Mr. Lehmann lost no time in devising series of articles, which all Punch readers will remember. Such were "Modern Types" and "Mr. Punch's Prize Novels" (one of the most successful, including parodies of a score of the leading authors of the day), "In the Know," "The Adventures of Picklock Holes," "Letters to Abstractions," "Lord Ormont's Mate and Matey's Aminta," "Manners and Customs," and "Studies in the New Poetry." Within four months of his first contribution Mr. Lehmann was promoted to the Table—an unprecedentedly rapid promotion—and he has ever since been one of the most diligent of contributors. Literary merit apart, Mr. Lehmann's "Conversational Hints for Young Shooters" has probably been received with greater favour throughout the country, on account of its subject and its felicitous treatment, than any of the young author's works. Country readers are essentially sportsmen—in conversation, if not in fact; and nothing in humorous writing delights them more than a clever burlesque on their favourite topic. You may hear the book praised where one of the writer's more ambitious efforts may pass unnoticed; and one of its passages is quoted with unction in many a shooting party. "Johnson, who was placed forward, again stood under a canopy of pheasants, and shot with brilliant success into the gaps.... The only theory which is accepted as explaining the catastrophe is one that imputes a malignant cunning to the birds."
The year that saw Mr. Lehmann's appointment witnessed also the calling of his kinsman, Mr. Barry Pain, one of the chief contributors to "The Granta." His story of "The Hundred Gates," printed in "Cornhill," struck Mr. Burnand as a work of promise; indeed, Mr. Burnand is reported to have found it so funny that he thought he must have written it himself. The annexing of the writer was at once effected. One of his earliest contributions to Punch was the amusing parody of Tennyson's "Throstle," just before Christmas, 1889; and a collection of comic Cambridge definitions in imitation of Euclid followed. Then came a set of short stories called "Storicules," and a series of articles constituting a mock guide to conduct for young ladies. Since 1892 Mr. Pain's work has fallen away, probably only for a time; for Punch has proved well-nigh irresistible to every genuine humorist who is anxious to bring his faculty to bear on the risibility of the English public.
Mr. Henry Pottinger Stephens, one of the wits of the "Sporting Times," the founder of the "Topical Times," and member of the staff of the "Daily Telegraph," was for two or three years on the outside salaried Staff of Punch. Contributing from 1889 to 1891, he wrote a series of "queer tales" as well as some attacks on the then South Western Railway management, under the title of "The Ways of Waterloo." Such dramatic criticisms as were not undertaken by Mr. Burnand or relegated by him to Mr. Arthur à Beckett, and numerous trifles besides, fell to him to do; but on his departure for America the connection was broken, and not afterwards resumed.
Passing by Mr. C. W. Cooke, we find Mr. Charles Geake, member of the Bar and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, as the chief recruit of the year 1890. To "The Granta" he had sent a casual contribution, and Mr. R. C. Lehmann, appreciating his talent, proved his esteem by installing Mr. Geake as the Cambridge editor of that paper. From "The Granta" to Punch has become a natural ascent, and on July 12th, 1890, Mr. Geake made his first bow to London readers. Three months later a packet of Punch office envelopes announced that he had been placed on the footing of a regular outside contributor, and that it was now his privilege to send his work straight to the printer's. At first he wrote nothing but verse—society verse, ballades, rondeaux, topical verse, and parodies in verse and prose, and then burlesques of books, such as the capital imitation of "The Tale of Two Telegrams" (a "Dolly Dialogue" in the manner of "Anthony Hope"), p. 97, Vol. CVII., September 1st, 1894, and "The Blue Gardenia" (October 20th, 1894, p. 185), with various skits and topical matter. "Lays of the Currency" are among the chief of Mr. Geake's poetical "series," and "Chronicles of a Rural Parish"—the adventures and misadventures of a rural parishioner who wishes to patronise the Parish Councils Act—his principal effort in comic prose.
The year 1892 brought three new writers: Mr. Gerald F. Campbell, who began by contributing (on April 23rd) poems of sentiment, such as "Town Thoughts from the Country," and three months later "The Cry of the Children" and "Alone in London;" R. F. Murray, the American-born author of "The Scarlet Gown," who, through Mr. Andrew Lang's introduction, sent in a few verses shortly before his death; and Mr. Roberts, who finds his place among the artists.
Mr. George Davies was an important accession of the following year. On only half-a-dozen occasions had he ever been in print, and that in obscure publications, when he composed an "Ethnographical Alphabet," beginning "A is an Afghan." The writer, who is something of a tsiganologue, emboldened by his success, followed up his alphabet, which appeared January 21st, 1893, and within a year had placed to his credit three-score contributions, most of them in verse—rather a remarkable achievement for one heretofore considered a mere bookworm and dryasdust.
Another Cambridge man of originality and ingenuity, mainly in verse, is Mr. Arthur A. Sykes—a "Cantabard," as he himself would admit, peculiarly skilled in "Cambrijingles." He began with "In the Key of Ruthene" on May 6th, 1893, and followed it up with a laughable ode "To a Fashion-Plate Belle." It was accompanied with a comic, though hardly exaggerated, design of the female figure as depicted in ladies' fashion-papers—the drawing being also by Mr. Sykes. Since then many verses by him have appeared, in which quaint conception, sudden turn of thought, and strange achievements in rhyming (as in "The Tour That Never Was," August 19th, 1893) are the chief figures. Then came the promotion embodied in the privilege of sending his contributions direct to the printer before, instead of after, being submitted to the editorial eye; and a good deal of prose work followed, such as the "Scarlet Afternoon," a skit in dialogue suggested by Mr. R. S. Hichens' "Green Carnation."
