And so forth. Then, presenting the head of Jerrold on the body of an unusually wriggling serpent, which he gives forth as being from "portraits in possession of the family," he goes on to "say something" of the man of savage sarcasm and "bilious bitings:"—
Now, with all his failings, let me record my opinion that it is to Jerrold's pen you are indebted, Punch, for the fame you once enjoyed; for, beyond any doubt, he is a fellow of infinite ability. I have known him some years, and the last time but one I ever saw him was in 1842, when, meeting me in St. James's Street, he thanked me for a handsome critique he believed me to have written on his comedy of "Bubbles of the Day," and on that occasion he said a better thing, Punch, than he has written in your pages. I said to him, "What, you are picking up character, I suppose?"—to which he replied, "There's plenty of it lost, in this neighbourhood." The last time I ever heard from him was during the first visit of Duprez to Drury Lane Theatre, when I received the following note from him:—
Wednesday.
"My dear Sir,
Will you enable me to hear your French nightingale—do pray,
Yours very truly,
D. Jerrold."
—which is the vilest pun ever perpetrated at the expense of that eminent singer.... Unlike the other two of his party, he is a man of undoubted genius; but all who admit this, at the same time regret the frequent misdirection of his mind. He is one of the most ill-conditioned, spiteful, vindictive, and venomous writers in existence, and whatever honey was in his composition, has long since turned to gall.... Can it be possible [he adds, after digging up and quoting some of Jerrold's feeblest verse] that it never occurs to a wholesale dealer in slander and ridicule that he is liable to be assailed by the very weapons he useth against others?
Then comes the portrait of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, in wig and gown, but with devil's hoofs and tail. On him the attack is savage in the extreme, the details of his early lack of financial success being published, and the whole dismissed with the comprehensive remark: "a very prolific person, this friend of yours, Punch!—editor of thirteen periodicals, and lessee of a theatre into the bargain, and all total failures!" After heavy-handed chaff he proceeds to abuse Mark Lemon, up and down, in similar terms; and with a view to show that others write verse as bad as his, reprints the weakest lines in his "Fridolin" and "The Rhine-boat." In the course of his very effective attack Bunn proceeds:—
In speaking of the Castle of Heidelberg, which he says is on the Rhine, although everyone else says it is on the Neckar, he thus apostrophises it:—
"'Tis here the north wind loves to hold
His dreary revels, loud and cold,
The nettle's bloom's his daily fare,
The toad the guest most welcome there!!"
Whether the last line gives the reason why Thickhead visited Heidelberg does not appear.
He then dots epigrams and so forth—all insults of various degrees of offensiveness—about the remaining pages, virtually suggesting, in Sheridan's words, that while Punch's circulation has gone down hopelessly, "everything about him is a jest except his witticisms." The advertisements, too, are of a similarly satirical character, one of them showing, as an illustration of a "patent blacking," Mark Lemon (as pot-boy) looking at his own likeness in the polish of a Wellington boot which reflects a rearing donkey. The last cut represents a medicine bottle with a label inscribed "This dose to be repeated, should the patients require it," and the "Notice to Correspondents" declares that ample material is left for future use. Such further publication, however, was never called for. Punch attempted no reply—inexplicably, one would think, for there must have been something left to say of Hot Cross Bunn. Punch's rivals were not slow to twit him on his defeat, especially the "Puppet Show" and "The Man in the Moon," the latter of which, in a comic report of the proceedings at the "Licensing Committee for Poets," remarked, "Mr. Alfred Bunn was bitterly opposed on personal grounds by a person named Punch; but Mr. Bunn having intimated his wish to have a Word with Punch, the latter skulked out of court, and was not heard of afterwards."
"A Word with Punch"—which the Punch men are said to have bought up as far as possible—had a considerable sale, and an "édition de luxe" was also issued, coloured. The engravings in it were made by Landells, a modest piece of vengeance which must, however, have been gratifying, so far as it went. It may be added that J. R. Adam, "the Cremorne Poet," took up the cudgels unasked in Punch's behalf in a reply entitled "A Word with Bunn;" but this little octavo is as insignificant as its author, and attracted little notice.