ons _not_ in earnest,
and was loudly cried out against by the polite journalism of Society.
This fate is, I believe, the almost inevitable one of thoroughly genuine
work in these days, whether poetry or painting; but what added to the
singularity in this case was that _coarse_ heartlessness was even more
offended than polite heartlessness."

Just before this Tenniel had given us a fine drawing of England and
France--the new allies--as typified by two splendid specimens of Guards
of both nations, standing back to back in friendly rivalry of height;
and the cut achieved such popularity that, under its title of "The
United Service," it was reproduced broadcast on many articles of use,
and decorated the backs of playing-cards.

The following year Sir John Tenniel (who though hardly more convincing
than Leech, yet by his power of draughtsmanship and bigness of
conception could be far more imposing) produced the earliest of his
magnificent studies of what may be called his "Animal Types" in "The
British Lion Smells a Rat" (1856). This heralded what are in some
respects his masterpieces, the Cawnpore cartoons (1857), the chief of
which is "The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger." Once this
fine drawing is seen, of the royal beast springing on its snarling foe,
whose victims lie mangled under its paw, it can never be forgotten. It
is a double-page cartoon, splendidly wrought by the artist at the
suggestion of Shirley Brooks; and while it responded and gave expression
to the feelings of revenge which agitated England at the awful events
that had passed at the time of the Indian Mutiny, and served as a banner
when they raised the cry of vengeance, it alarmed the authorities, who
feared that they would thereby be forced on a road which both policy and
the gentler dictates of civilisation forbade. Vengeance was the cry; and
the wise and humane counsels of Lord Canning met only with contempt and
anger, and rendered him the most unpopular man of the day.

Soon it was Tenniel's destiny to shine alone in the cartoons of _Punch_.
Leech, in the last few years of his life, tired with the strain of
over-work and ill-health, withdrew more and more from the making of "big
cuts," till towards the end they were left almost entirely in the hands
of his well-loved colleague. Tenniel rose to the position and to the
full height of the great events that courted his pencil. The great
American struggle of North and South gave unlimited op