hich the veteran Kenny Meadows contributed some of the most quaint
and original of his sketches.

[Illustration:
JOHN LEECH. "_Illuminated Magazine._"

THE ELECTION.

_Face p. 286._]

John Leech's portrait appears in three of the _Punch_ sketches--two only
of which are due to his own hand; the first in January, 1846, in one
wherein a servant maid is depicted as saying, "If you please, sir,
here's the printer's boy called again;" again, in January, 1847, where
we find him playing the clarionet as one of the orchestra at _Mr.
Punch's Fancy Ball_. Other performers are--Mayhew, cornet; Percival
Leigh, double bass; Gilbert a Beckett, violin; Richard Doyle, clarionet;
Thackeray, piccolo; Tom Taylor, piano; while Mark Lemon, the conductor,
appeals to Jerrold to somewhat moderate his assaults on the drum.
Another hand portrays him seven years later, as armed with a porte
crayon he rides his hobbyhorse at an easel which does duty for a hurdle,
Jerrold is playing skittles, Thackeray holds the bat at a game of
cricket, and Mark Lemon is engaged at rackets.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

Amongst the early _literary_ contributors to _Punch_ were Mark Lemon,
Horace Mayhew, Gilbert a Beckett, Stirling Coyne, W. H. Wills, H. P.
Grattan, Douglas Jerrold, Percival Leigh, and Dr. Maginn. Albert Smith
joined the staff through the introduction of his friend Leech; Thackeray
was a later acquisition, in 1844. It was scarcely to be expected that
the brilliant and the lesser wits who shed their lustre on the early
volumes of _Punch_, and were brought together at the weekly council
dinners, would invariably agree;--Jerrold and Thackeray, for instance,
entertained a sort of constitutional antipathy to one another, and the
latter, it must not be forgotten, was (in the words of Anthony Trollope)
"still struggling to make good his footing in literature" at the time he
joined the ranks of the _Punch_ parliament. Jerrold could not veil his
contempt for Albert Smith, angrily asking Leech at one of the _Punch_
gatherings, with reference to the former's free and easy method of
addressing his friend, "Leech, how long is it necessary for a man to
know you before he can call you 'Jack'?" When A Beckett announced his
"Comic History of England," in 1846, the strong mind of Jerrold recoiled
in horror from what he deemed a sacrilege. Writing to Charles Dickens in
reference to the announcement, he said, "After all, life has something
serious in it. It cann