ner, and sneered at the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood;
he attacked Bright and Cobden for their attitude during the Chinese
War; he denounced Carlyle's "Latter-day Pamphlets" as mere "barking and
froth;" he ridiculed Joseph Hume with a cruel persistence that called
forth a passionate protest from the "Westminster Review" against the
scurrilous attack on one who was "too good" for it, for which _Punch_
handsomely apologised on Hume's death (March 10th, 1855); and generally,
in his own words, "at this early date Mr. Punch in his exuberance wrote
much that he would now hesitate to commit to paper, and for which, if it
did appear, he would certainly be taken severely to task by a hundred
correspondents, of whom a majority would be of the strait-laced order,
and the minority would be largely recruited from North Britain."

[Illustration: LEECH'S ORIGINAL SKETCH FOR "PEEL'S DIRTY BOY."]

[Illustration: "PEEL'S DIRTY LITTLE BOY."
_Dame Peel:_ "Drat the boy! He's always in a mess."
(_From the Cartoon by Leech in "Punch," Vol. VIII., p. 145. March 29th,
1845._)]

But the politician who suffered most from _Punch_--and perhaps the most
undeservedly--was that most unpopular of a long line of unpopular Home
Secretaries, Sir James Graham. He had joined Peel's Cabinet in 1842, on
the fall of Lord Melbourne's Ministry, and nothing that he did could
command the approval of his critics, especially those on _Punch_. His
capital offence was directing the opening of certain of Mazzini's
letters in consequence of the statements made to our Government by that
of Naples, to the effect that plots were being carried on--of which the
brilliant and popular Italian refugee was the centre--to excite an
insurrection in Italy. "The British Government," reported the House of
Commons Committee of Inquiry afterwards appointed, "issued a warrant to
open and detain M. Mazzini's letters. Such information deduced from
these letters as appeared to the British Government calculated to
frustrate this attempt was communicated to a foreign Power."

Thereupon Mr. Duncombe, M.P., upon the complaints of Mazzini, W. J.
Linton (the well-known Chartist, and more distinguished wood-engraver),
and others, that their letters had been secretly opened, charged Sir
James Graham with the violation of correspondence (June 14th, 1844), and
though not at first eliciting much information, succeeded in obtaining
the appointment of a Committee, though a "secret" one; and Lord Radnor