“Lemon, and last, and Mayhew, were they here to-day, would probably agree to divide between them the early honours, as they shared the early responsibility.  But doubtless mark Lemon was the literary shaper of the ‘Guffawgraph,’ as he jocularly called it in his ‘Prospectus,’ and, from the first, its guiding spirit.  Happily so, for his was a spirit fitted to rule, both by power, and tact, and taste.  With ’Uncle mark’ in the chair, I knew there would be neither austere autocracy, nor faineant laxity, neither weakness of stroke nor foulness of blow, neither Rosa-Matilda-ish, mawkishness, nor Rabelaisian coarseness.

“How well I remember my first group of ‘Young Men,’” pursued Mr. Punch, musingly.  “There was swift and scathing Douglas Jerrold, with his tossed and tangled mane of grey hair.  Gilbert Abbott A Beckett, too, the whimsically witty, the drolly satirical, the comically caustic.  Henry Mayhew, of course, and, a little later, his brother Horace, the simple, lovable ‘PONNY.’  Henning, Newman and Brine, were my earliest Artists.  Henning drew the first Cartoon, whilst Newman and Brine, and, later, Hine, between them, were responsible for most of the smaller cuts, head-and-tail-pieces, pictorial puns, and sketchy silhouettes, wherewith Punch’s early pages abounded.

“In the fourth Number of Punch, published on August 7th, 1841, first appeared the soon-to-be-famous signature of ‘John Leech.’”

“Ah!  John Leech,” cried the attentive Anno DOMINI.  “A name to conjure with!  How did that ’Star swim into your ken’?”

“There was a certain clever, scholarly, and genial gentleman,” responded Mr. Punch, “who had lately published, under the pseudonym of ‘Paul Prendergast,’ an extremely funny Comic Latin Grammar.  ’Paul Prendergast’ was, in reality, Mr. Percival Leigh, originally a medical gentleman, the well-beloved ‘Professor’ of later Punch days.  The Comic Latin Grammar had been admirably illustrated by a personal friend, and fellow-student, of LEIGH’s named LEECH.  The services of both of the contributors to the Comic Latin Grammar were soon enlisted in my interests.

“Another of LEECH’s medical student friends was ALBERT SMITH, and he before long was penning his ‘Physiology of London Evening Parties’ (illustrated by PHIZ—­HALBOT KNIGHT BROWNE—­NEWMAN, and others) for my pages.  KENNY MEADOWS, WATTS PHILLIPS, ALFRED ‘CROW-QUILL’ (FORRESTER), JOHN GILBERT, and others, drew also for the young Journal, the printing of which had been taken over by the Whitefriars firm of BRADBURY AND EVANS, with whom as proprietors and fast friends, Punch has ever since been happily associated.

“As early as my Fourth Volume,” pursued Mr. Punch, “it became obvious that, in the person of ‘Our Fat Contributor,’ a certain ‘MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH’ was writing and drawing for Punch.