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May 19, 1860.J The Leader and Saturday A...
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.THE TRENCH PRESS.* l\/f HATIN could sca...
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•HhMre Votftiquo ct IMttmirado la Press*...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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* Xtmohk Vol Xxxix. Bradbury And Evans, ...
sav that before he gave to the world his Tom and Jerry plates , he had aided the great Komilly in his reform of the , criminal law , and exposed with mingled pathos and humour the folly of taking human life for forgery , sheep stealing , shoplifting , and stealing even live shillin-s from the person . ' Man is an animal of so compound a character that it is difficult to say who gives the greatest impulse to the mob—the living eloquence of the great lawyer , which remains for ever , or the cartoon of the caricaturist , which arrests our attention , awakens our 'interest , and is forgotten . The old days of watchmen and dark streets , of dandies and danclizettes , of swallow-tailed coats , roll collars , and Hessian boots , of hio-li waists , . and the Grecian sloop come back to us as we turn over the piK-es of " Life in London . " Yet these people there pictured must have lived . Tom and Jerry , and Mr . Green , the boozmg Ken ,
the crib and the finish , the ogling women and effeminate men , were true copies of ' " life . " They were as popular and as well recognised as Mr . Pickwick and Sam Weller ; they were more true to nature ; they were for the time even more widely followed and admired than any of the characters of Mr . Dickens . Judged by our standard , what fops and fools they were . We cannot well reverence our fathers if we believe that in their young days they were half so silly We shall be more lenient to crinoline , lace-up boots , and masculine hats if we look at the foolish figures which our mothers must have cut when dressed in umbrella bonnets and sleeves a la igot- ' ' ' ¦ - 1
g . . . . , , ,, . - The popularity of this work was in the wane when the predecessors of Punch , now ' a venerable publication of nearly twentyyears old , rose on the horizon . Sevmour . an artist of immense promise , full ot fun and drollery , and au ' Engiish humour which has seldom if ever been equalled , was engaged in illustrating a cheap weekly sheet with a title which would not now be scarcely permitted . It was nothing less than The Devil hi London ; and the cause of reform and the side of strong opposition to the Church and to King Williams ministers were taken up very strongly by the little sheet , conducted by two or three wild and clever young men , who froin one immber
to another scarcely knew how to pay their printer . The D * vil , we may suppose , was fairly successful . The old types of cartoons , old and yet ever new , in which John Hull is an over-laden ass , sinking under the weight of packages labelled with- the names of taxes , or an old worn-out man , crippled and hoppled with logs mid . chains "; or is ground into money by ministers , who are ever ready to fill their pockets with the pieces , are to be found there , rue name of the paper was soon changed into - " Asniodeus ; " . then came SevinourVand Gilbert a'Beckefc ' s " Figaro , " named after the ever .
popular barber in Rossini ' s opera ; and finally , other imitators , some of the lowest and most radical , under the names of the " Star and " Penny Satirist , " but all being more or less fiercely political and destitute of humour . When our Queen came to the throne , and sub consulc Planus under the latter years of King William , these ¦ were vigorous , and perhaps thought funny or lively . H . B . —the father of Richard Doyle of Punch—filled the windows of the westend printsollers with political sketches , stiffly and vilely drawn , but still preserving the likeness . Folios of these prints were lent out to vivify slow evening parties , and the publisher , we believe , made mnui ' -y . hyJ . hmiy though sold at a very high prico . Aft artist (?) of the name of Grant was amusing low liKTwith vile wood cuts nrtiTcr same wav , but yet who ever laughed at either one ov the other ? Did any one " over see a joke in any of those drearily genteel H . H . sketches P Old swells from Boodle's and Arthur ' s waggled their old
heads at them in Maclean ' s windows : " Thcrey where you stop to see the last II . B . /' writes Sir Bui wcr—to see it ? yes ; to smile or lunsfh . at it ? no . Yet at the sumo time , the very finest political and social caricaturist we have b-eon was wasting his talents in illustrating " Hell ' s Gallery of Comicalities , " and in drawing costennongers , dustmen , prizefighters , and low life generally ; and Kenny Meadows , who never could draw with humour , was aiding him . Dreadful it must be for the incflhblc swells and Belgruvian Indies , who now dress alter Mr . Leech's woodcuts in Punch , but who never succeed in looking half so well , to know that their artist practised his young pencil on the lowest of the low 1 , . .
