BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 195 



possible in real life. They are and were meant to 

 be caricatures, but they were caricatures of living 

 people which were easily recognisable. The delinea- 

 tion of character is always amusing, sometimes clever, 

 but seldom true ; but further, it is doubtful whether, 

 if the coarseness of the text had not been redeemed 

 by the pencil and mind of such a finished and 

 popular artist as John Leech, these books could have 

 attained their present popularity. 



For a full account of the numerous works of 

 Mr. Surtees I must refer my readers to Slater's 

 Early Editions, 1894, pp. 280-287, where they will 

 also find the recorded prices which they have fetched 

 at auction. It is a curious fact that Mr. John Leech, 

 to whom he was mainly indebted for his popularity, 

 should have died within a year of his own death. 

 I have come across an old obituary notice of 

 Mr. Leech, in which, referring to the works of 

 Mr. Surtees, the writer says, " They owe a short- 

 lived popularity to the wit of the writer, and would 

 doubtless have shared the fate of thousands of 

 ephemeral productions about equally meritorious; 

 but they have been rescued from oblivion by the 

 pencil of Leech, and have created a sensation due 

 to nothing but the impression which the illustrations 

 have created." This is stern criticism, and I have yet 

 to learn where " the thousands of ephemeral pro- 

 ductions about equally meritorious " are to be found. 

 The fact remains that Mr. Surtees is known to 

 posterity as facile pri^iceps in his own style of 



