Chapter III (1)

"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,
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 illustrious 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 noblest 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 fashionable 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-fellowship is near the genesis of the institution, 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-nob 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 Saturday-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 publishing firm of Cassell 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 institutions. 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-Græco-Canino-Latinum." The lines, a parody of Goldsmith's "Retaliation," begin thus:--

"Sunt quidam jolly dogs, Saturday qui nocte frequentant
Antiqui [Greek: Stefanon] qui stat prope moenia Drurî,
[Greek: Boulomenoi] cum 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 Saturdays 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 massive table, brightly spread, groans with the mighty feast.
The viands change. To-day 'tis beef with Yorkshire pudding dressed;
Next week perchance the dish that Hodge will grinningly define
As 'leg o' mutton, boiled, with trimmings.' 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 côterie which, in 1857, was to become far more widely known under the style and title 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 classic heights, and twist his body to the needful turns.

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 Saturday 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.

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 classic shrine is practically as it was when the "Fat Contributor," pushing 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.

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 glass. A tobacco-box, hardly less ugly (coëval, 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.

Here you have the portraits of the four editors--that of Mark Lemon painted by Fred Chester, son of his life-long friend George Chester, and the likenesses of Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, and Mr. Burnand in photography. The portraits of the Staff, taken by Bassano in 1891 at Mr. William Agnew's request, to the number of fourteen or fifteen, hang separately in their dark frames. The original of one of Tenniel's Almanac designs; a masterly drawing, two feet long, by Keene, bought by the late Mr. Bradbury at a sale--the (unused) cartoon of Disraeli leading the principal financiers of the day in hats and frock-coats across the Red Sea ("Come along, it's getting shallower"); the original of Leech's celebrated "Mr. Punch's Fancy Ball," and a series of the enlarged coloured prints of his hunting sketches; a caricature of Mr. Furniss by Mr. Sambourne, made in Paris; another of Mr. Sambourne by Mr. Furniss; and a third of Mr. Sambourne by himself; a caricature in pen-and-ink and colour of the _Punch_ Staff marching along in Paris, by Mr. Furniss; a black-and-white sketch by the same artist of the same distinguished company in the train on the return journey; and another souvenir of the Paris trip by Mr. du Maurier, including the portraits of himself, Mr. Burnand, Mr. Arthur à Beckett, and Mr. W. Bradbury. The trophy-frame of specimen proofs of some of the finest of Swain's cuts of the artistic Staff's best work, gathered together for show in one of the great exhibitions, has been removed to make room for photographs of Gilbert à Beckett, "Ponny" (Horace) Mayhew, Charles Keene, Tom Taylor, Percival Leigh, Charles H. Bennett, R. F. Sketchley, John Henry Agnew, Thomas Agnew and William Bradbury, Mr. Fred Evans and Sir William Agnew; while photographic groups of the Staff and a fine autotype of Thackeray complete the wall decoration of one of the most interesting apartments in London City.

And in the corner, on the locker farthest from the street, besides a little _papier-mâché_ figure of a Japanese Punch--sent by an admirer in the Land of the Rising Sun--and a group charmingly modelled from Sir John Tenniel's beautiful cartoon of "Peace and the New Year," stands the statue of the Great Hunchback himself, which in a fit of enthusiasm a young German sculptor, named Adolph Fleischmann, wrought and presented to the object of his admiration. It is a work of no little grotesqueness and ingenuity (well modelled and coloured, and fitted with springs that permit of the working of arms and eyes and head), which, endowed with a white favour, has played its part in the decoration of the publishing office on the occasion of certain royal weddings and public rejoicing, and during the blocking of Fleet Street has been utilised in the direction of comic self-advertisement.

Then there is a real "Royal Patent" appropriately framed, "hereby appointing Master Punch unto the Place and Quality of Joke Maker Extraordinary to her Majesty," duly signed and sealed by the Lord Chamberlain, and countersigned "J. A. N. D. Martin." It is undoubtedly a genuine certificate--up to a point; but how it was obtained, and how _Punch's_ name came to be filled in, remains to this day a mystery. Such is the room, with its pleasant decoration of red and black and gold, with its large windows and its sunlight gaselier; but, take it for all in all, it is about as unlike Mr. Sambourne's classic representation of the Roman atrium in his Jubilee drawing as well could be imagined.

