I can
only say you are a devilish lucky fellow! Did you ever see him and
Mark Lemon act at Miss Kelly's theatre? and if so, did you ever see
such an awful exhibition?... and if, as _they_ say, they _did_
"hold the mirror up to Nature," _I_ say it was only to _cast
reflections_ upon her!! Did you read, Punch, the criticisms written
_by_ themselves _upon_ themselves in the next day's papers? If you
did not, you have a treat to come.

[Illustration: THE WRAPPER OF "A WORD WITH PUNCH." (_Designed by George
Augustus Sala._)]

And so forth. Then, presenting the head of Jerrold on the body of an
unusually wriggling serpent, which he gives forth as being from
"portraits in possession of the family," he goes on to "say something"
of the man of savage sarcasm and "bilious bitings:"--

Now, with all his failings, let me record my opinion that it is to
Jerrold's pen you are indebted, Punch, for the fame you once
enjoyed; for, beyond any doubt, he is a fellow of infinite ability.
I have known him some years, and the last time but one I ever _saw_
him was in 1842, when, meeting me in St. James's Street, he thanked
me for a handsome critique he believed me to have written on his
comedy of "Bubbles of the Day," and on that occasion he said a
better thing, Punch, than he has written in your pages. I said to
him, "What, you are picking up character, I suppose?"--to which he
replied, "There's plenty of it lost, in this neighbourhood." The
last time I ever _heard_ from him was during the first visit of
Duprez to Drury Lane Theatre, when I received the following note
from him:--

Wednesday.
"MY DEAR SIR,

Will you enable me to hear your French nightingale--_do pray_,

Yours very truly,
D. JERROLD."

--which is the vilest pun ever perpetrated at the expense of that
eminent singer.... Unlike the other two of his party, he is a man
of undoubted genius; but all who admit this, at the same time
regret the frequent misdirection of his mind. He is one of the most
ill-conditioned, spiteful, vindictive, and venomous writers in
existence, and whatever honey _was_ in his composition, has long
since turned to gall.... Can it be possible [he adds, after digging
up and quotin