Chapter XII: Part I: Loyal Toasts (4)

Of _Punch's_ relations with Ruskin we speak in another place. The most detailed notice of Meredith grew out of a real incident, the calling of the illustrious novelist as a witness in a libel action in the year 1891. _Punch_ professes to give a full report of his evidence, in which Judge and Counsel are overwhelmed in a deluge of Meredithyrambics. It is a perfectly friendly and by no means inexpert parody of the contortions and obscurities which induced Tennyson to declare that reading Meredith was like wading through glue. _Punch's_ friendly irreverence to his old friend of thirty years' standing prompts me to add that, throughout this period, parody was continually and increasingly employed, not like the bladder with which the Fool belabours bystanders, but as a weapon of genuine criticism. Here is a list, though not a complete list, of the authors who were subjected to this method in the period under review. Rhoda Broughton (for her emotional sentimentality) in _Gone Wrong_; Captain Hawley Smart, the sporting novelist; "Ouida"; Trollope; Disraeli, the florid magnificence and aristocratic atmosphere of whose _Endymion_ is amusingly travestied in 1880; J. C. Harris, the author of _Uncle Remus_; Rider Haggard; Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith") in "Fitzdotterel," a parody of Glenaveril; Stevenson; F. C. Philips, the author of _As in a Looking Glass_; Oscar Wilde; Barrie; Kipling; Hardy; Henley and Maeterlinck (in the style of Ollendorff).

Burnand was not a parodist of the class of Calverley or Sir Owen Seaman, Max Beerbohm or Mr. J. C. Squire; but what he lacked in literary felicity and scholarship and in that impersonation which assumes the habit of mind of the author travestied, he made up in his unfailing sense of the ludicrous, his high spirits and audacious burlesque. He confined himself mainly to prose. At the end of this period Mr. Anstey was a veritable tower of strength to the paper. His _Voces Populi_ and his burlesques of recitations and music-hall songs are masterpieces of close observation and high-spirited fun. The extravagances of the æsthetic poets engaged other pens, but the best literary parodies belong to a rather later date. There is, however, a good specimen in the "domestic threnody" on Oleo-Margarine in the manner of Swinburne, which appears in 1881, and opens impressively:--

I am she whose nameless naked name to utter
The strong are weak;
The suet-sprung soft sweet sister of bad butter,
Yet rid of reek.
I, that, molten o'er the fires beneath me burning,
From void of vat,
Uprise supremer, in this my creamless churning,
First-born of fat!

In this context I may note an original contribution to existing forms of verse in the ingenious doggerel French "Limericks" of Du Maurier, of which two specimens may suffice:--

_Il était un homme de Madère
Qui cassa le nez à son père.
On demandait "Pourquoi?"
Il répondit "Ma foi!
Vous n'avez pas connu mon père!"_

_Il existe une Espinstère à Tours,
Un peu vite, et qui porte toujours
Un ulsteur peau-de-phoque,
Un chapeau bilicoque,
Et des nîcrebocqueurs en velours._

THE PROPRIETOR: "I'll tell you what it is, Shardson, I'm getting sick of the 'ole bloomin' Show! _The Knacker_ ain't selling a Scrap--no notice took of us anywhere--not a bloomin' Advertisement! And yet there ain't 'ardly a livin' Englishman of mark, from Tennyson downwards, as we 'aven't shown up and pitched into, and dragged 'is Name in the Mud!"

THE EDITOR: "Don't let's throw up the Sponge yet, Old Man! Let's give the dead 'uns a turn--let's have a shy at Thackeray, Browning, George Eliot, or, better still, let's bespatter General Gordon and Cardinal Newman a bit--_that_ ought to fetch 'em a few, and bring us into Notice!"]

[Sidenote: _Russel and Delane_]

Turning for the moment from gay to grave, we may note that _Punch_ bestowed his benediction on the _Dictionary of National Biography_, when the first instalment of what was the greatest act of true sportsmanship in the publishing world of our times appeared in January, 1885. _Per contra_, the proposal for a British Academy in 1890 only met with irreverent suggestions from _Punch_ for the constitution of the Elective Body.

_Punch_ kept a watchful eye on the developments of journalism and periodical literature. He notes in 1876 the impending appearance of _Truth_, but his opinion of Society journals, discussed elsewhere, was not flattering. When Alexander Russel, the great editor of the _Scotsman_, died in July, 1876, _Punch_ did not fail to recognize the conspicuous services of that fearless, honest and trenchant publicist and _malleus stultorum_:--

The shadows that make up our night,
Were growing thin for him to fight,
But still he fights, we think with pride,
Our battle from the other side!

* * * * *

Long in our mêlée will be missed
The mace of Russel's mighty fist,
That struck and, wasting nought in sound,
Buried its blow without rebound.

Bagehot, equally distinguished in letters and journalism, passed unnoticed in 1877, but Delane, the third and most widely renowned of the three great editors who died in the last half of this decade, was fitly eulogized in 1879 by one who was not the only writer who had served on the staff of both _Punch_ and _The Times_:--

Rest in thy grave, that knew no resting here,
Editor without equal, strenuous soul,
Staunch friend, despising favour, scorning fear,
Far-seeing, forward, cleaving to thy goal.

He left a different scene from that he found,
And had a large part in all change he saw,
No slave, nor leader, of his time, but bound
Abreast of it to keep its glass from flaw.

The centenary of _The Times_, which occurred in 1888, is duly noted, and by way of contrast to what was then a national institution there are allusions to short-lived but now forgotten papers and periodicals, more notorious than notable. _Punch_ kept a vigilant eye on the provincial press, but he was, on the whole, more inclined to utilize it when it suited its purpose and to make humorous capital out of its shortcomings than to acknowledge its solid merits. Of _Punch's_ own domestic history it may suffice to maintain that a mountain in the Arctic regions was named after him by the expedition under Captain Nares in 1876; and that he was once more banned in Paris on account of the cartoons on Marshal MacMahon in 1878. He paid affectionate homage to Tom Taylor on his death in 1880 as a cultivated man of letters, a considerate and judicious editor, above all, a warm-hearted, upright man and a staunch and loyal friend. Henry Mayhew, who died in 1887, "comrade of _Punch_ and champion of the poor," was only associated with the paper in its earlier days and for a short period. By the death of the gentle Percival Leigh, of "Pips's Diary" fame, in 1889, the last link was snapped with the days of Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, Leech and Doyle and Thackeray.

