Part 5

It is many years since, as my wife and I were leaving the Savoy Theatre at the close of an afternoon performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, we were shocked by a newsboy shouting "Death of Lord Leighton." We made Frederic Leighton's acquaintance in the green-room of our theatre. Soon afterwards we dined at his beautiful house in Kensington. In its neighbourhood there was a nest of his comrades in art, including Val Prinsep, Luke Fildes and Marcus Stone. We were friends for years: he did me the honour to propose me at the Athenæum, but did not live to see me elected. He was a remarkable and gifted man--an Admirable Crichton--painter, sculptor, linguist--as well as an eloquent, if a somewhat florid, speaker, and an admirable man of affairs, besides, as we actors say, having a perfect appearance for his part. Was it not Thackeray who told him once that Millais {78} was the only man with a chance against him for the Presidency of the Royal Academy?

His beautiful art was best illustrated in his early days, I always thought, by _The Slinger_ and the sculptured figure of an athlete struggling with a python. I also remember well his life-like portrait of the famous explorer, Sir Richard Burton.

[Sidenote: Millais]

In many respects a total contrast to Leighton was the successor to his great office, John Everett Millais. I was fortunate in his acquaintance at the Garrick Club when I was elected as a member fifty-six years ago. Millais loved the club and cared but little for any other.

Although looked upon as a Jerseyman, he chanced to be born at Southampton, and I remember being told by a man--who was for many years prompter under our management--that he had seen Millais, as a very small boy, sprawling upon the stage of the Southampton theatre and drawing with a piece of chalk things that had form and shape.

I don't know when he first came into fame and astounded the world by the wonderful children of his brush and brain. Beautiful things teem through the memory. I see the little creature, on a church bench, listening to _The First Sermon_; a work of infinite pathos {79} called _The Blind Girl_; Walter Raleigh on the shingly shore, clutching his knees and absorbing the yarns of an old sea-dog; the two nuns digging a grave for a comrade in _The Vale of Rest_; those well-known masterpieces, _The Princes in the Tower_, _The Black Brunswicker_ and _The Order of Release_. And then the gallery of portraits--Tennyson, Newman, Gladstone, Bright and the unfinished Disraeli. Others also crowd upon remembrance: those of my comrades, Henry Irving and John Hare--not, in my judgment, among his best examples,--of Arthur Sullivan--one of the very best,--and the great surgeon, Henry Thompson, which, like the striking portrait of Mr. Wertheimer by Sargent, as you look at it, seems that it might speak. I see also the beautiful portraits of Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Jopling Rowe, but, alas! not one of my wife. I offered Millais a large sum to paint one of her for me, but he declined, for two reasons; he said that he could not bring himself to accept money from a brother artist, and that he should fail, as the face would change while his eyes turned even for a moment to the palette. One word to recall his masterly landscapes, _Chill October_, and, if I remember their attractive titles, _The Fringe of the Moor_ and _The Sound of Many Waters_. Never in any man's work was {80} refinement more closely merged with art. I see a fine photograph of him daily, if in London, with an autograph in the corner, briefly accepting an invitation to dinner in these words: "I'm your man." I looked down upon his handsome features, as he was fading away from life, and kissed him.

[Sidenote: Poynter]

Edward Poynter succeeded to the President's chair, which had only been occupied by Millais briefly. It was during his reign that I had the honour at the Royal Academy Banquet to respond for the Drama: the toast had only once been proposed before, when Irving replied. It was a difficult task, and the greatness of the audience impressed me with my own littleness. Wisely, I am sure, I limited myself to five minutes only, and venture to give an extract from what I said:

"I was not unmindful that the proposal of this toast at that great banquet was a mark of respect to the stage which could only make the stage the more respect itself. I could not speak in that room--surrounded as I was by the rulers in that fairyland--without some attempt, however faint, to say that my admiration of the beautiful art, so splendidly illustrated year by year upon those walls, was as true as my love for the living pictures we players tried to paint. Our pictures, alas! {81} died early, for the greatest actor's work must be a passing triumph; it was not cut in marble, nor did it live on canvas, but could only owe its fame to written records and traditions. Vast wealth might keep for us, and for the ages yet to come, the undying splendour of a Reynolds or a Millais, but no sum could buy one single echo of the voice of Sarah Siddons. The drama was the most winning, fascinating, alluring thing that ever was conceived for the recreation of mankind. As England could claim to be the parent of the drama in Europe, so could she claim to be the mother of the greatest dramatist the world had owned, whose mighty genius left all art in debt that never could be paid, and whose works alone would make the stage eternal."

The pictures by Poynter which live clearest in my memory are his _Catapult_ and _Visit to Æsculapius_. Concerning the latter work a story "went the rounds"--possibly as untrue as many another--that two beautiful sisters were as flattered by the eminent painter's wish to make drawings of their heads as they were horrified to find them reproduced upon bodies of well-known models in the nude.

