ead poor old _Punch_
astray at present." But few independent readers, and fewer still of
Keene's personal friends, will take very seriously his sweeping
assertion and political pronunciamentoes--at least, as regards _Punch_,
for whom and for his colleagues he retained to the end feelings of the
warmest affection.

When John Leech died in 1864, it was Keene who received the main
heritage of his great position as the social satirist of the paper, and
with it the heaviest share of work and artistic responsibility. Not only
did his work increase in the ordinary numbers, but extra drawings--such
as the etched frontispieces to the Pocket-books--fell also to his lot;
and a good deal against the grain--for he hated any approach to
personality, even though his target was a public man and his shaft was
tipped with harmless fun--he executed fourteen cartoons, as is explained
elsewhere. In addition to his ordinary "socials" and the formal
decorations of each successive volume, Keene re-illustrated "Mrs.
Caudle's Curtain Lectures" with a marvellous series of drawings, and Mr.
Frank C. Burnand's "Tracks for Tourists," which made their first
appearance as "How, When, and Where" (1864) and were ultimately
republished in "Very Much Abroad." Of his outside work for "Once a
Week," published by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, and other publications,
no mention need here be made.

It is doubtful if the public will ever realise how great an artist Keene
was. His transcendent merit has, however, for a long time been the
wonder and admiration of his brother-craftsmen and of the critics. The
stream of his genius continued to flow for six-and-thirty years in the
most amazing manner. His drawings are in the highest form of
Impressionism, reproducing every phase of fleeting expression and
suddenly-arrested action with a certainty and accuracy which are
absolutely unsurpassable. His power of composition, of breadth of
handling, chiaroscuro, and suggestion of colour and form, was perfect
within the range of his medium; and in that medium he gave us, not paper
with pen-lines on it, but a perfect sense of light, form, and
expression. He was as careful, too, in his "comic cuts" as the most
conscientious of painters could be in his canvas; and drawing invariably
from the model--even if that model were simply an old shoe--he would
often journey into the country for a background of, say, a turnip-field,
or in search of any other detail or local colour.

I