FINE ARTS

A survey of the Fine Arts from 1874 to 1892, based on a study of _Punch_, reveals changes and even reactions in his outlook. As we have seen in an earlier volume, he had been converted in great measure to Pre-Raphaelitism; he had welcomed Whistler as a master etcher; he had been a severe and at times even savage critic of the stereotyped conventions, the opportunism, the inanities of the Royal Academy.

[Sidenote: _Punch and Æstheticism_]

Something of this spirit remains in the period under review. The annual exhibitions at Burlington House are dealt with in no reverential mood. As far back as 1877 we note the first appearance of an article with illustrations very much on the lines of the modern "Academy Depressions." The pictures exhibited in the years of his declining powers by the late Mr. J. R. Herbert, R.A., are caricatured without mercy in 1885, and the New English Art Club is welcomed in 1889 for its revolt against "the dull dead level of sleek respectability, the commonplace churchwardenism of suburban gentility." The sequel invites quotation:--

A bold, original, impudent lot are these New Englanders, but they are
notwithstanding wonderfully refreshing. Sometimes their spirits are
too much for their strength, and they come tremendous "croppers." It
has been well said that a strikingly original writer occasionally
writes absolute nonsense, and by the same rule an artist, who turns
aside from the well-swept, carefully watered, mathematically paved
academic high road, must not infrequently paint absolute nonsense; but
he thinks for himself, he does not view Nature through the spectacles
of others, and in nine cases out of ten he is likely to produce
works that will be successful in the long run. Though there are some
pictures among the collection will make the casual visitor jump, there
are not a few will make him think.

Some of the rebels of 1889 have developed into the academics of thirty years later, and _Punch's_ list of the most notable contributors makes us jump as well as think: John S. Sargent, Solomon J. Solomon, Whistler, B. Sickert, Tuke, Edward Stott, A. Roche, N. Garstin, G. Roussell, Sidney Starr, F. Brown, A. Mann, H. Vos, W. J. Laidlaw and J. E. Christie.

_Punch_, then, cannot be written down as a Philistine, but there is no denying the fact that his artistic judgment was warped and impaired by his invincible hostility to the æsthetic movement; his inability to disentangle the good in it from the evil; his confusion of charlatanry and sincerity; and his failure to recognize the great services rendered by Morris in the domain of decorative design. Prejudice and ignorance mingle with good sense and good feeling in the manifesto which _Punch_ put forth in 1882, and which may serve as a general exposition of his artistic and literary creed in the 'eighties:--

IN EARNEST

Let us be clearly understood. The word "Æstheticism" has been
perverted from its original meaning; i.e. the perception of all
that is good, pure and beautiful in Nature and in Art, and, as now
vulgarly applied, it has come in a slang sort of way to stand for
an effeminate, invertebrate, sensuous, sentimentally-Christian, but
thoroughly Pagan taste in literature and art, which delights in the
idea of the resuscitation of the Great God Pan, in Swinburnian songs
at their highest fever-pitch, in the mystic ravings of a Blake, the
affectation of a Rossetti, the _Charmides_ and revoltingly pantheistic
_Rosa Mystica_ of Oscar Wilde, the Songs of Passion and Pain and
other similar mock-hysterical imitations of the "Mighty Masters."
Victor Hugo, Ouida, Swinburne, Burne-Jones, have much to answer for.

This Æstheticism, as it has gradually come to be known, is the
reaction from Kingsley's muscular Christianity. Exaggerated muscular
Christianity, in its crusade against canting and whining religion,
in its bold attempt to show that the practice of true religion was
for men, as well as for women, trampled on the Christian Lily, emblem
of perfect purity; and what Athleticism trod under foot, Æstheticism
picked up, cherished, and then, taking the sign for the reality, paid
to it the extravagant honours of a Pagan devotion; and the worship
of the Lily was substituted for the veneration paid to the sacred
character, in whose hand Christian Art had originally placed it. To
this was added the worship of the Peacock's Feather. It is this false
Æstheticism which we have persistently attacked, and will persistently
attack to the bitter end, and henceforward those who misunderstand us
do so wilfully, and it may be maliciously.

MAY: "Mamma! Mamma! _Don't go_ on like this, _pray_!!"

MAMMA (_who has smashed a favourite pot_): "What have I got left to live for?"

MAY: "Haven't you got _me_, Mamma?"

MAMMA: "_You_, child! _You're not_ unique!! There are six of you--a complete set!!"]

[Sidenote: _Whistler and Ruskin_]

_Punch_ was justified in deploring the opportunism of Millais in painting "pot-boilers" and "pretty-pretty" pictures, such as "Bubbles." He had powerful and well-equipped allies in his view that Whistler in his later manner left off painting or etching where the difficulties began, a view expressed in the lines in 1883 on "Whistler in Venice":--

Whistler is "Niminy-Piminy,"
Funny, fantastic, and quaint.
Yet he's so clever that Jimmy nigh
Makes men believe he can paint.

What of his works? Why, each etching is
Only at present half done,
And on the copper the sketching is
Simply a wild piece of fun.

Vainly the Critics will sit on him,
Why such a butterfly slay?
No one can e'er put the bit on him--
Whistler's the wag of the day.

Yet _Punch_ thought Ruskin had gone too far in the famous onslaught which led to the historic lawsuit and verdict in 1878:--

To John Ruskin

(On a recent Verdict)

If "_Fors Clavigera_," dear Slade Professor,
Means "Force that bears a club,"
Be warned, since of a big stick you're possessor,
And more discreetly drub.
Strength unrestrained's not greater strength but lesser,
And scorn provoketh snub.

