The History of "Punch"

by M. H. Spielmann

From no choicer spirit than Gilbert Abbott à Beckett could Mayhew have sought for assistance and literary support. He was the first applied to, and of all the Staff he had had by far the most experience in the production of "comic papers," although he was only thirty years of age. His brother, the late Hon. T. T. à Beckett, has told how he and his chum Henry Mayhew, his junior by a year, with a consolidated share capital of three pounds and a mortgage to a printer of future profits, prepared to start a "satirical paper," to be called "The Cerberus"—the joint editors being then still young boys. As it happily befell, Mr. à Beckett, senior, discovered a proof of the first number, and with his solicitorial eye discovered some forty-three clear libels in the four columns. He hastened to the address on the imprint, and set the matter plainly before the printer, who was only too glad to cancel the whole matter that had been "set" upon payment of the bill. So deeply were the lads affronted by this unwarrantable interference with their journalistic spirit and liberty of the subject that they ran away from home to Edinburgh, walking all the way; but soon returned in a woeful plight. From that moment, Gilbert turned journalist—it came to him as a second nature—and thenceforward supported himself by his pen, while establishing a very fair position at the Bar, thanks to the support of his father's firm.

It was in 1831 that he presented himself prominently before the public. Jerrold's "Punch in London" had not yet begun its little life of seventeen numbers, so that the moment was propitious for à Beckett to embark on a venture of his own; and on December 10th it made its first appearance. This was "Figaro in London," in which his youthful ardour and plain speaking found energetic vent. He was always ready, in a humorous, bombastic sort of spirit, to smash the aristocracy, to chaff Alfred Bunn, to abuse low-class Jews, and to discuss the theatre. In these agreeable vocations he hit the popular taste, and certainly achieved a considerable circulation, which, Timbs declares, reached at one time 70,000 copies. Small topical cuts, grandiloquently set down as "magnificent caricatures," were well arranged as a rule, and things were going well enough when editor and artist fell out; Robert Cruikshank took Seymour's place—and à Beckett's monthly adulation of his old "cartoonist's" work turned suddenly to contempt.

All this was meant more than half in fun; it was too violently personal to be serious. Anyway, à Beckett declared in the paper that "it is not true that Robert Seymour has gone out of his mind—he had none to go out of," and Seymour retaliated heartily with a "sharp cut." In due course Seymour resumed his place on "Figaro," and retained it to the end. In December, 1834, à Beckett had handed over the paper, in the height of its prosperity, to Henry Mayhew, who continued it for a time, and in 1839 it came to an end. Yet on so slender a basis as this has been brought against à Beckett the cruel charge that it was these assaults which did at a subsequent period drive Seymour out of his mind and led to his unhappy suicide.

After "Figaro" died, and indeed partly during its continuance, à Beckett launched out into an extraordinary series of extraordinary papers, editing for other proprietors "The Wag," "The Evangelical Penny Magazine," Dibdin's "Penny Trumpet," "The Thief" (under the engaging frankness of whose title we may see the forerunner of "Public Opinion"), "Poor Richard's Journal," and "The People's Penny Pictures;" while on his own account he ran successively "The Terrific Penny Magazine," "The Ghost," "The Lover," "The Gallery of Terrors," "The Figaro Monthly Newspaper," "The Figaro Caricature Gallery," and "The Comic Magazine." But in spite of all this ingenuity in title-devising, and of all this dogged perseverance—though one can hardly call it seriousness—not one of these journals obtained public support. As a matter of fact, they were the journalistic wild oats of a born journalist and an exuberant littérateur, who, as a youthful playwright and a budding barrister, now had his hands quite full, yet—such was the fever of his industry—never full enough.

His first contribution to Punch, according to W. H. Wills' statement, was "The Above Bridge Navy" (p. 35, Volume I., 1841); but it is practically certain that "Commercial Intelligence" in the first number is his. "I recollect well," says the Hon. T. T. à Beckett, in his Reminiscences, "my brother—who wrote for it from the first number to the last that appeared in his life-time—bringing me away from my office on an assurance that if I accompanied him as far as the Strand, he would show me something that would fill me at once with gratification and amazement. He kept me in suspense until I reached Catherine Street, when he stopped short and said, 'Now you shall see me draw a pound from Punch, and if that don't amaze you and gratify you, you must have but a poor sense of the marvellous and very little brotherly sympathy.'"

Just about the period when the negotiations were being carried on with Bradbury and Evans, à Beckett began to fall off in the amount of his contributions, and for a time practically ceased altogether. At this time he edited the "Squib" (28th May, 1842), a folio sheet published at three-halfpence, very respectably conducted and printed, and owned by Last Punch's old printer, illustrated by Henning, Hamerton, and Newman, Punch artists, treating many of Punch's pet subjects in the Punch spirit, including "Physiologies," which the older paper had made its own. It was also stated that several of the Punch Staff were among its contributors. However this may be, the "Squib" went off in December of the same year, and à Beckett thenceforward worked loyally for Punch for the rest of his life, and bequeathed moreover his two sons to Punch's service.

