spoil it!" This was a piece of unintentional injustice, for the fault
lay with the conditions of rapid printing (for _Punch_ has always been,
and still is, printed on a cylinder machine)--with the printer, the
ink-maker, and the paper manufacturer more than with the engraver, as a
glance at the proofs of the engravings will show.

Speaking of this matter, Dean Hole says: "If the position of an eyelash
was altered, or the curve of a lip was changed, there might be an ample
remainder to convey the intention and to win the admiration of those who
never knew their loss, but the _perfection_ of the original was gone.
Again and again I have heard him [Leech] sigh as he looked over the new
number of _Punch_; and as I, seeing but excellence, would ask an
explanation, he would point to some almost imperceptible obliquity which
vexed his gentle soul." It is a curious fact that, in common with most
draughtsmen, Leech never became reconciled to the fact that black
printer's-ink cannot exactly render the tender grey tones of a hard lead
pencil; but to the fact that he had not much to complain of Mr. Frith
bears witness: "I once saw one of Leech's drawings on the wood, and I
afterwards saw it in _Punch_, and I remember wondering at the fidelity
with which it was rendered. Some of the lines, finer than the finest
hair, had been cut away or _thickened_, but the character, the vigour,
and the beauty were scarcely damaged." In connection with this subject
Mr. Layard, in his "Life of Charles Keene," compared a photogravure and
a wood-block of one of the _Punch_ pictures, with the principal, though
unintended, result of proving how indulgent are wood-engraving and the
tool of the skilled craftsman to the artist who inconsiderately persists
in using grey inks of varying intensities and subtle lines of indefinite
thicknesses on paper of various colour-patches, when reproduction upon
wood is his sole ultimate aim.

As Mr. Swain lived for some time close to Thackeray's house, it was an
occasional custom of his to call on his way to the office to see if the
great "Thack" had any blocks ready that he might carry away with him.
The novelist was usually at breakfast when he called, and would request
that his visitor might be shown into the library. There he would
presently join him and, if he were behindhand with his work, would
request Mr. Swain to have a seat, a cigar, and a chat, while he produced
a _Punch_ drawing "while you wait." "Ah, Swai