The Grosvenor Gallery, opened in 1877, at once eclipsed Burlington House as the favourite target of _Punch's_ ridicule and caricature, and as the home of all the tendencies which he repudiated in the manifesto quoted above. His general attitude is very much that of Gilbert in _Patience_; and Burne-Jones and Rossetti (whom he miscalls "D. S. Rosetti" as late as 1880) were indiscriminately confounded in dispraise along with the lesser fry. Tennyson's "Palace of Art" is perverted into a vehicle for assailing Pre-Raphaelitism. The "Dream of Queer Women" in 1878 gives prominence to the artistic type, and a visit to the Grosvenor Gallery in the early summer of the same year inspires "The Haunted Limbo; a May-night Vision" animated by the same hostility:--

Those women, ah, those women! They were white,
Blue, green, and grey--all hues, save those of nature,
Bony of frame, and dim, and dull of sight,
And parlous tall of stature.

_Ars longa est_--aye, very long indeed,
And long as Art were all these High-Art ladies,
And wan and weird; one might suppose the breed
A cross 'twixt earth and Hades.

If poor Persephone to the Dark King
Had children borne, after that rape from Enna,
Much so might they have looked, when suffering
From too much salts and senna.

Many their guises, but no various grace
Or changeful charm relieved their sombre sameness
Of form contorted, and cadaverous face,
And limp lopsided lameness.

[Sidenote: _Homage to Cruikshank_]

Leighton's "Athlete and Python" in 1877 had been saluted as "a statue at last," and _Punch_ welcomed his election as P.R.A. in the following year, with an excellent portrait by Sambourne of "the right man in the right place." It was in 1878 again that _Punch_ turned aside from the flagellation of his pet aversions to pay homage to the genius of George Cruikshank, who died on February 1:--

England is the poorer by what she can ill spare--a man of genius.
Good, kind, genial, honest and enthusiastic George Cruikshank,
whose frame appeared to have lost so little of its wiry strength
and activity, whose brain seemed as full of fire and vitality at
fourscore as at forty, has passed away quietly and painlessly after a
few days' struggle. He never worked for _Punch_, but he always worked
with him, putting his unresting brain, his skill--in some forms of
Art unrivalled--and his ever productive fancy, at the service of
humanity and progress, good works, and good will to man. His object,
like our own, was always to enforce truth and urge on improvement
by the powerful forces of fun and humour, clothed in forms sometimes
fanciful, sometimes grotesque, but never sullied by a foul thought,
and ever dignified by a wholesome purpose.

His fourscore and six years of life have been years of unintermitting
labour, that was yet, always, labour of love. There never was a purer,
simpler, more straightforward, or altogether more blameless man. His
nature had something childlike in its transparency. You saw through
him completely. There was neither wish nor effort to disguise his
self-complacency, his high appreciation of himself, his delight in the
appreciation of others, any more than there was to make himself out
better, or cleverer, or more unselfish than his neighbours.

In him England has lost one who was, in every sense, as true a man
as he was a rare and original genius, and a pioneer in the arts of
illustration.

(_With verses by Jellaby Postlethwaite, who is also said to have sat for the Picture._)]

_Punch's_ estimate accords with that of the friend who knew Cruikshank well and described him as "in every word and deed a God-fearing, Queen-honouring, truth-loving, honest man," and it is all the more significant in view of Cruikshank's vehement and even fanatical espousal of the cause of temperance. Another great illustrator, though of a very different type, emerged in the following year in Randolph Caldecott. His genial and graceful commentaries on Nursery Rhymes were entirely after _Punch's_ heart. He was speedily enlisted as an occasional contributor up to 1886, the year of his premature death, when _Punch_ faithfully summed up the gifts of a true benefactor of all ages:--

We loved the limner whose gay fun
Was ever loyal to the Graces;
Who mixed the mirth of _Gilpin's_ run
With willowy forms and winsome faces;
Who made old nursery lyrics live
With frolic force rejuvenated,
And yet the sweetest girls could give
That ever pencil-point created.

From _Bracebridge Hall_ to _Banbury Cross_
His fancy flew with fine facility.
Orchards all apple-bloom and moss,
Child sport, bucolical senility,
The field full cry, snug fireside ease,
Horse-fun, dog-joke his pencil covers,
With Alderman and hawthorn trees,
Parsons and Squires, and rustic lovers.

But in these years _Punch_ had little time to spare for praise; he was so busy belabouring Burne-Jones and Rossetti, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Kyrle Society, or new fashions in house decorations and furniture, in which he saw nothing but gloom and discomfort. The protest in 1879 of the three Slade Professors--Sidney Colvin, W. B. Richmond and Legros--against the critics who denied Burne-Jones genius and greatness on the strength of defective anatomical details, left _Punch_ impenitent. He mocked at their "triune testimonial" as an unconvincing attempt to convert the callous and captious critics who,

Persisted in belabouring B.-J. with tongue and pen
Whilst Philistia looked on and laughed at those Three Mighty Men.

[Sidenote: _Prigs and Philistines_]

(Ineffable Youth goes into ecstasies over an extremely Old Master--say, Fra Porcinello Babaragianno, A.D. 1266-1281?)

MATTER-OF-FACT PARTY: "But it's such a repulsive _subject_!"

INEFFABLE YOUTH: "'Subject' in art is of no moment! The _Picktchah_ is beautiful!"

MATTER-OF-FACT PARTY: "But you'll own the _Drawing's_ vile, and the _Colour's_ beastly!"

INEFFABLE YOUTH: "I'm Cullah-blind, and don't p'ofess to understand D'awing! The _Picktchah_ is beautiful!"

MATTER-OF-FACT PARTY (_getting warm_): "But it's all out of _Perspective_, hang it, and so abominably _untrue to Nature_!"

INEFFABLE YOUTH: "I don't care about Naytchah, and hate Perspective. The _Picktchah_ is _most_ beautiful!"

MATTER-OF-FACT PARTY (_losing all self-control_): "But, dash it all, man, where the _dickens_ is the _beauty_, then?"

INEFFABLE YOUTH (_quietly_): "In the Picktchah!"

_Total defeat of Matter-of-fact Party._]

It is true that _Punch_ makes some reservations in his "Moral":--

Critics are full of "cussedness," omniscience sometimes slips,
And even triune Oracles may chance to miss their tips.

