illustrating (amongst numerous scattered papers) "The Ingoldsby Legends" (with Cruikshank); Henry Cockton's "Stanley Thorn"; Charles Whitehead's "Richard Savage"; Albert Smith's "Adventures of Mr. Ledbury," "Fortunes of the Scattergood Family," and "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers"; W. H. Maxwell's "Brian O'Linn," etc., etc.
From the time that he joined the Punch staff, in 1841, the life of John Leech was one of well-earned prosperity and happiness. His income at first gradually and then rapidly increased, and he moved from the attic which he occupied in the vicinity of Tottenham Court Road, into a house of his own at Notting Hill. Shortly after this he married. Miss Ann Eaton was one of those English beauties that Leech delighted to draw; and it is related of him that he first met her walking in London, and, following her home, noted the house in which she lived, ascertained her name, procured an introduction, and straightway married her. The issue of this marriage was two children—a boy and a girl. The former—John George Warrington Leech, the miniature counterpart of his father in appearance and dress, and inheriting in a marvellous degree his talent for drawing—was unfortunately drowned at South Adelaide in 1876.
Leech's hand appears for the first time in the fourth number of Punch (7th August, 1841),[1] to which he contributed the well-known full-page illustration of Foreign Affairs. His first cartoon, A Morning Call, will be found at page 119 of vol. ii., and the reader will find it worth his while to refer to it for the purpose of comparing it with the later and better work with which he afterwards enriched the pages of this famous serial, which mainly through his instrumentality was steered into the current of prosperity which carried it after a time of considerable doubt and perplexity—[2]steadily onwards. One of Punch's most celebrated contributors has borne testimony to the value of his services. "Mr. Punch," says Thackeray in reviewing his friend's contributions in 1854, "has very good
