PHIL MAY 321 



than he did himself, and that he would never be shown 

 at his very best until something was written for him which 

 would bring out his extraordinary combination of powers 

 as both caricaturist and artist. When I say " Caricatur- 

 ist/' I ought, perhaps, to speak rather of his power to 

 look at men for a minute or two and fix them in his 

 memory. Once in the earlier days I took him to Kempton 

 Park and pointed out all the people I wanted him to make 

 a note of. It was pouring with rain, and he could not 

 make a single pencil note, but he looked at those people 

 about twenty in number and made a page drawing that 

 night with every likeness strikingly good, except as I 

 thought that of Colonel McMurdo, and he was recognised 

 by a stranger in the Strand who had only, up to that time, 

 seen the sketch in St Stephen's. 



Well then, I thought of an idea which in my judgment 

 would show the man in the street the very best of Phil 

 May, of whom by this time I had become very proud. 

 This was done by writing Politics for the Nursery and 

 asking him to illustrate the letterpress. The result was 

 really great, as I think anyone will agree who looks at the 

 few samples that it is possible to give in this book. They 

 are necessarily reduced to small scale, and are from St 

 Stephen's itself, not from the originals. 



I need not make any comment on Phil May's work in 

 these sketches, except that I never gave any suggestion 

 as to what I wanted. He simply had the verses to 

 illustrate in any way he thought fit. To my mind 

 " Master North " offering " good advice " to " Randy- 

 Pandy " is as near perfection as we shall ever see. It was 

 at the time when Lord Randolph was first interesting 

 himself greatly in racing. 



The strength of Phil May's line drawing is demonstrated 

 by the way in which it has stood production from an old 

 paper in these illustrations. 



For the Christmas Number of that year Phil May did 

 a splendid big cartoon, one of the very best things he 

 ever did. The number was entitled Crime, and the idea 