But his sympathies undoubtedly remain with the critics, and he virtually identifies himself with Philistia in the plea of the Philistine in the following year:--

Take away all your adornments æsthetical,
Plates of blue china and bits of sage green,
Though you may call me a monster heretical,
I can't consider them fit to be seen.
Etchings and paintings I loathe and abominate,
Grimly I smile at the name of Burne-Jones,
Hating his pictures where big chins predominate--
Over lean figures with angular bones.

Buy me what grinning stage rustics call "farniture,"
Such as was used by our fathers of old;
Take away all your nonsensical garniture,
Tapestry curtains and borders of gold,
Give me the ancient and solid mahogany,
Mine be the board that will need no repairs,
Don't let me see, as I sit at my grog, any
Chippendale tables or spindle-legged chairs.

Hang up a vivid vermilion wall-paper,
Covered with roses of gorgeous hue,
Matching a varnished and beautiful hall-paper,
Looking like marble so polished and new.
Carpets should all show a floral variety,
Wreaths intermingling of yellow and red;
So, when it enters my home, will Society
Say, here's a house whence æsthetics have fled.

[Sidenote: _Belabouring Burne-Jones_]

The "Lay of the Private View" at the Grosvenor Gallery in May, 1881, forms a useful supplement to Gilbert and Sullivan's _Patience_, produced a fortnight before the verses appeared:--

The Grosvenor! the view that's called private,
Yet all the world seems to be there;
Each carriage that comes to arrive at
The door, makes the populace stare.
There's Gladstone, severe of demeanour,
It's plain that the pictures don't please;
And there, with an aspect serener,
Her Highness the Princess Louise.

The Haunt of the very æsthetic,
Here come the supremely intense,
The long-haired and hyper-poetic
Whose sound is mistaken for sense.
And many a maiden will mutter,
When Oscar looms large on her sight,
"He's quite too consummately utter,
As well as too utterly quite."

* * * * *

Here's Whistler paints Miss Alexander,
A portrait washed out as by rain;
'Twill raise Ruskin's critical dander,
To find James is at it again.
The flesh-tints of Watts are quite comic;
There's Herkomer's chaos of stones;
But where is the great anatomic
Improver on Nature, Burne-Jones?

A Grosvenor without him so strange is,
We miss the long chins and knock-knees,
The angel of bronze, who for change is
Tied up to the stiffest of trees:
Limp lads with their _belli capelli_,
Mad maidens with love smitten sore,
Oh, shade of defunct Botticelli,
Burne-Jones comes to startle no more!

I deal in another section with the fashionable cult of æstheticism, which was now at its zenith. In estimating its artistic importance, _Punch_ erred in his refusal to discriminate between eccentricity and independence. He continued to "belabour B.-J.," and brackets him with Whistler in the ribald suggestion that they were jointly responsible for the pictures exhibited by the "Screevers" or pavement artists. Millais is congratulated on breaking away from Pre-Raphaelitism, and invidious comparisons are drawn in 1886 between his pictures and those of Holman Hunt:--

There couldn't be a better foil to the manliness of the Millais Show
at the Grosvenor than the pseudo-mediæval-O-quite-too-beautiful-namby
-pamby-gilt-edged-and-gothic-clasped-Church-service style of the
effeminate religious Art of Mr. Holman Hunt. Millais tried it, and,
after a struggle, snapped the Pre-Raphaelite fetters, and escaped.

Yet in the next two years Millais is criticized for sacrificing character to "prettiness" and desecrating his talent by placing it at the disposal of the advertiser. Watts's enigmatic "Hope" was "guyed" in 1887 under the title "Cutting off her head with a saw." The multifarious activities of Herkomer--painter, etcher, director of a school of art at Bushey, designer of posters, operatic composer, etc.--did not escape _Punch's_ amused notice. _Punch_ himself, as might readily be expected, did not enjoy an immunity from art criticism. In 1883 he had congratulated Ruskin on his second election to the Slade Professorship at Oxford; at the end of the year Ruskin repaid the compliment, in his lectures on the Art of England, by a long detailed and in the main highly eulogistic survey of _Punch's_ artistic work. But the panegyric was tempered by certain reserves:--

Says Mr. Ruskin, having before him in review one or two selected
specimens of _Mr. Punch's_ cartoons:--

"Look, too, at this characteristic type of British heroism--'John Bull
guards his pudding.' Is this the final outcome of King Arthur and
Saint George, of Britannia and the British Lion? And is it your pride
or hope or pleasure that in this sacred island that has given her lion
hearts to Eastern tombs and her Pilgrim Fathers to Western lands, that
has wrapped the sea round her as a mantle, and breathed against her
strong bosom the air of every wind, the children born to her in these
latter days should have no loftier legend to write upon their shields
than 'John Bull guards his Pudding'?"

And then Mr. Ruskin, as if conscious that the very onward sweep of
his own free fancy has carried him beyond the limits of fair and
reasonable estimate, as it were, harks somewhat back again, and
offering _Mr. Punch_ something in the nature of an apology, acquits
him of all true responsibility for this same terrible and offending
"pudding":--

"It is our fault" (proceeds Mr. Ruskin) "and not the Artist's; and I
have often wondered what Mr. Tenniel might have done for us if London
had been as Venice, or Florence, or Siena. In my first course of
Lectures I called your attention to the Picture of the Doge Mocenigo
kneeling in prayer; and it is our fault more than Mr. Tenniel's if he
is forced to represent the heads of the Government dining at Greenwich
rather than worshipping at St. Paul's."

[Sidenote: _Punch's Virtues as an Art Critic_]

_Punch_ took the criticism in good part, while declaring that he had found this commonplace nineteenth century and its humdrum materials pretty well suited to his purpose; and after indulging in a whimsical dialogue between the editor, Giovanni Tennielo, and Ruskino in Venice, comes to the conclusion that after all the Queen of the Adriatic may have had even in her great days something less noble to lose than that condemned typical "pudding" which John Bull as yet has fortunately known how to guard. In this context I may add that in 1885 _Punch_ reprinted an advertisement in which a young man, seeking for a place, stated amongst his credentials that he could "paint and talk Ruskinesque."

THE DUKE OF DILWATER: "I--a--have taken the liberty of calling to say that I shall esteem myself highly honoured if you will be so very kind as to accept from me a Commission to paint my Portrait, at any time most convenient to yourself!"

