Punch did not engage his exclusive energies. He was the first editor of the "Field." Then he edited the "London Journal," and in trying to improve its tone and quality of literature by the republication in its pages of the Waverley novels he well-nigh ruined it. These and other matters he embarked upon, together with a number of small works, such as his volume of "Prose and Verse" (which Jerrold said ought to have been called "Prose and Worse"), and his "Jest Book," on the strength of which, it is said, Hans Christian Andersen, when in England, sought an introduction to him and paid him the compliment of saying, "I am so glad to know you, Mr. Lemon—you are so full of comic!"
Moreover, Lemon acted as a sort of secretary to Herbert Ingram, whom he served with great tact. Ingram was a good deal identified with the Punch circle, sometimes in a friendly and sometimes in a hostile way. He was owner, before he sold it to William and Robert Brough, of "The Man in the Moon," Punch's arch-enemy, and in later years he started the "Comic News," with Edmund Yates as editor, on purpose to oppose him. Yet several of the Punch men, notably Shirley Brooks, worked on his "Illustrated London News," which was started in great measure to push "Parr's Life Pills" (these were constantly mentioned and sometimes attacked in Punch), and Douglas Jerrold found in him the capitalist for the "Illuminated Magazine." Mark Lemon it was who took several of his Staff down to Boston to speak for Ingram during his candidature, an expedition that was a greater electoral than oratorical success; and he again it was, so it is said, who persuaded Mr. Ingram to drop the "Comic News," so that Punch might be rid of what was already a troublesome, and might have become a very damaging, rival.
With equal zeal and skill and genial friendliness to recommend him, Lemon became a great favourite in his own circle, for "Uncle Mark" was always ready to do his friends a good turn. In 1845 the Staff combined to present him with a silver inkstand—an interesting relic now in possession of Mrs. F. W. W. Topham, his daughter—a reproduction of the lid of which is here given; while the locket which, with a more substantial gift, was presented in 1866 to celebrate the Jubilee of Punch (i.e. his fiftieth volume) and to mark the withdrawal of the Heads of the firm, was inscribed as follows: "To Mark Lemon from his old friends W. Bradbury and F. M. Evans, on their retirement, given at a dinner at Maidenhead, June 27th, 1866. Present—W. H. Bradbury, Shirley Brooks, Wm. Agnew, G. du Maurier, F. C. Burnand, J. H. Agnew, C. H. Bennett, John Tenniel, Horace Mayhew, F. M. Evans (Jim.), Henry Silver, T. Agnew (Jim.), Percival Leigh, Chas. Keene, Mark Lemon, Wm. Bradbury, F. M. Evans." There is no doubt that, as time went on, Lemon became more and more popular with his Staff, and each fresh appearance in Punch of his jolly face under the low-crowned hat of John Bull, or the snow-sprinkled peak of Father Christmas, identified him more closely with the paper and endeared him to his workers. Yet they liked to "score off" him when they could, in return for the jokes he played on them. The story is told how, when he had run down for a few days' holiday by the sea, he received the paper by post, and, tearing off its cover, was horrified to find, not the cartoon they had agreed upon, but another, execrable in taste and vile in execution, while undoubted libels and other offences were sprinkled with hideous liberality about the pages. Moreover, the cartoon was awry, the date was wrong, and a paragraph was upside down. Lemon turned cold all down his spine, and gasping "This comes from my being away!" he determined to return to town without the loss of a moment. From this point historians differ. Some say that Mark rushed to the station, quickly bought up every copy of the awful issue that was for sale, and jumped into the railway-carriage with the bundle; and that not before he was well on his way did he dare to open a copy to gaze again on the hideous production; and when he did—he rubbed his eyes, for everything was just as it should be! Then the light broke in upon him that he had been egregiously "sold," and he realised that a copy had been specially prepared for his pleasing edification! Other commentators assert that before Uncle Mark had time to leave for the station a telegram came, mercifully explaining a joke which, it was felt, ought not to be carried too far. The reader will remember a similar incident occurring in "Esmond;" and one wonders if the idea of that dummy copy of the "Spectator" was not suggested by the hour's torture lovingly inflicted upon the Editor of Punch by his affectionate and respectful Staff.
