The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1, Harry Furniss [digital book reader txt] 📗
- Author: Harry Furniss
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[Pg 271]
This suggestion is the only one I adopted. Strange to say, neither Gladstone, Parnell, nor Lewis Carroll lived to see 1900.
"Is that anecdote in the papers true, that some one has sent you a pebble with an accidental (and not a 'doctored') likeness of Harcourt? If so, let me suggest that your most graceful course of action will be to have it photographed, and to present prints of it to any authors whose books you may at any time chance to illustrate!"
This is the "anecdote":
"Someone found on the seashore the other day a pebble moulded exactly on the lines of Mr. Furniss' portrait of Sir William Harcourt."
NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT.
Other notices were in verse. This from Vanity Fair is the best:
"For Fame, 'tis said, Sir William craves,
And to some purpose he has sought her;
His face is fashioned by the waves:
When will his name be 'writ in water'?"
I lay under a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction of the shell (not a pebble) as I received it: it is not in any way "doctored." It is a large, weather-beaten shell.
There is no doubt but that at one time Lewis Carroll studied Punch, for in one of his earliest letters to me he writes:
"To the best of my recollection, one of the first things that suggested to me the wish to secure your help was a marvellously successful picture in Punch of a House of Lords entirely composed of Harcourts, where the figures took all possible attitudes, and gave all possible views of the face; yet each was a quite unmistakable Sir William Harcourt!"
[Pg 272]
Again he refers to Punch (March, 1890):
"A wish has been expressed in our Common Room (Christ's Church, Oxford), where we take in and bind Punch, that we could have 'keys' to the portraits in the Bishop of Lincoln's Trial and the 'ciphers' in Parliament" (a Parliamentary design of mine, "The House all Sixes and Sevens"). "Will you confer that favour on our Club? If you would give me them done roughly, I will procure copies of those two numbers, and subscribe the names in small MS. print, and have the pages bound in to face the pictures. The simplest way would be for you to put numbers on the faces, and send a list of names numbered to correspond."
Yet a few years brought a change (October, 1894):
"No doubt it is by your direction that three numbers of your new periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in—and my taste for comic papers is defunct. We take in Punch in our Common Room, but I never look at it!"
Hardly a generous remark to make to a Punch man who had illustrated two of his books, and considering that Sir John Tenniel had done so much to make the author's reputation, and Punch had always been so friendly; but this is a bygone.
ell, Sir John, the Grand Old Man of Punch, the evergreen, the ever-delightful Sir John, has earned a night's repose after all his long day of glorious work and good-fellowship. "A great artist and a great gentleman": truer words were never spoken. It seems but yesterday he and I took our rides together; but yesterday he and I and poor Milliken—three Punch men in a boat—were "squaring up" at Cookham after a week's delightful boating holiday on the Thames.
[Pg 273]
"There sat three oarsmen under a tree,
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
They were as puzzled as puzzled could be,
With a down;
And one of them said to his mate,
'We've got these mems in a doose of a state,'
With a down derry, derry down!
"Oh, they were wild, these oarsmen three,
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
Especially one with the white puggree,
With a down;
For it's precious hard to divide by three
A sum on whose total you can't agree,
With a down derry, derry down!
"They bit their pencils and tore their hair,
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
But those blessed bills, they wouldn't come square,
With a down;
'Midst muddle and smudge it is hard to fix
If a six is a nine or a nine is a six,
With a down derry, derry down!
[Pg 274]
"A crumpled account from a pocket of flannel
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
With dirt in dabs, and the rain in a channel,
With a down,
Is worse to decipher than uniform text,
Oh, that is the verdict of oarsmen vext,
With a down derry, derry down!
"A man in a boat his ease will take,
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
But financial conscience at last will wake,
With a down;
Then Nemesis proddeth the prodigal soul
When he finds that the parts are much more than the whole,
With a down derry, derry down!
"Those oarsmen are having a deuce of a time,
Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!
The man in the puggree is ripe for crime,
With a down.
Now heaven send every boating man
For keeping accounts a more excellent plan,
With a down derry, derry down!"
So pencilled poet Milliken. "The man in the puggree" is Sir John,—ripe for many years to come, and when he has another banquet, may I be there to see.
The Two Pins Club was a Punch institution.
Original notice of
"THE TWO PINS CLUB.