FASHIONABLE ARTIST (_after careful survey of His Grace's features_): "You must excuse me, Duke, but I really can't. I--a--always choose my own Subjects now, you know, and I'm sorry to say that your Grace won't do!"]

As I have not minimized _Punch's_ limitations as an art critic, it is only fair to add that he was often sound and sometimes even acute. He said the right thing on the _parvenu_ as art patron, and delicately hinted his approval of the independence of portrait painters. His appreciation of the strength of "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne) as the illustrator of Dickens and Lever in helping us to visualize and fix certain types is excellently done, and generous admiration does not prevent him pointing out "Phiz's" weaknesses--his sketchiness, thin and skimpy style, and simpering mannerisms. This was said on the occasion of the show of "Phiz's" drawings in 1883 (the year after his death) which _Punch_ recommended to "genial Middle-age with memories and unpriggish Youth without hyperæsthetic prejudices."

Nothing could be better in its way, again, than the castigation of the "slick" and deliberate eccentricities of Jan Van Beers in 1886. _Punch_ admits the Dutch artist's talent, his capacity for higher work, proved in historical paintings, and then sets to work to wield the lash:--

Popinjay Art is plentiful enough. It is the trick whereby mediocrity
antics itself into a sort of notoriety, and cynical cleverness
indolently plays the fool with an easily humbugged public. It is
probably calculated--perhaps with some reason--that these stagey
tricks, and limelight effects, and dismal draperies, and bogey
surprises, and peep-show horrors will perplex people into a foolish
wonder, if not into an impossible enjoyment or an honest approval.
Maybe that is all which is aimed at? But what an aim for anything
calling itself Art!

Posturing Pierrots and smirking skeletons, goggling sphinxes and
giggling cocottes, cadaverous surprises and ensanguined startlers,
all the parade of nightmare and nastiness, pall upon the mind, as
the phantasmagoric effects and sickly scents do upon the senses,
of the visitors to the Salon Parisien. Whim and fantasy are all
very delightful in their way. But this is not Wonderland, it is the
world of drunken delirium and the Witches' Sabbath. A girl with
emerald face, purple hair, and vivid vermilion lips, peeping between
amber portières, is an inoffensive though purposeless, and not very
interesting bizarrerie. But such gratuitous ghastlinesses as "Will
o' the Wisp," "_Felo de se_," "_Vive la Mort!_" and particularly
the offensively named "_Ecce Homo_," are simply revolting horrors.
Somebody has hazarded the statement that they are Edgar-Poe-ish.
Pooh! Poe was creepy sometimes, but he was an artist, an idealist,
subordinating even occasional horror to the beautiful in his daring
dreams.

PHILISTINE FATHER: "Why the dickens don't you paint something like Frith's 'Derby Day'--something everybody can understand, and somebody buy?"

YOUNG GENIUS: "_Everybody understand_, indeed! Art is for the few, Father, and the higher the art, of course, the fewer the few. The highest art of all is for _one_. That art is mine. That _one_ is--myself!"

FOND MAMMA: "There speaks my own brave boy!"]

[Sidenote: _Impartial Satire_]

As a rôle _Punch_ was a strong partisan in art; yet on occasion he could hold the balance. I have illustrated the change in his view of Whistler, but it never degenerated into abuse. The dialogue, "Wrestling with Whistler," suggested by the exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in the spring of 1892, impartially satirizes Whistlerites, frank Philistines, and the literal and prosaic persons who were puzzled and bewildered by "arrangements," "harmonies," "symphonies" and "nocturnes." These simple souls, unable to recognize the objects depicted, were not helped by the faithful who retorted, "Ah, but it's the way he saw it!" To-day, as thirty years ago, their point of view is faithfully expressed in the unconscious irony of the serious elderly lady:

I've no patience with the man. Look at Gustave Doré now. I'm sure
_he_ was a beautiful artist if you _like_. Did _he_ go and call his
"Leaving the Prætorium" a "Symphony" or a "Harmony," or any nonsense
of that kind? Of course not--and yet look at the _difference_!

It is true that the artist, like the prophet, is often "not without honour save in his own country and in his own house." The saying happily does not apply to _Punch_ and his contributors. When Richard Doyle died in 1883, more than thirty years had elapsed since he severed his connexion with the paper, but _Punch_ had never forgotten the old comrade who had designed his cover, and had been equally at home among the imps of Elfland and the swells and snobs of society:--

Turning o'er his own past pages,
_Punch_, with tearful smile, can trace
That fine talent's various stages,
Caustic satire, gentle grace,
Feats and freaks of Cockney funny--
Brown, and Jones, and Robinson;
And, huge hive of Humour's honey,
Quaint quintessence of rich fun,
Coming fresh as June-breeze briary
With old memories of our youth--
Thrice immortal Pips's Diary!
Masterpiece of Mirth and Truth!

Personally I should invert the epithet "thrice immortal" and apply it to the "Continental Tour of Brown, Jones and Robinson"; otherwise the verses are a well merited tribute to the winged fancy and graceful humour of "Dicky Doyle." Charles Keene's death in January, 1891, removed another good comrade whose association with the paper was unbroken up to his last illness, and was one of the chief if not the greatest of its artistic glories:--

Frank, loyal, unobtrusive, simple-hearted,
Loving his book, his pipe, his song, his friend,
Peaceful he lived and peacefully departed,
A gentle life-course, with a gracious end.

[Sidenote: _Ruskin on Leech_]

So much for the man; as for the artist, _Punch_ was hardly overstating the case when he claimed that the exhibition of Keene's work in the following May stood for the supreme triumph of black and white in the achievements of its greatest master.

Ruskin, in the lecture noted above, had described Leech's work as containing "the finest definition and natural history of the classes of our society, the kindest and subtlest analysis of its foibles, the tenderest flattery of its pretty and well-bred ways, with which the modesty of subservient genius ever immortalized or amused careless masters." Small wonder was it, then, that _Punch_ appealed for greater generosity to John Leech's three surviving sisters. Their combined pensions only amounted to £180--a "dole" which lent point to the dramatic dialogues in 1881 between a Minister and a Celebrity and (after the Celebrity's death) between the Minister and his Secretary, as a result of which the former decides to give the orphan daughter £50.

