Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/186

Rh and racier quality now, but his faculties had not then developed to their fullest extent or greatest strength.

Mr. Du Maurier was then little more than a beginner in Punch ' s pages ; the vigorous work of Mr. Linley Sambourne was quite unknown, and it was at a yet later period that the facile pencil of Mr. Harry Furniss gave a novel and original treatment to political caricature. And now to the article.

“It is not my purpose to discuss the merits or record the past history of caricature in this country, but simply to offer a few remarks on that form of it which finds expression in the pages of Punch. In looking over the earlier volumes, now republish- ing, one is struck by the difference existing between the cuts in them and those which find favour now. The pages then were covered with armies of little black figures, looking as if they had been cut out of court-plaister and stuck on the white paper. One looks in vain for those subjects of contemporary domestic life (technically called ‘socials,’ I believe) which now form the most characteristic feature of a number of Punch; and though the fun of the earlier drawings is up to the present standard, in point of artistic excellence they are very far short of it. Many artists have been ‘on Punch,’ some for a few weeks, some for a few years, while others