And the Table itself--_the_ Table--the famous board of which we all have heard, yet none, or but very few of us, have seen--I myself amongst the fortunate few! As a piece of furniture this hospitable, but rather primitive, piece of joinery is not of much account, the top being of plain deal (_pace_ Thackeray's "_Mahogany_ Tree"), oblong in shape, with rounded ends. But its associations render it a treasure among treasures, a rich and priceless gem. For at this Table nearly every man upon the Staff has, from the day it was made, sat and carved his initials upon it with a penknife, when officially elevated to _Punch's_ peerage. As each has died, his successor has taken his place--just as the Institut de France creates Immortals to fill the chairs made vacant by death--and he has cut his initials or his mark close by those of the men who occupied the place before him. There they are, staring at you from the Table like so many abecedarian skeletons at the feast; and if you take a furtive and hasty peep from the doorway and lift the green protective cloth you catch sight nearest you of a "D. M." in close company with a beautifully-cut "W. M. T." and a monogrammatic leech inside a bottle flanked by a J. and an L.; and you gaze with deep interest on the handiwork of them and of the rest, many of whom have carved their names, as on that Table, deep into England's roll of fame; and of others, too, who, with less of genius but equal zeal and effort, have a strong claim on the gratitude and the recollection of a kindly and laughter-loving people.[7]

For more than forty years, then, this Table has week by week, with few exceptions, been surrounded by the Staff of the day; and the chair, the self-same old-fashioned wooden editorial armchair, has been filled by the reigning Editor. "With few exceptions," I said; for Bouverie Street has not invariably been the hatching-place of the Cartoon, nor have its walls resounded with absolute regularity to the laughter and the jests of the merry-makers. During the summer the Dinner has been, now and again, and still is, held at Greenwich, at Richmond, Maidenhead, or elsewhere--Hampton Court and Dulwich rather frequently of old, as well as once at Harrow, and sometimes at Purfleet, Windsor, and Rosherville. Sometimes, when occasion has demanded--in the "dead season," maybe, when the attendance at the Table has dwindled, though for no sustained period (it is even on record that the "Dinner" has consisted of a _tête-à-tête_ between Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Arthur à Beckett)--not more than three or four consecutive weeks, certainly--the "Sussex," or more often the old "Bedford Hotel," or latterly the "First Avenue," has been the scene of the feast; while "special dinners" (and they have been many) have been held in special places. And not invariably has the weekly repast been a "dinner" at all, be it observed; for on certain rare occasions, when some important Parliamentary matter has intervened, a luncheon has been held instead. Once, in September, 1845, it was postponed from the Saturday night at the intercession of Charles Dickens, so that a new play by Macready might be produced with the full advantage of the _Punch_ men's presence. And the Dinner was once more made a movable feast, and was held on the Tuesday instead of the Wednesday, on the occasion of the production of Mr. Burnand's and Sir Arthur Sullivan's opera of "The Chieftain" in December, 1894.

In the "Bedford Hotel"--beloved of Thackeray, for in it he wrote much of "Henry Esmond," and stayed there when his house was in the painters' hands--the room occupied was that known as the "Dryden." Here the Staff would make no attempt at self-repression; and I have been told how the idle and the curious would congregate outside upon the pavement and listen to the voices of the wits within, and wait to gape at them as they passed in and out.

The places at Table once occupied by the members of the Staff are nowadays regarded as theirs by right. But in earlier days the places were often shuffled, as at a game of "general post." Proof of it may be had from the following plans of the Table between 1855 and 1865--perhaps the most interesting years in the history of _Punch_, as demonstrating the transitional stage, when the ancient order of things was rapidly developing into the modern as we know them to-day. In 1855, then, the disposition was as follows:--

WILLIAM BRADBURY*
DOUGLAS JERROLD JOHN LEECH
TOM TAYLOR W. M. THACKERAY
GILBERT À BECKETT SHIRLEY BROOKS
HORACE MAYHEW MARK LEMON
PERCIVAL LEIGH JOHN TENNIEL
F. M. EVANS*

--only two artists and a half (Thackeray being a commixture of writer and draughtsman) to seven writers and a half!

Five years later--in 1860--the places had changed, partly through death, partly through rearrangement:--

WILLIAM BRADBURY*
W. M. THACKERAY (when he came) JOHN LEECH
TOM TAYLOR HENRY SILVER
HORACE MAYHEW CHARLES KEENE
SHIRLEY BROOKS JOHN TENNIEL
PERCIVAL LEIGH MARK LEMON
F. M. EVANS*

Here the artistic element is seen to be asserting itself to
some extent, the proportion between artist and writer being
further readjusted after the lapse of another five years: for
in 1865 the constitution of the table became--

F. M. EVANS*
TOM TAYLOR G. DU MAURIER
W. H. BRADBURY* HENRY SILVER
(his father seldom came now)
HORACE MAYHEW CHARLES H. BENNETT
CHARLES KEENE F. M. EVANS, JR.[9]
F. C. BURNAND SHIRLEY BROOKs
PERCIVAL LEIGH JOHN TENNIEL
MARK LEMON

--the editor for the first time taking his proper place at the table, although, it is true, it was only at the foot.

To-day the number of the staff has been increased, and the right proportion struck between the pen and the pencil--the editor, too, presiding.

