DEATH OF MR. JOHN LEECH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1353, 31 January 1865, Page 3

DEATH OF MR. JOHN LEECH.

(From the Times.) Suddenly there is a great blank among us, and the shadow of a great darkness. One of our dearest and most delightful companions, one whom not only we, but also all whose eyes will rest upon these columns must think of as ia some sort a cherished companion, is taken from us. John Leech, known to the public as one of the most kindly and the most graceful humourists that ever lived, known to his. friends for a peculiar gentleness and refinement of character that at first sight seemed as it were in opposition to the robustness of his judgment, and therefore took many people by surprise, died On Saturday evening Oct. 29 at 7 o'clock. The death of Garrick was said to have eclipsed the, gaiety of nations, and the death of Mr. Leech will touch many more hearts, both of this and other nations, than jGarrick ever reached. Although* he looked strong, he had been long a sufferer, and complained of sleeplessness ; his incessant bramwork induced * peculiar irritability with which most persons have a- tendency to jest rather than' to sympathize. He was much affected by noise, and was literally driven from his house in Brunswicksquare by street music. He hoped to get peace at Kensington, especially as he shut them out by the device of double windows; but he had no peace, and in addition to the torment of the organs he came to be afflicted. at early dawn, by the hammer of some small mechanic. His friends made light of it. and tried to jest with him. " You may laugh," he would say,-" but I assure you it will kill me," He was so unwell that during this last sumnier he was obliged to go - abroad, and he was forbidden to indulge in his favourite exercise of riding 6n horseback. He came back better in the autumn, hut still he was strangely susceptible to noise, and only a fortnight ago he spoke with more than his usual earnestness, with something even of passionate entreaty in his tones about the suffering which thte street organs gave him, and about the smallness of the sympathy which' he received from people who have to work their brains in a mere routine. At last his sufferings have come to an end, and if any of his friends were inclined to treat them as imaginary they will now be convinced. It is not a year 'since he stood in tears by the grave of his schoolfellow, Thackeray, and now his friends will follow him, too, to his long home. together, they were fellow workers together in -Dmg/i; tiotii tiaJ something even of womanly gentleness intermingled with the strength of their characters; and both were in their styles of working, classical.

Although Mr. Leech lived to be 47 years of age. the record of his life is short and simple. He was born in London in 1817, and was educated at the Charterhouse. He left school to study medicine, and had ma e considerable progress in that direction before he discovered what was to be his true path in life. His first sketch in Punch, entitled " Foreign Affairsi" appeared in the first week of August, 1841. and thenceforward the history of his life is to be seen week by week in the pages of that popular periodical. No doubt he was otherwise engaged also. He illustrated almanacs and novels, books of travel - iand poems. A Christmas time without two dozen sketches by Leech, full of the most graceful and delicate humour, would be a strange Christmas indeed,'a Christmas which might as well be without holly ' and mistletoe, dancing and good' cheer. He always took great pains as Christmas drew nigh, and year by year, seemed to surpass himself in delicacies of touch, and in the charm of his humour. But it was through the weekly pages of Punch, far more than through the yearly almanac, that Mr. Leech was best known to the public; and his life is there reflected. He goes to France and draws a French scene; to Scotland, and draws a Scotch one. Then his experience of our social life—his pictures of balls, dinner parties, mess-rooms, bachelors' chambers, Rotten-row, gardens, park 9, streets, watering-places, shooting parties, hunting-fields, boating, fishing, and we know not what else, make up such a history of his time as to the future historian will be invaluable The fashion of the day, the passion of the hour is r<s fleeted on his page as in a photograph. And while we have thus in his sketches a curiously complete history of certain phases of this Victorian era, we have also in them a picture and a chronicle of the artist's own Jife. Anyone,' without knowing Mr. Leech personally, can detect in these sketches the work of a keen-sighted, hearty sort of man, healthy and broad in his sympathies, full of fun, but still more charmed with grace, and sensitive to beanty, fond of children, fond of dwelling on all youthful beauty, fond of beautiful dogs and horses, but above all things fond of truth and nature. We have said that he was classical in his style of working. One cannot well speak of the ridiculous in itself as classical; and much of Mr. Leech's work concerned the ridiculous. But in him the sense of the grotesque and the love of satire was never allowed to interfere with, much less to over-ride, his [attraction to whatever was beautiful and true. There never was a caricaturist who was so little of a caricaturist; who could give the truth of nature on so many different sides, and seemed at the same time to have so quick an eye for whatever is lovely in nature. He drew with equal ease a fine lady and a crossing-sweeper; on the same page he would bewitch the reader of Punch with the loveliest of little maidens, and provoke him with the vulgarest of upstarts. And he was always seeing and drawing something new. Suddenly we should be astonished t with some sea-piece in which the billows were ' rendered with wonderful skill. Or we had some mountain scenery, or a glade in a wood, or ploughed fields, or standing corn. He never stood still When we wondered what would come next, we had some rare sky, some curious effect of light.' And all this display of scenery was the mere background of views in which men, and women, and children were the chief objects of, interest. All seemed to flow from his pencil so easily that people scarcely enough understood how hard he worked. He must have worked very hard to produce so much variety in constant succession week after week for more than 20 years. He died, too, in harness, working to the last, and working, indeed, beyond his strength. With characteristic generosity he made unusual exertions in aid of his relatives, and his labours were latterly more severe than they need have been if he had only to think of liimself and hia household. These anxieties and exertions have at length struck him down—and who is there to fill his place? A good, great man, of fine and rare genius, has gone from among us, and we shall not know how much he was to us until we discover by his loss that nature does not often produce such artists as John Leech. One of our greatest artists, Sir Edwin Landseer, has said that there is scarcely a sketch of Mr. Leech's which is not worthy to be framed by itself and hung on our walls. Other artists are equally strong in his praise. No man envied him. The public at large think more of the human interest that belongs to his drawings and the amusement which may be derived from them. But, over and above this, they have qualities which, notwithstanding the lowliness of the material employed, will hereafter confer 011 Mr. leech's sketches a very high renown as works of art.

