and mineral waters!"

And, lastly, there is the critic who is always bewailing _Punch's_
deterioration--an impending dissolution which has been announced from
the second number!

People in Society seem curiously fond of expressing this opinion to the
members of the Staff themselves, if all the stories current are to be
believed. "Well, you know, Mr. Milliken," once remarked a lady, "I do
_not_ think _Punch_ is as good as it _used_ to be." "No," assented the
creator of 'Arry; "_it never was!_"

For such as these there is and can be no comfort; for them there is no
excellence save in the past; no inferiority save in the present. The
perusal of humorous papers is of course but a poor occupation for
pessimists such as they, and it is hardly likely that it could ever
awaken in them sentiments other than those so tersely put by the
"Gentlewoman's" poet:--

"In vain I search for humour each
And every 'comic' 'neath the sky.
Alas! I fear the busy Leech
Has sucked the vein of humour dry!"

FOOTNOTES:

[25] "Anti-Punch, or the Toy-shop in Fleet Street; a Romance of the
Nineteenth Century." By the Author of "Anti-Coningsby." 16mo. 1847.

[26] This declaration, if not absolutely accurate, has often been
repeated, and was confirmed at the Church Congress of 1893 by Dr.
Welldon, who held up _Punch_ as the one clean paper for the rest of the
Press to follow!

CHAPTER XI.

ENGRAVING AND PRINTING.

Mr. Joseph Swain supersedes Ebenezer Landells--His Education as
Engraver--Head of His Department--Engraving the Big Cut: Then and
Now--Printing from the Wood-blocks--Leech's
Fastidiousness--Impracticability of Keene--Thackeray's Little
Confidence--A Record of Half a Century.

[Illustration: JOSEPH SWAIN.]

It was in 1843 that Mr. Swain engraved his first block for _Punch_. It
was a drawing by Leech, on p. 50 of the fourth volume, to illustrate one
of Albert Smith's "Side-Scenes of Society." The services of Landells, it
will be remembered, had been suddenly dispensed with by the
proprietors--for reasons of business jealousy according to Landells,
though the proprietors gave out, in some quarters at least, for lack of
proper excellence in his work. When they had decided to give Landells
his _conge_, Bradbury and Evans looked about for another to replace him,
and offered the engraving to one of the brothers Jewett. By him the task
was readily undertaken, although he was, as he knew,