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THE FRENCH PRESS.*
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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say that before lie gave to the world his Tom and Jerry plates , he had aided the great Romilly in his reform of the criminal law , and exposed with mingled pathos and humour the folly of taking : human life for forgery , sheep stealing , shop lifting , and stealing even five shillings fro mi the person . Man is an auimal of so -compound a character that it is difficult to say who gives the greatest impulse to the mob—the living eloquence of the great lawyer , which remains for ever , or the cartoon of the caricaturist , which arrests our attention , awakens our interest , and is forgotten . The old days of watchmen and dark streets , of dandies and dandizettes , of swallow-tailed coats , roll collars , and Hessian boots , of high waists , and the Grecian sloop come back to us as we turn over the pilots of " Life in London . " Yet these people there pictured must have lived . Tom and Jerry , and Mr . Green , the boozing Ken ,
the crib and the finish , the ogling women and effeminate men , were true copies of " life . " They were as popular and as well recognised as Mr . Pickwick and Sam Weller ; they were more true to nature ; they were for the time even more widely followed and admired than any of the characters of Mr . Dickens . Judged by our standard , what fops and fools they were . We cannot well reverence our fathers . if we believe that in their young days they were half so silly We shall be more lenient to crinoline , lace-up boots , and masculine hats if we look at the foolish figures which our mothers must have cut when dressed in umbrella bonnets and sleeves a la igot . ¦ -
g . ., , ,, . „____ The popularity of this work was in the wane when the predecessors o £ Punch , now a venerable publication of nearly twenty years old , rose on the horizon . Seymour , an artist of immense promise , lull ot fun and drollery , and an English humour which has seldom it ever been equalled , was engaged in illustrating a cheap weekly sheet with a title which would not now be scarcely permitted . It was nothing less than ' T ? , c Devil . hi London ; and the cause of reform and the side of strong opposition to the Church and to King Williams ministers were taken up very strongly by the little sheet , conducted by two or three wild and clever young men , who from ., one . number
to another scarcely knew how to pay their printer , lire . JJ . ovii » ^ we inav suppose , was fairly successful . The old types of cartoons , old and yet ever new , in which Jqlm Bull is an over-laden ass , sinking under the weight of packages labelled with the names of _ taxes , _ or an old worn-out man , crippled and hoppled with logs and-effiuns ; or is ground into money by ministers , who are ever ready to nil their pockets with the pieces , arc to be found there , 1 he name of the paper was soon changed tnto " Asmodens ; " -then came Seymour ' s and Gilbert a'Becket ' s " Figaro , " named after the
everpopular barber in llossini ' s opera ; and finally , other imitators ^ some of the lowest and most radical , under the names of the " Star and "Penny Satirist . " but all being more or leas fiercely political and destitute of huinour . When our Queen came to the throne , and sub consnle Planus under the latter years of King William , these were vigorous , and perhaps thought funny or lively . H . 13 . —the father of Richard Doyle of Punch— filled the windows of the westend printsellers with political sketches , stiffly and vilely drawn , but still preserving the likeness . Folios of . these prints were lent out to vivify slow evening parties , and the publisher , we believe , made . mQ , K'y- »> y-- ^ J w ,. m ,-fhoii rh . sold at a very high price . An artist Q ) of the name of Grant was -amusing ' low life , with vile wood cuts in tlie
and instead of issuing at irregular periods , gave serial and semiserious knocks and blows . Mr . Samuel Slick has declared that the true way of taking a portrait is to paint the leading feature of the face . Punch followed the same rule , and took the leading feature of the time , or of the salient , subject or . prominent man . . He returned again and again to the charge , and it is not too much to say that many men owed their name and popularity to him , if he borrowed his also from them . At last reviews began to talk about him , and as usual made mistakes anent him . The " Quarterly , " for instance , placed Cruikshank as his chief artist , whereas that gentleman never drew a stroke for the work . In the " Man in the Moon" an artist once pictured Mr . Leech ' s little bottle and leech , ( that artist ' s monogram ) as Punch ' s life buoy , and not without
great truth . That artist was , and is , the chief support of the paper ; and the wonder is that while the writing has often been very tame , the cartoons have very seldom failed . The subjects are of course suggested not only by the staff of the journal , but also from every portion of the globe . Hence its universality . Sketches are sent and '' put into drawing , " as others are from Hong Kong , California , or the Arctic regions , to the London Illustrated News . A frivolous age , moreover , feeds upon pictures , and demands them more than deep or witty writing popular fun—and fun to be popular , must not be too high nor too low , but of a gentle tea-table mediocrity ^ which can be safely retailed amidst the clatter of the dinner-party or in the pauses of a soiree onusicale . Hence modern caricature has gained in finish , but has lost its grotesqueness . It is no longer overloaded , but is characteristic drawings ; and ours are so honourably distinguished that the French always rcier to une caricature Chartean
Anglaise , whilst their own , in the Journal pour rire , or , are coarse , often without wit , and very , grotesque . _ But success has taken away much of the point from the political caricaturist ' s pencil , and with one or two exceptions the Coryphajus of these artists seldom draws in aid of ignorance and want , and but too often satirises the poor-fellow who tries to rise in life ; the jjarvenu who would be thought a little " genteel , " the untaught servant who tries to dresssmartly , or the poor little shop gent who not unnaturally is desirous of imitating some of the ineffably serene , calm , and grand swells who walk about town like the well-dressed figures of a tailor ' s pattern books . This is , we think , the worst feature in modern caricature .- Itris new and strange to find this Sadducean cruelty in . the minds of meii sprung from the people ; it is foreign also to genuine humour , which is never wanton nor harsh , which lashes vice but overlooks weakness ; and which , above all other qualities , teaches us , as it taught Massinger , " To look upon the poor with gentle eye , For in their figures often - Angela desire an alms . "
