ing out as our representative at the
Conference, and the outcome of this particular _Punch_ dinner, at which
were present Messrs. Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, John Leech,
and Percival Leigh, was Leech's admirable cartoon of _Moses Starting for
the Fair_. "Let us hope," adds the pictorial satirist, in special
reference to his lordship's unfortunate capacity for getting himself
into a mess, that "he won't bring back a gross of green spectacles." It
was one of the last of Leech's political shafts, and the subject was
suggested (we have his own authority for stating it) by his friend and
literary colleague, Mr. Shirley Brooks.[163]

"Clearly ill," is Mr. Brook's record of the state of John Leech's health
on this same 13th of April, 1864. He no longer found pleasure in
hunting, of which he had been exceedingly fond, and had even
discontinued, at the order of his medical attendant, riding on
horseback. He was affected with nervous irritability, the effect of
incessant application. The ordinary noise of the streets--musicians,
organ-grinders, street vendors, and the like--worried him beyond
endurance. Long before the period at which we have arrived these
annoyances had driven him from his residence in Brunswick Square to seek
shelter from his enemies at No. 3, The Terrace, Kensington. His nervous
irritability is manifested in the designs which he continued to draw for
_Punch_. In one of his illustrations to vol. xlv. (1863), depicting
certain familiar sea-side nuisances, he asks, "Why a couple of conceited
fanatics should be allowed to disturb the repose of a Sunday afternoon
by the sea-side?" and "Why the authorities at Brighton, so sensible and
considerate in keeping the place free from the _detestable_ organ
grinders, should permit the terrible nuisance indicated [in the
illustration] to exist?" "Fresh prawns, whiting, oysters, or
watercresses," remonstrated the persecuted artist, "are capital things
in their way, and we should think that the jaded man of occupation, or
the invalid, would very much rather send to a respectable shop for such
delicacies, than have them 'bellowed' into his ears morning, noon, and
night." His illustrations of this character are so numerous that the
ordinary observer would probably suppose that they were part only of a
series; to the observer, however, who knew Leech, they clearly indicate
the nervous irritability under which he suffered, and which was probably
caused, and certainly i