Poynter painted a portrait of himself for the Uffizi Gallery as Millais did. There is an {82} admirable copy of this portrait in his beloved Garrick.

I was never really intimate with Alma Tadema, although I knew him for many years, beginning with the time when he lived in Regent's Park. Owing to an explosion of gunpowder on the canal there, if my memory is accurate, his house was wrecked and he went to live in the Grove End Road, in a house formerly occupied by Tissot, a French artist, who had quite a vogue for a time. Tadema translated the house into "a thing of beauty and a joy for ever," where he entertained a great artistic company, worthy to be surrounded by the _Roses of Heliogabalus_.

I owe the following painful and remarkable story to my friend Aston Webb, lately President of the Royal Academy; it was told to him and others by Tadema. A young woman, an American, the daughter of parents of wealth and position, was the cause of great anxiety to her father and mother, to her intimate friends, and to her doctor, on the score of health, which puzzled all concerned, and became a mystery which no one seemed able to unravel. At last the doctor was driven to advise a year's absence from home and its surroundings by a trip to Europe, to be spent where and how the girl might wish, in the companionship of a {83} female friend--she had no sisters, and the parents could not leave their own country at the time.

[Sidenote: Sargent]

The patient went first to London and enjoyed her stay there. During it, she conceived a strong wish to be painted by her eminent fellow-countryman, Sargent, the magician who reveals unknowingly what have been hidden mysteries. The portrait when finished was highly thought of and presently despatched to the parents of the sitter, while she went her way to Switzerland and Italy. The great artist's work delighted the father and mother. An "at home" was arranged that their many friends might share their admiration. All of this took place; among the invited guests being the friendly doctor who had been so puzzled by the condition of his patient. I will come briefly to the sad sequel. The doctor gazed at the portrait long and earnestly: he left the house perturbed and saddened. On the following day he sought an interview with the father, told him that Sargent had revealed to him, beyond doubt, what he had failed to discover himself. Put briefly, the poor girl afterwards died in a madhouse. When Tadema had finished his story, Abbey, who was also present, quietly remarked: "All too true. I could tell you the names of those concerned."

{84}

The painter who ran dear Millais close in my appreciation, and who has given me, if I bare my heart and tell the naked truth, greater pleasure than any other painter, was Orchardson; the fact that his work is so dramatic being, I suppose, the reason. His two phases of the _Mariage de Convenance_ were gems. I don't know whether Act I surpassed Act II, or if the verdict was the other way. The glorious _Queen of the Swords_, _The Challenge_, _Hard Hit_, _The Young Duke_, _Napoleon in the Bellerophon_, _The First Cloud_, with their exquisite colourings, the secret of which never seems to have been divulged; and still one other, so delicate in conception, so perfect in its pathos, _Her Mother's Voice_. What a story! How simply told!

Edwin Abbey was also a painter who appealed strongly to me; again, because he was dramatic. His _Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne_, I always looked upon with admiration. The splendour of its colouring is lost to me, for I see it now only _en gravure_. Nor can his _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_ be forgotten, while his decorative work was magnificent and will preserve his fame. He had great charm as host and guest.

I travel back to the far-off days when W. P. Frith, an old friend, was the popular Academician {85} of his time; his pictures of the _Derby Day_ and _Ramsgate Sands_ having to be "railed in" at the Annual Exhibition, which was then held in the National Gallery, to protect them from the crowd.

Frith, I remember, was struck with the beauty of our production of the _School for Scandal_, which he highly praised. In its acting and historical accuracy he said it was like the last edition of a grand book, the handsomest and the best. He fell in love with the minuet, and said it took him back to the days of his great-grandmother. The minuet, which was introduced at Lady Sneerwell's "rout," was the brilliant idea of my wife: it was danced by two couples in a crowded room of guests. I have since seen it danced by a crowd to an otherwise empty stage.

I look back with interest to pleasant times spent in the company of Hubert Herkomer, that "jack-of-all-trades and master of many." His versatility was bewildering. Tools of every kind and shape seemed to be playthings in his hands; he grasped them with firmness and used them with skill; painting, engraving, etching, and all sorts of metal work alike came easily to him; he played the piano and the zither, composed and wrote, and was, in a way, a pioneer of film work. His shoals {86} of portraits were amazing, and his fame might rest enduringly upon his painting of _The Last Muster_.

Briton Rivière was for many years our friend. We met first in the Engadine. He was, in my opinion, a great artist, and has crowded my memory with his works. I think often of those speaking dogs in _The Vacant Chair_, _Sympathy_ and _Charity_, as I do of _Circe_ with the amorous pigs, and the majestic _Daniel_ facing the lions in their den.

I have always understood that Rivière was within an ace of being elected President when Millais died.

