r Mark Lemon, Mr. Sambourne, as an artist,
was still unformed. Under Shirley Brooks was awakened his wonderful
inventive faculty. Under the _regime_ of masterly inactivity--the happy
policy of _laissez faire_--of Tom Taylor, the talent had burst forth
into luxuriance, not to say exuberance. And under Mr. Burnand it was
schooled and restrained within severer limits.

It was many years before regular political cartooning[64] fell to his
lot. He illustrated several of Mr. Burnand's serials in _Punch_, and
some of his work out of it. But afterwards he rose to the treatment of
actuality. Upon the event of the hour his picture is formed, and each
week his work _must_ be forthcoming. There can be no question of
failure, no dallying with the subject, however elaborate or unpromising
it may appear. A decision must be come to, and that rapidly; and there
the artist sits, his watch hung up before him, "one eye on the dial and
the other on the drawing-paper," knowing that at the appointed hour the
work must be ready for the messenger. Thus the majority of his four
thousand designs have been greatly hurried--hurried in thought as well
as in execution. Many have been wrought in a single day; the great
majority within two days; very few, indeed, have taken more. But when he
has the time he wants, what amazing results are achieved! Sir John
Tenniel once exclaimed to me: "What extraordinary improvement there is
in Sambourne's work! Although a little hard and mechanical, it is of
absolutely inexhaustible ingenuity and firmness of touch. His diploma
for the Fisheries Exhibition almost gave me a headache to look at it--so
full, cram-full of suggestion, yet leaving nothing to the imagination,
so perfectly and completely drawn, with a certainty of touch which
baffles me to understand how he does it."

For the rest, Mr. Sambourne's method, like his work, is unique. Keen of
observation though he is, his memory for detail is not to be compared to
that of Sir John Tenniel; and, actuated by that desire for accuracy
which he holds desirable in a journal specially devoted to topical
allusion, he avails himself extensively of the use of photography. In
the cabinets in his studio, filled full of drawers, each labelled
according to their contents, over ten thousand photographs are
classified: every celebrity of the day, and to a certain extent of the
past, British and foreign, at various ages, in various costumes, and in
various attitudes; representa