American
cousin, Artemus Ward. But it was not long before _Punch_ took a rise in
the social scale, and many men of distinction in literature have claimed
him for their child with all the emphasis of groundless assertion.

According to the "City Press" (June 27th, 1892), Mr. C. Mitchell
frequently declared that _Punch_ originated with him, Shirley Brooks,
Henry Mayhew, and Ebenezer Landells, in his office in Red Lion Court,
the latter drawing the original sketch of the pink monthly cover of
_Punch_. But as Shirley Brooks did not come on the scene till thirteen
years later, and as the cover in question is the one designed, and
signed, by Sir John Gilbert in 1842, the claim may be dismissed, except
in so far as it may support Landells' statement that he prepared the
scheme of such a paper and submitted it to several publishers before he
and his associates determined upon carrying it themselves into
execution. And soon after it was started, as will be seen, the services
of a speculative printer were anxiously sought.

Mr. Hatton declares that Mark Lemon "always spoke of it to me as a
project of himself and Henry Mayhew," wherein he is followed by the
"Dictionary of National Biography;" and the Hon. T. T. a Beckett gives
the exclusive honour to Henry Mayhew (wherein he is followed by the same
authority in the notice of the latter writer), but admits the further
founder's claim of Stirling Coyne.

The writer of the well-known, but sadly inaccurate, pamphlet entitled
"Mr. Punch, His Origin and Career," which was published in 1882 as a
memorial of Mark Lemon, explains circumstantially that it was Mr. Last,
the printer, who proposed the idea to Henry Mayhew, who "readily
accepted it." The book is generally accredited to Sidney Blanchard; but
when I explain that the printer of it, now deceased, informed me that it
was written and brought to him by Last's son, the transfer of the
central interest from Landells and Henry Mayhew becomes intelligible.

The late Mr. R. B. Postans, the house-chum of Henry Mayhew, "his
companion from morning to night," and George Hodder, in his oft-quoted
"Memories of My Time," agree in according undivided credit to Henry
Mayhew; but they unfortunately disagree in essentials, and contradict
each other, and indirectly confirm my own conclusions. Hodder further
declares that Mayhew invented the paper and its name simultaneously,
which sprang Minerva-like, full-titled, from his brain--which we know to