The year 1842 was the stormiest and most threatening in Punch's history; so that, with an empty till and growing liabilities, there was no disposition towards introducing new contributors involving the principle of "cash down." Only three names belong to this year, but all were men of great importance, each in his own line—John Oxenford, W. M. Thackeray, and Horace Mayhew. In common with Coyne, Oxenford had a stronger sympathy for the stage than for periodical literature, so that after the tenth volume he ceased to be even an occasional contributor. His first paper was "Herr Döbler and the Candle Counter." The popular conjurer had advertised that to begin his performance and illumine his stage he would light two hundred candles by a single pistol-shot. (This was in the very early days of practical electricity.) The "Times" had reported the entertainment, but complained that, having counted the number of candles, they found there were only eighty-seven!—whereupon Oxenford executed a literary dance upon the "Times" reporter. Thenceforward, he contributed with some degree of regularity. After his "Christmas Game" (January 6th, 1844) he was, on the 3rd of the following year, accounted upon the regular Staff, although from that time he did but little. Verse, clever and bright, burlesque, and the like, in the true spirit of Punch, came from time to time; but there was not enough of his work to place him in rank with the chief of the contributors. "There is one," Mr. Jabez Hogg reminds me, "whose name is rarely mentioned in connection with the early days of Punch and the 'Illustrated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good work in his day, and his contributions to Punch assisted greatly to increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water."
W. M. THACKERAY.
(From a Private Photograph.)
The same number that introduced John Oxenford to the Punch reader presented also William Makepeace Thackeray—a connection that did not immediately attract public notice, perhaps, though it soon bore the richest fruit for both author and publisher.
It was about seven years after the first abortive attempt to found a "London Charivari" that Thackeray—who had been one of the band—commenced that connection with Punch which was to be of equal advantage both to him and the paper. "It was a good day for himself, the journal, and the world," said Shirley Brooks, "when Thackeray found Punch. At first," continues his biographer, "I should gather that he had doubts as to the advisability of joining in the new and, so far, not very promising venture;" and on the 22nd of May, 1842, we find Fitzgerald uttering a warning note, and writing to a common friend: "Tell Thackeray not to go to Punch yet." But his friend paid little heed to the counsel, for within a month appeared what I am satisfied is Thackeray's first contribution to Punch—"The Legend of Jawbrahim-Heraudee" (p. 254, first volume for 1842) with a sketch undoubtedly by his hand; and at the beginning of the very next volume, a fortnight later, was begun the series entitled "Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History." These, continued for a time, made no sort of hit, and in due course they were discontinued; but there seems to have been in them, and especially in the sketches, the germ of the idea, so perfectly worked out a little later by Gilbert à Beckett and Leech—though not for Punch: "The Comic History of England" and "The Comic History of Rome."
When Thackeray joined the Punch circle—or, rather, when he first wrote for it, for he was not on the Staff for some little time—he entered, with the credentials of "Fraser" and the "Irish Sketch Book," into a company of which several members were already his friends, who, knowing him as a humorist with both pen and pencil, were glad to secure so useful a man as contributor. "Very early in the work," writes Landells in his private papers, which lie before me, "Mr. Mayhew was desirous to secure his co-operation, and it was rather singular that the first paper which the great man contributed to Punch was rejected as unsuitable."
This was hardly correct: it would be more accurate to say that the first extended series was suddenly cut short. The circumstances of the extinction of Miss Tickletoby are shown in the following letter by Thackeray, which has been placed at my disposal by Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew:—
Halverstown, Kildare,
Sept. 27, 1842.Gentlemen,
Your letter, containing an enclosure of £25, has been forwarded to me, and I am obliged to you for the remittance. Mr. Lemon has previously written to me to explain the delay, and I had also received a letter from Mr. Landells, who told me, what I was sorry to learn, that you were dissatisfied with my contributions to "Punch." I wish that my writings had the good fortune to please everyone; but all I can do, however, is to do my best, which has been done in this case, just as much as if I had been writing for any more dignified periodical.
But I have no wish to continue the original agreement made between us, as it is dissatisfactory to you and, possibly, injurious to your work; and shall gladly cease Mrs. [sic] Tickletoby's Lectures, hoping that you will be able to supply her place with some more amusing and lively correspondent.
I shall pass the winter either in Paris or in London where, very probably, I may find some other matter more suitable to the paper, in which case I shall make another attempt upon "Punch."—Meanwhile, gentlemen, I remain, your very obedient Servant,
W. M. Thackeray.
Gradually, however, and by sure degrees, Thackeray fell into the spirit of the paper, and became known to the general public first as a "Punch man," and then as "the Punch man," and for some time recognised by that, rather than by his work in other directions. He became more and more highly appreciated as one of those who contributed to that speciality of humour for which Punch had already established a reputation while creating a demand. All the while, during the first ten years, he regarded the paper as a sort of stepping-stone to an independent literary position; and he was not very long in using his opportunity for making a reputation equal to that of Jerrold himself—but a literary, and in no sense a political one. Jerrold, whose influence was political quite as much as literary and dramatic, undoubtedly did a good deal of unconscious service in spurring Thackeray with the spirit of emulation. It has already been pointed out how little love was lost between the two men at the weekly Dinner, and how Jerrold sped his galling little shafts of clever personalities at Carlyle's "half-monstrous Cornish giant;" how, in short, they were, and remained to the end, the friendliest and most amiable of enemies.