fitted to carry out the artist's _own_ idea seems
to us to have been John Poole, one of the most original of English
humourists, whose productions, now forgotten, are worth searching for in
the pages of the "New Monthly" and other periodical publications of a
past day. It is a singular fact, too, that on the first appearance of
the "Pickwick Papers," the authorship was by many ascribed to this very
man. In the end, Mr. Chapman, of the firm of Chapman & Hall, introduced
the artist to one of the most unlikely men for his own purpose that
could possibly have been selected,--the man, as we have already seen, of
all others the least fitted and the least disposed to act the part of
William Coombe to Seymour's character of Thomas Rowlandson.

At this time Charles Dickens was reporter on the staff of a newspaper;
he had written a book which, although successful, had created no very
intense excitement; he was moreover a young man, and consequently
plastic, and fifteen pounds a month would be a small fortune to him; so
at least argued the artist and his friends. How little they understood
the resolute, self-reliant character of this unknown writer! The result
was altogether different from anything they expected. Author and artist
differed at the outset as to the form the narrative should take; but the
man with the strongest power of mind and will took his stand from the
first, and Charles Dickens made it a condition of his retainer that the
illustrations should grow out of the text, instead of the latter being
suggested (as Seymour desired) by the illustrations, and the artist had
reluctantly to give way. No one can doubt that the author was right. By
way however of a concession, and of meeting Seymour's original idea as
far as practicable, he introduced the absurd character of Winkle, the
cockney sportsman. The mode of publication followed was the artist's own
suggestion, who, desiring the widest possible circulation, insisted on
the work being published in monthly numbers at a shilling. Thus it was
that "Pickwick" came to be written.

We are not called on in this place to discuss the merits of "Pickwick";
to compare Charles Dickens with the writers who had immediately preceded
him; to enlarge upon the comic vein which he discovered and made so
peculiarly his own; to show the influence which his humour exercised
upon the literature of the next quarter of a century; to contrast such
humour with his wonderful power of pathos; to