MR. F. C. BURNAND
SIR JOHN TENNIEL MR. F. ANSTEY
MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE MR. HENRY LUCY
MR. ARTHUR À BECKETT MR. E. T. REED
MR. R. C. LEHMANN MR. BERNARD PARTRIDGE
MR. HARRY FURNISS
(until Feb. 1894) MR. PHIL MAY
MR. DU MAURIER MR. E. J. MILLIKEN
SIR WILLIAM AGNEW (sometimes)
MR. LAWRENCE BRADBURY or
MR. PHILIP AGNEW

=* Proprietors=

In the decade or so following the death of Douglas Jerrold--roughly corresponding with the period within which the arrangements varied as i have shown--six new appointments were made to the table. These were: Mr. Henry Silver, In August, 1857; Charles Keene, February, 1860 (after a nine years' probationership); Mr. F. C. Burnand, June, 1863; Mr. G. Du Maurier, November, 1864; Charles H. Bennett, February, 1865 (though ill-health prevented him from taking his place until the following June); and Mr. R. F. Sketchley (till 1894 of the South Kensington Museum), January, 1868. The present Staff, I may add, since Mr. du Maurier's accession, have taken their places at the Table in the following order: Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Arthur à Beckett, Mr. E. J. Milliken, Gilbert à Beckett, Mr. Reginald Shirley Brooks (until 1884), Mr. Henry Lucy, Mr. F. Anstey, Mr. R. C. Lehmann, Mr. E. T. Reed, Mr. Bernard Partridge, and in February, 1895, Mr. Phil May. As Mr. Punch approached man's estate, and arrived at years of artistic discretion, he cultivated a pretty taste in epicurism; until to-day, if report be true, the Dinners (prepared and sent in by Spiers and Pond), the Ayala, and the cigars, are all worthy of the palates of the men whose wit it is theirs to stimulate and nourish. To summon the Staff to these feasts of reason it was in later years the practice to issue printed notices, which after 1870 were superseded by invitation cards drawn by Mr. du Maurier--the design representing Mr. Punch ringing his bell, while the faithful fly hurriedly to respond to the behest. But owing to the number of portraits it contained of old friends now departed, and the painful recollections it consequently aroused, its later use has been discontinued.

_(1) On joining the Table, and (2) on appointment as Editor._]

But when our Democritus boasted fewer years, there was not so much ceremony in his banquet, neither was there so much state; nor was the friendship less keen or the intimacy less enjoyable in Leigh's humbler days of "off-n-off." A wonderful company--a brilliant company; with flashing wit and dazzling sallies, with many "a skirmish of wit between them." From more, the quieter flow of genial humour. And among the rest, the listeners; men--some of them--who prefer to attend than to talk, even to the point of reserve and almost of taciturnity. Such men were John Leech, Richard Doyle, and Charles Keene--whose silence, however, masked subtle minds that were teeming with droll ideas, and as appreciative of humour as the sprightliest. What jokes have been made, what stories told that never have found their way into print! What chaff, what squibs, what caricatures--which it surpasses the wit of a Halsbury or a MacNeill to imagine or condone!

Of what the _Punch_ Dinner was at the time when Thackeray was still of the band, an idea may be formed from the following extract from Mr. Silver's Diary, with which I have been favoured by the writer, who for several years sat at it by right. He calls it--

"A NIGHT AT THE ROUND TABLE."

SCENE: _Mr. Punch's Banquet Hall at No. 11, Bouverie Street._

TIME: _Wednesday, March 2nd_, 1859, _six o'clock p.m._

F. M. EVANS W. M. THACKERAY JOHN LEECH HORACE MAYHEW TOM TAYLOR
SHIRLEY BROOKS HENRY SILVER PERCIVAL LEIGH JOHN TENNIEL MARK LEMON

'Turbot and haunch of venison--what a good dinner!' says Tenniel,
reading _menu_. Tantalising to Tom Taylor, who has to dine
elsewhere; and Thackeray leaves early, to go to an 'episcopal
tea-fight,' as he tells us--a jump 'from lively to severe,' to
Fulham Palace from the _Punch_ Table.

The pleasure of your company is requested on Wednesday next, the
10th just at half-past Six sharp.

An answer, if unable to come, will oblige.

_PUNCH_ DINNER INVITATION CARD. DRAWN BY G. DU MAURIER.

CHARLES KEENE, R. F. SKETCHLEY, F. C. BURNAND, SHIRLEY BROOKS, TOM
TAYLOR, HORACE MAYHEW, PERCIVAL LEIGH G. DU MAURIER, JOHN TENNIEL]

Tom merely looks in 'to hear what you fellows say about the Reform Bill,' which Dizzy introduced on Monday. So we begin discussing politics even with the venison. 'Ponny' Mayhew condemns the Bill: does nothing for the working man, he says. Tom thinks that people look to _Punch_ for guidance, and that we ought to be plain-speaking, and take a decided course. 'Professor' Leigh and Mark agree in thinking that we rather should stand by awhile, and see how the stream runs. All seem of opinion that Walpole acted as a man of honour in resigning, not being rich enough to make money of no matter to him.

