him, after his own peculiar fashion and more than questionable taste, constantly alluding to the fact; describing him at various times as "that highly gifted and popular artist, Mr. Seymour;" "our illustrious artist Seymour;" and so on. In the preface to his second volume, he indulges in the following flight of fancy, which will suffice to give us an idea of the literary merits of the editor himself: "In this our annual address," he says, "we cannot omit a puff for the rampant Seymour, in whom the public continue to see-more and more every time he puts his pencil to the block for the illustration of our periodical." This was the sort of stuff which passed for wit in 1832. As for Seymour himself, he was annoyed at these fulsome and foolish compliments, and in a letter which he wrote to À Beckett after the quarrel to be presently related, told him in the plainest terms that, "the engraving, bad printing, and extravagant puffing of his designs were calculated to do him more harm than good as an artist."

But artist and editor jogged on together in perfect good will until the 16th of August, 1834, when, for the first and only time, "Figaro in London" made its appearance without any illustrations at all. The two succeeding weekly issues contained each a single woodcut after Seymour's drawing, but from that time until the end of the year, when À Beckett himself retired from the proprietorship and disposed of his interest in the concern, the paper was illustrated by Isaac Robert Cruikshank; this change was due to the following circum

stance.

A special feature of "Figaro in London" was its theatrical leader. À Beckett had always taken an interest in dramatic matters, and was himself author of some thirty plays, the very titles of which are now forgotten. Not content with being proprietor and editor of a newspaper, he was concerned at this time in another venture, being proprietor and manager of a theatre in Tottenham Court Road, known

* Mr. à Beckett's strong point was puns; in later days he found a vehicle for these in the well-known "Comic Histories" of England and Rome, illustrated by John Leech. It was his peculiar good fortune always to be associated with artists of the highest ability.

at different times under the various designations of the Tottenham Street or West London Theatre, the Queen's, and latterly as the Prince of Wales' Theatre. The result was almost a foregone conclusion. A newspaper is a sufficiently hazardous speculation, but a theatre in the hands of an inexperienced manager is one of the most risky of all possible experiments; and the result in this case was so unfortunate, that À Beckett in the end had to seek the uncomfortable protection of the insolvent court. He was considerably indebted to Seymour for the illustrations to "Figaro," half of the debt thus incurred being money actually paid away by the artist to the engraver who executed the cuts from his drawings on the wood. Finding that À Beckett was in no position to discharge this debt or to remunerate him for his future services, Seymour did-what every man of business must have done who, like the artist, was dependent on his pencil for bread, refused any longer to continue his assistance. Apart from the bad paper and bad impressions of which he complained, and above all the bad taste displayed in fulsome adulation of his own merits, supremely distasteful to a man of real ability, Seymour appears hitherto to have entertained no bad feeling towards À Beckett personally.

The result however was a feud. À Beckett was not unnaturally angry, and an angry man in his passion is apt to lose both his head and his memory. Forgetting the manner in which he had shortly before acknowledged the services and talent of the artist, he now attacked him and his abilities with a malice which would be unintelligible if we had not seen something of his nature and disposition. In his favourite "Notices to Correspondents" in the number of 13th September, 1834, he professes to account for the employment of Isaac Robert Cruikshank after the following disingenuous fashion: "Mr. Seymour, our ex-artist, is much to be pitied for his extreme anguish at our having come to terms with the celebrated Robert Cruikshank in the supplying the designs of the caricatures in Figaro.' Seymour has been venting his rage in a manner as pointless as it is splenetic, and we are sorry for him. He ought, however, to feel, that notwithstanding our friendly wish to bring him

"NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.”

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forward, which we have done in an eminent degree, we must engage first-rate ability when public patronage is bestowed so liberally, as it now is upon this periodical. He ought therefore not to be nettled at our having obtained a superior artist." The public, however, were not to be gulled; they perfectly well knew that Isaac Robert Cruikshank was an inferior artist in every respect to Seymour, and had not forgotten the tribute which the foolish editor had previously paid to the talents and ability of the latter. Conduct like this could only recoil on the head of the person who was injudicious and spiteful enough to be guilty of it. The "Notices to Correspondents" in subsequent numbers continued to be filled with references and allusions to Seymour, dictated by a malice which was alike silly and childish. They are not worthy of repetition here, and we must refer the reader for them to the numbers of "Figaro in London" of 20th September and 15th November, 1834, or (if he have not access to its pages) to the short biographical notice prefixed to the latest edition of the "Sketches" by Mr. Henry G. Bohn. We have no doubt whatever that the interval between these dates was employed in fruitless endeavours on the part of À Beckett to arrange terms with the artist, who, however, steadily refused to give the failing publication the indispensable benefit of his assistance. Left as it were to its own resources, the circulation, in spite of the graphic help accorded by Robert Cruikshank, steadily declined, and À Beckett finally retired from the editorship and proprietorship on the 27th of December, 1834. Seymour wielded a far more effectual weapon of offence than any which À Beckett possessed, and dealt him blows which at this time and in his then circumstances must have been keenly felt. One of Seymour's satires is aimed specially at the "Notices to Correspondents" already mentioned, and shows us a heavy, vulgar fellow seated at his desk, habited in a barber's striped dressing-gown à la Figaro. His features are distorted with passion, for he has received a letter the contents of which are anything but flattering, addressed "To the Editor of the nastiest thing in London." This sketch bears the following descriptive title: "An editor in a small way, after pretending a great deal about his corre

