William Powell Frith

“ Judging from the angry face of "the lover's friend" as he stretches out his hand towards the claret, it will require even more than the consolation to be derived from the finest brand to enable him to endure his friend's moaning with common patience. One studies with wonder and admiration the few touches with which the story is told in this little drawing. See the handsome frowning face of "the lover's friend," so perfectly in contrast with that of the absorbed lover, whose voice can almost be heard expatiating on the beauty of the lost one, and the hardness of her heart! ”

“ Never was man so loved and honoured by his personal friends, never was a man's death more sincerely mourned than that of "dear, kind John Leech" by those who had the delightful privilege of knowing intimately all the endearing qualities of his heart and mind. See what that great man, who was so soon to follow him to the grave, says, and think what the simple words imply! Says Dickens, in a letter to Forster written a few days after Leech's death, "I have not done my number ('Our Mutual Friend') . This death of poor Leech has put me out woefully." ”

“ There is amongst the pictures of “Life and Character” a drawing of a sportsman who has been thrown from his horse. He has fallen upon his head, and as he raises it, stunned and bewildered, and but half conscious, the sensations that must have possessed him are realized for us in a manner so marvellous, so wonderful in its originality and truth, as to convince one that the accident must have happened to the man who drew the picture; and this was the case, for the fallen man was Leech himself, says Mr. Adams, who in charging a fence was thrown, his horse falling at the same time. ”

“ Leech draws the backgrounds of his little pictures. The homely landscape, the sea, the winter road by which the huntsmen ride, the light and clouds, the birds floating overhead, are indicated by a few strokes which show the artist's untiring watchfulness and love of Nature. He is a natural truth-teller, as Hogarth was before him, and indulges in no flights of fancy. He speaks his mind out quite honestly like a thorough Briton. He loves horses, dogs, river and field sports. He loves home and children—that you can see. He holds Frenchmen in light esteem. ”

“ It is not my province, and it is certainly not in my power, to pose as a critic of literary work; and the hero—the man made of money, with a heart made of bank-notes instead of flesh and blood, containing within himself a bank that could be drawn upon to any amount—is so wonderful a being as to place him out of the category of human creatures, and altogether beyond criticism. This gentleman’s name was Jericho. ”

“ Leech seems to have left no phase of human life and character untouched: whether he deals with the aristocrat or the plebeian, the Duchess or the beggar, the very poor or the very rich, the beautiful or the ugly, he is ever true to Nature; turning away from our vices, dealing lovingly with us in all ways, touching our follies lightly, humorously, and always good-naturedly—in short, invariably reflecting in his work his own disposition to what is pure, manly, and true. ”

“ Of course you remember that unfortunate postal envelope that I designed? Well, Leech caricatured it. You needn’t look so surprised—you don’t think I am such a fool as to mind being caricatured; but I do mind being represented as a blood-sucker! What else can he mean by using that infernal little leech in a bottle in the front of his caricature as my signature? You know well enough, Frith, that I have never asked monstrous prices for my pictures. You fellows get better paid for your work than I ever did, and you wouldn’t like to be called blood-suckers, I expect. ”

“ Brown, "of wholesome, hearty mirth and pleasure, and of something better than either—good as they are—purity, affection, pluck, humour, kindliness, good-humour, good-feeling, good-breeding, the love of Nature, of one another, of truth, the joys of children, the loveliness of our homely English fields, with their sunsets and village spires, their glimpses into the pure infinite beyond, the sea and all its fulness, its waves 'curling their monstrous heads and hanging them,' their crisping smiles on sunlit sands—all that variety of Nature and of man, which is only less infinite than its Maker! ”

“ This terrible death-scene has found a perfect illustrator in John Leech. How admirable is the fiendish expression of the poisoner as he gloats over the body of his victim, which is drawn with a power and truthfulness altogether perfect! ”

“ The hard driving rain beats downways and sideways, frontways and backways—all ways at once. The horses know not which way to duck to evade the storm. In less than a minute Miss De Glancey is as drenched as if she had taken a shower-bath. "The smart hat and feather are annihilated; the dubious frizette falls out; down comes the hair; the bella-donna-inspired radiance of her eyes is quenched; the crinoline and wadding dissolve like ice before the fire; and ere the love-cured Earl lifts her off her horse at the Punch Bowl at Rockbeer, she has no more shape or figure than an icicle. ”

“ Women do strange things, but I deny the possibility of such a woman as Leech has drawn ever finding it in her heart to marry that volunteer. The little thing standing on tip-toe to dabble in baby’s basin for the benefit of her doll, the delighted lookers-on, not forgetting the warrior riding his umbrella into action, are invested with the charm that Leech, and Leech only, could give them. ”

“ Punch's horses have, and how Briggs on the back of them scampers across the country! You see youth, strength, enjoyment, manliness, in those drawings, and in none more so, to our thinking, than in the hundred pictures of children which this artist loves to design. Like a brave, hearty, good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and tender with the little creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their jokes, laughter, caresses. ”

“ Sponge a white silk jacket to ride in, and a cap of the same colour. Altogether, he is a great swell, and very like a bridegroom,” says the author.
If this drawing suffered in the hands of the wood-engraver, it must have been beyond imagination beautiful, for, as it is, it shows us Leech in his full strength. Nothing, it seems to me, could surpass the figure of Lucy, whose expression of loving fear for the safety of the bold Sponge is shown to us in one of the prettiest faces conceivable. Sponge himself is no less successfully rendered as he smiles reassuringly at his beloved. ”

“ Leech's manner—the artists with a manner of their own. How inferior their pencils are to his humour in depicting the public manners, in arresting and amusing the nation! The truth, the strength, the free vigour, the kind humour, the John Bull pluck and spirit of that hand are approached by no competitor. With what dexterity he draws a horse, a woman, a child! He feels them all, so to speak, like a man. What plump young beauties those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem! ”

“ The somewhat theatrical character that Leech gives to the figure of Sainte-Croix is much less apparent in this powerful drawing; and in the figures of Exili and the Marchioness there is not a trace of it. Though the Brinvilliers is masked according to a habit of the time, we feel that the mask conceals a beautiful face, distorted by fear, no doubt, but still lovely. The Italian is altogether excellent. ”