It may be urged that when Flaxman warned the boy’s mother against teaching as being sure to cramp her son’s genius, he alluded to the Burgess method. That may have been so. But a man like Flaxman, who had possessed himself by severest study as a young man of the means by which his powers were developed, would, I think, have been sure to warn Mrs. Leech of the difference between the teaching that would be mischievous, and that which is proved to be indispensable by the universal practice of the greatest painters. I am aware I shall be confronted with the case of John Leech, who was, so to speak, entirely self-taught; but Leech was not a painter, and certainly never could have become a good one without training; besides, he was altogether exceptional—unique, in fact. In my opinion, we are as likely to see another Shakespeare or Dickens as another Leech.
This is a digression, for which I apologize. I cannot find that my hero—I may call him such, for he was ever a hero to me—paid much attention to classical knowledge. Latin verses were impossible to him, but they had to be done; so, as he said, he “got somebody to do them for him.” In spite of his weak arm, he fenced with Angelo, the school fencing-master; but, beyond the advantage of the exercise, the accomplishment was of no use to him.
Here I cannot resist an anecdote of which the fencing reminds me.
Some years before Leech’s death the editor of a newspaper, who was remarkable for the severity of his criticisms and for his extreme personal ugliness, had made some caustic remarks on Leech’s work in general, and on some special drawings in particular.
“If that chap,” said Leech to me, “doesn’t mind what he is about, I will draw and defend myself”—an idle threat, for nothing could have provoked that gentle, noble nature into personality, no trace of which is to be found in the long list of his admirable works.
Several letters, delightfully boyish, written by Leech to his father from the Charterhouse, are in my possession. Some of them, I think, may appropriately appear in this place.
“Septr 19 1826
“Dear Papa
“I hope you are quite well. I beg you will let me come out to see you for I am so dull here, and I am always fretting about, because I wrote to you yesterday and you would not let me come out. I will fag hard if you will let me come out, and will you write to me, and the letter that you write put in when you are going to Esex and when you return for I want to very particularly
“How is Mamma, Brother and Sisters