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Away goes the lion, with his tail as stiff as a poker and every hair of his mane erect, dragging after him the frightened premier, who exclaims, in the extremity of his terror, that he can hold him no longer and is bound "to let him go." The Russian war showed our singular unreadiness for warfare. Just at its close we had provided ourselves with a fleet of vessels of light draught capable of floating in the shallows which surrounded the Russian fortifications, which, had they been ready at the time they were wanted, might have proved of incalculable service. Britannia disconsolately eyes these gun-boats from the summit of her cliffs. "Ah!" she sighs, "if you'd been only hatched a year ago, what might have come out of your shells!"

Close upon the heels of the Russian war followed the mutiny of our Indian levies. So closely did one event follow the other, that those who have watched and learnt with reason to distrust the odious and insidious policy of Russia towards this country, considered the coincidence a more than singular one. The FrancoAustrian war came next; and the war wave passed onwards to America, where the Northern and Southern states were speedily engaged in fratricidal and deadly strife. Peace, driven from land to land, found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and the artist shows her to us, seated disconsolately pondering over these untoward matters and her own unhappy condition on the breech of a garrison gun.

Punch's low estimate of the character and abilities of the Emperor Louis is patent throughout those of Tenniel's satires in which he puts in an appearance. In 1853 he takes us to an International Poultry Show (in obvious reference to the Boulogne catastrophe) where, amid a variety of eagles-the American eagle, the Prussian eagle the double-headed Austrian and Russian eagles-we find a wretched nondescript, half eagle half barn-door fowl, labelled the "French eagle." Victoria (a royal visitor) remarks to her astonished companion, "We have nothing of that sort, Mr. Punch; but should there be a lion show, we can send a specimen !!" The approaching marriage of the French Emperor is alluded to in the

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cartoon of The Eagle in Love, in which the present ex-Empress (then Comtesse de Teba), whose likeness by the way is far from happy, is represented as cutting his talons. The air of mystery which was a part of his character, and was not so well understood in those days as it afterwards came to be, not unnaturally misled Mr. Tenniel, for in his satire, Playing with Edged Tools, we behold him studying (of all things in the world) a model of the guillotine, an instrument of terror to which those of the Bonaparte family who profess to be guided by the policy of the great Napoleon, must always entertain the greatest possible aversion.

Punch not only looked upon the third Napoleon as a treacherous man, but also as a dangerous and inconvenient neighbour. In the cartoon labelled, An Unpleasant Neighbour (1859), we see him in the act of placing outside his firework shop a flaming advertisement, whereon we read in the largest possible type, "Blaze of Triumph! Roman Candles !-Italian Fire !"* His neighbour, John Bull, proprietor of "The Roast Beef House" next door, rushes out in a very excited state, "Here have I got," says he, "to pay double insurance, all along of your confounded fireworks!" The next cartoon shows us Louis, alias “Monsieur Walker," after he has closed his establishment and chalked up, "The Business to be disposed of," while incredulous John places his finger to his nose as Louis assures him, "Ah, friend Johnny! I close my shop entirely to please you!" In The Congress Quadrille, Louis vainly essays to make himself agreeable to Miss Britannia (a good example of the artist's handsome women)" Voulez-vous danser, Mad'moiselle?" says Louis. Britannia, however, having been his partner on more than one memorable occasion, had had quite enough of him and his peculiar style of dancing. "Thanks,—no !" she languidly replies, thinking doubtless of her experiences of the Russian quadrille—of the Chinese country dance, etc., etc. "I'm not sure of the figureand know nothing of the Finale."

Mr. Tenniel's art training before he joined the Punch staff, com

• An excellent burlesque of the Emperor's theatrical declarations.

