two
of the greatest names in history on its title-page! The musician
ultimately died through over-work, the consequence of an honourable
attempt to meet his liabilities.

Sir Peter Laurie was another favourite quarry, who almost from the
beginning was singled out of the Corporation, of which he was really one
of the most efficient members, because he aimed at "putting down" by the
stern administration of justice what, perhaps, could only be dealt with
by sympathy. _Punch_ chose to interpret Sir Peter's views into regarding
poverty less as a misfortune than as _prima-facie_ evidence of the poor
man's guilt or folly; but it was when the well-meaning alderman so far
"opened his mouth as to put his foot into it," by declaring, when trying
a case, "that it was his intention to put down suicide," that Jerrold's
pen stuck him on to _Punch's_ page, and heaped ridicule on him from
every point of view. Alderman Moon, the famous print-seller of
Threadneedle Street, was another butt--the more unjustly (though he
certainly did sometimes cut a ridiculous figure) as he rendered real
service to artists, and looked upon English art and its patronage in a
broad and patriotic way, even while he made his own fortune in doing so.
This, however, he did not succeed in retaining, and his acts and motives
were sneered at, and his "testimonial" fatally ridiculed.

Then Harrison Ainsworth, as much for his good-looks and his literary
vanity, as for his tendency to reprint his romances in such journals as
came under his editorship, was the object of constant banter. An epigram
put the case very neatly:--

Says Ainsworth to Colburn,[22]
"A plan in my pate is,
To give my romance, as
A supplement, _gratis_."
Says Colburn to Ainsworth,
"'Twill do very nicely,
For that will be charging
Its value precisely."

Harrison Ainsworth could not have his portrait painted, nor write a
novel of crime and sensation, without being regarded as a convenient peg
for pleasantry. Similarly did Tom Taylor fall foul of Bulwer Lytton (p.
91, Vol. IX.) by reason of the dedication of "Zanoni" to Gibson the
sculptor, in which it was said that the book was not for "the common
herd." The story of Lytton's castigation by Tennyson is duly related
where the Laureate's contributions to _Punch_ are spoken of. In Lytton's
case, at least, _Punch_ forgot to apply Swift's aphorism that a man has
just as much vanity as he has understanding.

Of the artis