sworth, Bulwer,
Marryat, Maxwell, Egan, Hook and Surtees, had been pressed into this
kind of enterprise. The publishers of the day had not been slow to
perceive Dickens's aptitude for this species of "letterpress." A member
of the firm of Chapman & Hall called upon him at Furnival's Inn in
December 1835 with a proposal that he should write about a Nimrod Club
of amateur sportsmen, foredoomed to perpetual ignominies, while the
comic illustrations were to be etched by Seymour, a well-known rival of
Cruikshank (the illustrator of _Boz_). The offer was too tempting for
Dickens to refuse, but he changed the idea from a club of Cockney
sportsmen to that of a club of eccentric peripatetics, on the sensible
grounds, first that sporting sketches were stale, and, secondly, that he
knew nothing worth speaking of about sport. The first seven pictures
appeared with the signature of Seymour and the letterpress of Dickens.
Before the eighth picture appeared Seymour had blown his brains out.
After a brief interval of Buss, Dickens obtained the services of Hablot
K. Browne, known to all as "Phiz." Author and illustrator were as well
suited to one another and to the common creation of a unique thing as
Gilbert and Sullivan. Having early got rid of the sporting element,
Dickens found himself at once. The subject exactly suited his knowledge,
his skill in arranging incidents--nay, his very limitations too. No
modern book is so incalculable. We commence laughing heartily at
Pickwick and his troupe. The laugh becomes kindlier. We are led on
through a tangle of adventure, never dreaming what is before us. The
landscape changes: Pickwick becomes the symbol of kindheartedness,
simplicity and innocent levity. Suddenly in the Fleet Prison a deeper
note is struck. The medley of human relationships, the loneliness, the
mystery and sadness of human destinies are fathomed. The tragedy of
human life is revealed to us amid its most farcical elements. The droll
and laughable figure of the hero is transfigured by the kindliness of
human sympathy into a beneficent and bespectacled angel in shorts and
gaiters. By defying accepted rules, Dickens had transcended the limited
sphere hitherto allotted to his art: he had produced a book to be
enshrined henceforth in the inmost hearts of all sorts and conditions of
his countrymen, and had definitely enlarged the boundaries of English
humour and English fiction. As for Mr Pickwick, he is a fairy like Puck
or Santa