hirt sleeves, and with
ready facility adapted himself to circumstances by drawing beer for his
former pupils and patients. Various stories have been told of this
eccentric personage, who is said (with what truth we know not) to have
commenced life as a Quaker, and ended it eventually as a missionary.

"RAWKINS."

Whittle the eccentric was afterwards immortalized by Leech as "Rawkins"
in Albert Smith's "Adventures of Mr. Ledbury," which made their
appearance in "Bentley's Miscellany." We cannot advise those who would
enjoy a hearty laugh to do better than refer to Leech's comical etchings
of _The Return of Hercules from a Fancy Ball_ (on a wet night, without
his latchkey), and the _Last Appearance of Mr. Rawkins in Public_, in
which the _rencontre_ of Mr. Whittle and some of his female patients
already referred to is superbly realized.

When Mr. Whittle and his practice had finally parted company in the
manner we have described, John Leech's indentures were transferred to
Dr. John Cockle, afterwards physician to the Royal Free hospital. During
part of his spasmodic medical course, he went through the mystic
performance at one time known as "walking the hospitals," and at St.
Bartholomew's varied his attendance at the anatomical lectures of Mr.
Stanley--where he met other square pegs intended for round holes, Albert
Smith and Percival Leigh--with sketches of his fellow-pupils and their
medical lecturers. Many of these, the earliest of his sketches, were in
the possession of his friend, the late Mark Lemon. Before his time was
out, Leech luckily resolved to throw his medical studies to the winds,
and to live wholly by the practice of his art.

His first work, published when he was eighteen years of age, was
entitled "Etchings and Sketchings by A. Pen, Esq.," and consisted of
four quarto sheets, containing slightly caricature sketches of oddities
of London life, such as cabmen, policemen, street musicians, and the
like. He next tried his hand at lithography, and produced some political
satires not without ability; but these at best were merely the tentative
efforts of an artist who had not yet discovered the bent of his genius,
in consequence of being compelled to accommodate himself to the standard
of his early patrons--the printsellers. Having drawn his design, Leech
has been known in those early times to spend a weary day in search of a
buyer, by carrying the heavy stone about with him from publisher to
publisher