As he became better known, he wrote in higher quarters. "Men of Character" appeared in "Blackwood,"--a curious collection of philosophical stories;--for artist he was not; he was always a thinker. He had a way of dressing up a bit of philosophical observation into a story very happily. He had much feeling for symbol, and, like the old architects, would fill all things, pretty or ugly, with meaning. When one reads these stories, one does not feel as if it were the writer's vocation to be a story-teller, but as if he were using the story as a philosophical toy. And it was fortunate for him that he fell on an age of periodicals, a class of works which just suited his genius. He and the modern development of periodical literature grew up together, and grew prosperous together. He was never completely known in England till after the establishment of "Punch." An independent and original organ just suited him, above all; for there he had the full play which he required as a humorist, and as a self-formed man with a peculiar style and experience. "Punch" was the "Argo" which conveyed him to the Golden Fleece. Up to the time of the appearance of this journal, Jerrold had scattered himself very freely over periodical literature. He had conquered a position. He had formed his mind. He had seen the world in many phases, and besides his knowledge of London, had varied his experience of that city by a lengthened residence in France. Still, he had not yet caught _the nation_,--there being many degrees of celebrity below _that_ stage of it; and now, in middle life, his best and crowning success was to begin. I believe that Jerrold had long desiderated a "Punch"; but it is certain that the present famous periodical of that name was started by his son-in-law, Mr. Henry Mayhew. For a while it had no great success, and the copyright was sold for a small sum to Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. Success came, and such a success that "Punch" must always last as part of the comic literature of England. That literature is rich in political as well as other forms of satire; and from various causes, about the time of "Punch," political satire was at a low ebb. The newspapers no longer published squibs as they once had done. The days of the Hooks and Moores had gone by; there was nobody to do with the pen what H. B. did with the pencil. So "Punch" was at once a novelty and a necessity,--from its width of scope, its joint pictorial and literary character, and its exclusive devotion to the comic features of the age. "Figaro" (a satirical predecessor, by Mr. à Beckett) had been very clever, but wanted many of "Punch's" features, and was, above all, not so calculated to hit "society" and get into families.