'Seria mista jocis' being Mr. Punch's motto (though it never has been sanctioned by the Heralds' College), Shirley, apropos of money, asks, 'Why is Lord Overstone like copper?' 'Because he is a Lloyd with tin.' Whereat Thackeray laughs heartily.

Odd that there should now be three old Carthusians in Mr. Punch's Council of Ten. Thackeray observes this to the other two of them [J. L. and H. S.], and proceeds to say, 'I went to Charterhouse the other day. Hadn't seen School come out since I left. Saw a touching scene there--a little fellow with his hands held tenderly behind him, and a tear or two still trickling down his rosy cheek, and two little cronies with their arms around his neck; and I well knew what had happened, and how they'd take him away _privily_, and make him show his cuts!'

'Talking of cuts, Mark, how about the Large one?' Thackeray suggests Lawyer, Doctor, and Schoolmaster, standing in a row as prize boys, and Dizzy presenting them with votes. I propose Diz trying to launch a lop-sided 'Reform' ship, with the title 'Will it Swim?' Mark suggests D. joining hands of artisan and yeoman, giving each of them a vote. Thackeray thinks of workman coming among gentlemen of Parliament and asking, 'What have you done for _me_?' Professor Leigh considers situation might be shown by Bright and Dizzy poking up the British Lion, for clearly he wants rousing. 'Yes,' says Shirley, 'and when he's roused, you know, we can have another picture of him with his tail and monkey up.' Idea gradually takes shape, and is approved,[8] though Tenniel hardly likes it, and Leech wants to know if Ponny (Mayhew) would not prefer a good old-fashioned tragic cartoon of the virtuous and starving British Workman, with ragged wife and children, and Death a ghastly apparition in the background.

This leads to a little spar between Ponny and 'Pater' Evans. Ponny lets fly with great vigour: '_Punch_ is standing still now; used to take the lead, but no longer dares to do so. _Avançons!_' waving hand excitedly. Pater calmly answers that the times are altered, and that _Punch_ is going with them. Strong words have done their work, and there's no longer need of them. Nobody now talks about the trampled working man, nor goes trumpeting abroad the dignity of labour. Then Ponny shifts his ground, and complains that many clever fellows who are workers with the pen are now hardly earning more than many workers with the pickaxe. 'Well, it's their own fault,' says Pater; 'they might easily earn more if they were not so idle.' Penny replies they don't want luxuries, being men of simple tastes, and anything but Sybarites. 'So am I,' cries Leech; 'my tastes are very simple. Give me a good day's hunting, and some good claret after it--nothing can be simpler, and I'm really quite contented.'

But Ponny harks back to his 'deuced clever fellows,' applauding one of them especially, a Bohemian friend of his, who, he says politely, is far cleverer a fellow than any at the _Punch_ Table. 'But what has he done?' asks Leech. 'Tell you what he doesn't do,' says Shirley; 'he may write a lot, but he certainly doesn't wash much.' Somebody wonders, if he were proposed for White's Club, whether members would blackball him: and Shirley quotes Charles Lamb's remark, 'What splendid hands he'd hold, if only dirt were trumps!' Then Ponny shouts indignantly, 'There, never mind his hands: think what a clever head he has.'

Here Professor gives a little lecture on phrenology, impelled thereto by Penny's capital allusion. Talking like a book, as his frequent manner is, he expounds in fluent phrase his deeply-rooted faith in this neglected science. To give idea of its importance, he vows he wouldn't keep a housemaid who had a bad head. 'No more would I,' says Shirley; 'I'd send her to the doctor.' 'I mean, a head ill-shapen,' explains Professor blandly, being 'the mildest-mannered man that ever cut a throat'--in argument. 'A well-proportioned head betokens a fine brain: whereas a skull that is cramped contains probably a mean one.' Avows belief not so much in the localisation of organs as in their general development. Here Leech, who hates street music, professes horror at the possible development of organs, and wishes they were localised where nobody could hear them. Paying no heed to this flippancy, Professor explains gravely that peculiar formations incline to special acts, and that the development of certain cranial organs--vulgarly termed 'bumps'--may be lessened or augmented in the course of early schooling. 'Well, I do believe in "bumps,"' says Shirley, speaking with solemnity, 'yes, even in schoolboys' heads--if you knock them well together.'

