The Express. — 1864-11-01 (London, England)

LEE.'II has followed him. We have lost the greatest of our pictorial satirists, and by a blow so speedy and sudden that it inevitably recalls the shock that went through the nation when the greatest of our literary satirists was taken. In their visible fate there is much that makes the coincidence more striking. Both were long fellowlabourers in Poach, both died in harness, and both sank too early, worn out by the overstrain of mental work. A deeper resemblance, indeed, may be traced beneath the surface events of their live*. The genius of both was essentially the product of the age in which they lived, and suited to it ; their comedy was mixed with pathos, their tragedy dashed with self-ridicule, the genuine outbursts of nature mingled with the sneer of civilization. Neither probably would have been as great had he bitten on any other time ; nor is it easy to say what either of them might have been had his inclination been less fettered by the exigencies of surrounding circumstances. LEECH, it is true, did not give, like THACHIRAY, any public indication of desire to break away into other paths. And indeed, whether we esteem it lower or higher, his was the more original line. No caricaturist before him habitually employed beauty as the instrument of his lessons. No satirist of mere folly has ever indulged leas in exaggeration. His success was achieved by the absolute truth of his representations ; the satiric moral lay simply in their selection. He seized the moment at which folly was self-convicted, and held it up as it was to inextinguishable ridicule. Vice, as such, he scarcely professed to attack. But as folly when rampant grows into vice, he is not to be refused the honour due to a teacher becaumi he limited himself to dealing with incipient and nascent evils. Society has been the wholesomer and the purer for his pencil, and therefore let him not be classed merely as one of those who tickle it into amusement by the exhibition of absurdity. But if his life and works were the outgrowth and reflection of his age, his death has, in a sadder sense, been a sacrifice to its peculiarities. Living, as we all do now, at ten times the rate of our forefathers, those who supply our intellectual food must tax themselves to meet our demands. We read ten times as much, and, therefore, we must have ten times as much written and painted for us ; we pay ten times as much, and, therefore, artists and authors are tempted to ten times the exertion. For, unhappily, we do not pay in proportion for the great work to which the care and labour of a lifetime has been given—the perfect work which will live through all time, like the Iliad or the Apollo. But what we are eager for 16 the shallow novelty, the sharp comment on daily life, the work that fatigues not the understanding, but strikes in a moment, and may at once be dismissed. So the lima labur et 11w/A does not pay, and, as a consequence, it is not given. Perhaps, but for this fatal temptation, Leei-ir might have added some enduring work of art to the galleries of his country. Our consolation is that he reached, if not so high, at least a wider public. He met the popular hunger, and supplied it with light and evanescent but healthy food. Only in doing this he lost his own life, as so many another artist and man of letters has done of late years. For it seems as if the creative faculty were that which kills the fastest. The lawyer lives long, though be works as hard as the poet, for many more hours a day. But the men of imagination, such as all artists and all literary men must he more or less, fall soon and fast. Would they but spend some of that time which is now spent in inventing new characters, new scenes, new stories, new arguments, in the dull plodding routine of revising, recasting, and polishing, their works might live beyond the year, and many a useful year would  be added to their own lives. But it is fruitless to preach prudence, or a noble ambition. when the lope of sudden wealth is the lure. We call for so much of literature and art that we cannot have it so good as it might be, and we pay so highly for novelty that we kill our authors and artists when their years are still green. It is a sad and lingering death, too. The noblest part is the first to suffer and perish, and mental failure precedes, *as it causes, the bodily decay. In the works of poor LEECH this process has been visible for some years past. The power and skill of hand still kept improving, and the grace and vigour of drawing grew ever more re• markable. But the wit of the piece was less. The scenes or the sayings selected for illustration were less intrinsically humorous, the fun was more forced, the characters and the situations partook more of mere repetition. The explanation of it all comes now. The cause, beyond a doubt, was that which hurried WALTER SCOTT and DAVID WILKIE to an early grave. The mind was overwrought, and the brain gave way. It is idle and foolish to suggest, as has been done, that the mischief had its origin in the "organ-grinding " nuisance." No doubt the sick and suffering artist was half maddened by the noise, but it was because he was already sick. The morbidly excited brain felt acutely an irritation which in a healthy state it would have thrown off as a passing annoyance. It might as well be said that riding on horseback was the cause of his malady, because there came a stage at which riding increased it. The argument is a good one in favour of giving to the worn brain the perfect rest which may enable it to recover its tone. We have urged it ourselves, when seeking to retain the solitude and quiet of Kensington Gardens and other open spaces, as means of refreshing the weary minds of brain-workers. But the illness which has cut LEECH off in his prime was his own doing. He is but one more of the men of high talent who have failed to do what they might, because they strove to do too much and too fast. Some time or other, when the laws which bind the soul to the body are better known and better kept, we shall cease to be harrowed by these recurring moral suicides. Meanwhile, let us take warning, and at least learn by our heavy losses.