" There , where you stop to see the last II . B > , " writes Sir Bulwer—to > ee it ? yes ; to smile or lauir > at it ? no . ^ Yet at the same time , the very finest political and social caricaturist we have scon was wasting his talents in illustrating " Bell ' s Gallery of Comicalities , " and in drawing costennon <* ers , dustmen , prizefighters , and low life generally ; and Kenny Meadows , who never could draw with humour , was aiding him . Dreadful it must be for the ineffable swells and Bulgravitm ladies , who now dress alter Mr . Leech's woodcuts in Punch , but who never succeed in looking halt so well , to know that their artist practised his young pencil on the lowest of the low 1 _
The history of the establishment of Punch is yet to bo written . We have met men who were in the little baok office of a printer Avhcn a halfpenny was tossed up to decide by head or tail whether the fii-Hi ; number should appear or not . A wood cutter now Jiving claims the ihvsfc idea of it ; and a gentleman who holds a most lucrative copyright amongst our serials has told us that he was hurrying to his printer ' s with the " copy" for a poster announcing hi a Punch—tho very niiino was settled—when ho was startled and disappointed by seeing tho qffiche of tho existing paper . Wo presume tho idea , therefore , was abroad . The age , as they say in regard to conquerors and great kings , demanded a Punch , and Punch sprang all armed from Mr . Bryant ' s sl > 6 p in Wellington Street . Tho idea , italist tho
at first unfortunate , proved successful . A cap bought sinking journal , and by judicious working kept it afloat , and here it is . Mr . Henry Mayhew , wo believe , has tho fir . it claim-to its paternity , and ' Gilbert a'Bockot , Jerrold , Albert Smith , Leech , and , Othorswere soon on the staff , and it was a hospital for all tho foundling wits nud unfutherod jokes of tho day . It has dono , and still does , much good . It ministered to the general cheerfulness of tho nation . It whs seldom low or coarse . It satirised kings , generals , ministers , and people ; private parties and quoenly reunions , clergymen and judges , corttermongers and poors of tho realm , shopmen and poets , all camo in for their share of Punch ' s bdton , and tho nation laughed nnd grew fat . Caricature , us wo have said , hold its weekly drills ,
same wav , bat yet who ever laughed at either one or the other ? Did any one * ever see a joke in any of those drearily genteel H . B . sketches ? Old swells from Boodle ' s and Arthur ' s waggled then-old heads at them in Maclean ' s windows :
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M HAT IN could scarcely have selected a more interesting sub-. jact for discussion than the history of periodical literature . We , the men of the nineteenth century , are peculiarly concerned in it . It is long since we were told that the Fourth Estate has inherited tlie power formerly wielded by kings , Lords and Commons . The ^ TTlB-Tff ^ htfrpOTHras-begut ^ journalists , can trace oiir being . f Tlie erudite author of L'His to ire Politlquc ct Litteraire de la Presse takes up newspaper writing at its very princiyium ct funs . ' Not satisfied with the lldmim-rttf ^ diurna , he starts on a preliminary
journey to the banks of the Euphrates , and shows how the ancieufc history of Babylon was compiled from leadiity articles cuneiformedby Oriental journalists . Only imagine Berosus consulting a file of the Chaldean Gazette , and correcting a chance mistake—thanks to the help of some contemporary Cobbett ! Without , however , following M . Ilatin so far back , we may say that modern newspaper literature arose almost simultaneously in France , England , and Germany , towards the beginning of the seventeenth century . The famous etymology of the word Gazette , so ingenious , so plausible , „„ . »» .., ; ., ,,.. r . \ .. f . innfi . l i' mvivAfl nmv f . ci \ u \ untirelv unsuDDortedr prettyia unfortunatelproved now to be entirely unsupported
so , y by tho iiicts , and Venice has been obliged to renounce its pretensions as tho birthplace of the daily press ; the question of priority still remains , we believe , to be decided between the three countries wohavo just mimed ; and , with tlio true spirit of patriotism , M . Hatm asserts that " en rdnlitcS e ' esfc i \ la Franco , comma nous le de . nontrorons bientdt , qu ' appartiont l'honneur d ' avoir donn 6 natssance uu proinier journal . " Well , it is perhaps not much worth while beginning a controversy on tho subject ; and as the system of avertissemenls , communiques , and flues , seems likely to cut prematurely short the destinies of tho French periodical press , let M . JLatiu make tho best of those veterans of tho profession , Docteur Ahoonhraiitus llemwdot , and Loret , tho prosy rhymer of Let Muse JLt $ - ¦
tonque . ~ . ., , Tho first part of tho Jlistoire do la Prosse comprises tho epocli preceding tho Revolution' of I 78 i ); it is one of tho most intorestni £ divisions of the wholo work , and must have cost the author no smHll amount of troublo , from the difficulty of collecting the various living shoots , pamphlets , and squibs , which , under tho oddest and nob unfroquontly the most objectionable titles , gavo periodical vent to the esprit frondcur of ccs bans habitant * de Perns . 'iheMazarinade * ,. l \ io Courier , tho Courier Burlesque , Uobuiota ^^ ' ^ ^* Vers , and last , though not least , tho Mercure de Franco , were all
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May liJ , I 860 . J The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 473
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* Uhtoiro PofMqna ct IMMrair ? da la L > rc *» o «» f' ^ lDHo ^ rap !^ Introduction Iliatorique sur lo 8 Orig noa du Journal «* Ii ^ 5 i" * S « a-tr 2 GcnenUe dea Journaux depute lour Origino . Pur Wuafc . NH uatin . vim ** " * volumes in-8 o .
The French Press.*
THE FRENCH PRESS . -
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1860, page 473, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2348/page/13/
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