re pointed and sharp
the more he has poked it into political business. Anyway, it is a
characteristic, perhaps _the_ characteristic, of Mr. Chamberlain's face,
and the skilful _Vanity Fair_ artist caught it after a time, and just
sufficiently exaggerated it to make a genuine caricature. Seeing,
however, that Mr. Chamberlain was born to be a much-pictured man, one
thing has stood him in fine stead--his eye-glass. When "Mr. Punch" first
took him in hand he could make little or nothing of him, but the
eye-glass saved the Fleet Street artists from failure. They found
nothing they could lay hold of at first, not even his nose. They saw a
man with a pleasant, good-looking, closely-shaven face, some dark hair
brushed back from his forehead, but there was nothing they could hit off
with success, and the only way they could secure identity was by the
eye-glass. "Mr. Punch" used at one time to represent Mr. Bright as
wearing an eye-glass, but I don't think he ever used one. Certainly I
never saw Mr. Bright with an eye-glass, and never saw Mr. Chamberlain
without one. Great and prominent men should have some characteristic
peculiarity that should be their own special personal brand, and if they
have it not, it must be made for them--as in the case of Lord Palmerston
and the wisp of straw that "Mr. Punch" always put in his mouth. Mr.
Chamberlain, however, has kindly obliged, and given caricaturists and
others something by which he can be unmistakably "featured."

V.

EXIT MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

In 1876 Mr. Chamberlain was elected a member of Parliament for
Birmingham, and his municipal career shortly came to an end. It may be
remembered that he made an unsuccessful attempt to represent Sheffield
some little time before he aspired to become a candidate for Birmingham.
He made a very plucky fight in the cutler constituency, and the
Sheffield blades were hardly so sharp as they might have been in
rejecting such an able and rising politician. Probably, if they could
have peered a little into the future, Mr. Chamberlain's first seat in
Parliament would not have been as a representative of Birmingham.

Mr. Chamberlain, however, was elected as one of the members of his
adopted town in the year mentioned, and, as I have said, he retired more
or less from municipal life. It may further be said that he relinquished
his local position at the right moment. He was lucky as to the time in
which he took up public life in Birmingham, and he