and another dealt
with Mr. Vaughan. Then came his funny musical sketches, with a few bars
of absurd music sprinkled here and there in imitation of the London
concert books. A few songs he also contributed to the paper, "The Duke
of Seven Dials" becoming "popular even unto Hackney." Then, in
collaboration with his brother, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, he produced "The
Diary of a Nobody." It was a domestic record of considerable length,
which dealt in an extremely earnest way with Mr. Samuel Porter, who
lived in a small villa in Holloway, and had trouble with his drains, and
was sometimes late at the office, with similar circumstances of striking
interest and concern, which seemed to him to call for public notice. The
"Diary" was afterwards republished in book form.

The light and dainty touch of Mr. Andrew Lang has not been denied to
_Punch_. A number of trifles in verse appeared in 1883 and the two
following years, the most important of them being a sonnet to Colonel
Burnaby--the one contribution, it may be said, that the author has
thought well to republish. Some years later he produced the laughable
series "The Confessions of a Duffer"--papers so humorous that it is
difficult to accept Mr. Lang's disclaimer that "a comic paper is a thing
in which I have no freedom to write."

Besides Mr. W. Ralston, with his single contribution of "K.G.--Q.E.D."
(November 22nd, 1884), Miss May Kendall was the chief comer of the year
1885. This lady helps to make up _Punch's_ bevy of lady literary
contributors--Miss Betham-Edwards, Mrs. Frances Collins, Lady Campbell,
Miss Burnand (an occasional reviewer, or "Baronitess"), Miss
Hollingshead, and Mrs. Leverson, being the others. She is one of the few
lady humorists of any consequence in her day. Women, as a rule, are
humorists neither born nor made. Often enough they are wits, more
frequently satirists. They can make, we are told, but they cannot take,
a joke; at any rate, they are usually out of their element in the comic
arena. Moreover, as butts for the caricaturist they are unsatisfactory,
for in proportion as his efforts are successful, his sense of chivalry
is outraged; and we have seen how Keene and others recoiled from the
idea. Only on one occasion did Mr. Furniss make the attempt, and that
indirectly and in a sense unintentionally--and the circumstance brought
a miniature storm about his ears. No woman has ever yet been a
caricaturist, in spite of the fact that her femininity befit