Maurier has lived and worked in his house near Hampstead
Heath, from which he has wrought so many backgrounds for his _Punch_
pictures. Whitby, Scarborough, Boulogne, as well as Paris and London,
have oftentimes afforded him local colour; but you get to learn
Hampstead as you look at his drawings better than any of the others, and
to know his sanctum--his salon-studio. Its characteristic bits, its
bow-window, its Late-Gothic fireplace, its window-seat, are all
familiar. And here the artist's model has latterly been the
draughtsman's more constant companion, for "the older I grow," says Mr.
du Maurier, "the more careful, the more of a student I become." So, for
every _Punch_ drawing he now makes beautiful pencil studies which, in my
opinion, are even more delightful and more dainty than the pen-and-ink
pictures they assist in perfecting. Examples of these studies,
accurately and simply drawn, are here reproduced, and they will be seen
to reveal the draughtsman's graceful artistry more completely than any
other work in his recognised medium.

[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.

(_By George du Maurier._)]

It was in the year following Mr. du Maurier's debut that Mr. John Gordon
Thompson began his short connection with _Punch_. He was a very young
man, and these drawings were almost his earliest work. He was at that
time studying for the Civil Service, and after his appointment to
Somerset House he discontinued to a great extent his artistic efforts;
but when he left the Service in 1870 he resumed the pencil, and became,
and remained for twenty years without one week's break, the cartoonist
of "Fun." His style was not yet formed when he contributed to _Punch_,
and his three-and-thirty socials, all published by 1864, gave little
promise of the ability he afterwards displayed in the papers, magazines
and books innumerable which he illustrated with such furious ardour.

Mr. H. Stacy Marks, R.A., also made his appearance in the paper in 1861,
with a design for an architectural hat of Tudor-Gothic order, fitted
with gargoyles round the brim for rainy weather. He also made an initial
"I," and then was seen in _Punch_ no more until the Almanac for 1882,
when he made a full-page ornithological drawing of "Up before the Beak."

[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FOR "PUNCH" PICTURE.

(_By George du Maurier._)]

Paul Gray was another of _Punch's_ promising contributors fated to an
early death. He began with a few initia