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e Analysis of the Hunting Field_, with illustrations by Alken, who now disappears from our view, though he left two or three sons in the same "line of business," with whom he has sometimes been confused, while the popular name of Alken became a general patronymic for a whole school of sporting artists. Surtees, who died at Brighton in 1864, was a fine horseman and a keen observer of social types, though, so far from being the rollicking sportsman suggested by his books, he is described as a man of rather reserved and taciturn nature. The remarkable character of Mr. Jorrocks was evolved during long, lonely journeys, when the shrewd ex-grocer, or rather his imaginary conception, stood his creator in the stead of a travelling companion. [Illustration: MR. JORROCKS' LECTURE ON "UNTING"] [Illustration: COLOURED TITLE PAGE] IV THE _PICKWICK_ ILLUSTRATORS ROBERT SEYMOUR The success of the _Jaunts and Jollities_, and of Egan's _Finish to Life in London_, suggested, it is said, to Messrs. Chapman and Hall the idea of a work which should deal with the adventures of a club of Cockney sportsmen, and serve as a vehicle for the humorous designs of Robert Seymour. Leigh Hunt and Theodore Hook were asked, in the first instance, to supply the letterpress; but, on their refusal, the young Charles Dickens, then (1835) just three-and-twenty, and only known as the author of some amusing sketches, was chosen to act as the literary illustrator of the work. Dickens rejected the idea of a sporting club, though he so far deferred to the publishers' suggestions as to create the immortal Pickwick Club, into which Mr. Winkle was introduced expressly for the exploitation of Seymour's peculiar talent. The young author also stipulated that, instead of being expected to "write up" to the artist's designs, he should be allowed a free hand with the letterpress, the illustrations being allowed to arise naturally out of the incidents described in the text. On 26th March 1836 it was announced that the first number of _The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club_ would be published on the 30th, the work to be issued in shilling monthly parts under the editorship of "Boz," each part being illustrated with four etchings on steel by Seymour. Robert Seymour (1800?-36) had already made his name as a caricaturist and book-illustrator. He had published a volume of humorous sketches (mostly dealing with sporting misadventures), and had been emplo
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