On November 4tli the remains of the late Mr. John Leech weire coniighed to their l»«t rt»ting , jplace in All Souls' Cemetery,KenSal-green. Many carriages and a larger concourse of mourning friends than is common on such occasions attended his body ! to the cemetery chapel, and, as they passed along on ftheir melancholy errand, there was a marked and unusual manifestation of sympathy on the part of the tenaiiti* of the thoroughfares through which they prodded to the cemetery. It wai as if the lattqr knew that a great artistic genius had ceased ;to exist,, and were deeply interested in the tribute i which his friends and admirers were thus paying to ;his cherished memory. There was no mistaking the .sentiment of .those who lined the roads or thronged the paths up tothe cemetery chapel. The procession arrived at.the gate of the cemetery shortly after half-past one. The carriages passed up the broad roadway towards the north of thecumetery, and drew up. in front of the chapel, the bell of which had . mournfully, tolling while the profession was slowly moving onwards. j The pall-bearers were,—Mr. Mark Lemon, Mr. 'Shirley Brooks, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. J. E. Millais, R.A., Mr. Horace Mayhew, Mr. F. M. Evans (Uradbury and Evans, proprietors of Punch), Mr. .John; iTenniel, Mr. Samuel Lucas, Mr. F. C. Burrand, and |Mr. Henry Silver. There were seven mourning (coaches, the first three being occupied by members land friends of the deceased's family; including Mr. jjohn Leech (his father), Captain Charles Eaton and Mr. T. Eaton (his brothers-in-law), Mr. Hay ward, j iMr. Armstrong, Dr. Quain, Dr. Walsh, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. John Denton, Mr. Charles Adams, Ac. In j the last- four carriages were 16 gentlemen, all more' or less, .with one exception, associated with Mr. Leech, in his relation to Punch, the exception being the Rev. S. R. Hole, who read the service over the grave. The first of these-four carriages was' by Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Evans, sen.; jMjv ; J.■ E.- Millais,. R.A., and the Hev. S. R. jHole j the second by Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. Samuel jLucas, Mr. JoKn Tenniel, and Mr. Horace jMAyhew ; the third by Mr. H. Silver, Mr. Clmrlfes Keene, Mtf.'F; C. Burnard, Mr. W. Bradbury, jun., and. Mr. George Du Maurier; the fourth by Mr. Mark Lemon, Mr. R. H. Howard, Mr. Kvans, jun., land Mr. Felix Joyce. In the cemetery among the; 'crowd Were Captain Sherard Osborn and Commander Heath; R.N., Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Dallas, Mr. W. H. Russel, Mr.: Percival Leigh; Mr. Wj Topham; Mr. Edmund Yates, Mr. German < Reed, Mr. H. K. Browne ("Phiz"), Mr.. I. C. Parkinson, Mr, A. jHailliday, Mr. W. F. Frith, R.A., Mr. T. Landseer, jthe ReviMr. Lyte, Mr. Gruneisen, Mr. George CruickBhank, Mr." Richard Doyle, Mr. Marcus Stone, Mr. W. Brunton, Mr. Hodder, Mr. Blackett' (Hurst and jßlackett), Dr. Hood, Mr. O'Neil, Mr. Elmore, Mr. George Riissel, Mr. Freeman, the Rev. Mr. Gibson, Mr.' Arthur iLewis, Mr. W. King, the Rev. Horace Roberta, the Revi Gfeorge * Gurrey (preacher at the Charterhouse), Mr. Felix Knyvett, Mr. A. B'. Kelly, Mr. James C. O'Dowd (barrister), Mr. R. Oridge (barrister),, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Edward Murray, Mr. Philip, R.A., &c. , The arrangements for the funeral were conducted by Mr. W. Garstin, of Welbeck street. The hearse .used on this occasion was the sume that conveyed the remains of, the late Douglas Jerrold to the grave. It was not the unsightly oblong box upon wheels ,which is usually employed at funerals in this country; but a light, open carriage, of a gracefully curved shape, having .on each side an escutcheon with the initials "J. L.," and the coffin and pall being fully visible. i As soon as the coffin was placed upon the trestles, and the mourners ha.d taken their places, the friends of the deceased entered' the chapel, while the first part of the Burial Service was solemnly read by : the ißev. Charles Stuart, of King's College, London. The remainder of the service was read at the grave itself by the Rev. S. R. Hole, an intimate and cherished ' friend of the deceased, and' the coffin was lowered into the grave with an accompaniment of visible emotion on the part of those surrounding jit, which is rarely witnessed at the interment of either a good "or a great 'man, but which was singularly intensified here where the good and great man were one. How many who looked down into 'that deep grave recalled the familiar charm of their life, which they owed to the cunning of that practised hand, which lay there still and motionless.' How many, above the average even of a popular man's friends, bewailed the fatal numbness of that manly and tender heart!

" For Lycidas was dead, dead ere his prime, "Young Lycidas, and had not left his peer : " Who would not sing for Lycidas ? " wni||}d PPti rnthcr mnum. arhfln a npiril gQ-gontlo.-had passed away, and even its mortal frame had gone from onr'sight for ever ? He-was buried with one grave only between him and Thackeray, who was his.schoolfellow at Charterhouse and his attached friend through life. It was ho further back than the commencement of this very year that he stood weeping for his friend, probably on the very spot where his own nymument will be erected.