ely
mentioned in connection with the early days of _Punch_ and the
'Illustrated London News.' I refer to John Oxenford. He did much good
work in his day, and his contributions to _Punch_ assisted greatly to
increase its reputation. He was a wit of the first water."

[Illustration: JOHN OXENFORD.
(_From a Photograph by Fradelle and Young._)]

The same number that introduced John Oxenford to the _Punch_ reader
presented also William Makepeace Thackeray--a connection that did not
immediately attract public notice, perhaps, though it soon bore the
richest fruit for both author and publisher.

It was about seven years after the first abortive attempt to found a
"London Charivari" that Thackeray--who had been one of the
band--commenced that connection with _Punch_ which was to be of equal
advantage both to him and the paper. "It was a good day for himself, the
journal, and the world," said Shirley Brooks, "when Thackeray found
_Punch_. At first," continues his biographer, "I should gather that he
had doubts as to the advisability of joining in the new and, so far, not
very promising venture;" and on the 22nd of May, 1842, we find
Fitzgerald uttering a warning note, and writing to a common friend:
"Tell Thackeray not to go to _Punch_ yet." But his friend paid little
heed to the counsel, for within a month appeared what I am satisfied is
Thackeray's first contribution to _Punch_--"The Legend of
Jawbrahim-Heraudee" (p. 254, first volume for 1842) with a sketch
undoubtedly by his hand; and at the beginning of the very next volume, a
fortnight later, was begun the series entitled "Miss Tickletoby's
Lectures on English History." These, continued for a time, made no sort
of hit, and in due course they were discontinued; but there seems to
have been in them, and especially in the sketches, the germ of the idea,
so perfectly worked out a little later by Gilbert a Beckett and
Leech--though not for _Punch_: "The Comic History of England" and "The
Comic History of Rome."

When Thackeray joined the _Punch_ circle--or, rather, when he first
wrote for it, for he was not on the Staff for some little time--he
entered, with the credentials of "Fraser" and the "Irish Sketch Book,"
into a company of which several members were already his friends, who,
knowing him as a humorist with both pen and pencil, were glad to secure
so useful a man as contributor. "Very early in the work," writes
Landells in his private papers, which lie before me, "M