The cult of Japanese art in the late 'eighties furnished _Punch's_ artists with new formulas and new methods of treating Parliamentary scenes. It also inspired the following ingenious adaptation of a famous phrase:--

Madame Roland Re-Edited (from a sham Japanese point of view): O
Liberty! what strange (decorative) things are done in thy name!

_Punch_ had reproached Millais for condescending to the "pretty-pretty" style, but in 1888 he was moved to caricature the modern fear of the same tendency--a fear destined to dominate so much of modern art in later years and to enthrone the Golliwog in the nursery.

DRAMA, OPERA AND MUSIC

_Punch_ was mixed up with the drama from the very beginning. He drew his name and his initial inspiration from a puppet-show; all four editors who held the office between 1841 and 1892 were playwrights--three of them, Mark Lemon, Tom Taylor and Burnand prolific playwrights--and many of his leading contributors from Douglas Jerrold onwards owed a double allegiance to journalism and the drama. In these circumstances one can hardly expect to find in _Punch's_ copious references to plays and players an entirely judicial or dispassionate critical attitude. Yet when all deductions have been made on the score of old loyalties, partisanship and even prejudice, his record, during the period which opened with the visits of Salvini and ended with Tree's Hamlet and the tyranny of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay," shows a creditable readiness to acclaim fresh talent and to applaud a good thing irrespective of its origin. We find a certain amount of resentment against the adulation of foreigners, but his patriotism in this respect is untainted by any Chauvinism--witness his "Salvo to Salvini" in 1875:--

_Punch_ is rejoiced to see that a representative body of the London
Actors lately made express application to the great Italian Player,
now displaying his art for London's behoof, to give a morning
performance of _Othello_, at which they could be present. Salvini
answered the application with an Italian's courtesy, and an artist's
feeling with his fellows. Remembering how, when _Punch_ was young,
an illiterate English mob once howled and hooted a French company
from the stage of Drury Lane, and how, when the noblest Actor of
his generation, William Macready, published a protest against the
cowardly outrage, in which he associated his brother Actors with
himself, a large body of those Actors disclaimed such association,
and denied William Macready's right to speak for more than William
Macready--_Punch_ cannot but rejoice in the present indication of a
larger and less "parochial" spirit of appreciation.

The actors who had the good fortune to see Salvini on Monday have seen
a great artist, in the ideal sense of the word--one whose art "in
the very storm and whirlwind of his passion, can beget a temperance
that gives it smoothness"; whose voice keeps its music even in rage
or agony, and whose action can be graceful, even in its moments of
utmost vehemence; and this without forfeiture of force, or sacrifice
of truth. It is of secondary importance whether or not those who
hear Salvini understand Italian. They are sure to know the text of
_Othello_; and Salvini's look, tone, and gesture speak the universal
language.

[Sidenote: _Salvini, Ristori, Bernhardt_]

They must have marked the breadth and calmness of his style, the
self-restraint that never betrays effort, and the grandeur resulting
from this element of large effect. They will have seen how superior
to points and petty tricks and clap-traps he is from first to last;
how completely the Moor, steeped at first in the stately Oriental
calm that almost looks like languor, till love lights in his eye and
mantles in his face, or doubt begins to torture, and sense of wrong
gathers and glows to fury, and a rage, far more terrible and unsparing
than a wild beast's, works to madness in his brain.

The over-vehemence of Othello's final agony is deprecated, but _Punch_ concludes by recommending all "who wish to know the highest expression of ideal tragic acting to see this famous Italian actor."

As he had welcomed another glory of Italian art in Ristori, so he yielded to the versatile enchantments of the "divine Sarah" in her frequent visits to our shores. The following tribute dates from 1879:--

TO SARAH!

(By an exuberant Enthusiast)

Mistress of Hearts and Arts, all met in you
The Picturesque, informed by Soul of Passion!
Say, dost thou feed on milk and honey-dew,
Draining from goblets deep of classic fashion
Champagne and nectar, shandy-gaff sublime,
Dashed with a pungent smack of _eau-de-Marah_,
Aspasia, Sappho, Circé of the time?
Seductive Sarah!

"Muse"? All Mnemosyne's bright brood in one!
Compound of Psyché, Phryné, Britomarté,
Ruler of storm and calm, Euroclydon
And Zephyr! Slender Syrian Astarté!
With voice the soul of music, like that harp
Which whilom sounded in the Hall of Tara.
How dare Philistines at thy whimsies carp,
Soul-swaying Sarah!!

"_Poseuse_"? Pooh! pooh! Yet who so well _can_ pose
As thou, sweet statuesque slim sinuosity?
"Stagey"? Absurd! "The death's-head and the rose"?
Delicious! Gives the touch of tenebrosity
That lifts thee to the Lamia level. Oh!
Shame on the dolts who hint of Dulcamara,
_A propos_ of _levée_ and picture-show,
Serpentine Sarah!!!

* * * * *

O idol of the hour and of my heart!
Who calls thee crazy, half, and half-capricious?
A compound of _Lionne's_[12] and Barnum's part,
In _outrecuidance_ rather injudicious?
Ah! heed them not! Play, scribble, sculp, sing, paint,
Pose as a Plastic-Proteus, _mia cara_;
Sapphic, seraphic, quintessential, quaint,
_Sémillante_ Sarah!!!!

[Footnote 12: Presumably a reference to Louis XIV's versatile Minister of that name.]

[Sidenote: _"Pierrot à Londres"_]

(_For whose sake we've all gone wrong_)

FIRST CRITIC (_ætat. 21_): "Beats Rachel hollow in _Ong-Dromack_, hanged if she don't!"

SECOND CRITIC (_ditto_): "So _I_ think, Old man! And in _L'Etrong-jair_ she licks Mademoiselle Mars all to fits!"]

This is enthusiasm at high-water mark, though the note of irony is not absent. Admiration, appreciation, or criticism never lacking in friendliness mark the notices of other visitors from the Old or the New World--the Dutch actors from Rotterdam in 1879 whose performance in _Anne Mie_ impelled _Punch_ to rewrite Canning's dispatch:--

In matters dramatic the charms of the Dutch
Are perfect _ensemble_ and sharpness of touch;

"Seen the _Enfant Prodigue_, Mr. Softy?"

