I have already quoted, says further in his autobiographical papers made use of by Mr. Spielmann: "After I had ceased my connection with Punch, I met Douglas Jerrold at the corner of Essex Street in the Strand. It was the time when the first number of the 'Caudle Curtain Lectures' appeared. In the course of conversation I remarked that I did not read Punch regularly, but I had by chance perused the opening chapter of his new subject, and I thought, if he followed up the series in the spirit he had begun, they would be the most popular that have ever appeared in its pages. He laughed heartily and replied—' It just shows what stuff the people will swallow. I could write such rubbish as that by the yard;' and he added, 'I have before said, the public will always pay to be amused, but they will never pay to be instructed.' The Caudle Lectures did more than any series of papers for the universal popularity of Punch, and there is no doubt but they added greatly to Jerrold's reputation, although he always affected not to think so."[1]
Charles Knight has recorded, in an account of his first seeing Douglas Jerrold, something of the contemporary appreciation of "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures." "Punch, out of a not very promising commencement in 1841, had in four years risen into an unequalled popularity. Jerrold was, however, one of its earliest contributors, a paper of his appearing in the second number. As the publication went on we may every now and then trace some of those flashes of merriment, that biting satire, and those pleadings for the wretched, which characterised his avowed writings. 'The Story of a Feather,' which commenced in 1843, and 'Mrs. Caudle's
- ↑ "The History of Punch," by M. H. Spielmann, p. 291.