Mark Lemon died on May 23rd, 1870. He had been very ill on one or two previous occasions; even as early as 1848 Jerrold had written to John Forster that "Lemon has been at Death's door—but has kept on the outside." For nine-and-twenty years he had been at the helm; and although he may not have been as paramount on Punch as some aver, there can be no doubt that he entirely merited the compliment paid by Mr. Gladstone to his memory when, awarding a pension of £100 from the Civil List to Mrs. Lemon, he said that he had "raised the level of comic journalism to its present standard." The proprietors, with generous sympathy, recognising the immense services of their friend, at once set about making a collection for the widow and unmarried daughters (for Lemon had been unsuccessful in his investments and speculations) and, with the ready help of the Staff, prosecuted it with so much energy and goodwill that the sum of £1,500 was quickly raised.
He was lowered to rest in a coffin simply inscribed "Mark Lemon—Editor of Punch;" for in Punch he had lived his life. "He believed," said Mr. Hatton, "in one God, one woman, one publication," as his surviving colleagues well knew. "If this journal," they wrote by the hand of Shirley Brooks, "has had the good fortune to be credited with habitual advocacy of truth and justice, if it has been praised for abstinence from the less worthy kind of satire, if it has been trusted by those who keep guard over the purity of womanhood and of youth, we, the best witnesses, turn for a moment from our sorrow to bear the fullest and most willing testimony that the high and noble spirit of Mark Lemon ever prompted generous championship, ever made unworthy onslaught or irreverent jest impossible to the pens of those who were honoured in being coadjutors with him." And in the poem that follows, testimony is borne that—
"... 'Twas his pride to teach us so to bear
Our blades, as he bore his—keep the edge keen,
But strike above the belt: and ever wear
The armour of a conscience clear and clean."
HENRY MAYHEW.
From a Photograph
by Bedford, Lemere and
Co., Strand, W.C.
The character of Henry Mayhew, and his share in the production of Punch, have already been somewhat fully set forth. An old friend of his informs me that "he was lovable, jolly, charming, bright, coaxing, and unprincipled. He rarely wrote himself, but would dictate, as he walked to and fro, to his wife, whom he would also leave to confront his creditors. She was deeply attached to him; and when his father died, she found that the careful solicitor had left her a bequest of two pounds a week, payable to herself." And Postans, after he had lost his sight, would now and then exclaim—"Although he treated me so badly, I should love to hear the sound of his dear voice again!" There can be no doubt that Henry Mayhew was a genius, a fascinating companion, and a man of inexhaustible resource and humour—though humour was but one side of his brilliant mind. Indolence was his besetting sin; and his will was untutored.
"An admirable all-round talker," Henry Vizetelly wrote to me shortly before his death, "Henry Mayhew was brimming over with novel ideas on all manner of subjects, from artificial production of diamonds to the reformation of ticket-of-leave men. He was constantly planning some new publication or broaching novel ideas on the most out-of-the-way subjects. He would scheme and ponder all the day long, but he abominated the labour of putting his ideas into tangible shape. He would talk like a book on any subject for hours together if he could only find listeners, but could with difficulty be brought to put pen to paper. Most of his books were written from his ideas by his younger brother Augustus, or were dictated directly to his wife, who acted as his amanuensis. Although he made considerable sums by his writings, he never seemed to have a shilling; and most of the letters he received were from dunning creditors. These missives, however, never troubled him, for he never broke the envelopes of one of them, but handed all his correspondence over to his wife to do as she pleased with and answer such letters as she thought necessary. He was very temperate. Whether he smoked as a young man, I am not aware; but he never smoked at the periodical evening gatherings at his house, when the guests could hardly see each other for the clouds of tobacco-smoke. On these occasions the most abstruse subjects were often discussed, and all we young wiseacres present contributed our modicum of knowledge towards the elucidation of problems that sorely perplexed the thinkers of the epoch. Although Mayhew would sit up till any hour as long as anyone would stay and listen to him, he never allowed this to interfere with his early-rising habits."