The History of "Punch"

by M. H. Spielmann

At the birth of the modern satirical print—that is to say, in the reign of Charles I.—we see it called "A Mad Designe;" eighty years later, when George II. was King, it was known as a "hieroglyphic;" and then onwards, through the caustic and venomous days of the mighty Gillray and Rowlandson, and even of George Cruikshank, and their contemporaries, "caricature" was the term applied to the separate copper-plate broadsides that were issued, crudely coloured, from the famous shops of Mrs. Humphreys, of Ackermann, of Fores, and of McLean, and displayed in their windows to the delight and savage applause of a laughing crowd. Then "HB" had followed, Dicky Doyle's clever father, whose political lithographs had begun to appear in 1830, and continued until 1851—ceased, that is to say, when Punch was ten years old. The wonder about them was that, even before the days of photography, the likenesses of his subjects were so admirable, and his thrusts so happy, while his art, criticised strictly, was so very poor and amateurish. But as exaggeration found no trace in his designs, and his compositions aimed at raising little more than a suspicion of a smile in the beholder (save in the subjects of them), the word "cartoon" was more applicable to them than to any that preceded or have followed them. Mr. Austin Dobson, it is true, speaks of them as "caricatures;" but their publisher more correctly defined them as "Political Sketches."

Then, after the little wood-cut "caricatures" by Robert Seymour, came Punch with his full-page designs. Announced also as "caricatures," for a long while they were known as "pencillings;" but it was some time before they became an invariable feature of the paper. For several consecutive weeks, indeed, in 1843 there was no full-page cut at all, until John Leech recommenced them with a series of "Social Miseries," the first of which represented "Thoughts during Pastorale." But the most successful and the best remembered was "The Pleasures of Folding Doors" when "The Battle of Prague" is being thumped out relentlessly on the other side.

Now in July of 1843 the first great exhibition of cartoons for the Houses of Parliament was held. These gigantic designs handled the loftiest subjects, executed in the most elevated spirit of the highest art, with a view to ultimate execution in fresco on the walls of the palace of Westminster. It was not in nature for Punch to allow so excellent an opportunity to pass by without taking sarcastic advantage of it. He—conformably with his rôle of Sir Oracle, omniscient and omnifarious—must have his "cartoons" too; and so on p. 22 of the second volume for the same year (No. 105 of the journal) he appeared with No. 1 of his series. It was from Leech's pencil, entitled "Substance and Shadow," with the legend "The Poor ask for Bread, and the Philanthropy of the State accords—an Exhibition." The cartoon represents a humble crowd of needy visitors to the exhibition of pictures on a suggested "free day," in accordance with the recommendation of the Government. This design, a suggestion of Jerrold's, affords an excellent example of the warm-hearted, wrong-headed sympathy with the poor which led him so often cruelly to misjudge and misrepresent the acts and lives of persons in authority whose views were not, like his own, spontaneously, kindly, and impulsively unpractical. The series of six cartoons was directed against abuses, the last, dealing with the subject of duelling, being entitled "The Satisfaction of a Gentleman"—in which two duellists appear attended by seconds wearing caps and bells, while the hangman awaits the victor in one corner, and Death digs a grave for his victim in the other.

After this series Punch for a long while dropped the word "cartoon," but the public remembered it, and has clung to it ever since. It is a remarkable thing that while the "Encyclopædic Dictionary" entirely ignores the word in its modern application to satirical prints, Dr. Murray's monumental lexicon has as its earliest use of the word a reference made by Miss Braddon to Leech's cartoons in the year 1863—or twenty years after it was first coined!

But the very first number of Punch, as we have seen, rejoiced in a cartoon as we now understand it—that is to say, a large full-page or double-page block of a satirical nature, usually placed in the middle opening of the paper, and for the most part still further dignified by being "unbacked" by other printing. It has been stated that Henry Mayhew at the very beginning insisted on this being a special feature of the paper, defeating the opposition of "Daddy" Landells, who was all for a number of little "coots," as he pronounced them, sprinkled plentifully over the pages. But inasmuch as Landells was an engraver, who would have delighted in the opportunity offered to his apprentices by a "big cut," as he was anxious above all things to follow the Paris "Charivari" (the very raison d'être of which was the large political cartoon), and as, moreover, the original "dummy" of the paper makes provision for such a cartoon, the statement is not to be accepted.

