hotel, Covent Garden, was sometimes honoured by the presence of the staff. During the summer months the dinners took place at Greenwich, Richmond, or Blackwall; and once a year there was a more comprehensive banquet, at which compositors, readers, printers, clerks, etc., assisted. This dinner was called the "Way-goose." I am speaking of long ago. Whether these details would apply to the present time I know not.
"There," said the girl, as she placed the big glass before Jerrold, "there's your grog, and mind you don't fall into it."
Jerrold was a very little man, and the hit told to the extent of dulling him for the rest of the evening.
"What shall the cartoon be?"
In the inevitable difference of opinion that arose on the occasion of these dinners--the chief disputants being, as I have just observed, Thackeray and Jerrold--Jerrold, being the oldest as well as the noisiest, generally came off victorious. In these rows it is said to have required all the suavity of Mark Lemon to calm the storm, his award always being final. Jerrold used to say:
"It's no use our quarrelling, for we must meet again and shake hands next Wednesday."
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