My father was himself a caricaturist of no mean order; and one of my most cherished possessions is a caricature which my father made of me as a child, drawn on the day before I returned to Eton after a holiday. In it I am represented as a most injured person, because a very callous conversation is being carried on in the face of the great tragedy of my life (at the moment), the ending of the holidays. Of course I caricatured my father in due time for Vanity Fair; and he was a delightful subject.
"For heaven's sake, don't let me down gently!" he said. And I didn't!
In consequence, friends complained of my want of respect, whereas my father regarded the drawing with amusement, for he could always appreciate a joke against himself.
Once, however, I remember an amusing incident in which for quite a long time he failed to see any humour. My mother and sister, with my father and me, were returning from some theatre, and we hailed a cab. Getting in, my father said "Home" to the cabby, whereupon the man replied, "Where, sir?" "Home," replied my father, a trifle louder. "Where, sir?" answered the cabby, his voice mounting one note higher in the scale. "Go home," cried my father, irascibly. Still the cab didn't move, and the expression on the face of the driver was a study. "Do you hear?" thundered my father. "No," replied the man. Then we came to the rescue.
But to return to the subject. Dr. Doran (whom I had caricatured shortly before in Vanity Fair) possessed the same delightful magnanimity as regards a joke against himself, and I really found that men of this type appreciated caricature. This drawing of my father's friend caused me extreme disappointment when it appeared, for during its manipulation by the lithographers it had suffered considerably. The original now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, to which it was presented, I believe, by one of the trustees of that institution.
In January, 1873, the death of Lord Lytton (whose funeral I attended with my parents, as I had also been present at Thackeray's) led to my receiving a commission from Mr. Thomas, the editor of the Graphic. Mr. Thomas, knowing that I was acquainted with the great author, sent me a water-colour sketch of the Hall at Knebworth by old Mr. Macquoid (the father of Percy Macquoid), in which I was to place a figure of Lord Lytton. My introduction to the paper came through Luke Fildes, who, besides making the drawing of Charles Dickens's "Empty Chair" after his death, was then making the very interesting drawing of Napoleon III. on his deathbed. Small, Gregory and Herkomer also helped to make the Graphic, and I produced portrait drawings of celebrated people, including Miss Elizabeth Tompson, Disraeli, Sir John Cockburn, Millais, Gladstone and Leighton.
"MILES BUGGLEBURY." With praiseworthy ambitions but a failure in life. 1867.