His popular "Songs for the Seedy," a series of eight poems, were published in this year in Punch, as well as "Songs of the Flowers;" and soon his "Ballads of the Briefless" made a considerable stir in Punch's circle. À Beckett had been called to the Bar some time before, so that his ballads as well as the articles from his hand which appeared—and, from time to time, continued—over the signature of "Mr. Briefless," had a touch of verisimilitude which went straight to the soft places in the hearts and imagination of the Great Unbriefed. "Mr. Briefless" became an institution in the paper, as, in other journals, Mr. O. P. Q. Philander Smiff, and again, in a lower social scale, Mr. Alfred Sloper, became recognised by a later generation. This unfortunate gentleman of the Bar—a gentleman always, in spite of his weakness of intellect and character—was shown in all the difficulties germane to his barren profession, and in all the ludicrous situations that came natural to the man. Many of his quaint aphorisms are still remembered, such as that, elsewhere recorded—"As my laundress makes my bed, so I must lie upon it," and "The clerk brings down his master's grey horsehair wig in sorrow to the Court." Yet he was not without self-respect, not to say vanity, for on the occasion of a great political crisis, when the resignation of the Ministry was impending, "Mr. Briefless" somewhat injudiciously left his retreat at Gravesend and came up to London, in order to be on the spot should he be called upon to form or to join the future Cabinet. The only summons he received, however, was from his tailor, and, with the unfailing judgment and good sense that characterised him, he withdrew once more into the country. "Mr. Briefless" and "Mr. Dunup," his friend, were creations that were at once recognised, and were welcomed during the fifteen years of their occasional appearance.

In 1843 his "Punch's Heathen Mythology" followed Wills' chapters on the same subject, and in the following year his "Comic Blackstone"—one of the cleverest burlesques of its kind in the language—served another purpose than to amuse his readers: it forced him to study the commentaries—for the first time, it was facetiously said—and so made a better lawyer of him, and helped to fit him for the magisterial bench, to which he was soon to be summoned. His "Comic Bradshaw" was another success, which Mr. Burnand repeated and improved upon years after in his inimitable "Out of Town." Mr. Arthur à Beckett, speaking of his father's work, tells me: "I remember on one occasion when my father had written a drama descriptive of the mysteries of Bradshaw, Leech, to whom it was sent for illustration, introduced a series of portraits of the author. Lemon, noticing this, suggested that the drama should end by the hero getting his head shaved, more clearly to understand the intricacies of railway traffic. My father adopted the suggestion, and Leech followed the 'copy.'"

It was not in these series that his chief work lay, however, but in the enormous mass of matter he turned into Punch's pages month by month. He was by far the most prolific of all the contributors, almost up to the time of his death. Articles humorous and pungent on every variety of topic, verse graceful, bright, and comic, sparkling puns innumerable, with increasing thought and sense as the man grew older and realised more and more the responsibility of his position and Punch's—all flowed from him in an unceasing, easy stream, distinguished always for its fun and facility. As his average contribution to each volume was a hundred columns, it will be seen that in the time he was working for Punch his total of prose and verse amounted to three thousand feet, or a column nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower! There was, besides, the amount of "outside" work that came from his pen—he was leader-writer to the "Illustrated London News," and as such was the literary father of Shirley Brooks, the grandfather of Mr. Sala, and the great-grandfather of Mr. James Payn. He was also leader-writer on the "Times," and on one occasion actually wrote all the leaders of the day's issue. This strange coincidence arose from his having had a leader "crowded out" from the day before, which was naturally set down for use the next day, when he contributed his usual article without any question arising; and then a sudden appeal upon a subject with which he was specially familiar brought into the paper a third article from him—and that in the days, now fifty years ago, when the influence and position of the "Times" were perhaps even greater, relatively, than they are to-day: at least, when there was no competitor that could seriously pretend to share them. In addition to this he edited Cruikshank's "Table Book," and wrote the Comic Histories of England and Rome. It was, it is generally said, on the occasion of the first of these books being announced that Douglas Jerrold wrote to Charles Dickens: "Punch, I believe, holds its course.... Nevertheless, I do not very cordially agree with its new spirit. I am convinced that the world will get tired (at least, I hope so) of this eternal guffaw at all things. After all, life has something serious in it. It cannot all be a comic history of humanity. Some men would, I believe, write a Comic Sermon on the Mount. Think of a Comic History of England; the drollery of Alfred; the fun of Sir Thomas More in the Tower; the farce of his daughter begging the dear head, and clasping it in her coffin on her bosom! Surely the world will be sick of such blasphemy!... When, moreover, the change comes, unless Punch goes a little back to his occasional gravities, he'll be sure to suffer." And Dickens replied in a letter thanking him for sympathetic reviews, in Punch—"Anent the 'Comic ——' and similar comicalities, I feel exactly with you."

Of course, with the exception of the latter part of Jerrold's outburst, wherein he was undoubtedly right, all this protest is exaggerated nonsense—at least, as applied to à Beckett. One would think that neither Jerrold nor Dickens could bear a burlesque in good taste—Jerrold of all men! But it is just as likely that Jerrold was not referring to à Beckett at all, but to Thackeray, whose "Miss Tickletoby's Comic History" had already made its appearance in Punch, and had been incontinently stopped. In any case, the public did not agree with him, for both works are still popular favourites. Moreover, he liked à Beckett too well to harm him in the mind of a common friend; and he was unquestionably aware that the loftiness of à Beckett's aims and character rendered him unassailable against a charge of irreverence or lack of respect. Certain it is, at least, that when à Beckett died at Boulogne Jerrold felt the blow so deeply that he gave up that town thenceforward as a place of residence, nor would he ever visit it again.