DOUGLAS JERROLD AND MARK LEMON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 113, 26 June 1875, Page 8

DOUGLAS JERROLD AND MARK LEMON.

•!-+ There was no man with whom I was ever acquainted who puzzled more than the late Mr. Mark Lemon. His place knows him no more now, nor is his burly form discernable, looming large throuo-h the fogs of Fleet-street. He was full of bonhomie and kindheartedness, but I could never make out by what intellectual qualities he won and continued to occupy the position he held in literary circles. As the editor of the ' Punch,' he presided over a team of some of the keenest wits and finest humorists of the day, and yet the man himself seemed to me always what old Samuel Johnson would have called "a bull dog, six." Not a flash of the brilliancy of his associates was ever reflected by him. He said nothing ever worthy oinote. And yet this person was the centre of a galaxy of the brightest spirits of the day. He had a villa in the country and a house in town, and looked as if he lived— l have no doubt he did— on the tat of the land. He survived to see all these bright spirits by whom he was once surrounded drop one by one from his sidelike the last rose of summer he was left blooming alone amidst Jaded rose-leaves of wit that sparkled and>?w de mote that provoked the gaiety of nations. Among the, people whom I knew once I cannot remember anyone more remarkable than Douglas Jerrold. His works speak for themselves. But putting them on one side, the appearance of the man impressed one with a sense of his °reat power. The frail body, with a leonine head covered by flowing silver hair; his bright flaming eyes, and long upper lip which curled with scorn, made his appearance very striking. A novelist a dramatist, a magazinist, this gentleman of the press, in any other country than beef -fed, beer-drinking England, would have risen to opulence and high distinction. On the other side of the silver strip, even in the days of the Einpirp, he would have been decort (a senator, and have had a chair among the "forty" He might have died a peer of France. He was one of those men of SS& ZL COmt^ TTh!f h ! b , ean justl y P TOXTd 'I whom a minister 2™ i Pensioned, but whose career, I fear, was one continuous ' struggle against the difficulties of narrow circumstances. A more brilliant, a more able, or a more spirited man never existed. A jest .or an epigram was always ready on his tongue. But undertM^ SS T? hh * SS < SU ? Me there la r a worWo * wise, sagacious thought, and deep tender compassion. I have heard that man, £3g3 g nf ST as fr iates > in tlie course of a sin^ evening, utter r^Sr^ TT T th laU/'1 aU /'° Uldbe h ««diathe House of Commons or at the Bar of Irelaiid-once so famous in that way-inayear. SfmST 116^-^- chaxmhi 8> sim P le > unrestrained. I remember meeting him once at a great country house, where he was as easy and embarrassed as if he had been sitting over a glaslof brandy and water among Ms familiar associates, in one of the literary haunts whore we used to congregate :— " « Ui "«- So gentle in peace Alcibiades smiled. nn^V 1 ?} 0 in the attle he * hone forth so terribly *raut) That the motto his enemies chose was a child v\ ltli a thunderbolt placed in its innocent hand. Jerrold always reminded me of that child; he was o- en tle and simple but the thunderbolt of wit he wielded was Sible ThS-e was nothing at all savage or ill-natured in it; it was keen and polished, and went through the victim like a DamascLis blaTe borne of hwmotanxe upon record, but it would take iaiy books to contain them all, and no description can give any idea of the spirit and verve with which they were uttered Once at a dinne? party given by a publisher in his villa at Epping there was present a Scotch gent toman who had sot up in business hi S and SZJPJ rft^' ] f d aCtlUired national Proclivities, and just enough of the brogue to swear by. " You need not," said Jerrold to him, "pretend that sort of thing, M'Glashan; everybody m sec through it Touhajo.no right, sir, to speak Vitha^Wue - JiT 1 / V 3s3 s ' n ™P hed Jerrold, "you have acquired many of r? G f CltlC I>a ? Gj and ' altll0 «^ you have lost yoiir own nationality, you have gained none of the Irish genius Sir vmj are a potato without flavor, and thistlo without point ! " I nevw heard a better thing better said. The Scotch gentleman scratched his head, took a pmch of snuff, and spoke no more that event-.-PCl^rctVldr* °