do not
enable him to appreciate the merits of "red ink" as a table beverage,
and in the end old General Barleycorn rallied and drove the invaders out
of the popularity they had for a time achieved.

* * * * *

And here we break off--for reasons which will be apparent in our next
chapter--the further consideration of the graphic satires of the late
John Leech. Before passing on to other matters, we are bound to say that
we regard them rather for what they might have been than for what we
actually find them. Had they been executed with the same materials and
under the same conditions as the graphic satires of Gillray or
Cruikshank, or still better, in the manner in which the sporting
pictures to the late Mr. Surtees' novels were produced, we have no
hesitation in saying that they would have distanced anything in the
nature of caricature which had gone before. Unfortunately, the
productions of the modern caricaturist (if, indeed, we may term him one)
have no reasonable chance, it being apparently taken for granted that a
modern public will not invest in caricatures of an expensive
character.[155] Moreover, he has no longer any hand in the completion of
his picture, the wood-block being cut up into segments, each entrusted
to a different hand, and executed with materials with which the older
caricaturists had nothing to do, and under conditions of pressure and
haste to which they were happily strangers. Hence it is, that while the
admirable satires of John Leech enhance the value of the _Punch_ volumes
themselves, taken _singly_, not only will they not command a fiftieth
part of the price asked and given for the coloured but inferior
productions of an earlier school, but they are to all intents and
purposes valueless. Leech himself has often been known to say to friends
who admired his composition on the wood block:--"Wait till Saturday, and
see how the engraver will have spoiled it." We will subject the justice
of these observations to a practical test. Let the reader compare an
ordinary _Punch_ cartoon with one of the tinted lithographs issued from
the _Punch_ office during the artist's lifetime under the title of _The
Rising Generation_, and he cannot fail to be struck with the enormous
advantages possessed by the latter. These last have their price, and
command, by reason of their scarcity, a comparatively high one.

FOOTNOTES:

[139] The prosecution, however, answered its purpose.