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See also:LEECH, See also:JOHN (1817-1864) , See also:English caricaturist, was See also:born in See also:London on the 29th of See also:August 1817. His See also:father, a native of See also:Ireland, was the landlord of the London See also:Coffee See also:House on Ludgate See also:- HILL
- HILL (0. Eng. hyll; cf. Low Ger. hull, Mid. Dutch hul, allied to Lat. celsus, high, collis, hill, &c.)
- HILL, A
- HILL, AARON (1685-175o)
- HILL, AMBROSE POWELL
- HILL, DANIEL HARVEY (1821-1889)
- HILL, DAVID BENNETT (1843–1910)
- HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK NORMAN (1835-1903)
- HILL, JAMES J
- HILL, JOHN (c. 1716-1775)
- HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT (1792-1872)
- HILL, OCTAVIA (1838– )
- HILL, ROWLAND (1744–1833)
- HILL, SIR ROWLAND (1795-1879)
Hill, " a See also:man," on the testimony of those who knew him, "of See also:fine culture, a profound Shakespearian, and a thorough See also:gentle-man." His See also:mother was descended from the See also:family of the famous See also:Richard See also:Bentley. It was from his father that Leech inherited his skill with the See also:pencil, which he began to use at a very See also:early See also:age. When he was only three, he was discovered by See also:Flaxman, who had called on his parents, seated on his mother's See also:knee, See also:drawing with much gravity. The sculptor pronounced his See also:sketch to be wonderful, adding, " Do not let him be cramped with lessons in drawing; let his See also:genius follow its own See also:bent; he will astonish the See also:world "—an See also:advice which was strictly followed. A See also:mail-See also:coach, done when he was six years old, is already full of surprising vigour and variety in its galloping horses. Leech was educated at See also:Charterhouse, where See also:Thackeray, his lifelong friend, was his schoolfellow, and at sixteen he began to study for the medical profession at St See also:Bartholomew's See also:Hospital, where he won praise for the accuracy and beauty of his anatomical drawings. He was then placed under a Mr Whittle, an See also:eccentric practitioner, the See also:original of " Rawkins " in See also:Albert See also:- SMITH
- SMITH, ADAM (1723–1790)
- SMITH, ALEXANDER (183o-1867)
- SMITH, ANDREW JACKSON (1815-1897)
- SMITH, CHARLES EMORY (1842–1908)
- SMITH, CHARLES FERGUSON (1807–1862)
- SMITH, CHARLOTTE (1749-1806)
- SMITH, COLVIN (1795—1875)
- SMITH, EDMUND KIRBY (1824-1893)
- SMITH, G
- SMITH, GEORGE (1789-1846)
- SMITH, GEORGE (184o-1876)
- SMITH, GEORGE ADAM (1856- )
- SMITH, GERRIT (1797–1874)
- SMITH, GOLDWIN (1823-191o)
- SMITH, HENRY BOYNTON (1815-1877)
- SMITH, HENRY JOHN STEPHEN (1826-1883)
- SMITH, HENRY PRESERVED (1847– )
- SMITH, JAMES (1775–1839)
- SMITH, JOHN (1579-1631)
- SMITH, JOHN RAPHAEL (1752–1812)
- SMITH, JOSEPH, JR
- SMITH, MORGAN LEWIS (1822–1874)
- SMITH, RICHARD BAIRD (1818-1861)
- SMITH, ROBERT (1689-1768)
- SMITH, SIR HENRY GEORGE WAKELYN
- SMITH, SIR THOMAS (1513-1577)
- SMITH, SIR WILLIAM (1813-1893)
- SMITH, SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY (1764-1840)
- SMITH, SYDNEY (1771-1845)
- SMITH, THOMAS SOUTHWOOD (1788-1861)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (1769-1839)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (c. 1730-1819)
- SMITH, WILLIAM (fl. 1596)
- SMITH, WILLIAM FARRAR (1824—1903)
- SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1808—1872)
- SMITH, WILLIAM HENRY (1825—1891)
- SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1846-'894)
Smith's Adventures of Mr See also:Ledbury, and afterwards under Dr John See also:Cockle; but gradually the true bent of the youth's mind asserted itself, and he drifted into the See also:artistic profession. He was eighteen when his first designs were published, a See also:quarto of four pages, entitled Etchings and Sketchings by A. See also:Pen, Esq., comic See also:character
studies from the London streets. Then. he See also:drew some See also:political lithographs, did rough sketches for See also:- BELL
- BELL, ALEXANDER MELVILLE (1819—1905)
- BELL, ANDREW (1753—1832)
- BELL, GEORGE JOSEPH (1770-1843)
- BELL, HENRY (1767-1830)
- BELL, HENRY GLASSFORD (1803-1874)
- BELL, JACOB (1810-1859)
- BELL, JOHN (1691-178o)
- BELL, JOHN (1763-1820)
- BELL, JOHN (1797-1869)
- BELL, ROBERT (1800-1867)
