The impression made by Mayhew upon his contemporaries was invariably such as to command respect for his intellectual capacity. Considering his deep, philosophic mind, says one critic, if his lines had been cast in more serious places, he might have been a sociologist, the equal of John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. There is proof enough of this in that wonderful encyclopædic work of "London Labour and London Poor," which displayed his original mind and his power of research, as much as other books displayed his marvellous invention, fancy, and initiative, and it is the only one of his undertakings which he had perseverance enough to carry through to a triumphant conclusion—so far as it can claim finality. It was while he was engaged on this work that Landells (according to a private letter) visited him and found him, in company with his brother Augustus and William Jerrold, interviewing a "coster"—"drawing him," while Horace Mayhew took down everything the man said.
Such was the man who conceived Punch as it came to be, and who wrote of it when it was established, "I smell lots of tin thereabouts; but our Lemon requires a great deal of squeezing." What was his connection with Punch, how he agreed with Lemon as to the transfer to Bradbury and Evans, how he found himself replaced by (or, as he considered, outwitted by) Mark Lemon in the editorship has already been recited. Nevertheless, he was retained as "Suggestor-in-Chief"—an office which suited him well enough, considering his hatred of the drudgery of writing.
"Mr. Henry Mayhew," writes Punch's ex-Printer, "the special joke-provider for Punch, was a most jocular character. He would stand beside the compositor while he was working at his case, and closely watch every movement of his hand in picking up each letter. He said he could not make out how ever the compositor could keep the alphabetical order of each box in his memory. So to master the mystery he set to work and learned the boxes for himself, and would often find amusement, when waiting for a proof, in setting up a few lines, very slowly at first, but, shifting the composing rule and thoughtlessly laying down the stick the wrong way, generally upset all his work, and so he gave it up in despair. This Mr. Mayhew was very clever in creating and roughly sketching out many of the small comic column illustrations, and would write the witty inscriptions for them. These would then go to the artist, who sketched out the idea and so completed it. In Punch, as in many other similar works, the mind to invent the idea caricatured, and the hand that pencils it, belong to two very different persons and capacities. Mr. Mayhew was very clever in this way, and anything of a comic nature he saw he would at once sketch off and then have a cut made of it. Most of the inimitable cuts in the first few volumes of Punch are of his invention. He was always sketching and taking rough notes of everything he saw. The great John Leech called him his indispensable 'Jack-all, or broad-grin provider.'"
In spite of his disappointment, Henry Mayhew remained with Punch until 1845. His last literary contribution—"A Shaksperean Nursery Rhyme," on the subject of Macready playing Shakespeare in Paris before Louis Philippe and Prince de Joinville—appeared in February of that year; but he still attended the Dinners and made suggestions for cartoons, of which twelve were accepted in that year. With his proposal, however, of the cartoon of "Don Roebucis," which was drawn by Leech (14th March, 1846), his last word was said; and from that time forward his connection with Punch ceased absolutely. He had given the paper its character and tone; he had suggested its first great success, the Almanac; he had supported its transfer, whereby it was firmly established; and he had cracked its biggest joke—the joke which is universally quoted to this very day.[33] He died in 1887, at the age of 75, and his old friend celebrated him in verse, none too correctly, though in the kindliest manner, ending thus:—
".... Farewell!
The record of the age's course will tell
Of him whose name a double honour bore,
Comrade of Punch and champion of the poor."[34]
J. STIRLING COYNE.
(From a Photograph by Lombard and Co.)
There was a fund of Irish humour in Joseph Stirling Coyne. He had proved it by his plays long before he undertook his share of the co-editorship which was offered him at that "Edinburgh Castle" meeting where so much of Punch's present and future was arranged. He was at that time eight-and-twenty years of age; and although he was dramatic critic of the "Sunday Times," the drama rather than the press was his natural field of action—indeed, he wrote no fewer than five-and-fifty pieces of various kinds, besides plays in collaboration, and was secretary of the Dramatic Authors' Society, until his death. Nevertheless, he belonged in a manner to the inner circle of the "Punch set," and frequented the taverns that were their clubs; and he even went in double harness with Mark Lemon as co-editor, vice "Alphabet" Bayley, of "The Bude Light"—an English imitation of "Les Guêpes." He was, in fact, a man of some celebrity who had already gained public reputation beyond the band of men, brilliant, no doubt, but, for the most part, with their successes yet to come—so that he was accorded the important rôle which he filled with peculiar modesty. He wrote extremely little, but he seems to have formed some distinct notion of his share in the foundation, for Edmund Yates records how his father once came home and, throwing the first number of Punch on the table, said, "Here is Stirling Coyne's new paper!" At last Coyne was charged by Lemon (who always referred contemptuously to him as "Paddy") with stealing one of his "Puff Papers" from a Dublin paper. At Punch's transfer Coyne quietly, though discontentedly, retired from duties which had hitherto brought him neither reputation nor pleasure, and only a hundred pounds in cash from Landells, and from Douglas Jerrold—as I learn from one who heard it—a savage mot, referring to his somewhat uncleanly appearance, which will undoubtedly adhere—"Stirling Coyne? I call him Filthy Lucre!"
GILBERT ABBOTT À BECKETT.