Two years after the death of his father he was articled to a London solicitor, but, the occupation proving uncongenial, he was removed to the office of an architect, Mr Pukington.

For these trifles his mother, to whose energy and common sense he was greatly indebted, soon found a purchaser, through whom he was brought to the notice of the Whympers, the wood-engravers.

His term of apprenticeship over, he hired as studio an attic in the block of buildings standing, up to 1900, between the Strand and Holywell Street, and was soon hard at work for the Illustrated London News.

It was during this period of probation that he first gave evidence of those transcendent qualities which make his work at once the joy and despair of his brother craftsmen.

On the starting of Once a Week, in 1859, Keene's services were requisitioned, his most notable series in this periodical being the illustrations to "Charles Reade's A Good Fight" (afterwards rechristened "The Cloister and the Hearth") and to George Meredith's "Evan Harrington".

[2] In 1858, Keene, who was endowed with a fine voice and was an enthusiastic admirer of old-fashioned music, joined the Jermyn Band, afterwards better known as the Moray Minstrels.

These were placed unreservedly at Keene's disposal, and to their inspiration we owe at least 250 of his most successful drawings in the last twenty years of his connection with Punch.

He held the foremost place amongst English craftsmen in black and white, though his work has never been appreciated at its real value by the general public.

He never required his models to grin through a horse collar, as James Gillray did, or to put on their company manners, as was George du Maurier's wont.

Writing in L'Artiste of a few which he had seen, Félix Bracquemond said: 'By the freedom, the largeness of their drawing and execution, these plates must be classed amongst modern etchings of the first rank.'