- BELL, SIR CHARLES (1774—1842)
Bell's See also:Life, produced an exceedingly popular See also:parody on See also:Mulready's postal envelope, and, on the See also:death of See also:Seymour, applied unsuccessfully to illustrate the Pickwick Papers. In 184o Leech began his contributions to the magazines with a See also:series of etchings in Bentley's See also:Miscellany, where See also:Cruikshank had published his splendid plates to See also:Jack See also:Sheppard and See also:Oliver Twist, and was illustrating See also:Guy See also:Fawkes in sadly feebler See also:fashion. In See also:company with the See also:elder See also:master Leech designed for the Ingoldsby Legends and See also:Stanley See also:Thorn, and till 1847 produced many See also:independent series of etchings. These cannot be ranked with his best See also:work; their technique is exceedingly imperfect; they are rudely bitten, with the See also:light and shade out of relation; and we never feel that they See also:express the artist's individuality, the Richard See also:Savage plates, for instance, being strongly reminiscent of Cruikshank, and " The See also:Dance at See also:Stamford See also:- HALL
- HALL (generally known as SCHWABISCH-HALL, tc distinguish it from the small town of Hall in Tirol and Bad-Hall, a health resort in Upper Austria)
- HALL (O.E. heall, a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. Halle)
- HALL, BASIL (1788-1844)
- HALL, CARL CHRISTIAN (1812–1888)
- HALL, CHARLES FRANCIS (1821-1871)
- HALL, CHRISTOPHER NEWMAN (1816—19oz)
- HALL, EDWARD (c. 1498-1547)
- HALL, FITZEDWARD (1825-1901)
- HALL, ISAAC HOLLISTER (1837-1896)
- HALL, JAMES (1793–1868)
- HALL, JAMES (1811–1898)
- HALL, JOSEPH (1574-1656)
- HALL, MARSHALL (1790-1857)
- HALL, ROBERT (1764-1831)
- HALL, SAMUEL CARTER (5800-5889)
- HALL, SIR JAMES (1761-1832)
- HALL, WILLIAM EDWARD (1835-1894)
Hall " of Hablot See also:- BROWNE
- BROWNE, EDWARD HAROLD (18,1–1891)
- BROWNE, ISAAC HAWKINS (1705-1760)
- BROWNE, JAMES (1793–1841)
- BROWNE, MAXIMILIAN ULYSSES, COUNT VON, BARON DE CAMUS AND MOUNTANY (1705-1757)
- BROWNE, PETER (?1665-1735)
- BROWNE, ROBERT (1550-1633)
- BROWNE, SIR JAMES (1839–1896)
- BROWNE, SIR THOMAS (1605-1682)
- BROWNE, WILLIAM (1591–1643)
- BROWNE, WILLIAM GEORGE (1768-1813)
Browne. In 1845 Leech illustrated St See also:Giles and St See also:- JAMES
- JAMES (Gr. 'IlrKw,l3or, the Heb. Ya`akob or Jacob)
- JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766)
- JAMES, 2ND EARL OF DOUGLAS AND MAR(c. 1358–1388)
- JAMES, DAVID (1839-1893)
- JAMES, EPISTLE OF
- JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFOP
- JAMES, HENRY (1843— )
- JAMES, JOHN ANGELL (1785-1859)
- JAMES, THOMAS (c. 1573–1629)
- JAMES, WILLIAM (1842–1910)
- JAMES, WILLIAM (d. 1827)
James in See also:Douglas See also:Jerrold's newly started See also:Shilling See also:Magazine, with plates more vigorous and accomplished than those in Bentley, but it is in subjects of a somewhat later date, and especially in those lightly etched and meant to be printed with See also:colour, that we see the artist's best See also:powers with the See also:needle and the See also:acid. Among such of his designs are four charming plates to See also:Dickens's See also:Christmas See also:Carol (1844), the broadly humorous etchings in the Comic See also:History of See also:England (1847-1848), and the still finer illustrations to the Comic History of See also:Rome (1852)—which last, particularly in its See also:minor woodcuts, shows some exquisitely graceful touches, as See also:witness the See also:fair faces that rise from the surging See also:water in " Cloelia and her Companions Escaping from the See also:Etruscan See also:Camp." Among the other etchings which deserve very See also:special reference are those in See also:Young Master Troublesome or Master Jacky's Holidays, and the See also:frontispiece to Hints on Life, or How to Rise in Society (1845)—a series of See also:minute subjects linked gracefully together by coils of See also:smoke, illustrating the various ranks and conditions of men, one of them—the See also:doctor by his patient's bedside—almost equalling in vivacity and precision the best of Cruikshank's similar scenes. Then in the 'fifties we have the numerous etchings of sporting scenes, contributed, together with woodcuts, to the Handley See also:Cross novels.