It was really a poor thing, that first cartoon—"Candidates under Different Phases;" but it possessed over the little "caricatures" by Robert Seymour in Gilbert à Beckett's "Figaro in London," that had gone before, the important advantage of size. It was smaller than the hideously vulgar cuts in the "Penny Satirist," but—in tone, at least—this harmless satire on Parliamentary candidates displayed a refreshing and a highly appreciated decency and moderation. And since that time, whether satirical or frankly funny, sarcastic or witty, compassionate or denunciatory, eulogistic, sympathetic, indignant, or merely expository, the cartoons have rarely overstepped the boundary of good taste, or done aught but express fearlessly, honestly, and so far as may be gracefully, the popular feeling of the moment.

It is just this happy ability of Punch's to reflect the opinion of the country that gave it the great power it attained and won it the respect of every successive Government. It is true that of late years Mr. Punch has rather followed public opinion than led it; and it is equally true that he now represents a higher stratum of society than at first, when Jerrold week after week pleaded the cause of the poor. Yet the Governments of the day might have applied to him Addison's words—

"In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee"—

and esteemed themselves happy when Punch smiled upon them. "What Punch says" appears to be a good deal to the Great Ones of our world, thick-skinned though they be; for even outside politics, they have, generally speaking, accepted as an axiom "Vox Punchii, vox Populi;" while Cabinet Ministers, from the Premier downwards, have hoped from his benevolence and feared from his hostility! When Mr. Mundella publicly declared that "Punch is almost the most dangerous antagonist that a politician could have opposed to him—for myself I would rather have Punch at my back in any political or social undertaking than half the politicians of the House of Commons," he was merely expressing a conviction on the part of statesmen that many of them have given evidence of. It is another proof of the power of the caricaturist—a very proper respect for the smile which brings popularity and for the ridicule which kills.

We all know the effect of Gillray's, Rowlandson's, and George Cruikshank's etching-needles upon their victims—how these latter would writhe under a stab that was often virulent in its brutality, merciless, scurrilous, and cruel. We know how money passed—at least, in their earlier years—to influence the political opinions of the caricaturists, less in the hope of damaging "the other side" than with the view to diluting with a little milk of human kindness their etchers' aquafortis; and we know how Cruikshank's sudden abandonment of political caricature has been generally attributed (without drawing forth any denial) to a very special communication of a remunerative sort from Windsor Castle. That, however, was owing rather to his remorseless gibbeting of the follies and scandals of the Court than to political attack or personal persecution; but other circumstances of a more serious, because of an international, character have now and again attended the publication of a caricature. For example, like the Hi-Talleyrand episode, Leech's famous cartoon of "Cock-a-doodle-do!" (February 13th, 1858) promised at one time—less directly, it is true—to bring unpleasant consequences in its train. In the spirit of the Prince de Joinville, whose bombastic language towards England in 1848 had set an example not to be resisted, were the fire-eating words of a few French officers, who offered to "unsheathe their swords and place them at their sovereign's disposal," and so forth. Leech replied with a cartoon of a Gallic cock, capped and spurred, flapping its epaulettes and crowing its loudest, while Napoleon the Third curses the "Crowing Colonel" under his breath. "Diable!" he says, "the noisy bird will awake my neighbour;" and the point is emphasised by a quotation from the Moniteur. The hit, if not quite original (for Doyle had made a precisely similar sketch of "Le Coq Gaulois" twelve years before in "The Almanac of the Month") was, at any rate, a fair one. But some unscrupulous British patriot so took the matter into his own scurvy hands that the following advertisement was published in "The Times" of March 10th:—