Mark next has an innings, and tells some of his stage stories. He tells them very funnily, and imitates Macready and many other actors in their vocal mannerisms. And he mimics operatic singers capitally, with sonorous words in mock Italian basso recitative. Among his tales is one of a half-tipsy actor playing in the 'Corsican Brothers' and explaining their fraternal peculiarity--'My brother in Paris is now feeling--hic--precishly shame senshations--hic--as myshelf!' Also tells of his once bringing out a farce called 'Punch' at the Strand Theatre, wherein a parrot played a prominent part. One night a new parrot took its place, and used most dreadful language when the curtain rose.

Story-telling being now the order of the evening, Silver tells of the gun trick being tried in the Far West. One day, just as the conjuror had caught the bullet in his teeth, another whizzed close to his head, and a voice came from the gallery, 'Guess, I nearly had you then, old hoss!' At the next performance a placard was displayed, and gentlemen were begged to leave their rifles with the doorkeeper. Shirley enjoys this, and says, 'Now, don't cry "_connu_" Ponny! You're always crying "_connu_" when anyone says anything. And you're always cracking up your chums. If a world was wanted anywhere, you'd say your brother had discovered one and had better be consulted.'

Ponny then breaks out again with his bilingual vehemence and Parisian gestures. (Some people never can talk French without trying to shrug shoulders.) Brandishing his dessert-knife, he shouts, 'Avançons, mes amis! go ahead, my boys! En avant! Excusez-moi,' and scatters scraps of French about, till Leech cries, 'There, don't talk like a lady's-maid, Ponny; why can't you speak English?' And, to change the talk, he tells of a French sport'man taking his first fences here, with rather a fresh horse which has been lent him. After coming a couple of bad 'croppers,' which he conceives to be the usual style of leaping here in England, he says a little sadly, 'My friend, I t'ank you for your 'orse, bot I t'ink dat I s'all jomp no more at present.'

Somebody caps this with tale of a 'Mossoo' who manifests deep sorrow at the death of an old hare, slain by an English visitor. 'Hélas! il est mort enfin! Mon pauvre vieux! I have shot at him for years! He was all the game I had!'

And Leech tells another story of a foreigner of distinction hunting in the Midlands, and hearing the cry 'Stole away!' and shouting out excitedly, 'Aha, stole a vay, has he, de old t'ief! Den I suppose we s'all not find a vay to him, and so we must go home!' ... Which we do.

* * * * *

Thus, for half a century has Wednesday evening been passed in the editorial office of _Punch_, just when its readers are discussing the merits of the previous week's issue; and according to the verdict of those readers was attuned the merriment of the Staff. It is on record how Douglas Jerrold would go radiant to the Dinners as "Mrs. Caudle" was sending up _Punch's_ circulation at a rapid rate; "and was one of the happiest among them all." Thackeray, too, first tasted the delights of wide popularity in the success of his "Snob Papers," and he showed the pleasure he felt in his demeanour at the board. At one time these two men sat side by side, and there was as little love as space between them; but with the good-humoured philosophy which is a tradition of that institution, the occasional differences of opinion, and the harder knocks of wit, and sometimes, even, the still sharper encounters of temper, were all glossed over. As Thackeray so truly remarked himself--"What is the use of quarrelling with a man if you have to meet him every Wednesday at dinner?" Nevertheless, in course of time he changed his seat from between Jerrold and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, and, crossing over, faced his friend the enemy, while Mark Lemon, watchful and alert beneath the cloak of geniality, was quick to cast a damping word on inflammable conversation and--so far as he could persuade them to listen to a man so greatly their inferior in genius and intellect--to stem the threatened outburst. As a matter of fact, Jerrold always regarded Thackeray as a bit of a snob and viewed his entrance into Society--against which Jerrold had for years been hurling his bitterest darts--with very grave suspicion. "I have known Thackeray," he would say, "for eighteen years, and I don't know him yet"--almost in the despairing words in which I have heard a distinguished Academician speak of his still more distinguished President. On the other hand, Mr. Arthur à Beckett has declared to me, "I never knew my brother so well as when I met him at the _Punch_ Table."

In the earliest weeks of _Punch's_ existence Kenny Meadows had been the Nestor of the least; but when Jerrold joined the Staff three months later, he took by force of character and wit, and power of lung, a leading position on the paper and at the Table--a position which he never resigned. Notwithstanding his biting sallies, we may be sure that it was not Jerrold's primary object to make his victims wince. There is no doubt that the "little wine" that so stimulated him to witty and brilliant conversation full of flash and repartee, sometimes turned sour upon his lips, and changed the kindness that was in his heart into a semblance of gall. Mr. Sidney Cooper has gravely set it on record how on leaving the _Punch_ Dinner Jerrold would tie a label with his name and address upon it round his neck, so that, should he in his homeward course be tempted to stray into the path of undue conviviality, he might sooner or later be safely delivered at his destination. Although the statement is in a measure confirmed in the memoirs of Hodder and of Blanchard Jerrold himself, one cannot help being struck at the conflict between it and the story of Jerrold's reply to the drunken young sparks who met him in the street at midnight, and asked him the way to the entertainment known as "Judge and Jury"--"Straight on, straight on as you are going, young gentlemen--you can't miss them!" He was himself greatly pleased with his milder witticisms, and, it is said, chuckled complacently at the neatness of his conceit when toasting Mr. Punch, at one of the Wednesday Dinners, in which he declared that "he would never require spirit while he had such good Lemon-aid." He loved the paper as few others loved it, and very, very rarely missed the weekly gathering--attending it, indeed, up to within a week or so of his death.