spondents, is here supposed to have received a letter." A second skit shows us a critic examining a picture representing "the death of À Beckett, Archbishop of Cant." A figure in armour, with its vizor down (obviously intended for the artist) is depicted in the act of cutting at the "archbishop" with a sword, the blade of which is inscribed "debts due." His first blow has severed the mitre labelled "assumption," and the pastoral staff, inscribed "impudence," with which the victim vainly endeavours to defend himself. "Don't," says À Beckett, as he falls prostrate amid a heap of "spoilt paper," among which we recognise, "Figaro," "The Thief," "The Wag," and other periodicals with which his name was associated. “Don't cut at me 'our own inimitable, our illustrious, our talented;' pray don't give me any more cuts; think how many I have had and not paid you for already:" a hand indicates the way to the Insolvent Court."

"Figaro," after the retirement of À Beckett, passed into the editorial hands of Mr. H. Mayhew, and conscious of the injury which the defection of Seymour had done to the undertaking, he lost no time in opening negotiations with a view to his return. In this he experienced little difficulty, for Seymour was glad to avail himself of the opportunity of giving to the public the most convincing proof which could have been adduced of the falsity of the libels which had been published by the retiring and discomfited editor. The fourth volume commenced 3rd of January, and from that time until his death (in 1836) he continued to illustrate the paper. Mayhew announces his return after the following curious fashion: "The generous Seymour, with a patriotic ardour unequalled since the days of Curtius, has abandoned all selfish considerations, and yielded to our request for his country's sake. Again he wields the satiric pencil, and corruption trembles to its very base. first peace offering to 'Figaro in London,' is the rich etching [woodcut] our readers now gaze upon with laughing eyes." Constant references of a laudatory kind are made to him in succeeding numbers.

The woodcuts after Seymour's designs, which appear in "Figaro

1

in London," are too small and unimportant to justify the title which the editor gives them of "caricatures ;" and relating to political matters which at that time were far more efficiently chronicled by the pencil of H. B., they have lost any interest which they once might have commanded. The most interesting illustrations which Seymour contributed to "Figaro," are the brief series of theatrical portraits, which are not only clever but evidently excellent likenesses.

It was not only in the case of "Figaro in London" that the slanders of A Beckett recoiled upon his own head. That gentleman in 1832 had started a sort of rival to Hood's "Comic Annual," under the title of the "Comic Magazine." It was cheaper in price than the former publication, and contained an amazing number of amusing cuts of the punning order, after Seymour's designs. After the quarrel with A Beckett, the artist withdrew his assistance from its pages, and the illustrations show a fearful falling off after 1833. Many of the wretched designs which follow bear the signature of "Dank," and so destitute are they of merit that the "embellishments" (as they are termed) for 1834, are altogether below criticism.

At the opening of the present chapter we said that Robert Seymour was almost a genius. Genius, however, he never absolutely touched; he was destitute of the inventive faculties which distinguished John Leech, and lacked the vivid imagination which enabled George Cruikshank to realize any idea which occurred to him, whether comical, grave, realistic, or terrible. His talents as an artist, though undoubtedly great, ran in a narrow groove, and their bent is shown by the well-known "Humorous Sketches," and the less known but far more admirable designs which he executed for the "Comic Magazine." He always had a fancy for depicting and satirizing cockneys and cockney subjects, and had conceived the by no means new or ambitious idea of producing a series of such pictures with an appropriate letterpress to be furnished by a literary coadjutor, whose work, however, was to be subservient to his own. The idea was not perhaps a very definite one, but the pictorial part of the work was commenced, and four plates actually etched at the time the artist was retained to execute the illustrations to the "Book