and
despatch were consequently missed, and the result was a very serious
fall in that week's circulation. For some time after that Leech drew no
more, learning meanwhile the elementary lesson that large blocks take
longer to cut than small ones--or, at least, did then, before Charles
Wells had introduced his great invention of a block that could be taken
to pieces in order that each small square might be given to different
hands to engrave. Nevertheless, even to the end Leech always had a
tendency to be late with his cartoons, and half Mark Lemon's time,
according to Edmund Yates and others, was passed in hansom-cabs bowling
away to Notting Hill, Brunswick Square, or to Kensington, where in
succession Leech resided.

Yet he could be astonishingly rapid when he liked, and often would he
complete a cartoon on the wood while his Editor smoked a cigar at his
elbow. Such a drawing--such a feat--was that remarkable block of
"L'Empire c'est la Paix" (1859), representing Louis Napoleon as a
hedgehog bristling with bayonets, admirable in expression and execution,
yet not original in idea--though it is as likely as not that Leech had
never seen, or else had forgotten, the cartoon in the "Puppet Show"
(June, 1854), wherein the Tsar Nicholas appears in a manner precisely
similar. The Dinner had by exception been held on Thursday (March 10th,
1859) instead of on the previous day; every moment was precious; and
Leech proposed the idea for the cartoon, drew it in two hours, and
caught his midday train on the following day, speeding away into the
country with John Tenniel for their usual Saturday hunt.

But in accordance with that strange law of memory that horror, ugliness,
and power should spring to the mind before humour, grace, or beauty, it
is the tragic side and passionate purpose of _Punch's_ career as shown
in his cartoons that first arise in one's recollection. And it is (with
but one or two exceptions) exclusively in his cartoons that Leech showed
his tragic power. "The Poor Man's Friend" (1845), in which Death, gaunt
and grisly, comes to the relief of a wretch in the very desolation of
misery and poverty, tells as much in one page as Jerrold's pen, with all
its strength and intensity, could make us feel in a score. Ten years
later the same idea was splendidly developed and magnificently realised
in the cartoon entitled "General Fevrier turned Traitor," which not more
than once or twice in the whole of _Punch's_ history has