pboard, who is discovered by
a pipe being required, just as young Tuggs was by his coughing from the
tobacco smoke. Boz was partial to this method of discovery, for, at the
close, Snodgrass was thus concealed and shut up at Osborne's Hotel. His
detection, through the stupidity of the Fat Boy, is singularly natural
and original.

Some of Dowler's dictatorial ways may have been suggested by Boz's
friend, the redoubtable John Forster. There is one passage in the Bath
chapters where we almost seem to hear our old friend speaking, when he
took command of his friends and introduced them, "My friend, Angelo Cyrus
Bantam, Esquire, know each other." "Bantam; Mr. Pickwick and his friends
are strangers. _They must put their names down_. _Where's the book_?"
Then adds: "This is a long call. It's time to go; I shall be here again
in an hour. _Come_." And at the assembly he still continued his
patronage and direction of everybody. "Step in the tea-room--take your
sixpenn'orth. They lay on hot water and call it tea. Drink it," said
Mr. Dowler, _in a loud voice_, _directing Mr. Pickwick_." Forster "all
over." We have heard him "direct" on many an occasion. When starting
from the White Horse Cellars, Dowler, fancying that more passengers were
to be squeezed into the coach, said he would be d---d if there were; he'd
bring an action against the company, and take a post chaise.

II.--Thackeray

In Thackeray's "Newcomes," the writer had some reminiscences of a place
like Eatanswill, for we are told of the rival newspapers, "The Newcome
Independent" and "The Newcome Sentinel," the former being edited by one
Potts. These journals assailed each other like their brethren in
"Pickwick." "Is there any man in Newcome except, perhaps, our _twaddling
old contemporary_, _the Sentinel_," &c. Doyle's picture of the election
is surely a reminiscence of Phiz's. There is the same fight between the
bandsmen--the drum which someone is kicking a hole in, the brass
instrument used, placards, flags, and general _melee_.

Doyle could sketch Forster admirably. Witness the drawing of the
travelling party in a carriage, given by Mr. Kitton in his wonderful
collection, "Dickens, by pen and pencil," where he has caught Forster's
"magisterial" air to the life. The picture, "F. B.," Fred Bayham in the
story, is certainly the figure of Forster (vol. ii., pp. 55 and 116.) F.
B. is shown both as a critic and pressman, though he has nothing