ther than that of public men. But to get these, and especially
members of the House of Commons, he would take considerable trouble. I
have seen an extremely cordial letter addressed to him by Mr. Speaker
Denison, in which special facilities were accorded him to witness the
opening of Parliament.

[Illustration: "LEECH'S 'PRETTY GIRL.'"
(_A Skit by Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., R.A. By Permission of W. W. Fenn,
Esq._)]

As a draughtsman Leech has been admirably placed by Mr. du Maurier, who
calls him a perfect ballad-writer as compared with the more scientific
counterpointing of Charles Keene. And I would remark that it was above
all as a pencil and wood draughtsman that he excelled; his etchings--of
which he made two-score for the Pocket-Books--are not, technically
considered, up to the sustained level of either Cruikshank or "Phiz."
But his sense of freedom on the block he makes us feel; he revels in it,
and thereby imparts spontaneity to his drawings far beyond what we see
in his plates. Yet his composition is almost uniformly excellent,
whether in line or light and shade, and apparently as carefully thought
out as though an oil picture and not a _Punch_ cut was the work he had
in hand. The relation between his landscapes and his figures has often
been applauded; and a foreign critic has exclaimed, with unfeigned
surprise and admiration, "Leech and Keene could not only draw
light--they could even draw the wind!" And with all this he told his
story in his drawings more completely than any man of his day; he
appealed to every class of society, and touched them all with equal
facility, with equal good-humour, brightness, and beauty. His power of
legend-writing, too, was remarkable--his explanatory lines beneath the
drawings being as concise and happy as what they described. Says Mr.
Silver: "As brevity is the soul of wit, he always made his 'legends' as
terse as possible, first jotting them down hastily, and condensing while
he drew. I have, for instance, a slight drawing of a heavy pig-faced
farmer admiring with his wife a fat pig in its stye. Beneath the sketch
is scribbled 'There now; that's my style! I call him a perfect love!' As
the joke lay in the likeness of the owner to the pig, the last phrase
seemed redundant, and therefore was suppressed before the drawing went
to _Punch_." It is curious that with this gift, he should have
contributed only once, so far as I can ascertain, to the literary
portion of _Punch_, and