id he enjoy his nocturnal patrol from ten o'clock till
one.

And all his types--his _dramatis personae_, so to speak--the gent and his
vulgar associates; the Greedy Boy and the Comic Drunkard; the _Enfant
Terrible_, soon, it is devoutly hoped, to be packed off to school, and
the dreadful Schoolboy home for the holidays; the Choleric Old Gentleman
and the comfortable Materfamilias; Miss Clara and the Heavy Dragoon; the
Italian Organ-grinder, Frenchman, Irishman, and Hebrew (Leech's four
_betes noires_); the Rising Generation; and all the rest--what a boxful
of puppets they were for Mr. Punch's show! And besides them the two or
three distinct personalities he created! There was Tom Noddy--the
ridiculous little man who in real life was the estimable Mr. Mike
Halliday, sometime clerk of the House of Lords, and latterly poet and
successful artist, who was as pleased as _Punch_ himself at the
distinction conferred upon him and his doings by the artist, while all
the time Leech was secretly flattering his kindly self that his model
could not by any means discover himself in pictures in which the
features were so carefully altered--for all personalities were hateful
to the considerate, sensitive humorist. And Mr. Briggs, the Immortal! Of
him whose creation is sufficient to render the year 1849 memorable in
the annals of the land much has ere now been written--that type of a
well-to-do British householder, delightful for his follies and endearing
by his pluck, something of a lunatic, it must be admitted, yet more of a
sportsman, and most of all a "muff"--_Punch's_ "simple-minded Philistine
paterfamilias." Many of his adventures, especially of house-keeping and
its terrors, were based upon Leech's own experiences. For it was Leech
who had those terrible builders, and who was taken for a burglar by a
policeman when trying to get in at his own window. Mr. Briggs'
never-to-be-forgotten sensations of a spill from his horse, as recorded
by Leech, were the result of the artist's own bewildering experience--as
he confessed to "Cuthbert Bede"--and many of his adventures in
salmon-fishing, grouse and pheasant shooting, and deer-stalking were
founded on his visits to Sir John Millais in Scotland. "All the pools on
the Stanley Water," says one authority, "are sacred to the memory of
Briggs, for it was Leech's favourite fishing-ground; and 'Hell's Hole,'
'Death's Throat,' 'Black Stones,' and many other cuts, may all be
recognised from his hu