THE FOUNDING OF THE SAVAGE CLUB AND OF “PUNCH.”

There have been some few contentions about the origin of the Savage Club, but many more about the origin of Punch. Both good old institutions, as I hope I may so term them, were founded in Bohemian London without doubt. The Savage Club and Literature and Art are very much allied, and Punch is a glorious monument to Literature and Art in its sweetest and most noble form. It will be remembered by many living that during the last half-century there have been scores, and indeed almost hundreds, of so-called satirical journals published, which have failed from the fact that the contributors did not make their satire interesting nor amusing. Mr. Punch, to somewhat paraphrase Burns, has thousands of times made foolish men and women “see themselves as others saw them,” and they have quietly thrown their follies and little weaknesses away. Of course, as regards the publication of the first number of Punch there is no doubt, for the date is on it, and it does certainly seem that Mr. Shirley Brooks's word as regards the actual founding of the paper should be taken, for he was a friend of all the founders, for many years contributor, and for some few years editor, and he positively stated, in a lecture he used to deliver some years ago, called “Modern Satire,” that Punch was founded July the 17th, 1841, by two or three gentlemen—Henry Mayhew, the original projector; Mark Lemon, E. Landells, Sterling Coyne, and Henry Grattan; and that the third number would not have been published had Mark Lemon not been fortunate enough to sell a farce, called “The Silver Thimble,” which put them in funds until they gave the printing of the paper into the hands of Messrs.