"No; waiting till they do it in _English_!"] Modjeska, "a charming and consummate actress" in 1880; the German Shakespearean actors at Drury Lane in 1881; Mary Anderson in 1883; Coquelin in 1887; and Mlle. Jane May in _L'Enfant Prodigue_, that delightful pioneer dumb-show play which prompted _Punch_ to exclaim in 1891, "Vive Pierrot à Londres!" with the Victorian _caveat_ "but not a play for children." _Punch's_ views on the transplantation of foreign products were never expressed more frankly or wisely than in his comments on the abortive attempt made by Mr. Wybrow Robertson to present selected tableaux from the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play at the Westminster Aquarium in 1879. The announcement of the withdrawal of the scheme was followed by a statement that no native of Ober-Ammergau had anything to do with it, which gave _Punch_ his cue:--

It is a comfort that one set of people come well out of the mess--the
worthy, simple and pious peasants of the Ober-Ammergau, for whom
the performance of their Passion Play is a religious solemnity, in
performance of a vow made in 1633, when their village was ravaged by
a pestilence. When the performance of Passion Plays was interdicted
in Bavaria in 1779, this one was specially excepted, as being under
the superintendence of the monks of Ettal, hard by, and, besides, in
fulfilment of a vow.

But if the institution of the play stayed the pestilence in 1633
(as these simple Ober-Ammergauers believe), its continuance may
introduce a new pestilence in 1880, should it bring on Ober-Ammergau,
as yet pure and simple, the plague of speculating Managers to tempt
the village Actors, as well as of Cook's tourists and cosmopolitan
audiences, to poison the village life with greed of gain, and take the
sanctity of simple faith from this Passion Play, so turning it--as
there is already fear it has begun to be turned--into a show which, in
becoming popular, must become profane.

The long and consistently hostile campaign which _Punch_ conducted against Ibsen and the Ibsen plays shows him in a much less favourable light and on precarious ground. It was open to him to pronounce Ibsen dreary, disagreeable and didactic; some of his plays were fair game for the parodist and the opportunity was turned to excellent account. But the long and acrimonious tirade against the Ibsenites and their "Arch or Archer-priest" in 1891 is seriously weakened by the writer's confession that his knowledge of the Ibsen plays was confined to perusal of "several of them"--that he had never seen one of them on the stage; and his challenge to the Ibsen-worshippers to test the merits of their idol by a single performance at a London theatre was rash, to say the least of it.

[Sidenote: _Actors and Society_]

Turning to native drama, one cannot avoid noticing that _Punch_, who had followed Irving's career with interest and sympathy from its modest beginnings in farce and comedy, became increasingly critical of his later ventures. He is pronounced physically unsuited to the part of Macbeth in 1875, and _Punch_ did not fail to fasten on the vulnerable points in his Romeo in 1882. In the same year Irving is especially blamed for his resort to the "benefit" performance system, and his defence is pronounced unconvincing in an article ingeniously headed, "The Doubt of the Benefit," in which Irving is described as "an admirable Comedian, an occasionally impressive Tragedian, a nervously painstaking Actor, and, generally, an indifferent Elocutionist." But _Punch_ had indulged in even more caustic criticism of the popular actor-manager in the previous year, _à propos_ of an address delivered at Edinburgh:--

Again the sickening cry is raised about the "social status of the
Actor," and this time _à propos_ of a paper read by Mr. Henry Irving,
at a Philosophical Institution known as The Music Hall in Edinburgh.
The social status of the Actor is that of a well-fed, well-clothed,
well-paid--perhaps over-paid--worker in a curious profession. If
he be amusing and intelligent, and behaves like a gentleman, he is
exceptionally favoured by what is called "Society"; as most people,
except a few fanatics, are interested in the world behind the
footlights. But every Actor is not necessarily amusing, intelligent,
and gentlemanly, and these are the people, probably, who are a
little uneasy about their status. If they are not content with their
pudding, the world is all before them. On the other hand, the more
favoured ones are a little apt to be spoiled by injudicious patronage.
"Society" is a little too ready to treat them like pet poodles.

Why on earth does Mr. Irving yearn for the companionship of Bishops?
Does he want to convert them all to Irvingism, and to come and listen
to him discoursing Shakespearean Inspirations in Unknown Tongues? Does
he require Church Patronage for the Stage, and his Theatre Stalls
filled as those of a Cathedral are with Prebends, Minor Canons and
Greater Guns of the Ecclesiastical Establishment? Is it the height
of an Actor's ambition to swell the crowd of distinguished Nobodies
at the Duchess of Mountrouge's reception, or to appear as a great
attraction of Lady Doubtful's Assemblies, and to be able to exhibit
cards of fashionable "At Homes" in the mirror which is held up to
Nature over his mantelpiece?

Elevation of the Stage forsooth! We should have thought that the Stage
had elevated Mr. Irving above all such twaddle as this.

"Act well your part, there all the honour lies."

Be satisfied with this: Live for your Art, not for that limited,
narrow, uncharitable, scandalmongering section of the great public
which calls itself "Society," and which loves to patronize Art in any
form at the least possible cost to itself.

Even harsher is the rebuke administered three weeks later to Irving for his self-laudatory speeches, and the unnecessary autobiographical reminiscences in which he contrasted his present with his past earnings, thus creating a false impression of one who was in reality the most generous of men. The petting of actors by society appealed to _Punch_ no more than the invasion of the stage by amateurs; he regarded such favouritism as ministering to their worst infirmity, vanity; and in 1884 he fell foul of Mrs. Kendal's speech at the Social Science Congress on the social position of actors, in which she reprobated self-advertisement (Satan rebuking Sin, according to her critic), but claimed a recognition which _Punch_ denounced as mere snobbishness. Of Ellen Terry, who was associated with Irving at the Lyceum from 1878, _Punch_ remained the affectionate and benevolent admirer, though he admitted that her conception of Lady Macbeth in 1889 raised a good deal of legitimate criticism. The lavish mounting of the Lyceum revivals, I may add, exercised _Punch's_ frugal mind, and reached a climax in the production of _Henry VIII_ in 1892.

