for ever from my Table. And a little later--only a little later--in my
Number for November 12th, 1864, appeared an obituary notice--alas the
day!--of the great, the genial, the loved, the lamented JOHN LEECH.

"In the Volumes for this year, 1865, appear for the first time the
fanciful, ingenious, elaborately symbolical designs of CHARLES H.
BENNETT, who unhappily did not long enrich my pages with his facile
execution and singular subtlety of fancy. He died on the 2nd April.
His place at my Table was soon after taken by LINLEY SAMBOURNE.

"On the 23rd May, 1870, he who had sat at the head of my Table ever
since its first establishment, 'who wrote the first article in this
Journal, who from its establishment had been its conductor,' left
empty the chief seat at my board.

"'If this Journal has had the good fortune to be credited with
habitual advocacy of truth and justice, if it has been praised
for abstention from the less worthy kind of satire, if it
has been trusted by those who keep guard over the purity of
womanhood and of youth, we, the best witnesses, turn for
a moment from our sorrow to bear the fullest and the most
willing testimony that the high and noble spirit of MARK
LEMON ever prompted generous championship, ever made unworthy
onslaught or irreverent jest impossible to the pens of those
who were honoured in being coadjutors with him.'

"This, Mr. ANNO DOMINI, was the high and merited tribute which the
spokesman of his surviving colleagues paid to the beloved memory of
MARK LEMON.