A. CHANTREY CORBOULD.
(Drawn by Himself.)
Fourteen years later, when Mr. Corbould was still hoping for that position with which many people already credited him—a Staff appointment—Keene wrote:—
"I've no doubt myself that it is in your power, if you manage well, to get on to Punch. It is rather unlucky that Burnand is not a sporting man" [Mr. Burnand, by the way, is an inveterate horseman]. "... I should advise you to drive gently but steadily at hunting and country subjects, and if you get a good idea of any sort have a shy at it, and encourage your friends to look out for you.... You've noticed I only do one a week now, as a rule. I send you an idea you might work out. Wouldn't you make it a meet (in background), and the speakers mounted?
"'Think I must part with him.' SHE: 'What! all at once, wholesale? Wouldn't it be better to sell him retail on little skewers?' I'll look out and send you anything in your line I hear of."
This joke of Keene's was duly worked out by Mr. Corbould, and was produced Nov. 22, 1884 (p. 249, Vol. LXXXVII). Up to this time the draughtsman had worked under three Editors, to whom, as was the practice, he would send in slight sketches to "legends," and work out those which were accepted, the selection being made in due course, with a bit of criticism to take the vanity out of him, thus: "Very good subject. The man is far too big for the horse, which is a 15.3 if he's an inch. This was generally Leech's mistake; so you err in remarkably good company. Why 'Hunting Puzzle'? It's not a puzzle."
Apart from a couple of sketches by Mrs. Field and one by Mr. Graham, the year 1872 brought no contributor but Randolph Caldecott. The half-a-dozen sketches together comprising his "Seaside Drama" (p. 120, Vol. LXI.) contains no hint of that peculiar style, individual humour, and perfect suggestion, which he was to make his own. His drawings were published in 1872, 1873, and 1875, and then again in 1879, 1880, 1882, and 1883—eighteen drawings in all; but it was not until 1879 that Caldecott showed any of his later freshness and humorous exaggeration. It was in 1870, his biographer asserts, that his drawings were shown to Shirley Brooks and Mark Lemon:—
"Mr. Clough thus records the incident: Bearing an introductory letter, he went up to London on a flying visit, carrying with him a sketch on wood and a small book of drawings of 'The Fancies of a Wedding.' He was well received. The sketch was accepted, and with many compliments the book of drawings was detained. 'From that day to this,' said Mr. Caldecott, 'I have not seen either sketch or book.' Some time after, on meeting Mark Lemon, the incident was recalled, when the burly, jovial Editor replied, 'My dear fellow, I am vagabondising to-day, not Punching.' I don't think Mr. Caldecott rightly appreciated the joke."[66]
Caldecott had had some practice in humorous drawing, having drawn three years before for the "Will-o'-the-Wisp" and "The Sphinx." But his Punch work was merely occasional; his more serious labours were for the "Graphic," "The Pictorial World," and most notably, on Mr. Edmund Evans's suggestion, for the immortal children's books which the engraver might print in colours. He was only forty years old when he died, and Punch, in the course of a long obituary poem, bore witness to his singular charm, though he made no reference to the work contributed to his own pages:—
"Sure never pencil steeped in mirth
So closely kept to grace and beauty.
The honest charms of mother Earth,
Of manly love, and simple duty,
Blend in his work with boyish health,
With amorous maiden's meek cajolery,
Child-witchery, and a wondrous wealth
Of dainty whim and daring drollery."