revious biography of Mr. Pickwick before the story began. We have but a
couple of indications of his calling: the allusion by Perker at the close
of the story--"The agent at Liverpool said he had been obliged to you
many times when you were in business." He was therefore a merchant or in
trade. Snubbin at the trial stated that "Mr. Pickwick had retired from
business and was a gentleman of considerable independent property."

In the original announcement of the "Pickwick Papers" there are some
scraps of information about Mr. Pickwick and the Club itself. This
curious little screed shows that the programme was much larger than the
one carried out:--

"On the 31st of March, 1836, will be published,
to be continued Monthly, price One
Shilling, the First Number of

THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS
OF
THE PICKWICK CLUB;
containing a faithful record of the
PERAMBULATIONS, PERILS, TRAVELS,
ADVENTURES, AND SPORTING TRANSACTIONS
OF THE CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.

EDITED BY "BOZ."

And each Monthly Part embellished with
four illustrations by Seymour.

"The Pickwick Club, so renowned in the annals of Huggin Lane, and so
closely entwined with the thousand interesting associations connected
with Lothbury and Cateaton Street, was founded in the year one
thousand eight hundred and twenty-two, by Samuel Pickwick--the great
traveller--whose fondness for the useful arts prompted his celebrated
journey to Birmingham in the depth of winter; and whose taste for the
beauties of nature even led him to penetrate to the very borders of
Wales in the height of summer.

"This remarkable man would appear to have infused a considerable
portion of his restless and inquiring spirit into the breasts of other
members of the Club, and to have awakened in their minds the same
insatiable thirst for travel which so eminently characterized his own.
The whole surface of Middlesex, a part of Surrey, a portion of Essex,
and several square miles of Kent were in their turns examined and
reported on. In a rapid steamer they smoothly navigated the placid
Thames; and in an open boat they fearlessly crossed the turbid Medway.
High-roads and by-roads, towns and villages, public conveyances and
their passengers, first-rate inns and road-side public houses, races,
fairs, regattas elections, meetings, market days--all the scenes that
can possibly occur to enliven a country place, and at which different
trai