"If Genius fire thee Stranger stay,
If Nature touch thee, drop a tear.
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."
"When he has not seen a Member, and has no reference to go by, how does he manage?"
"He does not find photography of much use. Sometimes, if he has to draw a man for some special reason, and has not seen him, a photograph is, of course, the only means possible; then he generally gets a letter something like this:
"'Dear Sir,—I enclose you a photograph of myself, the only one I possess. It belongs to my wife, and she has reluctantly lent it, and trusts you will take every care of it and return it at once. It was taken on our wedding trip. I may mention that I have less hair at the top of my head and more on my face, and I may seem to some a trifle older.'
"Well, here, you see, H. F. has to use his judgment.
"But to my surprise H. F. received a visit from the original of the photograph shortly after his sketch was published, who came to inform the guv'nor that no one could possibly recognise him in the sketch; and when I saw him in the flesh I quite believed him. You can judge from the sketch how useful the photograph was.
"The second appearance of the new and ambitious M.P. in the pages of Punch did not satisfy the legislator either. It was not his face he took exception to, but his boots, like Mr. Goldfinch in 'A Pair of Spectacles.' He lost faith in his bootmaker, squeezed his extremities into patent leather shoes of the most approved and uncomfortable make, and hobbled through the Lobbies doing penance at the shrine of caricature. A caricature, you see, does not depend upon the face alone.
"One of H. F.'s earliest Parliamentary caricatures was a sketch of Mr. Henry Broadhurst, the deservedly popular representative of the working classes. He was Member for Stoke when the sketch was made. There is no affectation about him. Neither the skin that covers his solid frame nor that which encases his active feet is thin. His figure is one of the best known and most characteristic in Parliament. Who is not familiar with the round, determined little head, with the short cropped hair, the square-cut beard, the shrewd expression, the genial smile, the short jacket, the horsey trousers, the round hat, and the thick boots? The figure often appeared in Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery. When our friend the late William Woodall introduced his fellow-candidate to the electors of Stoke a voice cried out, 'We know 'im! we know 'im! We've seen 'is boots in Punch!'
"No one can deny that the potters of Staffordshire are an artistic public.