able that a likeness which is only half a likeness will often rob
an otherwise admirable cartoon of half its success, just as it was
oftentimes the excellence of the portraiture which more than
counterbalanced the weakness of HB's sketches. Lord Brougham always
flattered himself that _Punch's_ portraits of him did not do him
justice, and John Forster, in his "Life of Dickens," bears witness to
it. "Lord Carlisle repeated what the good old Brougham had said to him
of 'those _Punch_ people,' expressing what was really his fixed belief,
'They never get my face, and are obliged to put up with my plaid
trousers.'" But another writer, on the contrary, states that Lord
Brougham "himself admits that the _Punch_ likenesses are the best. Of
course, they are a little exaggerated, but not so much so as many with
whom I have chatted on the subject are apt to suppose;" while Motley,
the American Minister, declared, after an official meeting with the grim
old lord, "He is exactly like the pictures in _Punch_, only _Punch_
flatters him. The common pictures of Palmerston and Lord John Russell
are not at all like, to my mind; but Brougham is always hit exactly."
Leech, indeed, enjoyed nothing more than caricaturing him, one of the
most precious butts _Punch_ ever took to himself, until he was twitted
in the "Puppet-Show" at the liberties he took: "The proprietors will be
compelled to widen the columns of their journal ... to show, as far as
space will admit, to what lengths a nose may go in the hands of an
unprincipled illustrator." But it was not only that _Punch_ delighted in
toying with Lord Brougham's cantankerousness and his peculiarities of
manner and diction--as in the famous cartoon of Lord Brougham as Mrs.
Caudle, of the original sketch for which a reproduction is given
opposite--but he steadily carried into execution his threat of earlier
days, to drag Lord Brougham "in the mire." He has been as good as his
word ever since the day when Dicky Doyle drew the famous cover which is
familiar to us all--that is to say, in 1849--for, as you will see if you
will refer to last week's _Punch_, a young faun in the grand procession
that appears as a _relievo_ upon the podium or base draws along the mask
of Brougham by a string. But without doubt one of the most successful
cartoons Leech ever drew, and the most humorous portrait of Brougham,
represented him as a clown at Astley's, going up to the splendid
ring-master, the Duke of Wellington (