Preparatory School for Young Ladies. (John Leech, "Follies of the Year," London, 1852.)
In looking over the long series of political caricatures by Leech and Tenniel, which now go back thirty-three years, we are struck, first of all, by the simplicity of the means which they usually employ for giving a comic aspect to the political situation. They reduce cabinet ministers and other dignitaries many degrees in the social scale, exhibiting them as footmen, as boys, as policemen, as nurses, as circus performers, so that a certain comic effect is produced, even if the joke should go no further. Of late years Mr. Tenniel has often reversed this device with fine effect by raising mundane personages to celestial rank, and investing them with a something more than a travesty of grandeur. It is remarkable how unfailing these simple devices are to amuse. Whether Mr. Leech presents us with Earl Russell as a small foot-boy covered with buttons, or Mr. Tenniel endows Queen Victoria with the majestic mien of Minerva, the public is well pleased, and desires nothing additional but a few apt words explanatory of the situation. But, simple as these devices may be, it is only a rarely gifted artist that can use them with effect. Between the sublime and the ridiculous there is a whole step; but in comic art there is but a hair's-breadth between the happy and the flat.
Lord Brougham was supposed to be courting the conservatives when Leech began to caricature. The superserviceable zeal of the ex-chancellor was hit very happily in a circus scene, in which the Duke of Wellington figures as the ring-master, Brougham as the clown, and Sir Robert Peel as the rider. The clown says to the ring-master, "Now, Mr. Wellington, is there any thing I can run for to fetch—for to come—for to go—for to carry—for to bring—for to take?" etc. In another picture the same uneasy spirit, restive under his titled and pensioned nothingness, appears as "Henry asking for more." Again we have him dancing with the Wool-sack, which is explained by the words, "The Polka, a new Dance, introducing the old Double Shuffle." And again we see him in a tap-room, smoking a pipe, with a pot of beer on the table, looking on with complacency while Mr. Roebuck bullies an Irish member. Brougham says, "Go it, my little Roebuck! Bless his little heart! I taught him to bounce like that."
The Quarrel.—England and France. (John Leech, 1845.)
Master Wellington. "You're too good a judge to hit me, you are!"
Master Joinville. "Am I?"
Master Wellington. "Yes, you are."
Master Joinville. "Oh, am I?"
Master Wellington. "Yes, you are."
Master Joinville. "Ha!"
Master Wellington. "Ha!"
[Moral—And they don't fight, after all.
Russell, Peel, Wellington, O'Connell, and Louis Philippe were other personages whom Mr. Punch often caricatured at that period of his existence, and he generally presented them in a manner that still coincides with public feeling in England, and was probably not disagreeable to the men themselves at the time. One of Leech's hits was a picture designed to ridicule certain utterances of the Prince de Joinville concerning the possible invasion of England in 1845, when some irritating conduct of the French ministry had been met by Wellington with good temper and firmness. The prince, as a boy, is "squaring off," with a great show of fight, at the duke, who stands with his hands in his pockets, not defiant, but serene and watchful. This picture is perfectly in the English taste. Leech liked to show great Britannia as infinitely able to fight, and not so very unwilling, but firmly resolved not to do so unless compelled by honor or necessity.