Turning to Leech's lithographic work, we have, in 1841, the Portraits of the See also:Children of the Mobility, an important series dealing with the humorous and pathetic aspects of London See also:street See also:Arabs, which were afterwards so often and so effectively to employ the artist's pencil. Amid all the squalor which they depict, they are full of individual beauties in the delicate or touching expression of a See also:face, in the graceful turn of a See also:limb. The See also:book is scarce in its original See also:form, but in 1875 two reproductions of the outline sketches for the designs were published—a lithographic issue of the whole series, and a finer photographic transcript of six of the subjects, which is more valuable than even the finished illustrations of 1841, in which the added light and shade is frequently spotty and ineffective, and the lining itself has not the freedom which we find in some of Leech's other lithographs, notably in the See also:Fly Leaves, published at the See also:Punch See also:- OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," " service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, " to do," and either the stem of opes, " wealth," " aid," or opus, " work ")
office, and in the inimitable subject of the nuptial See also:couch of the Candles, which also appeared, in woodcut form, as a political See also:cartoon, with Mrs See also:Caudle, personated by See also:Brougham, disturbing by untimely loquacity the slumbers of the See also:lord See also:chancellor, whose See also:haggard cheek rests on the See also:woolsack for See also:pillow.
But it was in work for the See also:wood-engravers that Leech was most prolific and individual. Among the earlier of such designs are the illustrations to the Comic English and Latin Grammars (184o), to Written Caricatures (1841), to See also:Hood's Comic See also:Annual, (1842), and to Albert Smith's See also:Wassail Bowl (1843), subjects mainly of a small See also:vignette See also:size, transcribed with the best skill of such woodcutters as Orrin Smith, and not, like the larger and later Punch illustrations, cut at See also:speed by several engravers working at once on the subdivided See also:block. It was in 1841 that Leech's connexion with Punch began, a connexion which subsisted till his death on the nth of See also:October 1864, and resulted in the See also:production of the best-known and most admirable of his designs. His first contribution appeared in the issue of the 7thof August, a full-See also:page See also:illustration—entitled " See also:Foreign Affairs "—of character studies from the neighbourhood of See also:Leicester Square. His cartoons See also:deal at first mainly with social subjects, and are rough and imperfect in See also:execution, but gradually their method gains in See also:power and their subjects become more distinctly political, and by 1849 the artist is strong enough to produce the splendidly humorous See also:national personification which appears in " Disraeli Measuring the See also:British See also:Lion." About 1845 we have the first of that See also:long series of See also:half-page and See also:quarter-page pictures of life and See also:manners, executed with a See also:hand as gentle as it was skilful, containing, as See also:Ruskin has said, " admittedly the finest See also:definition and natural history of the classes of ow society, the kindest and subtlest See also:analysis of its foibles, the tenderest flattery of its See also:pretty and well-bred ways," which has yet appeared. In addition to his work for the weekly issue of Punch, Leech contributed largely to the Punch almanacks and See also:pocket-books, to Once a See also:Week from 1859 till 1862, to the Illustrated London See also:News, where some of his largest and best sporting scenes appeared, and to innumerable novels and See also:miscellaneous volumes besides, of which it is only necessary to specify A Little Tour in Ireland (1859), which is noticeable as showing the artist's treatment of pure landscape, though it also contains some of his daintiest figure-pieces, like that of the See also:wind-blown girl, See also:standing on the See also:summit of a See also:pedestal, with the swifts darting around her and the breadth of See also:sea beyond.
