Curtain Lectures,' with which the volume for 1845 opened raised the reputation of Punch to a height which showed how, in a periodical work, the happy direction and the peculiar genius of one man may carry it far beyond the reach of ordinary competition. I described in 'Half Hours' the 'Caudle Lectures' as 'admirable examples of the skill with which character can be preserved in every possible variety of circumstances.'"
James Hannay, the one-time popular author of "Singleton Fontenoy" and other stories, writing anonymously in the first number of the Atlantic Monthly, said: "A wit with a mission,— this was the position of Douglas in the last years of his life. Accordingly he was a little ashamed of the immense success of the 'Caudle Lectures,'—the fame of which I remember being bruited about the Mediterranean in 1845, and which as social drolleries set nations laughing. Douglas took their celebrity rather sulkily. He did not like to be talked of as a funny man. However, they just hit the reading English—always domestic in their literary as in their other tastes,—and so helped to establish Punch and to diffuse Jerrold's name."[1]
Another note from a contemporary writer may well be quoted as helping to show the varied ways in which the Lectures were received by the reading public of '45: "It was while the 'Caudle Lectures' were appearing in Punch, that one summer day my mother and I were invited to a friendly midday dinner at the Jerrolds, who were then residing in a pleasant country house at Putney. Towards the close of the meal a packet arrived—proofs, I fancy—at any rate, Douglas Jerrold opened a letter which visibly disturbed him. 'Hark at this,'
- ↑ The Atlantic Monthly, vol. i., p. 7.
