would never have guessed from anything he ever looked or said that he
had made a whole nation, male and female, gentle and simple, old and
young, laugh as it had never laughed before or since for a quarter of
a century.
He was tall, thin, and graceful, extremely handsome, of the higher
Irish type; with dark hair and whiskers and complexion, and very light
greyish-blue eyes; but the expression of his face was habitually sad,
even when he smiled. In dress, bearing, manner, and aspect, he was the
very type of the well-bred English gentleman and man of the world and
good society; I never met any one to beat him in that peculiar
distinction of form, which, I think, has reached its highest European
development in this country. I am told the Orientals are still our
superiors in deportment. But the natural man in him was still the
best. Thackeray and Sir John Millais, not bad judges, and men with
many friends, have both said that they personally loved John Leech
better than any man they ever knew.

At this time he was painting in oil, and on an enlarged scale, some of
his more specially popular sketches in _Punch_, and very anxious to
succeed with them, but nervously diffident of success with them, even
with [Greek: hoi polloi]. He was not at his happiest in these efforts;
and there was something pathetic in his earnestness and perseverance
in attempting a thing so many can do, but which he could not do for
want of a better training; while he could do the inimitable so easily.

I came back to town before Leech, and did not see him again until the
following October. On Saturday afternoon, the 28th, I called at his
house, No. 6 The Terrace, Kensington, with a very elaborate drawing in
pencil by myself, which I presented to him as a souvenir, and with
which he seemed much pleased.