At sixteen years of age, young Leech left Charterhouse, and, notwithstanding Flaxman's advice that the boy should follow the profession of an artist, his father put him to the medical profession at St. Bartholomew's, under Mr Stanley, the surgeon of the Hospital. After a time he was placed under Mr Whittle, an eccentric practitioner at Hoxton, and subsequently under Dr John Cockle, afterwards physician to the Royal Free Hospital. Throughout his various situations, young Leech become famous among his fellow students and friends for his extremely clever--and, at the same time, always good-natured--caricatures. He was for ever drawing scenes, characters, and incidents in daily life. About this time, young Leech's liking for horses probably received its first development, through his friendship with Mr Charles Adams. Mr Adams was the owner of two horses which it was his delight to drive tandem fashion, and in his excursions Leech was his constant companion. To this circumstance we are, no doubt, partially indebted for many of the clever bits of driving and country road life depicted by the pencil of the artist. At this early period of his career, Leech made numerous life friendships with men who afterwards became distinguished. Notable among these men were Albert Smith and Percival Leigh. At eighteen years of age, Leech published his first work, entitled "Etchings and Sketchings by A. Pen, Esq." It was a small work of four quarto sheets. As he got more and more engrossed in artistic work, the young student seems to have gradually given up his medical studies, and to have resolved to live by his pencil. In course of time he turned his attention to lithography, and, having drawn pictures upon lithographic stones, he has been known to spend many a weary day in carrying such heavy stones from publisher to publisher in search of a buyer. But as his fame increased, the difficulty of getting remunerative employment rapidly diminished. A good deal of Leech's early work, among other things, was in connection with _Bell's Life in London_, the best-known sporting paper of the time. Here he was associated with Cruikshank, Madons, "Phiz," and Seymour. It was when at work for _Bell's Life_ that he first imbibed a taste for field sports, which developed into a strong feature in his pictorial career. He joined the hounds in Herefordshire, where Millais became his fellow pupil in acquiring the arts of the chase. Among the schemes of drollery that our artist participated in about this time was the _Comic Latin Grammar_, Leigh contributing the text, and Leech the illustrations. This was followed by the _Comic English Grammar_, and likewise by the _Children of the Mobility_, a parody on a well-known work devoted to the serious glorification of our juvenile aristocracy.