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"My Reminiscences!" said _Mr. Punch_, replying to a question put by his Interviewer, ANNO DOMINI EIGHTEEN-NINETY-ONE; "They are already before the World, in exactly One Hundred Volumes! My first 'Number' bore date 'for the week ending July 17th, 1841. My memory is indeed stored with recollections, pleasant, picturesque, pathetic, of the teeming past, memories of my joyous 'Table,' of my well-beloved 'Young Men,' of Great Names, of Genial Comrades, of Bright Wits, of Warm Hearts, of Famous Artists, of Clever Writers, who--in the words of the greatest of them all--
'Perched round the stem Of the jolly old tree.'
"How well the words of the wise wit written in 1847 express our thoughts to-day, Mr. ANNO DOMINI:--
'Here let us sport Boys, as we sit, Laughter and wit Flashing so free. Life is but short-- When we are gone, Let them sing on Round the old tree.
Evenings we knew Happy as this; Faces we miss Pleasant to see. Kind hearts and true, Gentle and just, Peace to their dust! We sing round the tree.'
It is one of my proudest memories to recollect that THACKERAY's 'Mahogany Tree,' was my Table."
"To have been Amphitryon to _such_ guests must have been the most pleasant privilege of hospitality," said ANNO DOMINI.
"Very true," responded _Mr. Punch_, "And of all my Deputy-Amphitryons--if I may use the term--who more fully, fitly, justly, and genially filled the post than the earliest of them all, 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:--
"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.