Light verse from the Rev. Anthony C. Deane began on August 20th, 1892 ("Ad Puellam"), but he was already a master of the art. Two months before his little volume of "Frivolous Verses" had appeared, and so struck Mr. Andrew Lang that he reviewed it in a "Daily News" leading-article, invited the author to go and see him, and suggested his writing for Punch. Mr. Deane had already been a "Granta" poet, and was well known to Mr. Lehmann, who, finding that Mr. Lang had already spoken to Mr. Anstey, gladly added a word of introduction to the Editor. By such means as these, oftener than by promiscuous outside application, is new blood found: the best men do not, as a rule, force forward their own work. Mr. Deane at that time was not twenty-two, nor was he yet ordained. He passed the necessary period at the same theological college—Cuddesdon—that years before had sheltered Mr. Burnand, and went on contributing verses to Punch, to the number (1894) of sixty or seventy; so that the course of his Punch love has run very smooth.
Another literary godson of Mr. Lehmann's, and child of "The Granta," is Mr. Owen Seaman. Through the good offices of the former, Mr. Seaman's "Rhyme of the Kipperling," nearly filling the first page of Punch, was inserted in the number for January 13th, 1894. This imitation of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's "Rhyme of the Three Sealers" was its own recommendation, and since that time Mr. Seaman has been one of the most prolific outside contributors of the year. His series comprise "She-Notes"—a skit on "Keynotes" and "Airs Resumptive"—of which the fourth, "To Julia in Shooting-togs (and a Herrickose Vein)" is an admirable specimen of its class. Art and political criticism in verse and prose are employed to illustrate the writer's facility and classic taste.
To this list, necessarily incomplete, in spite of its length, a few names remain to be added, and an incongruous party they form. Professor Forbes; Mr. J. C. Wilson, mantle manufacturer; and Mr. J. J. Lushington, of the Suffolk Chief Constable's Office, first a soldier and finally an auctioneer (a giant of nearly six feet seven, who would have formed a good fourth to Thackeray, "Jacob Omnium," and Dean Hole)—men of every sort and condition, brought together by the universal brotherhood of humour. Mrs. Frances Collins was a contributor, and her Punch utterance upon Judge Bayley's curious decision at Westminster County Court in January, 1877, as to next-door music that is "intolerable," yet not "actionable" ("Music hath (C)Harms"), is still remembered and quoted. Another lady-wit of the present day is Mr. Lehmann's sister, Lady Campbell, who wrote the women's letters in the series of "Manners and Customs," while her brother took the male side of the correspondence. Mrs. Leverson has been the contributor of numerous clever prose parodies and general articles, the chief of which up to June, 1895, has been "The Scarlet Parasol." Mr. James Payn has also worked for Punch, but very little—only to the extent of placing some little pleasantry at its service, and now and then suggesting a subject for illustration. A set of rhymes by Mr. H. D. Traill, reprinted in his volume entitled "Number Twenty," was his sole contribution, the "Saturday Review" having had a sort of prescriptive right to all his work of this description. It is the greater pity, for even the lightest of his verses have the true ring and, according to some, much of the vigour characteristic of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's work. Mr. Arthur Armitage, too, was for many years a contributor. Being a solicitor in practice, he kept his identity a secret. He was always known to the Editor and Proprietors as "Mr. A. Armstrong," and up to this present publication he never revealed the levity of his youth. His first contribution was "Marriage Customs of the Great Britons," which was inserted in the "Pocket-Book" for 1855. After writing regularly for this offspring of Punch's, Mr. Armitage was, in 1861, specially invited to contribute to the paper itself on topics political, social, and commercial—only a satire on "The Baby of the Papal States" (Louis Napoleon) being rejected, on the ground that, were it inserted, war with France would be inevitable. On Mark Lemon's death Mr. Armitage ceased his connection as an "outside regular," and five years later reprinted a number of his most amusing Punch verses and articles under the title of "Winkleton-on-Sea." Frederick Gale—better known as "The Old Buffer" and as the great cricket authority—wrote a short series for Punch. Then Mr. Walter Sichel, since the beginning of 1892, has contributed some prose and more verse, such as the series of "Men who have taken me in—to dinner," "Lays of Modern Home," "Inns and Outs," as well as "Rhymes out of Season," "The Diary of an Old Joke," and the original "Queer Queries." The late magistrate, Mr. Hosack, too, contributed several sharp police-court sketches; and "Arthur Sketchley" had a capital story to tell, but spoiled it in the telling. Even H. J. Byron, contrary to general belief, tried his hand as a Punch contributor, but he was somewhat dull. He admitted, in fact, that he wanted to keep all his fun for his plays, and so starved his Punch work of its legitimate humour. Mr. Arthur E. Viles's verses on "Temple Bar" (December, 1877) may be mentioned, and Mr. Leopold Godfrey Turner's name must not be omitted. But, of the contributors of trifles, a number must remain anonymous—as, indeed, many do from choice; inevitably so before 1847, when it first became the practice to enter up outsiders' work in their own names. And among these occasional contributors the present writer is proud to range himself.