ckeray for the striking proof
which Charles Lever was thus enabled to afford us of the versatility of
a genius which enabled him to change front and alter his style with
manifest advantage to his literary reputation.

The fact of his waiting upon Dickens at his chambers in Furnival's Inn
"with two or three drawings in his hand, which strange to say he did not
find suitable" for "Pickwick," has been told so often that there is no
occasion for repeating it again; but the circumstances under which he
seems to have sought the interview not being, so far as we know, stated
anywhere, we shall now proceed to relate them. Thackeray was in London
when Seymour shot himself in 1836. The death of the latter caused a
vacancy in the post of illustrator to "Figaro in London," which at that
time Seymour was illustrating as well as "Pickwick," and such vacancy
was supplied by Thackeray, who, I think, continued to illustrate it
until the paper died a natural death. His designs for "Figaro in London"
were drawn in pen and ink on paper, and transferred to the wood by the
engravers, Messrs. Branstone and Wright, and the remuneration he
received for them was very trifling, at most a few shillings each. It
was probably this circumstance which put into his head the idea of
illustrating "Pickwick." From what we know of the graphic abilities of
Thackeray and the fastidious requirements of Dickens, we may readily
understand why the post rendered vacant by Seymour's suicide was given
to an abler artist.

We wish that from a work dealing with comic art in the nineteenth
century the name of Mr. Thackeray might be omitted; for no notice of
him, however short, would be just or complete which failed to refer to
his book illustrations. To do this we must separate Thackeray the artist
from Thackeray the man of letters. Regarding him simply in the character
of illustrator of the novels of W. M. Thackeray, we are bound in justice
to the memory of that great and sterling humourist, to say that he has
undertaken a task which is manifestly beyond his powers. While Thackeray
with his _pen_ could most effectively describe a fascinating woman, like
Becky Sharp, the illusion vanishes the moment his artist essays to draw
her portrait with his pencil. While Thackeray's women are pretty and
fascinating, well dressed and accomplished, the artist's women on the
contrary are hideous; their waists commence somewhere in the region of
their knees; and their clothes look