be questioned whether his one hack book is not his
masterpiece.

Of course it is true that as he went on his independence increased, and
he kicked quite free of the influences that had suggested his story. So
Shakespeare declared his independence of the original chronicle of
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, eliminating altogether (with some wisdom)
another uncle called Wiglerus. At the start the Nimrod Club of Chapman
and Hall may have even had equal chances with the Pickwick Club of young
Mr. Dickens; but the Pickwick Club became something much better than any
publisher had dared to dream of. Some of the old links were indeed
severed by accident or extraneous trouble; Seymour, for whose sake the
whole had perhaps been planned, blew his brains out before he had drawn
ten pictures. But such things were trifles compared to _Pickwick_
itself. It mattered little now whether Seymour blew his brains out, so
long as Charles Dickens blew his brains in. The work became
systematically and progressively more powerful and masterly. Many
critics have commented on the somewhat discordant and inartistic change
between the earlier part of _Pickwick_ and the later; they have pointed
out, not without good sense, that the character of Mr. Pickwick changes
from that of a silly buffoon to that of a solid merchant. But the case,
if these critics had noticed it, is much stronger in the minor
characters of the great company. Mr. Winkle, who has been an idiot
(even, perhaps, as Mr. Pickwick says, "an impostor"), suddenly becomes a
romantic and even reckless lover, scaling a forbidden wall and planning
a bold elopement. Mr. Snodgrass, who has behaved in a ridiculous manner
in all serious positions, suddenly finds himself in a ridiculous
position--that of a gentleman surprised in a secret love affair--and
behaves in a manner perfectly manly, serious, and honourable. Mr.
Tupman alone has no serious emotional development, and for this reason
it is, presumably, that we hear less and less of Mr. Tupman towards the
end of the book. Dickens has by this time got into a thoroughly serious
mood--a mood expressed indeed by extravagant incidents, but none the
less serious for that; and into this Winkle and Snodgrass, in the
character of romantic lovers, could be made to fit. Mr. Tupman had to be
left out of the love affairs; therefore Mr. Tupman is left out of the
book.

Much of the change was due to the entrance of the greatest character in
the story. It may