Not less scrupulous in his attendance was Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, who, when residing at holiday-times at Boulogne, would regularly come up to town for their Cabinet Council; and if ill-chance unavoidably prevented his wished-for presence, he would write--after the custom adopted by many of his colleagues--a full explanation and apology. But the necessity very seldom arose. True son of his father, Gilbert à Beckett was equally faithful to the Table, and in spite of the paralysis of the legs from which he suffered (and for which he was for a time duly chaffed by the advice of Percival Leigh, lest there might be hysteria about the disease) he attended the Wednesday gatherings with what regularity he could up to within a fortnight before he died. Thackeray, too, for many years after he ceased writing for _Punch_ would weekly join the Staff, and always received a cordial and affectionate welcome. The gentle Leech--who, according to Shirley Brooks, attended the Dinner for more than twenty years without uttering an unkind or an angry word--was at the Table within a few days of his death, but, in Brooks's words, "scarcely seemed to understand what was going on." And yet another member of the Old Guard, who stood by his post to the end, was "The Professor," Percival Leigh, whose sense of wit was dulled with age, but whose mind was otherwise as bright as ever. But at the Dinners the genial, courteous old gentleman was listened to, as ever, with deference by his younger collaborators, and from them he never had cause for suspicion that his powers were failing--

"Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he."

Another of _Punch's_ favourite sons was Charles H. Bennett. His life was a hard yet happy one, and his career was short, though not too short for fame; and the last two years during which he sat at the Table were perhaps the merriest of them all. But his attendances, really owing to the illness which ultimately bore him down, were irregular. This irregularity, combined with his habit--then commoner even than now among artists--of wearing his hair very long, brought him one day a letter from his friends and fellow-diners in the following terms:--

"Punch" Council, October 24th, 1866.

Present:--LEMON W. H. BRADBURY
EVANS G. DU MAURIER
HORACE MAYHEW EVANS FILS
TOM TAYLOR S. BROOKS
LEIGH TENNIEL

"Resolved"--

That this meeting deeply sympathises with C. H. Bennett
on the state of his hair.

That this meeting appreciates the feeling which detains
the said Bennett from the Council until his hair shall
have been cut.

That this meeting deplores the impecuniosity which prevents
the said Bennett from attending a Barber.

That this meeting, anxious to receive the said Bennett
to its bosom, once more organises a subscription to
enable him to attend the said Barber.

That this company, having (limited) confidence in Mr.
Mark Lemon, entrusts him with the following subscriptions
in aid of the above object, and requests him
to communicate with the aforesaid Bennett to the end
that he may have his dam hair cut and rejoin the
assembly of the brethren.

£ s. d.
(Signed) MARK LEMON 0 0 1
FREDERICK EVANS 0 0 1
PERCIVAL LEIGH 0 0 1
HORACE MAYHEW 0 0 1
TOM TAYLOR 0 0 1
W. H. BRADBURY 0 0 1
GEORGE DU MAURIER 0 0 1
F. M. EVANS 0 0 1
SHIRLEY BROOKS 0 0 1
J. TENNIEL 0 0 1
--------
Stamps enclosed £0 0 10
========

And these ten penny stamps, together with the letter, are to this day treasured by the artist's son.

It was not surprising that Bennett was missed; his animal spirits and his bright good-humour counted for a good deal at the Table; and when he died, his colleagues organised elaborate theatricals and collected a large sum for those whom he loved and left behind in the pinch of poverty.