The history of tho establishment of Punch is yet to bo written . We have met men who wero in the little back office of a printer when a halfpenny was tossed up to decide by head or tail whether tho first number should nnpoar or not . A wood cutter now living claims the first idea of it ; and a gentleman who holds a most lucrative copyright amongst our serials has told us that he was hurrying to liia nriutor ' s with ' tho " copy " -for a poster announcing his Punch—tlio very name was settled—when he was startled and disappointed by seeing tho q / Jicha of tho existing paper . Wo presume tho idea , tliorolbro , wns abroad . The age , as they say in regard to conquerors mid great kings , domandod a Punch , and Punch sprang all armed from Mr . Hryanfa shop in Wellington Sti-eot . Tho idea , at first unfortunate , proved successful . A capitalist , bought the sinking journal , ' mid ' by judicious working kept it afloat , nnd here it is . Mr . Henry Mayhew , wo believe , has tho first claim to its Tmtcrnitv . mid Gilbert iVHeckot , Jerrold , Albert Smith , Leech , and
and instead of issuing at irregular periods , gave serial and semiserious knocks and blows . Mr . Samuel Slick has declared that the true way of taking a portrait is to paint the leading feature of the face . Punch followed the same rule , and took the leading feature of the time , or of the salient subject or prominent man . He returned again and again to the charge , and it is not too much tosay that many men owed their name and popularity to him , if he borrowed his also from them . At last reviews began to talk about him , and as usual made mistakes anent hi in . The "Quarterly , " for instance , placed Cruikshank as his chief artist , whereas that gentleman never drew a stroke for the work . In the " Man in the Moon" an artist once pictured Mr . Leech ' s little bottle and leech ( that artist ' s monogram ) as Punch ' s life buoy , and not without great truth . That artist was , and is , the chief support of the paper ; and the wonder is that while the writing has often been very tame , the cartoons have very seldom failed . The subjects are of course suggested not only by the staff of the journal , but also from every portion of the globe . Hence its universality . Sketclies are sent and " put into drawing , " as others are from Hong Kofig , California , or the Arctic regions , to the London Illustrated News . A frivolous age , moreover , feeds upon pictures , and demands them more than deep or witty writing ; popular fun—and fun to be popular , must not be too high nor too low , but of a gentle tea-table mediocrity , which can bo safely retailed amidst the clatter of the mnner-party or in the pauses of a soiree musicale . Hence modern caricature has gained in finish , but has lost its grotesqueness . It is no longer overloaded , but is characteristic drawings ; and ours are so honourably distinguished that the French always refer to xtne caricature Anglaise , whilst their own , in the Journal pour vire , ov Charivari , are coarse , often without wit , and very grotesque . But success has taken away much of the point from the political caricaturist ' s pencil , and with one or two exceptions the Coryphaeus of " these artists seldom draws in aid of ignorance and want , and but too often satirises the poor fellow who tries to rise in life ; tlis parvenu who would be thought a little " genteel , " the untaught servant who tries to dress smartly , or the poor little shop gent who not-. unnaturally . is desirous of imitating some of the ineffably serene , calm , and grand swells who walk about tawn like the well-dressed figures of a tailor ' s pattern books . This , is , we think , the worst feature in modern Caricature . It is new and strange to find this Sadducean cruelty in the minds of-men sprung from the people ; it is foreign also to genuine humour , which is never wanton nor harsh , which lushes vice but overlook ^ weakness ; and whic h , above all other qualities , teaches us , as it taught Massinger , " To look upon the poor with gentle eye , _ ^ For in rtheir figures often Angela desire an alms . "
others wero soon on tho staff , and it was a hospital for all the foundling- wita and unfuthorod jolcoa of tho day . It has done , and still does , much good ., It ministerod to the general cheerfulness of the nation . It was seldom low or coarse . Ifc satirised kings , generals , minister * , and people ; private parties and quoenly reunions , clergymen and judges , corttormoiifforH and poers of tho realm , shopmen and poets , all came in for their share of Punch ' s baton , and the nation laug-hod nnd in-ew fwt . Caricature , as we havo said , hold its weekly drills ,
May 19, 1860.J The Leader And Saturday A...
