John Leechs Pictures of Life and Character | Page 8

living employing such a weapon in such a way!
The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron
fork--the heir of Britannia with a BIDENT! The man of genius who
drew that picture saw little of the society which he satirized and
amused. Gilray watched public characters as they walked by the shop
in St. James's Street, or passed through the lobby of the House of
Commons. His studio was a garret, or little better; his place of
amusement a tavern-parlor, where his club held its nightly sittings over
their pipes and sanded floor. You could not have society represented by
men to whom it was not familiar. When Gavarni came to England a
few years since--one of the wittiest of men, one of the most brilliant
and dexterous of draughtsmen--he published a book of "Les Anglais,"
and his Anglais were all Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long
practised to observe Parisian life, could not perceive English character.
A social painter must be of the world which he depicts, and native to
the manners which he portrays.
Now, any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that the
social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable little
drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug libraries we enter; what
fine young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little dandies
who wake up gouty old grandpapa to ring the bell; who decline aunt's
pudding and custards, saying that they will reserve themselves for an
anchovy toast with the claret; who talk together in ball-room doors,
where Fred whispers Charley--pointing to a dear little partner seven
years old--"My dear Charley, she has very much gone off; you should
have seen that girl last season!" Look well at everything appertaining to
the economy of the famous Mr. Briggs: how snug, quiet, appropriate all
the appointments are! What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class
house Briggs's is (in the Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess
from the sketches of the surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he
has, with a loose box for those celebrated hunters which he rides! How
pleasant, clean, and warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little
maid brings in the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug
dressing-room he has, complete in all its appointments, and in which he
appears trying on the delightful hunting-cap which Mrs. Briggs flings
into the fire! How cosy all the Briggs party seem in their dining-room:
Briggs reading a Treatise on Dog-breaking by a lamp; Mamma and

Grannie with their respective needleworks; the children clustering
round a great book of prints--a great book of prints such as this before
us, which, at this season, must make thousands of children happy by as
many firesides! The inner life of all these people is represented: Leech
draws them as naturally as Teniers depicts Dutch boors, or Morland
pigs and stables. It is your house and mine: we are looking at
everybody's family circle. Our boys coming from school give
themselves such airs, the young scapegraces! our girls, going to parties,
are so tricked out by fond mammas--a social history of London in the
middle of the nineteenth century. As such, future students--lucky they
to have a book so pleasant--will regard these pages: even the mutations
of fashion they may follow here if they be so inclined. Mr. Leech has as
fine an eye for tailory and millinery as for horse-flesh. How they
change those cloaks and bonnets. How we have to pay milliners' bills
from year to year! Where are those prodigious chatelaines of 1850
which no lady could be without? Where those charming waistcoats,
those "stunning" waistcoats, which our young girls used to wear a few
brief seasons back, and which cause 'Gus, in the sweet little sketch of
"La Mode," to ask Ellen for her tailor's address. 'Gus is a young warrior
by this time, very likely facing the enemy at Inkerman; and pretty Ellen,
and that love of a sister of hers, are married and happy, let us hope,
superintending one of those delightful nursery scenes which our artist
depicts with such tender humor. Fortunate artist, indeed! You see he
must have been bred at a good public school; that he has ridden many a
good horse in his day; paid, no doubt, out of his own purse for the
originals of some of those lovely caps and bonnets; and watched
paternally the ways, smiles, frolics, and slumbers of his favorite little
people.
As you look at the drawings, secrets come out of them,--private jokes,
as it were, imparted to you by the author for your special delectation.
How remarkably, for instance, has Mr. Leech observed the
hair-dressers of the present age! Look at "Mr. Tongs," whom that
hideous old bald woman, who ties on her bonnet at