John Doran, 'Notes and Queries' — Men of the Day, No. 72

Leslie Ward ('Spy') depicts the literary historian and editor John Doran FSA as a portly, balding gentleman in a dark frock coat, hands clasped before him in a posture of mild self-satisfaction. The caption, 'Notes and Queries,' salutes his long association with that learned periodical, which he edited from 1872. The caricature follows Spy's characteristic formula — head enlarged, body compressed — but without ethnic distortion; Doran was an English man of letters whose comedy lies entirely in social type: the comfortable, slightly vain Victorian scholar, prosperous enough for a watch-chain, distinguished enough for white mutton-chop whiskers, and pleased enough with himself to stand absolutely still about it.