dy achieved his reputation; and so well assured was this
reputation, that the young novelist in his preface to his "Sketches by
Boz," speaks of the nervousness he should have experienced in venturing
_alone_ before the public, and of his delight in securing the
co-operation of an artist so distinguished as George Cruikshank. In
1838, however, the author like the artist had made his mark: "Pickwick"
and "Nicholas Nickleby," and "Oliver Twist" had been written; and every
vestige of the nervousness of which he speaks in the preface to his
"Sketches" had disappeared for ever.

Mr. Sala has somewhere happily remarked that Charles Dickens wanted
rather a scene painter for his novels than a mere illustrator of books,
and the very last person to answer his requirements was George
Cruikshank; for, while ready and willing to execute designs illustrative
of Mr. Dickens's writings, he made it an implied condition of his
retainer, that he should be free to design them in his own way and after
his own fashion. It was an _essential_ condition of George Cruikshank's
success as a draughtsman, not only that he should feel a sympathy for
any subject he was called upon to design, but also that his genius
should be left unfettered and untrammelled in his method of treatment.
Hence it was that he found it impossible to co-operate with so exacting
an employer of artistic labour as Charles Dickens. The latter argued,
with some show of reason, that knowing what he intended to describe, he
was the fittest and most competent person to explain how his meaning
should be pictorially carried out. This sort of arrangement, however,
did not suit the independent and somewhat impracticable spirit of the
artist, and the result was almost a foregone conclusion. These two men
of genius inevitably clashed; and the connection between Charles Dickens
and Cruikshank was abruptly severed.

A singular memorial of the quarrel between Dickens and Cruikshank will
be found in the last illustration to the author's novel of "Oliver
Twist," one of the worst that the artist ever executed. Although Mr.
Forster does not say so--and possibly would not admit it,--Charles
Dickens is directly responsible for this result, as the reader will
agree when he learns the whole of the facts, which are only partly given
in Forster's "Life," and in every other work which professes to tell the
story.

The reader will not require to be told that "Oliver Twist" made its
appearance in th