was the genial Sir Spencer Wells, the well-known surgeon. He lived monarch of all he surveyed at Golder's Hill, Hampstead, and many a morning I met him when riding, and we jogged into town together. He was a capital raconteur, a happy wit, and told one incident I always recall to mind as I pass a house on the top of Fitzjohn's Avenue, where a few years ago lived, painted and "received" that Wilson Barrett of the brush, Edwin Long, R.A., a hard-working, self-made artist who amassed a fortune by successfully gauging the taste of the large middle-class English public in mixing religion with voluptuous melodrama. On the annual "Show Sunday" no studio was more popular than Long's. His subjects perhaps had something to do with it. They were in keeping with the Sabbath. The work too was as smooth and as highly finished as the most orthodox sermon. Ars longa est. Yes, said some cynic, but art is not Long. But anyway Long's art was commercially successful, and he was what is known as "a good business man."
As haberdashers in the days of crude advertising used to place men in costume at the shop door—a fireman when they were selling off a damaged salvage stock, or a sailor or, if a very enterprising tradesman, a diver, helmet and all, when selling off goods damaged from a wreck—so did this Academician, when exhibiting Biblical subjects on "Show Sunday," engage a Nubian model to stand at the door of his shop. This man had also to announce the names of the guests, and when the small, spectacled, simple man with the large smile gave his name, Sir Spencer Wells, the model pulled himself up to his full height and in his best English proudly and loudly announced to the crowd in the studio—
"The Prince of Wales!"
The effect was magical: all fell in line, ladies curtseyed, men bowed, when the Prince of Hampstead Heath entered. The artist looked as black as his model, and the visitors laughed.
At the other end of Fitzjohn's Avenue once lived that ever popular Academician, the late Mr. John Pettie. Mr. Pettie was a vigorous draughtsman and a beautiful colourist, and many of his portraits are very fine. He seemed to revel in painting a red coat—an object to many painters as maddening as it is to the infuriated bull. On one "Show Sunday" before the sending-in day of the Royal Academy, at which he exhibited, I recollect admiring a portrait of Mr. Lamb, the celebrated golfer, in his red coat, when the original of the portrait came into the studio. Not feeling very well, Mr. Pettie had to avoid the crowd of his admirers seeing him. There were a few exceptions, of which I was one. I had just left him when I saw Mr. Lamb before his picture. In this portrait the "bulger" golf club—which Mr. Lamb, I believe, invented, to the delight of the golfing world—is introduced. I ran back to Mr. Pettie and told him that there was a stupid man in the studio wanting to know why artists always draw golf clubs wrongly; that as a Scotchman he must protest against such a club, which was out of shape, like a club foot. "Tell him, mon, it's a bulger—Lamb's invention!" I returned. "He wants to know who Mr. Lamb is, and what is a bulger?—perhaps it's a new kind of hunting-crop and not a golf club at all?" In rushed Mr. Pettie, like an enraged lion, to slay the ignorant visitor, but in reality to shake hands with Mr. Lamb and explain my childish joke.
Leaving Pettie, I called at a studio near Hampstead occupied by a very clever Irish artist, who was very much depressed when I entered. Gazing in bewilderment at his picture for the Academy, representing Milton with his daughters in his garden at Chalfont St. Giles, he said—
"Furniss, I'm in an awful state entoirely over this picture. One of those critic fellows has been in here, and he tells me this picture won't do at all at all. I've painted in Milton's garden as I've seen it, but the critic tells me that these are all modern flowers and weren't known in the country in the poet's time. Now, what on earth am Oi to do?"
"Oh, don't bother about those critics," I said. "They know nothing. Milton was blind, don't you know, so how could he tell whether the flowers were correct or not?"
"Begorrah, Furniss, you're right. Oi never thought of that. It's just like those ignorant critic chaps to upset a fellow in this way."
CHAPTER III.
MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST.
DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.
Acting as Special Artist for The Illustrated London News.
The Light Brigade—Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)—Slumming—The Boat Race—Realism—A Phantasmagoria—Orlando and the Caitiff—Fancy Dress Balls—Lewis Wingfield—Cinderella—A Model—All Night Sitting—An Impromptu Easel—"Where there's a Will there's a Way"—The American Sunday Papers—I am Deaf—The Grill—The World's Fair—Exaggeration—Personally Conducted—The Charnel House—10, Downing Street—I attend a Cabinet Council—An Illustration by Mr. Labouchere—The Great Lincolnshire Trial—Praying without Prejudice
AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE. (Reduction of Large Drawing.)
Sir William Russell and I were called upon at a banquet in the City to respond to the toast of the Press. Sir William made one of his characteristic, graceful little speeches, reminiscential and modest. When I rose I was for a moment also reminiscential—but not modest. "My Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Masters of this Worshipful Company—I appreciate the appropriateness in coupling my name with that of Sir William Russell, for both of us have made a noise in the world at the same time—Dr. Russell with his first war letters to the Times, and I in my cradle, for I came into this troubled world while others in arms were making a noise in the Crimea."
AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION.
Naturally for this reason I have always taken an interest in the doings of that time; so it was quite con amore that I acted as "special" at the first Balaclava Celebration Banquet (1875), twenty years after "Billy" Russell's first war letters and my first birthday.
The roll-call on the occasion was funny, seeing that it was that of the "Light Brigade"—some were "light" and many were heavy—one I recollect was about eighteen stone. The banquet was held in the Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill. The visitors, except the military—past or present—were shamefully treated. We had to stand all the time behind the chairs and wearily watch a scene not altogether elevating to lookers-on. We were not allowed a chair to sit on, nor any refreshment of any kind—not even if we paid for it; and I well recollect how hungry I was when I returned to my studio after a tedious journey at 1 in the morning, having had nothing to eat since 1 of the previous day. Such Red Tape was, I suppose, to illustrate the disgraceful arrangements of the commissariat in the Crimea! I was standing close to Miss Thompson (Lady Butler), who had just become famous by her picture "The Roll Call." She was making notes, and possibly intended painting a sequel to her celebrated picture. She was exhausted and tired, and no doubt too disgusted by such ungallant conduct on the part of the organisers of the banquet to touch the subject. Had she painted this particular roll-call I fear many of the figures would have had to be drawn out of the perpendicular.
Twenty years before one of the heroes was, possibly, a better and a wiser man, and tackled the "Rooshins" with greater dexterity than he displayed on this occasion in managing a jelly. He had waiters to right of him, waiters to left of him, and waiters
