inverted "A" on the Greek
character [Greek: Phi] with its stem elongated. He sprang from an
artistic family, and after three months' training at South Kensington in
1857, he began to draw on wood for "Fun" at about the same time as Mr.
W. S. Gilbert--the autumn of 1861. His connection with _Punch_ was
fortuitous. Being sent by Dr. James Macaulay, the editor of the "Leisure
Hour," to Mr. Swain for some blocks on which to make his drawings for
that magazine, he was smartly captured by the vigilant engraver for the
"London Charivari." The result was many initials and drawings made to
his own jokes; but his first contributions appeared in the special
"Shakespeare Jubilee Number." His work appears often enough after
that--four-and-twenty times in 1864 and 1865. They were at times
amateurish in manner, but they had character and humour. It was Leech's
death that practically put an end to Mr. Fairfield's connection with
_Punch_, for Keene then came to reign supreme in the art department; but
it did not matter much, as Mr. Fairfield, at that time a clerk at the
Board of Trade--in which capacity only he ever came into contact with
Tom Taylor, then Secretary of the Local Government Board--was given to
understand that his career would be interfered with if he prosecuted
too far his outside work. In 1887 (p. 245, Vol. XC.) another sketch
appears, comet-like, after an interval of more than twenty years.

Colonel Seccombe followed a few weeks after Mr. Fairfield's debut. At
that time he was a subaltern. His youthful military drawings--signed
with a sketch of a cannon--were clever, and highly promising. His cuts
appeared in 1864, 1866, and again in 1882--eight altogether. Foreign
service interrupted the young draughtsman's artistic studies for a
considerable period, but the result of his later labours is seen in the
many works for children and others which he has since published.

At the same time came a bevy of draughtsmen, who added little to
_Punch's_ prestige--Dever, whose eight drawings are but caricatures,
which none can see without being reminded of some of the grotesque types
which later on were adopted by Mr. E. T. Reed in his earlier work; H. R.
Robinson with two (though his work was not printed till two years
later); Chambers with one; and Rogat with three; and then the year 1865
brought two or three contributors of interest and importance.

The first of these was Fred Walker, A.R.A., whose first drawing, printed
in the "