If for some time before his death Charles Keene deserted the dinner-table, it was owing, as he has himself confessed, in no slight measure to political motives which developed about the time of the Russo-Turkish War. Keene was what Tories call a patriot and Liberals a "Jingo;" and in his quiet way he felt so deeply that he thought it best to stay away--not that he loved _Punch_ less, but he loved his convictions more. "I am sorry to say," he wrote, with doubtful accuracy, "_Punch_ is 'Musco' to a man except C. K., so he keeps away from that Liberal lot at the present conjunction." There certainly was, however, another reason, quite independent of politics, which kept Keene from the Table during the latter years of Mr. W. H. Bradbury's life. He was not, as his biographer, Mr. Layard, has pointed out, of much use in suggestion at the business function of the Dinner, and he looked less to his colleagues than to his friends outside for the jokes to which he drew his pictures; so that his presence was not a necessity. Nevertheless, he would attend, now and again, until age began to tell upon him; and his companions love to think of him, clutching his short-stemmed pipe to his mouth, puffing gravely, saying little, thinking much, quick at appreciating a joke, slow at making one, with an eye full of humour, and its lid and corresponding corner of his mouth quickly responsive to any quip or crank that might let fly. Eclectic in his humour as in his art, disposed to condemn any cartoon suggestion not thoroughly thought out as "damn bad," he was in the weekly assembly at the Table like the 'cello in the orchestra--not much heard, yet when there indispensable to the general effect and the general completeness, even though he only went "for company."

I have lingered, perhaps unduly, over the social side of the _Punch_ Dinner, for the company is of the best, and the subject an entertaining and a pleasant one. But serious business has to be discussed and transacted--and transacted it is, whatever jokes and ebullitions of _bonhomie_ may form the running accompaniment to the work in hand. In Mark Lemon's time the Dinner began at "six sharp," and in Shirley Brooks's and Tom Taylor's a half-hour later; but when Mr. F. C. Burnand took up the reins of power, the hour was advanced to seven o'clock, and on its stroke the Staff are generally found in their places. From all parts they come, just as their predecessors used to speed from Boulogne, from Herne Hill, and from the Isle of Wight, so that their absence should not be felt nor their assistance lacking at the Gathering of the Clan. Sir John Tenniel comes from Maida Vale, most likely, or from some spot near to London--which he has hardly quitted for a fortnight together during the last forty years, save when, in 1878, he went to Venice with Mr. Henry Silver and left Charles Keene _malgré lui_ as cartoonist-in-chief. Mr. Sambourne arrives, perhaps, from a yachting expedition or from the moors; Mr. du Maurier from his beloved Whitby or from a lecturing tour; Mr. Lucy hurries in from the House of Commons; Mr. Furniss, up to the time of his resignation, from some distant spot where he "entertained" last evening, and whence he would expect to be three hundred miles away on a similar errand on the morrow. But not for some time past, it must be said in passing, had either Mr. du Maurier or Mr. Furniss been so regular at the Table as in earlier days--Mr. Furniss by reason of his touring, and Mr. du Maurier on account of the distance of his home, and the evil effect of tobacco-smoke on his eyes and nerves.

Then when dinner is over and coffee finished, and paper and pens brought in--at half-past eight, as near as may be--the cigars come on and the waiters go off (including at one time the crusted Burnap, an original worthy of "Robert" himself); and not more rigidly was the Press excluded from the Ministerial Whitebait Dinner in the good old times, than are Cabinet Ministers interdicted from the Dinner of Mr. Punch to-day. Then the Editor, who has been presiding, invites ideas and discussion on the subject of the "big cut," as the cartoon is commonly called; and no two men listen more eagerly to the replies--suggestions that may be hazarded, or proposals dogmatically slapped down--than Mr. Burnand, who is responsible for the subject, and Sir John Tenniel, whose duty it will be to realise the conception. The latter makes few remarks; he waits, reflects, and weighs, thinking not so much, perhaps, of the political or social, as of the artistic possibilities of the subjects as they are brought up, and other points that recommend themselves both to the artistic and literary members of the Staff. All the while, perhaps, the Editor has a fine subject up his sleeve, and only brings it forth when the discussion has begun to wane. Or a proposal may be made at the very first by one member of the Staff that is accepted at once with acclamation--an event, however, of the utmost rarity; or again, as is usually the case, the final decision may be gradually and almost painfully evolved from this symposium of professional wits and literary politicians. This is the time when the men are apt to lay bare their political beliefs (if any such they have) or their lack of them; and I wager that if poor Keene could once more be present at a _Punch_ Dinner, he would no longer charge it against the Staff that it is "'Musco' to a man."

Indeed, at the present time _Punch_ may be considered to represent the old Whig feeling. Sir John Tenniel, Mr. Anstey, and Mr. Arthur à Beckett are credited with Tory bias; Mr. Milliken, Mr. H. W. Lucy, Mr. R. C. Lehmann, and Mr. Reed represent the Radicals; Mr. Sambourne is Unionist; and Mr. Burnand, as behoves him who holds the scales, confesses to no political sympathies or antipathies whatever.