In 1862 Leech appealed to the public with a very successful See also:exhibition of some of the most remarkable of his Punch drawings. These were enlarged by a See also:mechanical See also:process, and coloured in See also:oils by the artist himself, with the assistance and under the direction of his friend J. E. See also:Millais.
Leech was a singularly rapid and indefatigable worker. See also:Dean Hole tells us, when he was his See also:guest, " I have known him send off from my house three finished drawings on the wood, designed, traced, and rectified, without much effort as it seemed, between breakfast and See also:dinner." The best technical qualities of Leech's See also:art, his unerring precision, his unfailing vivacity in the use of the See also:line, are seen most clearly in the first sketches for his woodcuts, and in the more finished drawings made on tracing-See also:paper from these first outlines, before the See also:chiaroscuro was added and the designs were transcribed by the engraver. Turning to the See also:mental qualities of his art, it would be a mistaken See also:criticism which ranked him as a comic draughtsman. Like See also:Hogarth he was a true humorist, a student of human life, though he observed humanity mainly in its whimsical aspects,
" Hitting all he saw with shafts
With gentle See also:satire, See also:kin to charity,
That harmed not."
The earnestness and gravity of moral purpose which is so See also:constant a See also:note in the work of Hogarth is indeed far less characteristic of Leech, but there are touches of pathos and of tragedy in such of the Punch designs as the " Poor Man's Friend " (1845), and " See also:General Fevrier turned Traitor " (1855), and in " The See also:Queen of the See also:Arena " in the first See also:volume of Once a Week, which are sufficient to prove that more See also:solemn powers, for which his daily work afforded no See also:- SCOPE (through Ital. scopo, aim, purpose, intent, from Gr. o'KOaos, mark to shoot at, aim, o ic07reiv, to see, whence the termination in telescope, microscope, &c.)
scope, See also:lay dormant in their artist. The purity and manliness of Leech's own character are impressed on his art. We find in it little of the exaggeration and grotesqueness, and none of the fierce political See also:enthusiasm, of which the designs of See also:Gillray are so full. Compared with that of his See also:great contemporary See also:George Cruikshank, his work is restricted both in See also:compass of subject and in artistic dexterity.
See also:Biographies of Leech have been written by John See also:- BROWN
- BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN (1771-181o)
- BROWN, FORD MADOX (1821-1893)
- BROWN, FRANCIS (1849- )
- BROWN, GEORGE (1818-188o)
- BROWN, HENRY KIRKE (1814-1886)
- BROWN, JACOB (1775–1828)
- BROWN, JOHN (1715–1766)
- BROWN, JOHN (1722-1787)
- BROWN, JOHN (1735–1788)
- BROWN, JOHN (1784–1858)
- BROWN, JOHN (1800-1859)
- BROWN, JOHN (1810—1882)
- BROWN, JOHN GEORGE (1831— )
- BROWN, ROBERT (1773-1858)
- BROWN, SAMUEL MORISON (1817—1856)
- BROWN, SIR GEORGE (1790-1865)
- BROWN, SIR JOHN (1816-1896)
- BROWN, SIR WILLIAM, BART
- BROWN, THOMAS (1663-1704)
- BROWN, THOMAS (1778-1820)
- BROWN, THOMAS EDWARD (1830-1897)
- BROWN, WILLIAM LAURENCE (1755–1830)
Brown (1882), and See also:Frith (1891) ; see also " John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character," by Thackeray, Quarterly See also:Review (See also:December 1854) ; See also:letter by John Ruskin, Arrows of the Chace, vol. i. p. 161; " Un Humoriste Anglais," by Ernest Chesneau, See also:Gazette See also:des See also:Beaux Arts (1875). (J. M.
End of Article: LEECH, JOHN (1817-1864)
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