Punch (101.1891)

July 18, 1891.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

i

jvu^. ptJ^eji'g jtJbilee jWjvebei

MY Reminiscences! " said Mr. Punch, replying to a question pieces, pictorial puns, and
put by his Interviewer, Anno Domini Eighteen-^ inety- : sketchy silhouettes, wherewith
One; "They are already before the World, in exactly One Hundred j Punch's early pages abounded
Volumes ! My first ' dumber' bore date ' for the week ending
July 17th, 1841. My memory is indeed stored with recollections,
pleasant, picturesque, pathetic, of the teeming past, memories of my
joyous ' Table,' of my well-beloved 'Young Men,' of Great Names, of
Genial Comrades, of Bright Wits, of WarmHearts, of Famous Artists,
of Clever Writers, who—in the words of the greatest of them all—

' Perched round the stem
Of the jolly old tree.'

" How well the words of the wise wit written in 1847 express our
thoughts to-day, Mr. Anno Domini :—

Evenings we knew
Happy as this;
Faces we miss
Pleasant to see.
Kind hearts and true,
Gentle and just,
Peace to their dust!
We sing round the tree

' Here let us sport
Boys, as we sit,
Laughter and wit
Flashing so free.
Life is but short —
When we are gone,
Let them sing on
Found the old tree.

It is one of my proudest memories to recollect that Thackeray's
' Mahogany Tree,' was my Table."

"To have been Amphitryon to such guests must have been the
most pleasant privilege of hospitality," said Anno Domini.

"Very true," responded Mr. Punch, "And of all my Deputy-
Amphitryons—if I may use the term—who more fully, fitly, justly,
and genially filled the post than the earliest of them all, the kindly
and judicious Mark Lemon? Had not he and clever Henry
Mayhew, and Mr. Printer Last, and Ebenezer Landells, my
earliest engraver, foregathered first with me in furtherance of the
'new work of wit and whim,' embellished with cuts and caricatures,
to be called :—

PUNCH; OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI?

" Lemon, and Last, and Mayhew, were they here to-day, would
probably agree to divide between them the early honours, as they
shared the early responsibility. But doubtless Mark Lemon was
the literary shaper of the ' Guffawgraph,' as he jocularly called it in
his ' Prospectus,' and, from the first, its guiding spirit. Happily so,
for his was a spirit fitted to rule, both by power, and tact, and taste.
With ' Uncle Mark ' in the chair, I knew there wTould be neither
austere autocracy, nor faineant laxity, neither weakness of stroke
nor foulness of blow, neither B.osa-Matilda-ish mawkishness, nor
Rabelaisian coarseness.

" How well I remember my first group of ' Young Men,' " pursued
Mr. Punch, musingly. "There was swift and scathing Douglas
•Jerrold, with his tossed and tangled mane of grey hair. Gilbert
Abbott aBeckett, too, the whimsically witty, the drolly satirical,
the comicallv caustic. Henry Mayhew, of course, and, a little later,
his brother Horace, the simple, lovable ' Ponny.' Henning, New-
man and Brine, were my earliest Artists. Henning drew the first
Cartoon, whilst Newman and Brine, and, later, Hine, between
them, were responsible for most of the smaller cuts, head-and-tail-

In the fourth Number of
Punch, published on August
7th, 1841, first appeared the
soon-to-be-famous signature
of ' John Leech.' "

"Ah! John Leech," cried
the attentive Anno Domini.
"A name to conjure with!
How did that ' Star swim into
your ken ' ? "

" There was a certain clever,
scholarly, and genial gentle-
man," responded Mr. Punch,
'' who had lately published,
under the pseudonym of ' Paul
Prendergast,' an extremely
funny Comic Latin Grammar.

Prendergast' was, in
reality, Mr. Perctyal Leigh,
originally a medical .a-cntleman,
the well-beloved ' Professor' of
later Punch days. The Comic
Latin Grammar had been
admirably illustrated by a per-
sonal friend,and fellow-student,
of Leigh's named Leech. The
services of both of the contribu-
tors to the Comic LatinGram-
mar were soon enlisted in my
interests.

" Another of Leech's medi-
cal student friends was Albert
Smith, and he before long was
penning his 'Physiology of
London Evening Parties' (il-
lustrated by Phk — Halbot
Knight Browne — Newm\ n,
and others) for my pages.
Kenny Meadows, Watts
Phillips, Alfred 'Crow-
quill' (Forrester), John
Gilbert, and others, drew also ^ri/j^IIZffilj^=lr^ f
for the young Journal, the ' '^j^^zjj&> ^

printing of which had been -^^^^-"T^7:-^

taken over by the Whitefriars '—->--

firm of Bradbury and Evans, with whom as proprietors and fast
friends, Punch has ever since been happily associated.

" As early as my Fourth Volume," pursued Mr. Punch," it became
obvious that, in the person of ' Our Fat Contributor,' a certain
' Michael Angelo Titmarsh' was writing and drawing for Punch.

{Continued on, Page i.)