e for _Punch_.
As Mr. Anstey says, he has brought the art of _precis_-writing to
perfection. His legends are not always so concise as Leech's, but for
truth of expression, felicitous colloquialism, and above all, for
foreign accent, he is unapproached. I go farther, and say that he is the
first man who ever put truthfully upon paper, and properly
differentiated, the "broken English" and slangy mispronunciations of
German, French, and Semite, to say nothing of his Cockney; indeed, his
studies in this direction prove him, besides an admirable physiologist
_pour rire_ and a pungent though courteous satirist, an inimitable
comparative-"broken"-philologist.

[Illustration: "MY PRETTY WOMAN."

(_Drawn by George du Maurier._)]

True to his _role_ of "Romantic Tenor," Mr. du Maurier has endowed
_Punch_ with the greater part of the grace and beauty which have done so
much to make the paper what it is. "In his social subjects," says a
distinguished critic,[60] "Mr. du Maurier, though somewhat mannered and
fond of a single type of face and figure, has carried the ironical
_genre_, received by Leech from Gavarni and Charlet, to the highest
point of elegance it has attained." He is too fond of the beautiful,
sighs Mr. James; he sees everything _en beau_, and Mistress and Maid
with him are a good deal of Juno and Hebe. No doubt his grace often
militates against his fun, but Mr. du Maurier, as has already been
suggested, is only by accident a professional funny man. Besides, when
he wishes to be merely funny, he passes Beauty by as if he were not the
most devoted of her adorers, as you may see in one of the best of all
his drawings in _Punch_, in which a typically selfish master of the
house orders up the cook into the breakfast-room, complaining that he
cannot eat the bacon which he has just served; his wife's, he says, is
the worst he ever saw--and _his own is nearly as bad_!

Even more than his lovely child (often drawn from his little grandson),
his superb youth, and his splendid gentleman, Mr. du Maurier's pretty
woman is the pedestal upon which he has erected his reputation--at
least, so far as _Punch_ is concerned. His pretty woman, he declares, is
the granddaughter of Leech's, and he beseeches the public to love her,
paternally at least as he does, "for her grandmother's sake."

[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.

(_By George du Maurier._)]

Writing his mind on the subject of his delightful creation at my