ls--a couple of "A's" were his
first little feat, one of them made out of an old woman and a bathing
machine. Then came "socials" up to 1865, which attracted attention for
their grace, in spite of their lack of backbone; but after a variety of
work, including drawings for the "Argosy" and illustrations for
Kingsley's "Hereward," his pencil was laid down, and he was no more than
twenty-five when he died.

Half-a-dozen sketches by Harris in 1863 were followed by Sir John
Millais' first contribution--a mock-heroic illustration to Mr. Burnand's
"Mokeanna" (p. 115, Vol. XLIV.). The distinguished artist repeated his
unusual experience in the Almanac for 1865, when in a technically
exquisite drawing he showed a couple of children in a studio assaulting
the lay figure. There were other pictures by which Sir John figured
indirectly in _Punch_. As one of the most intimate friends of John
Leech, he took the liveliest interest in his work. "Once," he informs
me, "I forwarded two drawings to Leech from Scotland, and he traced them
on to the wood and they appeared in _Punch_--one a tourist struggling
against the wind in a plaid; the other, two artists sketching with veils
on to escape the midges. Possibly they were the occasion of my attending
the Dinner. Leech, I think, asked me to do a drawing for 'Mokeanna' and
the drawing of the 'Children in the Studio.'"

About this time it is claimed that Miss Joanna Hill, the niece of Sir
Rowland Hill, contributed some sketches on the convict question; but it
is certain that nothing in her name was ever accepted.

[Illustration: A LIBEL ON HIMSELF.

(_By F. Barnard._)]

A far more interesting and amusing adherent was Mr. Fred Barnard, a
humorist of the first rank; but as he was not yet seventeen years of age
at the time it is not surprising that his drawings were greatly inferior
to his admirable work of later years. His first joke was rejected, as he
quaintly explains in the following note: "In 1863 I was a student (and
in consequence fondly supposed to be studying) at Heatherley's School of
Art in Newman Street, and was then half-past sixteen. I must have had
plenty of assurance at that time, for, unknown to anyone, I sent a joke,
accompanied by a pencil sketch, to _Punch_. It represented a brute of a
dustman belabouring his horse's head with the butt-end of his whip. To
him enters a fussy, benevolent-looking, and slightly sarcastic old
gentleman, who remonstrates with him in these word