Thus the subject of the cartoon is settled--often by the aid of the latest editions of the evening papers; and being once settled, is very rarely revived on any pretext whatever. On one occasion, however, when Mark Lemon was Editor, and Shirley Brooks was recognised as the best suggestor, an exceptional incident took place. The subject was duly decided upon, and Brooks went home. After he was gone, and none but Mark Lemon, Charles Keene, Sir John Tenniel, and Mr. Henry Silver were left, Keene, to the surprise of the rest, made a suggestion in connection with the American War then being waged, that was immediately accepted as vastly superior to that which had previously been adopted; and the future Editor was much astonished as he opened his paper on the following Tuesday and his eyes fell on a different and wholly unexpected cartoon. Yet, though Brooks was practically the Suggestor-in-Chief, it would be unfair to pass over the curious fitness of Leech's proposals. They were always marked with equal judgment and taste, and, as it was admitted, his suggestions invariably were "just right."

When the "big cut" has been decided on, the question of a single-page or double-page engraving sometimes comes up; and then the legend has to be settled. This (irreverently known as "cackle" by those who produce it) is largely the work of Mr. E. J. Milliken, who nowadays occupies a good deal of Shirley Brooks's old position of "suggestor," and who, like him, is living testimony of the truth of John Seddon's saying that "wit and wisdom are born with a man." For many years Mr. Milliken has suggested the greater number of the cartoons, and he is generally the first asked for a proposal for Sir John Tenniel's cut. He usually has several subjects, carefully considered and as carefully written out, in his pocket-book, and fitted with peculiarly felicitous quotations. He is also mainly responsible for the Almanac cartoons--subjects for both the great _Punch_ satirists--Sir John, and Mr. Linley Sambourne. All, however, share with him the duty and the credit of the difficult art of cartoon-suggesting, and, no matter by whom it may be proposed, no subject is passed without full discussion. Every possible objection is heard and considered. Although Mr. Milliken may bring in his Bill, amendments are always proposed, and are either rejected or carried; and then the Bill as amended becomes the subject of the cartoon. The title and legend are written on a piece of paper, which, enclosed in an envelope, is then handed over to the cartoonist. It was at this moment that Shirley Brooks used to throw down his knife in order to "cut" any further discussion, and after that symbolic act a more desultory conversation on the other men's work would follow. Not on Leech's, however; for he was left greatly to himself--a piece of masterly inactivity and non-interference on the Editor's part which speaks volumes for Lemon's prudence and shrewd discrimination.

Under Mr. Burnand's _régime_ the course of events is a little altered. For even while Sir John has begun to think out the composition and the technical details of the subject which the Council has determined, and is scheming maybe in his own mind how best he may arrange his figures so that when he draws them the heads will not come across a join on the wood-block where its segments are screwed together; or, again, how so to arrange an exceptionally elaborate subject that Mr. Swain may still have it ready for engraving in good time on the Friday evening, the attention of the Staff is now turned to the "Cartoon junior"--the second cartoon--to which for some years Mr. Linley Sambourne has been giving some of the finest and most ingenious work of his life. This is discussed somewhat like the first, and often enough raises the draughtsman's interest in the work he has to do to a point of genuine artistic enthusiasm. But there appears to be no finality about the second cartoon so far as the Dinner is concerned, and it is no unusual thing in lively times for the subjects to be given at the last moment by telegram to Mr. Sambourne; so that his condition of mind during the Thursday following the Dinner may not inaptly be compared to that of an anxious fireman waiting for a "call." The contributions of the rest of the artistic Staff--Mr. du Maurier, Mr. Bernard Partridge, and Mr. E. T. Reed--do not form the subject of Wednesday's cogitation; nor is it true, as has publicly been stated, that when jokes fail it is customary to draw them from a pot into which, written on slips of paper, they have been deposited on the many occasions when Mr. Punch's cistern of wit has overflowed into the jar in question.

Such is the simple function of "the _Punch_ Dinner." The Editor presides--or, in his absence to-day, Mr. Arthur à Beckett, just as it was Douglas Jerrold and Shirley Brooks in Lemon's time, and Tom Taylor in Brooks's (the duty of vice- or assistant-editor never falling to an artist)--inviting suggestions, "drawing" his artists, and spurring his writers, with rare tact and art; and he challenges comparison with any of his predecessors, just as Sir Frederic Leighton excels all previous Presidents of the Royal Academy. Some of those who sit around the Table, as I have already set forth, have attended for many years; and it is they who secure to _Punch_ that quality of tradition and healthy sense of prestige which strengthen him against every assault, whether of man or of Time himself. To this traditional sense of ancient glory and present vigour Sir John Tenniel has of course contributed more than any other living man; not Leech, nor Thackeray, nor Jerrold, nor Doyle, served _Punch_ more loyally or effectively, and he has secured that the dignified spirit of the paper has suffered no deterioration. To him it falls, also, to see that the subjects of cartoons are not repeated. The tenderness of the Staff for the honour, good name, and pre-eminence of _Punch_ is delightful and touching to behold; the sentiment of a great past animates them all, and kindles in them the hope and ambition for as great and as proud a future.