Scene--_The Green-Room of the Parthenon, before rehearsal_.

HARD-WORKING BARONET: "Here's the Duke, confound him! Only been six months on the stage, and getting twenty guineas a week!"

CONSCIENTIOUS VISCOUNT: "Yes, and us only getting six after ten years of it. I hate these beastly Dukes coming and spoiling the profession!"

AMBITIOUS EARL: "Ugh! I hate all amateurs, hang 'em, taking the bread out of one's mouth!"]

[Sidenote: _Idols of the 'Eighties_]

_Punch_, as I have so often insisted, was a Londoner first and foremost, but he did not exclude the provinces from his survey. The opening of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon in 1879 was a landmark in the history of the legitimate drama, and _Punch_ did not fail to acknowledge the strenuous local labour and large local liberality which had carried to completion a worthy scheme for commemorating the most memorable work ever wrought by mortal brain. It was in the same year, again, that _Punch_ recorded with sympathy and admiration the memorial performances given at Manchester for the benefit of the widow and family of Charles Calvert, the actor-manager "who did more for the elevation and development of the higher drama, historical and imaginative, than any provincial manager on record, and than any metropolitan managers, except Macready, Charles Kean and Phelps." Phelps and Charles Mathews had both died in 1878, and Buckstone in 1879. Mrs. Langtry, who had taken to the stage, is advised to give up acting in 1882. In 1883 Mr. Anstey Guthrie's immortal _Vice Versâ_ was dramatized and produced with Mr. Charles Hawtrey as Mr. Bultitude. The evergreen veterans of to-day were already advancing in fame and popularity. Sir Johnston Forbes Robertson had appeared as Romeo in 1881. In 1884 the late Mr. Wilson Barrett, encouraged by his successes in melodrama, essayed the rôle of Hamlet. _Punch_ maliciously embodies his criticisms in a letter to Irving, then touring in America, but the general tenor of his remarks is decidedly reassuring to Irving. The long run of _Our Boys_ in 1877 was equalled and eclipsed, after an initial failure, by the prodigious popularity of _The Private Secretary_, also in 1884. Lady Bancroft died only the other day; Sir Squire is still hale and hearty. Yet it is thirty-six years ago since they resolved, while still at the zenith of their popularity and in early middle age, to quit the scenes of their many triumphs, and _Punch_, in his notice of their farewell performance, says no more than the strict truth:--

The Bancrofts have done much for the Stage; in fact, the
_mise-en-scène_ at the houses where Comedy is played, owes its
present completeness entirely to them. They, and Mr. Hare with them,
introduced the natural style of acting, thereby supplanting the
theatrical tone and gestures of the old school, which Burlesques had
done good service in laughing off our Stage for ever.

The performance at Cambridge of the _Eumenides_ by "Messrs. Æschylus and Verrall" in the same year is handled in a vein of friendly facetiousness. _Punch_ found Sir Charles Stanford's music rather more than worthy of the occasion, but thinks Æschylus and his very clever collaborator might have shown more common sense and allowance for modern feeling.

_Punch_ was less considerate in his treatment of the performance of Shelley's _Cenci_ by the Shelley Society which had been founded by "a Dr. Furnivall," the scholar and redoubtable controversialist whom _Punch_ had already attacked in connexion with the Browning Society. The performance was described by a member of the society as four hours of monotonous horror:--

"The actors and actresses in the labour of love did all that could be
done; but the play is proved to be impossible, and so let us leave it
in the hope (shared by many of my fellow-members) that before another
'sixty years' it will be possible to debate the matter calmly, but
_not_ to put '_The Cenci_' on the Stage."

_Punch_ was less hopeful. He regarded "the literary disease of which the Shelley Society may be regarded as an exemplar" as an ineradicable malady.

[Sidenote: _"L'Assommoir" in French and English_]

Sir Frank Benson's productions of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _The Taming of the Shrew_ in 1890 come in for more commendation of the scenic effects than the acting, but a favourable exception is made in favour of the late Stephen Phillips, afterwards better known as poet and dramatist. _Punch's_ notice of the late Sir Herbert Tree's Hamlet in the summer of 1892 is a good specimen of discreetly veiled disparagement. But it does not quite accord with Gilbert's famous description, "funny without being vulgar," as _Punch_ considered some of the new readings and by-play to be tasteless and grotesque. It was this production that gave rise to that "desperate saying" that to solve the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, all that was necessary was to let Tree play Hamlet and then open the two graves and see which of the mighty dead had turned.

It would be tedious to enumerate all the references to actors and plays, famous or forgotten, which crowd the pages of _Punch_ in this period; to quote them in full would be impossible. Toole was one of his favourites. Boucicault was not, and excites satirical comment for having written a letter to Disraeli in 1876, puffing his own play _The Shaughraun_. A little earlier The Great Vance--immortalized in Stevenson's _Wrong Box_--the "lion comique" of the music-halls, is rapped over the knuckles for advertising his performances as "patronized by the Prince and Princess of Wales." _Punch's_ notice of Zola's _L'Assommoir_ when he saw it in Paris in May, 1879, reflects a divided mind. He found it fascinating and intolerable. Gil-Naza's acting as Coupeau was "wonderful, fearful, admirable, awful, infernal." Yet "the moral to most of those who assisted, the other evening, at _L'Assommoir_ was, 'I say! Dash it! It's too horrible! Let's go and drink!' and the biggest drink I've had for a long time--much needed, I assure you--was after seeing _L'Assommoir_." _Punch_ doubts whether the play could ever be done in English, but it was produced at the Princess's Theatre only a few weeks later in Charles Reade's version, with Charles Warner as Coupeau. The notice in _Punch_ purports to be written by a working man, who signs himself "one as is a-thinking seriously of Taking the Pledge, but don't see his Way to it yet." He acknowledges the terrible realism of Warner's acting, but his testimonial is invalidated by the final sentences:--

Yes, Sir, _Drink_ is a moral drama if ever there was one. It ought to
do a deal of good. And as I think it over, I feel as I want a little
something just to take the taste on it out o' my mouth.