" there came Richard
Doyle, one of the most notable acquisitions of the decade. He was the
second son of the famous "[HB]," and had done capital comic work of an
amateur character while still a boy. His "Comic English Histories,"
executed when he was only fifteen years of age, were published after his
death; but he was still young when he first became known to the public.
He was possessed of an extraordinary power of fanciful draughtsmanship;
and his precocity is sufficiently proved by his comic illustrations to
Homer, wrought at the tender age of twelve, with real humour, wealth of
invention, and excellence of expression. His uncle, Mr. Conan, dramatic
critic of the "Morning Herald," showed his work to his friend Mark
Lemon, and Lemon forthwith requested Mr. Swain to instruct the youth in
wood-draughtsmanship. So the engraver set forth with blocks and pencils
to this "certain clever young son" of the once mighty "HB," who was now
in a fair way of falling out of public notice. Arrived at Cambridge
Terrace, he endeavoured to impart to Richard Doyle the art and mystery
of drawing on the wood--how to prepare his blocks, and so forth, and to
give such further information as might be required. But so nervous was
the youth, who was small and thin in person, and greatly agitated in
mind and manner, that he persisted in keeping his distance out of simple
shyness, and literally dodged around the dining-room table, altogether
too excited to lend the slightest attention to the words of his mentor.
In due course, Mr. Swain tells me, the first drawing was delivered, "and
a bad, smudgy thing it was, too, altogether different from the work he
almost immediately contributed for the Almanac of that year." Doyle's
first work in _Punch_ consisted of the clever comic borders to the
Christmas number, one of which enclosed Hood's "Song of the Shirt;" but
with the illustration to the rhymed version of "Don Pasquale" he made
his actual debut.

He was not promoted at once to the position of cartoonist; for the first
six months he contributed only one big cut to five of Leech's, and his
proportion during several years that followed did not exceed one in
three. His first cartoon, entitled "The Modern Sisyphus"--representing
Sir Robert Peel, as the tormented one, engaged in rolling the stone
(O'Connell) up the hill, with Lord John Russell and others, as the
Furies, looking on--appeared on March 16th, 1844; and from that time
onwards his work rapid