ugh. Again, the readers of "Pickwick" grew month by month, or number
by number, more and more acquainted with the characters: for the figures
and faces appeared over and over and yet over again.

The most diverting, however, of all these imitators and
extra-illustrators is assuredly the artist of the German edition. The
series is admirably drawn, every figure well finished, but figures,
faces, and scenes are unrecognizable. It is the Frenchman's idea of
Hamlet. Mr. Pickwick and his friends are stout Germans, dressed in
German garments, sitting in German restaurants with long tankards with
_lids_ before them. The incidents are made as literal and historical as
possible. The difficulty, of course, was that none of their adventures
could have occurred in a country like Germany, or if they did, would have
become an affair of police. No German could see humour in that.
Notwithstanding all this, the true Pickwickian will welcome them as a
pleasant contribution to the Pickwickian humour, and no one would have
laughed so loudly at them as Boz himself.

The original illustrations form a serious and important department of
Pickwickian lore, and entail an almost _scientific_ knowledge. Little,
indeed, did the young "Boz" dream, when he was settling with his
publishers that the work was to contain forty-two plates--an immense
number it might seem--that these were to fructify into such an enormous
progeny. We, begin, of course, with the regular official plates that
belong strictly to the work. Here we find three artists at work--each
succeeding the other--the unfortunate Robert Seymour coming first with
his seven spirited pictures; next the unlucky Buss, with his two
condemned productions, later to be dismissed from the book altogether;
and finally, "Phiz," or Hablot K. Browne, who furnished the remaining
plates to the end. As is well known, so great was the run upon the book
that the plates were unequal to the duty, and "Phiz" had to re-engrave
them several times--often duplicates on the one plate--naturally not
copying them very closely. Hence we have the rather interesting
"variations." He by-and-bye re-engraved Seymour's seven, copying them
with wonderful exactness, and finally substituted two of his own for
those of the condemned Buss. The volume, therefore, was furnished with
seven Seymours, and their seven replicas, the two Buss's, their two
replicas, and the thirty-three "Phiz" pictures, each with its
"variati