THE CRITICS OF 197 



but Mr. Surtees went further. With the single excep- 

 tion of Jorrocks, all his characters were depicted from 

 life, and there is an absence of gentlemanly qualities 

 in all of them. It was his object to expose the vul- 

 garities and trickery of the sporting world of the 

 period. No man ever hunted with Jorrocks, or Sir 

 Harry Scattercash, or Lord Scamperdale, Jack Sprag- 

 gon, Soapey Sponge, and Javvleyford, of Jawleyford 

 Court, with numerous other eccentricities impossible 

 in real life. They are, and were, meant to be carica- 

 tures, but they were caricatures of living people easily 

 recognisable. The delineation 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 then" present 

 popularity. 



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 illustra- 

 tions have created." This is a stern criticism, and I 

 have yet to learn where " the thousands of ephemeral 



