the kindly and judicious MARK LEMON? Had not he and clever HENRY
MAYHEW, and Mr. Printer LAST, and EBENEZER LANDELLS, my earliest
engraver, foregathered first with me in furtherance of the 'new
work of wit and whim,' embellished with cuts and caricatures, to
be called:--

_PUNCH; OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI_?

"LEMON, and LAST, and MAYHEW, were they here to-day, would probably
agree to divide between them the early honours, as they shared the
early responsibility. But doubtless MARK LEMON was the literary shaper
of the 'Guffawgraph,' as he jocularly called it in his 'Prospectus,'
and, from the first, its guiding spirit. Happily so, for his was a
spirit fitted to rule, both by power, and tact, and taste. With 'Uncle
MARK' in the chair, I knew there would be neither austere autocracy,
nor _fainéant_ laxity, neither weakness of stroke nor foulness
of blow, neither Rosa-Matilda-ish, mawkishness, nor Rabelaisian
coarseness.

"How well I remember my first group of 'Young Men,'" pursued _Mr.
Punch_, musingly. "There was swift and scathing DOUGLAS JERROLD, with
his tossed and tangled mane of grey hair. GILBERT ABBOTT À BECKETT,
too, the whimsically witty, the drolly satirical, the comically
caustic. HENRY MAYHEW, of course, and, a little later, his brother
HORACE, the simple, lovable 'PONNY.' HENNING, NEWMAN and BRINE, were
my earliest Artists. HENNING drew the first Cartoon, whilst NEWMAN and
BRINE, and, later, HINE, between them, were responsible for most of
the smaller cuts, head-and-tail-pieces, pictorial puns, and sketchy
silhouettes, wherewith _Punch's_ early pages abounded.