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bined with his undoubted genius, renders him unquestionably one of the most versatile of modern designers. His satire is something quite apart from his caricature, and the former is characterized by a strong dramatic element particularly noticeable in serious illustrations, such as his designs to "The Pythagorean," in the second volume of "Once a Week." In caricature he resumes in a measure the manner of the older caricaturists, without retaining a trace of their vulgarity, and a good example will be found in his cartoon of What Nicholas heard in the Shell (1854), in which the features and salient points of the figure are intensely overdrawn. His caricature pure and simple seems to us always inferior to his satirical power; as fine examples of the latter we may mention: The British Lion Smells a Rat (an angry lion sniffing at a door, in allusion to the conference which followed the fall of Sebastopol); The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger, which chronicles the ghastly massacre of Cawnpore; Bright the Peace Maker (1860), in which Punch testifies his indignation at the manner in which Mr. Bright endeavoured to create a popular feeling against the House of Lords; Poland's Chain Shot (1863), a stirring and powerful composition, wherein Poland, gallantly struggling once more for freedom, breaks her chains and fiercely rams them into a cannon; Humble Pie at the Foreign Office (1863), and Teucer Assailed by Hector is Protected by the Shield of Ajax (1864), in which Lord John Russell is the subject of satire; and The False Start and Out of the Race (the same year), in the first of which Palmerston endeavours to restrain the leaning of Gladstone towards democracy, the last showing the result of his inattention to the starter's warning. In all these and a host of other admirable satires, the superior art training of Mr. Tenniel is seconded by his strong dramatic power, and above all by his unquestionable genius. It would be a poor compliment to him to deny that he had his failings-which indeed of the admirable satirists who preceded him had not? His failings, when they do occur, are perhaps more noticeable on account of his style and the mode in which he frequently drapes his figures. We have heard it objected to him, for instance, that the beauty of his female figures is

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occasionally marred by the somewhat disproportionate size of their feet, and this charge seems to us sustainable. Mr. Tenniel displays rare excellence in the drawing of animals-an excellence peculiarly noteworthy in such cartoons as The British Lion Smells a Rat, and The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger.

Embracing a period of only fourteen years, from 1851 to 1864, during which time he worked side by side with his friend and colleague, John Leech, on the pages of Punch, our notice of the cartoons of John Tenniel must necessarily be short. During the last three years of his life, when, as we have seen, the strength of the artist who had been on the pictorial staff from the commencement had been gradually failing, the execution of the weekly cartoons had fallen almost entirely upon Mr. Tenniel. As fellowlabourers, constantly associated on the same periodical, we are enabled to compare their individual merits. The conclusion we have arrived at is as follows: That as a political satirist, Tenniel is the best of the two; while as a delineator of English habits, manners, eccentricities, and peculiarities, Leech finds no equal. After 1864, when the artistic friendship and partnership (so to speak) of these gifted men was dissolved by the untimely death of John Leech, it would be beyond the declared scope and purpose of this work to follow Mr. Tenniel further. Unlike the caricaturists who preceded him, many of whom relied on humour, more or less forced, for the success of their productions, the cartoons of John Tenniel are oftentimes distinguished by a gravity and sternness of purpose which, combined with their artistic excellence, appeals forcibly to the imagination. Unfortunately, as in the case of those of John Leech, these truly admirable examples of nineteenth century satire, apart from the Punch volumes themselves-owing to the material on which they are impressed and the process to which the original drawings are subjected--are practically valueless by the side of an indifferent caricature torn from the scurrilous and worthless pages of "The Scourge " or "The Meteor."

To the persons who charge this artist with want of humour, his cartoon of Britannia Discovering the Source of the Nile—probably the

most comical picture in the whole of the Punch volumes—will afford the most conclusive answer, as will also the quaint and mirthprovoking little pictures which he designed for "Alice in Wonderland," its sequel, "Through the Looking-glass," and the 1864 edition of the "Ingoldsby Legends." One of these last, by the way, so closely resembles a scarce design of John Leech's in the "New Monthly," that the coincidence will strike any one who has an opportunity of comparing the two together. During the fourteen years that Mr. Tenniel was a fellow-worker with the late John Leech, he contributed to the pages of Funch about 1,400 designs, of which upwards of 400 are cartoons. We believe we are correct in stating that all these illustrations, and his subsequent and contemporary designs, were drawn at once upon the wood block, not a single preliminary sketch having been made.

Here, in accordance with the plan which we designed when we sat down to write this work, we bring our labours to a close. If we have omitted all mention of two very excellent and talented artists, Messrs. Charles Keene and George Du Maurier, it is not from any lack of appreciation, but because one of them at least began his labours just about the period when those of John Leech were drawing to a close, while the reputation of both were made after their distinguished contemporary was laid to his rest. The merits of both these able men and of those now following after them must be left to be dealt with by another chronicler. Although, as we remarked in our opening chapter, the wood engraver has rung the knell of English caricature, with such clever men as Colonel Seccombe, Mr. Proctor, Mr. Randolph Caldicott, Mr. F. Barnard, the present George Cruikshank, Mr. Chasemore, and others whose names do not at present occur to us, there is happily no prospect of a decline in the art of English graphic satire.

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