ts of character may be observed and recognized, were alike visited
and beheld by the ardent Pickwick and his enthusiastic followers.

"The Pickwick Travels, the Pickwick Diary, the Pickwick
Correspondence--in short, the whole of the Pickwick Papers'--were
carefully preserved, and duly registered by the secretary, from time
to time, in the voluminous Transactions of the Pickwick Club. These
Transactions have been purchased from the patriotic secretary, at an
immense expense, and placed in the hands of 'Boz,' the author of
"Sketches Illustrative of Every Day Life and Every Day People"--a
gentleman whom the publishers consider highly qualified for the task
of arranging these important documents, and placing them before the
public in an attractive form. He is at present deeply immersed in his
arduous labours, the first fruits of which will appear on the 31st
March.

"Seymour has devoted himself, heart and graver, to the task of
illustrating the beauties of Pickwick. It was reserved to Gibbon to
paint, in colours that will never fade, the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire--to Hume to chronicle the strife and turmoil of the two
proud houses that divided England against herself--to Napier to pen,
in burning words, the History of the War in the Peninsula--the deeds
and actions of the gifted Pickwick yet remain for 'Boz' and Seymour to
hand down to posterity.

"From the present appearance of these important documents and the
probable extent of the selections from them, it is presumed that the
series will be completed in about twenty numbers."

From this it will be seen that it was intended to exhibit all the humours
of the social amusements with which the public regaled itself. Mr.
Pickwick and friends were to be shown on board a steamer; at races,
fairs, regattas, market days, meetings--"at all the scenes that can
possibly occur to enliven a country place, and at which different traits
of character may be observed and recognized." This was a very scientific
and well drawn scheme; and it was, on the whole, most faithfully and even
brilliantly carried out. But with infinite art Boz emancipated himself
from the formal hide-bound trammels of Syntax tours and the like, when it
was reckoned that the hero and his friends would be exhibited like "Bob
Logic" and "Tom and Jerry" in a regular series of public places. "Mr.
Pickwick has an Adventure at Vaux