GRIGSBY (_who made an all but successful offer of three-seventeen-six_ for said Picture, last week, to old Moss Isaacs, in Wardour Street): "By Jove, he was precious near being an _Ancestor of Mine_, too!" (_Proceeds to explain, but is interrupted by Sir P.'s proposing to join the Ladies._)] _Punch's_ attitude to the French, it may be noted, had grown much more genial and appreciative after the war of 1870. This mellower temper reflected a general feeling, but it was due in part at least to the influence of Du Maurier, who had French blood in his veins and had studied art in Paris. He did not refrain from chaffing the French "sportman," but his satire was delicate and tempered by candour. For example, one need only point to the picture of the Englishman in France expostulating with his French artist friend at the caricatures of Englishwomen in the Parisian Press, and suddenly silenced by the inopportune appearance of a party of Englishwomen exactly bearing out the caricature! _Punch_ had no love of the English tourist on the Continent, and seldom failed to gibbet his inconsiderate angularity. He was no believer in globe-trotting as a means of promoting mutual understanding. But he was increasingly ready to admit that there were things which they managed better abroad, and to acknowledge that we might go very far astray if we formed our estimate of France on "_Les Français peints par eux mêmes_." Both nations have a way of putting their worst foot foremost, the one through shyness and reserve, the other through an excess of outspokenness, and Du Maurier's racial dualism made him an excellent interpreter of both failings. Out of many miscellaneous features of this period we may single out the Japanese craze, a form of cheap æstheticism satirized by _Punch_ in the early 'eighties; the popularity of the banjo, honoured by more than one reference in 1886 when it appears among the luggage to be taken to the seaside; the fashion in huge St. Bernard dogs, beloved of Du Maurier, who yet recognized the absurdity of breeding gigantic types in one of his nightmare pictures in 1879; and the plague of recitation, faithfully dealt with in _Punch's_ admirable "Manual for Young Reciters." Christmas cards became fashionable in 1876; and _Punch_, as a sentimentalist, did not support the agitation against them as a "senseless extravagance" in 1878. The "Missing Word Competition" entered on its devastating career in 1892. [Sidenote: "_Fin-de-Siècle_"] As a symptom of the general speeding-up of life, and the resort to short cuts of all sorts in speech, as well as in action, one may note the appearance of a group of new words, of which "leaderette" and "sermonette" were the most notable until the arrival, many years later, of the "Suffragette." With the arrival of the 'nineties another formidable phrase, _fin-de-siècle_, sprang into prominence, and soon achieved a popularity that exasperated _Punch_ beyond the bounds of endurance:--