Lekythos

“ 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 the glass, informs that "she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair comes off yet." You can see the bear's-grease not only on Tongs's head but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. ”

“ I have never seen any specimens of the father’s drawing, nor did I ever hear the son speak of it. Anyway, Leech père had no faith in the practice of art as a means of livelihood for his son, for he informed the youth, after a nine years’ attendance at the Charterhouse, that he was destined for the medical profession. There is no record of any objection on the part of Leech to his father’s decision, at which I feel surprise; for the flame which burnt so brilliantly in after-life must have been always well alight, and very antagonistic to the kind of work required from the embryo surgeon. ”

“ He is built like an undeveloped boy who has suddenly suffered from too rapid growth. The Leccos, on the contrary, are beautifully developed physically; knotted muscles shift and play evenly under the soft skin and suggest a swift sureness of movement and a strength of endurance that are demanded in their life on the river. ”

“ These were afterwards to be burned or buried with the corpse. According to a scholiast, these lecyths were used by the Athenians as vessels for holding the unguents with which the dead were to be anointed, but their use for containing perfumes is now conceded [100] . There was a class of men at Athens whose occupation consisted in [34] the manufacture and decoration of white lecyths [101] . These vases were not baked as hard as most other earthen vessels but were fashioned with great delicacy of manipulation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If ever man suffered from embarras de richesse, I am that individual in making a selection from the early drawings of Leech; where all, or nearly all, are so perfect, choice becomes difficult indeed. I cannot resist, however, the one that follows this remark. For perfection of character and richness of humour, it seems to me unsurpassable. The 50 doctor’s attitude as he contemplates his victim—who seems to have brought with her the huge empty physic-bottles to prove that she has taken all her “stuff”—to say nothing of his startling individuality, is Nature itself ”

“ It goes without saying that Leech was a worshipper of female beauty in all its bewitching variety. I remember watching with him the riders in Rotten Row, and after some startlingly lovely creatures had passed us, he said:
"Ah, my Frith, don't you wish you were a Turk, and able to marry all that little lot?"
Only two of Leech's children lived to maturity, and both survived him. His son, John Charles Warrington Leech—a fine boy, whom I well remember—was the darling of his father's heart, and the boy returned his love with all the fervour of his loving nature. ”

“ As there is a prejudice among the country people that Leeches never breed well till they have tasted blood, it is said that they drive their horses and cows into the water inhabited by the Leeches, and consequently that the Leech districts are remarkable for their wretched-looking horses and cattle. Leeches must be five years old before they are fit for medical purposes; and they are caught in shallow water in spring by people going in with naked feet and ankles, to which the Leeches adhere, when they are picked off and put in baskets provided for the purpose. ”

“ They are extremely rapid in their movements, and their touch is so delicate that you do not feel their presence until they have nearly gorged themselves with blood. Your legs, unless they are well protected with putties, are most liable to their attacks, but you find leeches on all parts of your body, and I have found them in my eyes and in my mouth and once just captured one as it was preparing to enter one of my nostrils. ”

“ All leeches are very extensile and can contract the body to a plump, pear-shaped form, or extend it to a long and worm-like shape. They frequently progress after the fashion of a “looper” caterpillar, attaching themselves alternately by the anterior and the posterior sucker. Others swim with eel-like curves through the water, while one land-leech, at any rate, moves in a gliding way like a land Planarian, and leaves, also like the Planarian, a slimy trail behind it. Leeches are usually olive green to brown in colour, darker patches and spots being scattered over a paler ground. ”

“ Even his “Children of the Mobility” are little angels of grace and purity, in spite of their rags. The background, be it room, street, or landscape, is merely given with a few strokes, but it is of more than common charm. Every plate of Leech has a certain fragrance and lightness of touch and a delicacy of line which has since been attained only by Frederick Walker. His simplicity of stroke recalls the old Venetian woodcuts. There is not an unnecessary touch. Everything is in keeping, everything has a significance. ”

“ He often introduced in the pages of Punch the barrel-organ nuisance. The public, however, at that time had no idea what these sketches from real life cost the artist. In 1864, Leech was ordered to take a holiday on the Continent. Upon his return to his London home in the autumn of the same year, although better in health, he was still strangely susceptible to noise. He spoke with more than his usual earnestness about the sufferings which the street organs gave him, and about the smallness of the sympathy which he received from people who had no weakness in the same direction. ”

“ Of all our satirists, none have such a pervading sense and power of girlish, ripe, and womanly beauty as Leech.... There is a genuine domesticity about his scenes that could come only from a man who was much at his own fireside, and in the nursery when baby was washed. You see, he is himself pater familias, with no Bohemian trait or raffish turn. What he draws, he has seen; what he asks you to live in, and laugh at and with, he has laughed at and lived in. ”

“ The terrible nature of poor Leech’s sufferings will be shown by another anecdote of Dr. Mackay’s. Just about this time he met Mr. F. M. Evans, one of the proprietors of Punch, and asked him how Leech was. “Very ill,” was the reply; “the sufferings he endures from noise are painful to think of. I took him down into the country a little while ago to stay a week, or as much longer as he pleased, promising him that he should hear no organ-grinders there, nor railway whistles, nor firing of guns. ”

