e while nothing of special note, though still a great mass of
work, came from Jerrold's pen, until 1845, when, as prophesied by Hal
Baylis (_see_ p. 97), "Mrs. Caudle" burst upon the town. In common with
a few other things achieved by _Punch_, it created a national _furore_,
and set the whole country laughing and talking. Other nations soon took
up the conversation and the laughter, and "Mrs. Caudle" passed into the
popular mind and took a permanent place in the language in an incredibly
short space of time.

"Some years after I had ceased my connection with _Punch_," says Landells
in one of his autobiographical papers now in my hands, "I met Douglas
Jerrold at the corner of Essex Street in the Strand. It was the time
when the first number of the 'Caudle Curtain Lectures' appeared. In the
course of conversation I remarked that I did not read _Punch_ regularly,
but I had by chance perused the opening chapter of his new subject, and
I thought, if he followed up the series in the spirit he had begun, they
would be the most popular that have ever appeared in its pages. He
laughed heartily and replied--'It just shows what stuff the people will
swallow. I could write such rubbish as that by the yard;' and he added,
'I have before said, the public will always pay to be amused, but they
will never pay to be instructed.' The Caudle Lectures did more than any
series of papers for the universal popularity of _Punch_, and there is
no doubt but they added greatly to Jerrold's reputation, although he
always affected not to think so."

The origin of Mrs. Caudle--one of those women interminably loquacious
and militantly gloomy under fancied marital oppression, who (as Jerrold
said of another) "wouldn't allow that there was a bright side to the
moon"--was the result of no mental effort. Henry Mayhew's son has said
that the character was evolved from the relations of Mr. and Mrs.
Landells; but to anyone conversant with them the suggestion is palpably
absurd. Moreover, Jerrold, himself a good authority, one would have
thought, declared that she was "the result of no thought;" she was
merely "wafted into his brain." The reason of the immediate success of
these "Curtain Lectures" was said to be that every woman in the land
recognised in the lecturer a gratifying resemblance to someone in her
own circle. It was primarily, no doubt, the _intime_ character of the
papers, rather than their inherent humour, that tickled the public
taste--though