The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1, Harry Furniss [digital book reader txt] 📗
- Author: Harry Furniss
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Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well, in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry.
In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover.
I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or "Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and elsewhere, and they show me other things, but [Pg 173] not the funny nigger I recollect, so I have given up my search in despair."
I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old days.
In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked:
"You young men will have a very bad time of it."
It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P. for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich Soir�es" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor packed with his many friends—a characteristic, polyglot gathering of Ministers and Parliamentarians [Pg 174] of all kinds, musicians, dramatists, authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, recited, and gave a gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted as his hon. secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern paintings on the walls, besides designing the invitations)—I recollect the greatest success was the Grand Old Man. There was "standing room" only, but a chair was provided for Mr. Gladstone in the centre of the huge circle which had formed around the mesmerist Verbeck. Many guests sat on the floor, to afford those behind a better chance of seeing. The 
MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR. Prime Minister, noticing this, absolutely declined to be an exception, and he squatted "� la Turk" on the floor. I confess this struck me as "playing to the gallery." It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory. In fact, Mr. Gladstone was always en �vidence. When the great statesman dined with Toby, M.P., I was sitting close to him. He had dispensed with his own shirt-collars, and wore quite the smallest, slenderest, and most inconspicuous of narrow, turn-down collars, assumed for that occasion only. "One of Herbert's cast-offs," someone whispered to me. "That's strange," said another guest to me. "Last night at dinner the pin in the back of Gladstone's collar came out, and as he got excited, the collar rose round his head, and we all agreed that 'Furniss ought to have witnessed what he has so often drawn, but never seen.'"
Mr. Lucy has made the statement that Mr. Gladstone was "a constant student of Punch" and "knew no occasion upon [Pg 175] which he was not able to join in the general merriment of the public; but hadn't there been enough about the fabulous collars?"
I received an editorial order to bury them, "but before long they were out again, flapping their folds in the political breeze."
THE FRAGMENT OF PUNCH MR. GLADSTONE DID NOT SEE.
Well, I have no doubt that Mr. Gladstone for many years was "a constant student of Punch," for during the greater portion of his political career he was idealised in the pages of Punch, and not caricatured. I doubt very much, however, if he made Punch an exception in his latter period, for it is well known that for years he was only allowed to see flattering notices of himself, and all references at all likely to disturb him were kept from his sight. At Mr. Lucy's own house, the night Mr. Gladstone dined with him, a copy of Punch was lying on the table, containing a rare thing for Punch—a supplement. In this case it took the shape of my caricatures of the Royal Academy, 1889. Just as dinner was announced Mr. Gladstone [Pg 176] saw the paper, and was on the point of taking it up. I handed it to him, but at the same moment slipped the supplement out of the number and threw it under the table, for it contained a caricature of Professor Herkomer's Academy portrait of Mrs. Gladstone, objecting to being placed next to a lady by Mr. Val Prinsep sitting for the "altogether." During dinner Mr. Gladstone mentioned this portrait of Mrs. Gladstone, and expressed great delight with Herkomer's work: it showed her mature age, he said, and as a portrait was very happy and true—he did not say anything about the hanging of it!
Mr. Gladstone was the life and soul of a party, and seemed to enjoy being the centre of attraction wherever he was.
THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX.
Mr. Gladstone's portrait has been adopted by others besides caricaturists. It is carved as a gargoyle in the stone-work of a church, and the head of the Grand Old Man has been turned into a match-box. The latter I here reproduce. It was shown to me one evening when I was the guest at the Guard Mess at St. James's Palace. A clever young Guardsman, who had a taste for turning, worked this out in wood from my caricatures of Mr. Gladstone, and I advised his having it reproduced in pottery. The suggestion was carried out by the late Mr. Woodall, the Member for the Potteries, and was largely distributed at the time the G.O.M. was politically meeting his match and thought by some to be a little light-headed.
In being shown round the beautiful municipal buildings in Glasgow I found my caricature there accidentally figuring in the marble-work; and the guides at Antwerp Cathedral (as I have mentioned in the first chapter) point out a grotesque figure in the wood carving of the choir stalls which resembles almost exactly Mr. Gladstone's head as depicted by me.
I find a note which I introduce here, as I hardly know where to place it in this hotch-potch of confessions. Is it a fact that [Pg 177] Mr. Gladstone once signed a caricature of himself? In 1896 a Mr. J. T. Cox, of the "Norwich school" of amateurs, procured a slab of a sycamore tree felled by Mr. Gladstone, and on it reproduced in pencil my Punch cartoon depicting a visit of the "Grand Old Undergrad" to his Alma Mater, Oxford. This was sent to Hawarden, and returned signed with the following note:
"Mr. Gladstone is obliged to refuse his signature, but Mrs. Drew asked him for it for herself on enclosed—it was so cleverly arranged.
"May 5th, 1896."
Here is to me, I confess, a first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn't, Cox and Box mystery I fail to explain.
I drew the G.O.M., Mr. Cox drew me, he drew Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Drew drew Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone refused his signature, and yet he signed it. I think he signed his cut of sycamore, and not my cut at him.
Both as a "special artist" for the Illustrated London News in my pre-Punch days, and later for various periodicals, I saw and sketched Mr. Gladstone on many important occasions, but towards the end of his career it was sad to see the great man. The Daily News once gave me a chance in the following account of Mr. Gladstone during one of these scenes; when Mr. Gladstone, having accidentally mentioned the approach of his eightieth birthday, "the vast audience suddenly leapt to its feet and burst into ringing cheers. Mr. Gladstone was evidently deeply touched by this spontaneous outburst of almost personal affection. He stood with hands folded, head bent down, and legs quivering." The fun of this joke, however, lies in the fact that the "legs" which quivered were the telegraph operators'. The reporter wrote "lips."
So great was the public admiration for the illustrious leader of the Liberal Party that merely to see him was, to the majority of his audience, enough. In later years he could not be heard at public meetings. Penetrating as his voice was, it was absolutely impossible for any but those standing immediately around [Pg 178] the platform to hear him upon such occasions as that of the famous Blackheath meeting, or those at Birmingham or elsewhere; but the masses nevertheless came in their thousands, and were more than repaid for their trouble by catching only a distant glimpse of William Ewart Gladstone.
Whatever one may think of Mr. Gladstone as a politician (and some say that he was no statesman, and others that he was never sincere, while many maintain that he was merely a "dangerous old woman"), all must agree that as a man he was a figure that England might well be proud of. It will be interesting to see what historians will make of him. When the glamour of his personality is forgotten, what will be remembered? His figure, his face—and shall I say his collars?
In my time Mr. Parnell was the most interesting figure in Parliament, and, after Mr. Gladstone, had the greatest influence in the House. Mr. Gladstone was, politically speaking, Parliament itself (at one time he was the Country); but I doubt if even Mr. Gladstone ever hypnotised the House by his
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