In early Bohemian days, Henry Stacey Marks, long before he had blossomed into a Royal Academician, was an amusing and pleasant friend. Years afterwards I bought, at Christie's, the attractive panels of the _Seven Ages of Man_ which he had painted for Birket Foster. They were well-beloved companions until a changed life came to me; they now adorn the walls of the Green Room Club.

[Sidenote: Val and Marcus]

Another R.A. and old friend was Val Prinsep, whose burly form looms from distant days, which his name recalls. It is easy to believe that he was the original "Taffy" in George du Maurier's _Trilby_. I have a remembrance of him in the sketch he made for his painting {87} _The Minuet_, which was inspired by our introduction of the dance into _The School for Scandal_, again in its turn reproduced in our act-drop at the Haymarket Theatre. On his return to England after painting the Great Durbar, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, he gave my wife a handsome native bracelet, which, as a souvenir of her, I passed on a little while ago to Marie Löhr, who married Val's son, Anthony.

"Val" left many dear friends behind him, with happy recollections of his worth.

Recently another friend of long standing, Marcus Stone, left us. He once told me an interesting incident of his childhood, a link with the past, when he was kissed by a very old and well-known man named Pickersgill, the engraver, who begged him, impressively, always to remember that he had been kissed by a man who once was kissed by Dr. Johnson. It is odd to remember, in these days of petrol, that Johnson said there were few keener pleasures in life than being whirled along in a post-chaise, in the company of a pretty lady, at the average speed of ten miles an hour.

Stone owed much to his early, almost boyish, friendship with Dickens, who engaged him to illustrate the book he was then writing, thereby made him known to eminent men, {88} and altogether helped his career greatly. He was a good talker, and he read more books in a week than I do in a year: he also had what are called good looks and a distinguished bearing. Was it not written of him:

"Marcus Apollo Belvedere Stone, Stands there erect, in all his glory shone."

[Sidenote: Sculpture]

In the hope that I have not been tiresome, I will close my remembrances of Academicians with the names of two sculptors: one, whom we knew with some intimacy, was Edgar Boehm. He chanced to be our guest on the evening when his baronetcy was "in his pocket," to be announced to his large circle of friends on the following morning.

There was a beautiful work of his on the staircase landing of the house Millais built for himself in Kensington. His fame rests chiefly, I suppose, on the statue of Carlyle, near to his Chelsea home; on the tomb of Dean Stanley; and the statue of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner, which replaced the old one, now at Aldershot, that I was taken as a child to see when it was erected--an earlier remembrance than that I retain of the Iron Duke's funeral.

I always remember an evening as Boehm's guest, when a lady whom I had taken down to {89} dinner, in answer to an opinion I timidly expressed that it was just possible she might be on the verge of "spoiling" her two boys, who chanced to be at Eton with my son, turned upon me with the amazing question: "Do you think I can ever sufficiently apologise to them for my share in bringing them into this world?"

[Sidenote: Boehm and Onslow Ford]

Boehm's end was distressing. He was a great Court favourite, and one afternoon, in his studio, told his man that he expected a visit from the Princess Louise, and that Her Royal Highness, with her lady, was to be conducted to the studio at once. When taken there, on the door being opened, they found Boehm, who had sunk upon the floor from a sudden heart attack, unconscious and just breathing; he passed away in a few minutes.

Onslow Ford, another friend of ours, was as well known for his personal charm as for the refinement of his work. He was beloved by his brother Academicians, the features of several of whom he has immortalised in marble, and by a large circle of friends. One of his best achievements is the seated figure of Henry Irving, now in the Guildhall Picture Gallery; while the Christopher Marlowe memorial at Canterbury, the Shelley memorial in University College, Oxford, and the great {90} statue of Gordon, mounted on a camel, at Chatham, will make his fame secure.

Another sculptor whose friendship we enjoyed was the late Count Gleichen, who regarded his art as far more than a recreation; and his statue of King Alfred at Wantage is the work of no mere amateur. We found it an interesting experience to sit to him for the two portrait busts which are now in the Garrick Club. The sittings in his studio at St. James's Palace were often enlivened by visits from well-known people of many kinds, which I hope did not detract from the merit of the sculptor's work.

I dare not try the patience of my readers by attempting at any length to write of that rebellious, capricious, tempestuous, and captivating genius "Jimmy" Whistler.

After welcoming him as our amusing and interesting guest, my wife and I were bidden to one of his historic luncheons at the White House, which then stood quite alone in Chelsea by the river. We had excellent company and ate buckwheat cakes, cooked by himself.

His despotic value of himself was exalted and could not be excelled: nothing shook it. The rapier and the bludgeon were alike his weapons of either attack or defence.

I believe his portrait of Irving as King {91} Philip has varied in different markets from bids of a few pounds to some thousands.

