very long time on my old
friend's face. We have known one another many years, and he has been
engaged with me in business as well as in pleasure. He was very
kind--very good--and is in heaven, whatever that means."

London was, perhaps, more shocked at the sudden and unexpected death of
John Leech than even when Thackeray was smitten. The shock radiated all
over the country; for there was not a household in the land in which his
name was not familiar as a household word. His personal friends were
deeply affected--none more so than his attached friend, Charles Dickens.
Writing at the time to Forster, in reference to his coming book, "Our
Mutual Friend," he said, "I have not done my number. This death of poor
Leech (I suppose) has put me out woefully. Yesterday, and the day
before, I could do nothing; seemed, for the time being, to have quite
lost the power; and am only by slow degrees getting back into the track
to day." Mr. John Tenniel heard of the loss of his valued _confrere_
that same Sunday, 30th October, and "was stunned at the news, totally
unexpected by him."[168] A special meeting of the _Punch_ staff was
called by Mark Lemon on the following day; himself, Messrs. Percival
Leigh, Shirley Brooks, F. C. Burnand, Tom Taylor, Charles Keene, H.
Silver, John Tenniel,--all were present with the exception of Horace
Mayhew. With the particulars of that meeting we of course have nothing
to do; its melancholy character the reader may well imagine.

On Friday, the 4th of November, 1864, they laid John Leech to rest in
Kensal Green Cemetery, "in the next grave but one to W[illiam]
M[akepeace] T[hackeray]. When Annie Thackeray heard of the death, she
[had] said to Mrs. Millais, 'How glad my father will be to meet him!'
'And he will,'" adds the friend whose note we have transcribed.[169] We
take the account of his burial from Mr. Edmund Yates's impressive and
touching account in the _Morning Star_ newspaper. "The scene round the
grave was a most impressive one. There, ranged round the coffin, stood
the remnant of that famous body of wits who had caused the name of
_Punch_ to be famous at the ends of the earth; there, in the coffin, lay
all that was earthly of him who, more than any of them, had helped to
spread its renown, and to win for himself a name familiar as a household
word in all our English homes. By its side stood Mark Lemon, who, for
two and twenty years has presided over the weekly dinner where the good
things ar