Leech, but the character of the original was left intact. Then
three initials from Ince are to be chronicled; another from "W. R.," and
a drawing signed "H.," from B. C. Halliday (p. 200, Vol. XXVIII),
showing "Our Artist in the Crimea" in a hopeless mess; as well as a
dozen initials of no particular importance from G. W. Terry (p. 171,
Vol. XXX.) from 1856 to 1858.

Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry, so well and pleasantly known in later days as
_Punch's_ "Lazy Minstrel," and writer of verses and paragraphs
innumerable in its pages, was from 1856 to 1861 an artistic contributor
on fifteen occasions. "When I was a youth," he writes, "I fear I must
have annoyed good, genial Mark Lemon very much, for I was continually
sending pen-and-ink sketches to _Punch_. Not content with showering
these upon him, which were invariably courteously returned, I began to
pelt him with wood blocks. I took to drawing on the wood
enthusiastically, and was continually popping these little parcels into
the letter-box under the shadow of St. Bride's Church. At last one of
them, to my intense joy, appeared. Altogether I must have had about four
initial letters, a dozen black silhouettes, and a quarter-page social
cut inserted in the paper. But the quantity that were never used at all,
and the number that were re-drawn by my old friend Charles Keene, is a
high testimony to the artistic knowledge and editorial skill of Mark
Lemon." But Mr. Ashby-Sterry does himself an injustice, as all will say
who have seen the vivacious sketch of a gentleman struggling violently
inside his shirt, with the legend: "How agreeable it is, more especially
if you are late, and are dressing against time to dine with
ultra-punctual people--how agreeable it is, on getting into your clean
shirt, to find the laundress has been careful to fasten all the buttons
for you!" Moreover, he was trained as an artist, both at "the Langham"
and at the Royal Academy Schools; and portraits painted by him of his
father and grandfather have long since "toned" into canvases at once
able and attractive.

A few sketches by Saunderson in this same year were followed by the
debut of Alfred Thompson. When a cavalry officer, this gentleman,
encouraged by the acceptance of his work by "Diogenes," in 1854, sent a
few drawings--initials, for the most part--to _Punch_, that were
published in 1856-7-8, and he was persuaded by Mark Lemon to take up the
career of art. On retiring from the service, he studied in Pa