Sporting Novels (continued).
"Handley Cross" is another of the sporting novels so admirably illustrated by Leech. The hero of this book is a certain Mr. Jorrocks, a retired "great city grocer of the old school." A fortune gained in the grocery business enabled Mr. Jorrocks to retire into country life, where the sports of the field awaited him. He became a mighty hunter, the possessor of the finest horses and "the best pack of 'ounds in all the world," who would make the foxes cry "Capevi!" He is M.F.H., and so great an authority on sporting matters as to warrant his announcing himself as a lecturer on the duties of all concerned in the truly British sport of the chasing of the fox. Mr. Jorrocks's antecedents were such as to preclude the possibility of the display of brilliant oratorical powers. His mode of expression—including the absence of the letter "h," where it should be used, and its presence where it should not—was what might have been expected from the retired grocer whose little figure adorns the illustration.
Leech's old friend, Mr. Adams, tells me that a man named Nicholls, Lady Louise Clinton's coachman, was the model for Mr. Jorrocks. Leech never went anywhere, not even to church, without his little sketch-book; and on a special Sunday at Barkway Church, where Lady Clinton had her pew, she was followed by a little man who, after handing her ladyship her books of devotion, took his seat outside the pew, and became an unconscious study for Leech; who in a few minutes transferred an exact likeness to the sketch-book, which was afterwards as exactly reproduced in the "hunting lecture."
A curious reader can study Mr. Jorrocks's lecture in the pages of "Handley Cross." He will there wonder with me how it came about, that so distinguished an audience of aristocratic men, and lovely women, could listen for many minutes to an oration which must have lasted at least two hours, and which ends with the following peroration: "So shall little Spooney jog on rejoicin'! Each succeedin' year shall find him better mounted, and at each fresh deal he will become a wiser and I 'opes a nappier man."
Mr. Jorrocks concluded amidst loud and universal applause.
Leech's mastery of character—unexaggerated, true to nature, without a trace of caricature—can be seen in the foreground figures of this etching. The man standing behind the lady with the lovely profile is a gentleman, though perhaps not a wise one; but what can the beautiful profile find in Mr. Jorrocks's discourse to amuse or enlighten her? And those pretty creatures in the distance, who certainly seem a little bored, how is it that they did not slip away with their cavaliers behind them, and so leave Mr. Jorrocks to talk about 'unting to 'is 'eart's content?
One of Mr. Jorrocks's sporting friends is Mr. Charley Stobbs, a good-looking young gentleman who finds himself belated after a hard day's hunting. He wanders about an unknown country, darkness comes upon him, and he endeavours in vain to find his way to Handley Cross. "The night was drear and dark, the wind whistled and howled with uncommon keenness, the cutting hail drifted with the sharpness of needles against his face. Horse and rider were equally dispirited," says the chronicler. This free and easy, or, rather uneasy, fox-hunter, determined to seek shelter for the night at the first house he came to, that promised from its appearance a comfortable bed, with, perhaps, an introductory supper. He soon found himself "under the lee of a large house, and having dismounted, and broken his shins against a scraper, he at length discovered a bell-pull in the door-post, which having sounded, the echoing notes from afar proclaimed the size and importance of the mansion." "A little maiden" gave Charley admission, and, with surprising alacrity, provided him with "ham sandwiches, hot water, lemon, nutmeg," etc., to say nothing of a bottle of sherry!
To the common mind the ease with which Mr. Charles Stobbs managed to procure for himself a supper and lodging in a stranger's mansion will be a matter of surprise; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he would have met with a very different reception. We rejoice in his success, because it gives us a likeness of his good-looking self, in conjunction with that of one of the prettiest and daintiest waiting-maids ever created by Leech's pencil.
Had I been permitted I should have selected a drawing from "Handley Cross," which heads a chapter called "The Waning Season," not from its subject (which has little interest), but because it is an admirable example of Leech's mastery of landscape. The figure of the old hedger, with his big gauntlets and bill-hook, is as true as possible to nature, well drawn, and perfect in action, as he stoops over the faggots he has collected; but I would call more attention to the drawing of the foreground and distance of the landscape; the stunted tree and the wattled fence in its perspective cunningly going off almost to the horizon—thus leading the eye into space—with its lines so skilfully broken by the leafless trees. The sky, too, though represented by a few lines, composes artistically with the forms in the distance and the rest of the wintry landscape.
With "Ask Mamma"—another of the many sporting books illustrated by Leech—I shall close my selections from that kind of literature for the present.