John Leech (caricaturist)

"(to silent Partner). "Pray! have you no conversation?""

". "So, you're going to marry old Mrs. . Well, I think you're a dooced lucky fellah!" . "By Jove, I don't think the luck is all on my side! If she finds money, hang it, I find blood and—haw—beauty!""

". "I think, sir, if you would be so good as to go first, and break the top rail, my pony would get over.""

"When between six and seven years of age, some of Leech's drawings were seen by the great , and, after carefully looking at them and the boy, he said, 'That boy must be an artist; he will be nothing else or less.' This was said in full consciousness of what is involved in advising such a step. His father wisely, doubtless, thought otherwise, and put him to the medical profession at , under Mr. . He was very near being sent to Edinburgh, and apprenticed to Sir ."

"... His stay of nine years at never brought him nearer to the top of the school than the fifth form — the forms being at that time counted downwards, not upwards, as now. He had as a fellow-pupil the famous William Makepeace Thackeray, with whom he formed a friendship that ripened day by day, and never ceased until death parted them. It is said that Leech once had the intense happiness of hearing that when Thackeray was asked to name his dearest friend, he replied, after a few moments' thought, "John Leech.""

"A man of grave and almost melancholy cast of countenance, handsome withal, was ; quiet, reserved, and gentlemanly in manner, a hearty hater of posing, and noise, and publicity. Save at the weekly dinner, he consorted but little with his colleagues on Punch, with the exception of Thackeray: he was intimate, at one time, with Dickens, to whom he gave a walking-stick inscribed "C. D., from J. L.," which Dickens often carried; with , with Mowbray Morris, and with . He and had been fellow medical students at the Hospital, fellow assistants to that general practitioner who figures in Ledbury as "Mr. Rawkins,” but in later life there was not much in common between them. I fear Albert was a little too rowdy for Leech."