“ Punch's favourite artist.
"We trace, too, in his work a prejudice against the Hebrew nation, against the natives of an island much celebrated for its verdure and its wrongs. These are lamentable prejudices indeed, but what man is without his own? No man has ever depicted the little 'snob' with such a delightful touch. Leech fondles and dances this creature as he does the children. To remember one or two of these dear gents is to laugh. To watch them looking at their own portraits in this pleasant gallery will be no small part of the exhibition ”

“ Leech’s gentle yielding nature influenced him then as always; and he went to St. Bartholomew’s, where under Mr. Stanley, the surgeon of the hospital, he worked 16 hard and delighted his master by his excellent anatomical drawings. From these studies may be traced, I think, much of the knowledge of the human form, and above all of proportion, always displayed in his work; for in those wonderful drawings, whether a figure is tall or short, fat or thin, whether he deals with a child or a giant, with a dog or a horse, no disproportion can be found. ”

“ I am told the Orientals are still our superiors in deportment. But the natural man in him was still the best. Thackeray and Sir John Millais, not bad judges, and men with many friends, have both said that they personally loved John Leech better than any man they ever knew.
At this time he was painting in oil, and on an enlarged scale, some of his more specially popular sketches in Punch, and very anxious to succeed with them, but nervously diffident of success with them, even with [Greek: hoi polloi] . ”

“ Leeches have many enemies:— water-rats, voles, the larvae of the Dytiscus beetle, the larvae of Hydrophylus, the Nepa or water-scorpion, the larvae of the dragonfly, and the adult Dytiscus—all feed upon them. Many birds also eat leeches; and it is recorded that at one artificial leech-farm, where there were 20,000 leeches, they were all eaten up in twenty-four hours by an invasion of ducks. Frogs and newts also devour them, and they are not above eating their own brothers. Aulostoma will devour its own species as readily as it will an earthworm. ”

“ Omens are sought in the entrails of fowls, etc., and other vestiges of their savage origin are still preserved, though now gradually disappearing.
The Lepchas profess no religion, though acknowledging the existence of good and bad spirits. To the good they pay no heed; "Why should we?" they say, "the good spirits do us no harm; the evil spirits, who dwell in every rock, grove, and mountain, are constantly at mischief, and to them we must pray, for they hurt us." Every tribe has a priest-doctor; he neither knows nor attempts to practise the healing art, but is a pure exorcist ”

“ Footmen afford a wide field for the good-humoured banter of Leech.
Amongst the many striking proofs of the genius that distinguished him, is one that to me, as an artist, is astonishing. I allude to the individual character with which Leech invests each of his servant-girls and footmen, as well as every type that comes under his hand. I have not counted the number of servants of "all sorts and sizes" that appear in "Pictures of Life and Character," but I am quite sure that a comparison of one with another will prove that not one can be found in the slightest degree to resemble another ”

“ No one who ever handled a brush or a pencil has been so successful as Leech in conveying the action of wind on every object, and never did he succeed more completely than in an “Awful Scene on the Chain Pier at Brighton,” which is, no doubt, somewhat farcical; but how intensely funny! Master Charley has gone, and his ma’s parasol has accompanied him. The horror-struck nursemaid is almost blown off her feet; and Charley’s brother, also terror-stricken, will be down on his back in a moment; whilst his little 53 sister maintains her equilibrium with great difficulty. ”

“ Leech's offer, who accordingly set about it, at first, with a light, dexterous hand, but on a sudden he cut his nose so shrewdly, that the blood streamed down. The host, deeming this to be nothing else than malice, seized the Douanier, who flew as nimbly out of the door as the Amateur through the window. Immediately after there arose a loud tumult without, and, scarcely allowing himself time to stop the bleeding of his nose with lint, he flew out to see what devil was raising this new uproar. ”

“ Leech has depicted those quaint children in many a humorous drawing. There were two ladies whom I recollect as far from stately. I wish I could meet them now. Such subjects for a caricature one rarely has the opportunity of seeing. Quite six feet, ungainly, gawky, with odd clothes and queer faces, not unlike [8] those of birds, they always inspired me with the utmost curiosity and astonishment. ”

“ There is no doubt that hyper-sensitiveness to noises troubled Leech "from his youth up," for we find in comparatively early drawings in Punch examples of the nuisances created by the fish-hawkers, and the sellers of the great variety of things that nobody wants, at the different seaside places where he took his so-called holidays. He was naturally hard upon the encouragers of these pests. There is an inimitable sketch of an old lady who has called an organ-grinder into her parlour. ”

“ A group of Lepchas is exceedingly picturesque. They are of short stature—four feet eight inches to five feet—rather broad in the chest, and with muscular arms, but small hands and slender wrists. [35] The face is broad, flat, and of eminently Tartar character, flat-nosed and oblique-eyed, with no beard, and little moustache; the complexion is sallow, or often a clear olive; the hair is collected into an immense tail, plaited flat or round. The lower limbs are powerfully developed, befitting genuine mountaineers: the feet are small. ”

“ He had not been asleep a great while when there was again a sound of horses trampling. Leech sprang up once more, in an agony of terror. He heard a challenge from above—“Halt, there!”—from some one who seemed to be a guard, and then a colloquy, in which he could distinguish his name; and then his guard seemed to yield. After a short interval he heard the footsteps of several men coming down the stair that led to his door, and there was a short consultation outside. He heard someone say, “This is the place Steve said he is in; I know it.” ”