"There are Coaching Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there is no Equestrian Club.
"The object of the present proposed Club is to supply this want.
"The Members will meet on Sundays, and ride to some place within easy reach of town: there lunch, spend a few hours, and return.
"Due notice will be given of each 'Meet,' and replies must be sent in to the Secretary by Wednesday afternoon at latest. When it is considered necessary, Luncheon will be ordered beforehand for the party, and those who have neglected to reply by the time fixed, and who do not attend the Meet, will be charged with their share of the Luncheon.
"There will be other Meets besides those on Sundays, which will be arranged by the Members from time to time.
[Pg 275]
"The title of the Club is taken from the names of the two most celebrated English Equestrians known to 'the road,' viz.:—
'DICK TURPIN'
and
'JOHN GILPIN.'
"The Members of 'THE TWO PINS' will represent all the dash of the one and all the respectability of the other.
"The original Members at present are:—
MR. F. C. BURNAND.
MR. JOHN TENNIEL.
MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.
MR. HARRY FURNISS.
MR. R. LEHMANN.
"It is not proposed at first to exceed the number of twelve. The other names down for invitation to become members are—
MR. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P.
MR. JOHN HARE.[3]
SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P.
"We hope you will join. The eight Members can then settle a convenient day for the first Meet, and inaugurate the TWO PINS CLUB.
[3] "N.B. No hounds."
LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME.
The Two Pins Club was started in 1890, and flourished until its President, Lord Russell, was elevated to the Bench. My only claim for distinction in connection with it rests on the fact that I was the only member who, except when I was in mid-Atlantic on my return from the States, never missed a meet. Were the Club now a going concern, I would, of course, refrain from mentioning it, but as it is referred to in the "History of [Pg 276] Punch" by Mr. Spielmann, and in "John Hare, Comedian," by Mr. Pemberton, I may be pardoned and also forgiven for repeating the one joke ever made public in connection with this remarkable Club.
One afternoon our cavalcade was approaching Weybridge, which had been the scene of the boyish pranks of one of our members. To the amusement of us all, this brother Two Pins, as reminiscences of the district were recalled to him by one object and another, grew terribly excited.
"Ah, my boys, there is the dear old oak tree under which I smoked my first cigarette! And there, where the new church stands, I shot my first snipe. Dear me, how all is altered! I wonder if old Sir Henry Tomkins still lives in the Lodge there, and what has become of the Rector's pretty daughter?" etc.
Sir Frank Lockwood, observing lettering on the side of a house, "General Stores," casually asked our excited reminiscent friend if he "knew a General Stores about these parts?"
"General Stores! Of course I do, but he was only a Captain when I lived here!"
When the members lunched at The Durdans our host and honorary member, Lord Rosebery, remarked that it was a Club of "one joke and one horse!" the fact being that we all drove over from Tadworth, Lord Russell's residence, where we were staying, with the exception of Lord Russell himself, who rode. We had, of course, each a horse: some of the members a great deal more than one, but we were careful to trot out one joke between us: "General Stores" became our general and only story.
The first public announcement respecting the Club appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the 4th of May, 1891:
"The T.P.C. held its first annual meeting at the 'Star and Garter Hotel' yesterday morning. There was a full attendance of members. Under the careful and conciliatory guidance of the President, Sir Charles Russell, supported mainly by Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. John Hare, Mr. Linley Sambourne, and Mr. R. Lehmann (hon. sec.), [Pg 277] the customary business was satisfactorily transacted, and the principal subjects for discussion were dealt with in a spirit of intelligent self-control. Mr. Arthur Russell was unanimously elected a member of the association, which in point of numbers is now complete."
This sketch is � propos of Mr. Linley Sambourne's portrait in "Vanity Fair." Note refers to his being made Solicitor-General.
But the object of the Club being carefully concealed, much mystery surrounds its name. Few were aware that it was merely a band of "Sontag-Reiters." Our hon. sec., being at the time prominent in politics, received congratulations from those who imagined the T.P.C. was a political association, and much wonderment was excited by the decidedly enigmatical appellation [Pg 278] of the small and select society. Sir Edward Lawson showed marked ingenuity in retaining the mystery by his paragraphs in his paper. The first meet of our second season was the only one I missed during the years the Club existed:
"The first meeting of the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir Charles Russell, who was assisted in
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