May 19 , 1860 . J The Leader and Saturday Analyst , 473
.The Trench Press.* L\/F Hatin Could Sca...
. THE TRENCH PRESS . * l \/ f HATIN could scarcely have selected a more interesting sub-IVx . ject for discussion than the history of periodical literature . We , the men of the nineteenth century , are peculiarly concerned in ifc . It is long since we were told that the Fourth Estate has inherited the power formerly wielded by kings , Lords and Commons . The Tirle-olHhe-pen 4 ias 4 > ag-unw ^^ ., which . we , journalists , can trace our being . The erudite author ot' LJI / stoire Politique et Litlc ' raire de la Prcsse takes up newspaper writing-at its very principiuin el fons . Not satisfied with the iloinan actudiur . net , he starts on a , preliminary
journey to the banks of the J 2 uphr . atos , and shows how tho aucienfc history of Babylon was compiled from leading- articles cuneiformed by Oriental journalists . Only imagine Berosus consulting a file of the Clialdean Gazette / and correcting a chance mistake—thanks to tho help of some contemporary Cobbe . lt ! Without , however , following M . Hatin so far back , we may say that modern newspaper literaturo arose almost simultaneously in France , England , and Germany , towards the beginning of the seventeenth century . The famous etymology of tho word Gazelle , so ingenious , so plausible ,, so pretty , is unfortunately proved now to bo entirely unsupported bv tho facts , and Venice has been obliged to renounce its pretensionsthe of still
us the birthplace of tho daily press ; question priority remains , ' we believe , to be decided between tho three countries we havo just named ; and , with tho true spirit of patriotism , M . llatin nsserts that " en reulite " , c ' ost a la Franco , eoimue nous le demontrerons bientot , qu'appartient riionneur d ' avoir donu 6 naissanco au promier journal . " Well , it is perhaps not luui-h worth while begiunhv ii controversy on tho subject ; and as tlio system of avertissements , communiques , and fines , seems likoly to cut prematurely short the destinies of tho French periodical press , let M . Hatm make the best of those veterans of tho profession , Doet . our Thoonhrastus ltonaudot , and Loret , tho prosy rhymer of La Muse Jlis
Tho first part of tho Ilistoivo de la Presse comprises tho epoch preceding' tho Revolution of 1781 ); it is one of tho most interesting divisions of tho whole Work , and must have cost the author no small amount of trouble , from the difficulty of collecting' the various flying sheets , pamphlets , and squibs , which , under tho oddest , and not unfrenuontly the most objectionable titles , kuvo periodical vent to the esprit frondeur of ces bom habitants da Pans . lho Mazftrinades , tlio Courier , tho Courier Burlesque , Uobinet s Lettres e » Vers . and last , . though not least , tho Mvrcure da Franpe , wore all
•Hhmre Votftiquo Ct Imttmirado La Press*...
• HhMre Votftiquo ct IMttmirado la Press * * ' *«?" ?!' n £ Ul £ IS ? i . iS 32 Introduction Hiatorique Bur los Ori « nos du Journii ot Ji »» b | lo raj ; Gcner « l « do 8 Journauxdepula leur Ongino . Pur J-Juoknh Uatin . w »« v * ro volum « j 8 in-8 o .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1860, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19051860/page/13/
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