next week;
And that's a Wednesday, as we know,
When still our friend appears,
As honest, fearless, bright, and pure
As in the bygone years."

But greater far than the public esteem is the affection of the Staff,
who naturally enough regard the personality of _Punch_ with a good deal
more than ordinary loyal sentiment and _esprit de corps_. It is
interesting to observe the different views the artists have severally
taken of it, for most of them in turn have attempted his portrayal.
Brine regarded him as a mere buffoon, devoid of either dignity or
breeding; Crowquill, as a grinning, drum-beating Showman; Doyle,
Thackeray, and others adhered to the idea of the Merry, but certainly
not uproarious, Hunchback; Sir John Tenniel showed him as a vivified
puppet, all that was earnest, responsible, and wise, laughing and
high-minded; Keene looked on him generally as a youngish, bright-eyed,
but apparently brainless gentleman, afflicted with a pitiable deformity
of chin, and sometimes of spine; Sir John Gilbert as a rollicking
Polichinelle, and Kenny Meadows as Punchinello; John Leech's
conception, originally inspired, no doubt, by George Cruikshank's
celebrated etchings, was the embodiment of everything that was jolly and
all that was just, on occasion terribly severe, half flesh, half
wood--the father, manifestly, of Sir John Tenniel's improved figure of
more recent times. Every artist--Mr. du Maurier, Mr. Sambourne, Mr.
Furniss, and the rest--has had his own ideal; and it is curious to
observe that in his realisation of it, each has illustrated or betrayed
in just measure the strength or weakness of his own imagination.

Some of these portraits, characteristic examples of _Punch's_ leading
artists, are reproduced on page 7, arranged according to authorship,
thus:--

W. Newman Kenny Meadows R. Doyle
W. M. Thackeray J. Leech (1) J. Tenniel (1)
C. Keene J. Leech (2) G. du Maurier
L. Sambourne (1) J. Tenniel (2) F. Eltze
L. Sambourne (2) J. Tenniel (3) H. Furniss

CHAPTER I.

_PUNCH'S_ BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.

The Mystery of His Birth--Previous Unsuccessful Attempts at
Solution--Proposal for a "London Charivari"--Ebenezer Landells and
His Notion--Joseph Last Consults with Henry Mayhew--Whose
Imagination is Fired--Staff Formed--Prospectus--_Punch_ is Born and
Christened--The First Number.

It should be counted against neither the