"When I read it to Mark Lemon," says Bede, in conclusion, "he said that Punch ought to be well flavoured, for that into its composition there went not one, but three lemons—Mark Lemon, Leman Rede, and Laman Blanchard."
Edward and his brother, Thomas Waldron Bradley, were sons of a surgeon of Kidderminster. When the former was quite a child, his delight in sketching was as remarkable as his keenness of observation, and he had a trick on arriving home, after seeing anything that interested him in the streets, of saying, "Give me a slate," and sketching the scene upon it with the utmost facility. It was this facility, joined to his lack of artistic education, which placed upon his work the unmistakable stamp of the amateur. But his sense of humour saved him, winning for him admittance to Punch's pages in 1847, when he was only twenty years of age. He had made his début the previous year in "Bentley's Miscellany," with some love verses signed with his usual pen-name. Five years later he was making suggestions for "The Month," and both he and his brother Walrond (whose pseudonym of "Shelsley Beauchamp" is hardly yet forgotten in his own county) wrote in it.
His early MS. diaries record frequent receipts of small sums from Punch in return for small contributions. His first draft upon the Whitefriars exchequer was on October 23rd, 1847, when one guinea was received. By 1853 the receipts were a little more frequent, but still hardly noteworthy. Here, at any rate, is an example:—
Up to August 4th, received from Mark Lemon for Punch—
| Photo subjects | £4 | 0 | 0 |
| Table-turning | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Initial letter to Peterloo Brown, I. | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Sidney Snub | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| Savage Lions in London | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Sept. 14: 2nd and 3rd Peterloo Brown letters | 6 | 5 | 0 |
| Article "High Mettle Dragon". |
—while his earnings for the following year amount to £22 6s. for drawings and MS. After 1856 he contributed nothing more to Punch's pages, though a stray forgotten cut appears to have cropped up in the second volume for 1874.
George Cruikshank was a valuable friend to Cuthbert Bede, just as he was to Watts Phillips, and gave him a good deal of advice as to drawing on wood for Punch, as well as practical lessons in draughtsmanship, by working before him on his wonderful etching of the "Tail of a Comet;" still, he was unable to impart to his pupil's work either trained ease or style. Cruikshank was on terms of intimacy with Mark Lemon, but he never drew for Punch, save indirectly for its advertisement page in 1844—an announcement for his "Table-Book," in which appear the portraits of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett (his literary Editor), Thackeray, and himself. Yet the "Quarterly Review," in the course of an essay upon that journal, declared that "Punch owes at least half its popularity to the pencil of George Cruikshank"! The fact is, that Cruikshank, though on intimate terms with many of the Staff, would never allow himself to be persuaded to draw for its pages. "We shall have you yet," said Mark Lemon one day. "Never," said Cruikshank, in his most melodramatic tone and striking his favourite attitude. He had then become the staunchest of total abstainers, and he held its very name in abhorrence. Moreover, he professed to look upon their Dinners as orgies; but it is far more likely that the predominance in its pages and in its councils of his mighty rival, John Leech, had more to do with his total abstinence—from Punch, I mean—than any other consideration. "Between Cruikshank and Leech," says Mr. Frith, "there existed little sympathy and less intimacy. The extravagant caricature that pervades so much of Cruikshank's work, and from which Leech was entirely free, blinded him a little to the great merit of Cruikshank's serious work. I was very intimate with 'Immortal George,' as he was familiarly called, and I was much surprised by the coolness with which he received my enthusiastic praise of Leech. 'Yes, yes,' said George, 'very clever. The new school, you see. Public always taken with novelty.'" Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the only lessons in etching Leech ever had he received from George Cruikshank. Moreover, George had a grievance, as will be seen by the following letter addressed to Mr. G. H. Haydon, one of Punch's subsequent contributors, to whom reference will be made later on:—
"263, Hampstead Road, N.W.,
January 7, 1867.
"My Dear Sir,
"I am sorry that I am not able to tell you where to find a 'Punch and Judy,' but I think some of that family reside, or might be heard of, in the vicinity of Leicester Square. The 'Punch' that I copied my figures from for the 'History of Punch and Judy' was an old Italian long since deceased. His performance and figures were first-rate—far superior to anything of the present day, and it is quite evident that poor Leech and others copied my Punch, for Punch and other works, from the Punch that I copied from this Italian Punch.