Social Pictorial Satire | Page 7

of a century ago! He dresses them even better than the darlings, and has none but the kindliest and gentlest satire for their little vanities and conceits--for they have no real vices, these charming youths, beyond smoking too much and betting a little and getting gracefully tipsy at race-meetings and Greenwich dinners--and sometimes running into debt with their tailors, I suppose! And then how boldly they ride to hounds, and how splendidly they fight in the Crimea! how lightly they dance at home! How healthy, good-humoured, and manly they are, with all their vagaries of dress and jewellery and accent! It is easy to forgive them if they give the whole of their minds to their white neckties, or are dejected because they have lost the little gridiron off their chatelaine, or lose all presence of mind when a smut settles on their noses, and turn faint at the sight of Mrs. Gamp's umbrella!
And next to these enviable beings he loves and reveres the sportsman. One is made to feel that the true sportsman, whether he shoots or hunts or fishes, is an August being, as he ought to be in Great Britain, and Leech has done him full justice with his pencil. He is no subject for flippant satire; so there he sits his horse, or stalks through his turnip-field, or handles his rod like a god! Handsome, well-appointed from top to toe, aristocratic to the finger-tips--a most impressive figure, the despair of foreigners, the envy of all outsiders at home (including the present lecturer)!
[Illustration: A SPECIMEN OF PLUCK
RUGGLES. "Hold hard, Master George. It's too wide, and uncommon deep!"
MASTER GEORGE. "All right, Ruggles! We can both _swim_!"--Punch.]
He has never been painted like this before! What splendid lords and squires, fat or lean, hook-nosed or eagle-eyed, well tanned by sun and wind, in faultless kit, on priceless mounts! How redolent they are of health and wealth, and the secure consciousness of high social position--of the cool business-like self-importance that sits so well on those who are knowing in the noblest pursuit that can ever employ the energies and engross the mind of a well-born Briton; for they can ride almost as well as their grooms, these mighty hunters before the Lord, and know the country almost as well as the huntsman himself! And what sons and grandsons and granddaughters are growing up round them, on delightful ponies no gate, hedge, or brook can dismay--nothing but the hard high-road!
It is a glorious, exhilarating scene, with the beautiful wintry landscape stretching away to the cloudy November sky, and the lords and ladies gay, and the hounds, and the frosty-faced, short-tempered old huntsman, the very perfection of his kind; and the poor cockney snobs on their hired screws, and the meek clod-hopping labourers looking on excited and bewildered, happy for a moment at beholding so much happiness in their betters.
[Illustration: ONE OF MR. BRIGG'S ADVENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS
After aiming for a Quarter of and Hour Mr. B. fires both of his Barrels--and--misses!!!! Tableau--The Forester's Anguish--_Punch_, 1861.]
To have seen these sketches of the hunting-field is to have been there in person. It is almost the only hunting that I ever had--and probably ever shall have--and I am almost content that it should be so! It is so much easier and simpler to draw for Punch than to drive across country! And then, as a set-off to all this successful achievement, this pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious sport, we have the immortal and ever-beloved figure of Mr. Briggs, whom I look upon as Leech's masterpiece--the example above all others of the most humorous and good-natured satire that was ever penned or pencilled. The more ridiculous he is the more we love him; he is more winning and sympathetic than even Mr. Pickwick himself, and I almost think a greater creation! Besides, it took two to make Mr. Pickwick, the author and the artist, whereas Mr. Briggs issued fully equipped from the brain of Leech alone!
Not indeed that all unauthorised gallopers after the fox find forgiveness in the eyes of Leech. Woe to the vulgar little cockney snob who dares to obtrude his ugly mug and his big cigar and his hired, broken-winded rip on these hallowed and thrice-happy hunting-grounds!--an earthenware pot among vessels of brass; the punishment shall be made to fit the crime; better if he fell off and his horse rolled over him than that he should dress and ride and look like that! For the pain of broken bones is easier to bear than the scorn of a true British sportsman!
[Illustration: THANK GOODNESS! FLY-FISHING HAS BEGUN!
MILLER. "Don't they really, perhaps they'll bite better towards the cool of the evening, they mostly do."--_Punch_, 1857.] Then there are the fishermen who never catch any fish, but whom no stress of weather can