[Gutenberg 64738] • Phil May · Sketches from "Punch."

Born, April 22, 1S64. Died, August 5, 1903. If the death of Phil May is a loss that the world of art may not soon retrieve, to his wide circle of friends it is an irreparable hurt. He had a nature made to love ; so great a charm of gentleness and unaffected modesty went with his splendid gifts. The hard times of early life, that helped him in his art, as they helped another Filippo, to "learn the look of things," left their trace, too, in the almost reckless generosity he showed for the needs of others. Less careful for himself, he suffered as a man must suffer who has a heart too quickly responsive to the claims of good fellowship always to distinguish in others between friendship and mere camaraderie. Among his colleagues at the Table he inspired a personal affection not less frank and sincere than their admiration, never even faintly tinged with envy, for the genius from which they caught a reflected pride. Their only jealousy was of the happy possessor of the latest of those delightfully spontaneous sketches which he used to make on the backs of the Punch Dinner menus. These gifts are treasured still more dearly now, along with many unrecorded memories that linger about his vacant place.