[Sidenote: "Punch"]

Sir John Tenniel was an old friend and guest. His remarkable connection with _Punch_ extended over fifty years. During this marvellous record he contributed between two and three thousand cartoons to its pages. The most famous of this vast collection was, perhaps, _Dropping the Pilot_, which showed Bismarck leaving the Ship of State, while his new chief, who was to wreck Europe, looked superciliously down on him.

I was present at a banquet given in his honour upon his retirement. The company gathered was exceptional and was presided over by Mr. Balfour, as he then was. When Tenniel rose to return his thanks, the demonstration was too much for the old man; he was unable to speak, and resumed his seat in tears. As the chairman said at once, no expression of thanks could have been more eloquent.

We knew George du Maurier for many years: I wish it had been more intimately. After his early days in Paris and his familiarity with the Quartier Latin, his connection with _Punch_ began, ten years later than Tenniel's. Soon afterwards he succeeded to Leach's prominent position and earned his world-wide {92} fame, which was not lessened by his novels, _Peter Ibbetson_ and _Trilby_.

I should have loved to hear him say at one of the weekly _Punch_ dinners, as the man who told me did: "Fellows will write to me as _de_ Maurier; I wish they'd give the devil his du."

[Sidenote: Painting]

One of du Maurier's closest friends was that fascinating man Canon Ainger, Master of the Temple, with whom I had only a slight acquaintance. They met constantly, almost daily, in their beloved Hampstead, and indeed haunted its Heath: du Maurier was at home in Bohemia; Ainger had never stood upon its soil; while their widely separated religious views never hurt their friendship. "A strange world, my masters."

He loved the stage. Would he had lived to see the position of its leader in England, to-day, achieved by his son Gerald!

"Sammy," as Linley Sambourne was affectionately called by his intimates, will complete my trio of _Punch_ draughtsmen.

He was an amusing little creature, always very horsey in get up. I have his gift of the first drawing from his pencil which appeared in _Punch_, so long ago as 1867, when he was but twenty-two; it is a droll little sketch of George Honey as Eccles, John Hare as Sam Gerridge, {93} and myself as Captain Hawtree in _Caste_. He told me that it was drawn from memory, after visits to the pit when Robertson's comedy was at the height of its first success.

I recall an amusing incident which occurred at a fancy-dress ball, largely attended by the artistic and "Bohemian" world. "Sammy" appeared, admirably appointed and dressed, as a little fat Dutchman. He was cheerily greeted by Gilbert, who ran against him with the words: "One Dutch of Sambourne makes the whole world grin."

[Sidenote: Pellegrini]

I must write a few lines in memory of the prince of caricaturists, Carlo Pellegrini. We knew him throughout his career and always enjoyed his company. On one evening when he gave it to us, on being announced, he kissed my wife's hand and uttered some compliment in Italian; she immediately, in a spirit of fun, rapidly recited an old and rather long "proverb" in his language, which she had learned by heart, as a child--it being her sole acquaintance with Italian--the little man's expression of amazement was a study.

She played the same trick, with still greater effect, on the stage of the Scala Theatre at Milan which we went over with a party of friends, when Arthur Cecil asked her to address an imaginary audience.

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[Sidenote: Music]

I sat to Pellegrini once, when he began to paint portraits seriously--the idea was soon abandoned.--With regard to mine he wrote: "I have sent your _fac simile_ to the Grosvenor: I hope you will be well hanged."

I saw the "Pelican"--as Pellegrini was called by his friends--in his last illness at his rooms in Mortimer Street. Shortly before the peaceful end he said pathetically to his faithful servant: "Wil-li-am, put me on clean shirt--I die clean."

I hardly regarded my old friend Leslie Ward as a caricaturist; his clever drawings were, to my mind, portraits--humorously, but gently, exaggerated. They were mainly the result of sittings. Pellegrini's work was produced from memory.

Leslie Ward was the son of distinguished painters; his sister Beatrice shared their art, as I can testify by a valued possession, a very charming drawing of my wife.

[Sidenote: Arthur Sullivan]

The brilliant composer and musician, Arthur Sullivan, was our much-loved friend for thirty years. We first knew him about the time he and W. S. Gilbert were made known to each other by Frederic Clay. His great career began, like many others, very simply, for he was one of the "Children of the Chapel Royal," as they are still called, before his more serious {95} studies began at the Royal Academy of Music and at Leipzig. He returned with his music to _The Tempest_, to be followed by _The Light of the World_.

His wonderful partnership with Gilbert has given joy to every land. It is said that the success of _H.M.S. Pinafore_ was so amazing in America that 100,000 barrel-organs were specially constructed to play nothing else.

I recall a happy gathering of friends at Pontresina. Sullivan was one of them, and his old mother was with him: his devotion to her revealed a beautiful side of his affectionate nature.