Turner, unhappily, was acutely sensitive to these attacks; but Punch cared little for that, and probably—to do him justice—knew still less. It is, however, notable that—doubtless on account of that very common-sense which has nearly always kept him right on great questions—Punch has usually in art been nearly as much a Philistine as the public he represents. When Sir Edward Burne-Jones burst forth into the artistic firmament, Punch joined, if not the mockers, at least the severer critics. "Burn Jones?" said he; "by all means do." Of the exquisite "Mirror of Venus" and "The Beguiling of Merlin" he ignored the poetry, and saw little but the quaintness, his criticism being the more weighty for its being clever. Of the first-named picture he observed:—
"Or crowding round one pool, from flowery shelves
A group of damsels bowed the knee
Over reflections solid as themselves
And like as peasen be."
While in the latter
"... mythic Uther's diddled son was seen
Packed in a trunk with cramped limbs awry,
Spell-fettered by a Siren, limp and lean,
And at least twelve heads high."
No doubt, the grounds of Punch's opposition were not only those which are recognised as belonging to the humorist; they consisted not a little in that healthy hatred of the affectation with which so much good art is husked. In more recent times Punch did not ignore the fine decorative qualities of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley's art, though he plainly loathed the morbid ugliness of much of its conception and detail.
Perhaps no one was more heartily attacked than Charles Kean—"Young Kean," it was the fashion to call him—probably because between Jerrold and the actor there had been a serious quarrel. As to this, which took its rise in the pre-Punch days, nothing need here be said; it is fully dealt with in the wit's biography. In the words of the present Editor: "Only tardily was something like justice done to Kean's influence on the drama of our time, by Punch, who had been one of the first to sound the note of warning about that 'stage-upholstery' which was the first sign of the growth of realism in dramatic art." Punch loved to contrast the younger Kean with his more gifted father, and had no patience with the raucous voice and bad enunciation of the son; but his sketch of the actor as Sardanapalus (1853), "with a wine-cup of the period," sets on record one of the most perfect archæological revivals that had ever been seen on the English stage. But it was Kean's "Mephistopheles" (1854) that afforded Punch his chance, for the actor's realisation was so wide of Goethe's creation that it was a Frenchified demon, played as a comic character. Punch admitted the beauty of the production, but said that "as a piece of show and mechanism (wires unseen) it will draw the eyes of the town, especially the eyes with the least brains behind them." Kean's performance was denounced as devoid of life and beauty, but generous praise was accorded to his newly made-up nose, to which the best part of the criticism was devoted. "It has the true demoniacal curve," he said; "we never saw a better view of the devil's bridge." And so, throughout, Punch dogged Kean's progress. But as time went on, his criticism lost the taint of personal feeling; and Kean was recognised at last as our leading tragedian, though to the end he was never accepted as a great actor.
A pretty accurate estimate as to Punch's pet "black beasts" and popular butts at this time may be formed by the list drawn up in the paper of those persons whom Punch would exercise his right to "challenge" if, in accordance with Mr. Serjeant Murphy's suggestion in the House of Commons, Punch were put upon his trial for conspiracy, apropos of Cobden. From such a jury, we are told, there would be struck off, in addition to those names already given, Mr. Grant (author of "The Great Metropolis"), Baron Nathan the composer, Alderman Gibbs, D. W. Osbaldiston (of the Surrey Theatre), Colonel Sibthorpe, and Moses the tailor.
In dealing with the work of Jerrold, I draw attention to the merciless onslaught on Samuel Carter Hall, editor of the "Art Journal" and founder of the "Art Union," as it was at first called. Hall was Pecksniff; the "Art Union" was "The Pecksniffery;" and Punch courted the libel action which Hall threatened but failed to bring. That "the literary Pecksniff" took this course could not but create a bad impression at the time, and Hall has therefore been put down as one of the butts whom Punch had justly assailed. Of course his sententious catch-phrase of appealing to "hand, head, and heart" was always made the most of, and Punch delighted in paraphrasing it as "gloves, hat, and waistcoat."
But the two non-political persons whom Punch most persistently and vigorously attacked were Mr. James Silk Buckingham and Mr. Alfred Bunn; and these two campaigns must, perhaps, be counted the most elaborate of their kind which Punch has undertaken in his career—though in neither had he very much to be proud of when all was said and done. Mr. J. S. Buckingham, sometime Member of Parliament, was a gentleman philanthropically inclined and of literary instincts, a man who had travelled greatly, and who in many of the schemes he had undertaken—including the founding of the "Athenæum" in 1828—had usually had the support of a number of the most reputable persons in the country. His latest idea was the establishing of the British and Foreign Institute—a sort of counterpart in intention of the present Colonial Institute; but as all of Mr. Buckingham's schemes had not succeeded, and as he retained chambers in the club-house of what Punch insisted upon calling the "British and Foreign [or 'Outlandish'] Destitute," the journal was convinced that something more than a primâ-facie case had been made out against the promoter, who, being assumed to live upon the members' subscriptions, was harried in the paper from its first volume, chiefly at first by the slashing pen of Jerrold, and—in small paragraphs—by the more delicate rapier of Horace Mayhew. These charges of mal-administration and other offensive imputations against a semi-public man whose chief faults seem to have been an over-sanguine temperament and a slight disposition towards self-advertisement, attracted wide notice, and Punch devoted in all considerable space to the prosecution of this mistaken campaign. Unfortunately for Buckingham, a member of the Institute, a Mr. George Jones—who had published a good deal of dramatic nonsense under the title of "Tecumseh"—came to his support with a ridiculous, inflated letter, which Punch promptly printed with the signature engraved in facsimile. Thereupon Jones, finding the doubtful honour of publicity unexpectedly thrust upon him, denounced the letter as a forgery; so Punch, had it lithographed and circulated among the members, "just to show how good the forgery was." Jones forthwith began an action for libel, which Punch defended. The genuineness of the document, however, was established, and Jones withdrew from the action, paying all costs.
The sins of Jones were naturally added to Buckingham's account, and the latter decided—as Leech once effectively threatened to do—to "draw" and defend himself. He published a pamphlet entitled "The Slanders of Punch" felicitously quoting as his motto from Proverbs xxvi. 18, "As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?"—he appealed for justice to the public, and especially to "the 200,000 readers of Punch" denouncing the persecution, and making known the fact that Jerrold had originally applied for membership of his Institute, but had failed to take up his election, whereupon his name was erased from the books. Ten thousand handbills were circulated, and six thousand copies of the threepenny pamphlet, in various editions, were sold. Punch's answer was a whole page of savage, biting satire from Jerrold (p. 241, Vol. IX.), which, however, was too bombastic and "ultrafluvial" to be wholly effective. Thackeray's page article on "John Jones's Remonstrance about the Buckingham Business" (p. 261) was far more to the point—amusing, politic, and shrewd—and drew the quarrel within its proper limits, by imparting to it a more jocular tone. Addressing the paper, he says, "At page 241 you are absolutely serious. That page of Punch is a take-in. Punch ought never to be virtuously indignant or absolutely serious;" and with these words, re-affirming the maxim which Punch had forgotten in his heat, he restored peace, patched up the paper's reputation for good-humour, and with a skilful word covered its retreat.