ound in bed, but he was equal to the occasion. Snatching
a sheet of paper and a pencil he drew a curve. "There," said he, "is the
triumphal arch, and here"--scribbling a number of scratches like
eccentric comets--"here are the fireworks." Mr. Browne's drawings
occasionally showed a tendency to approach the rudimentary sort of
"pictograph" rather than give what a dramatic critic calls "a solid and
studied rendering" of events. But many of Mr. Browne's illustrations of
Dickens are immortal. They are closely bound up with our earliest and
latest recollections of the work of the "incomparable Boz." Mr.
Pickwick, we believe, was not wholly due to the fancy of Mr. Browne, but
of the unfortunate Seymour, whom death prevented from continuing the
series. Every one has heard how Mr. Thackeray, then an unknown man,
wished to illustrate one of Mr. Dickens's early stories, and brought Mr.
Dickens examples of his skill. Fortunately, his offer was not accepted.
Mr. Thackeray's pencil was the proper ally of his pen. He saw and drew
Costigan, Becky, Emmy, Lord Steyne, as no one else could have drawn them.
But he had not beheld the creations of Boz in the same light of
imaginative vision. Sometimes, too, it must be allowed that Mr.
Thackeray drew very badly. His "Peg of Limavaddy," in the "Irish Sketch
Book," is a most formless lady, and by no means justifies the enthusiasm
of her poet. Thus the task of illustrating "Pickwick" fell to Mr.
Browne, and he carried on the conceptions of his predecessor with
extraordinary vigour. The old vein of exaggerated caricature he
inherited from the taste of an elder generation. But making allowance
for the exaggeration, what can be better than Mr. Pickwick sliding, or
the awful punishment of Stiggins at the hands of the long-suffering
Weller? We might wish that the young lady in fur-topped boots was
prettier, and indeed more of a lady. But Mr. Browne never had much
success, we think, in drawing pretty faces. He tried to improve in this
respect, but either his girls had little character, or the standard of
female beauty has altered. As to this latter change, there can be no
doubt at all. Leech's girls are not like Thackeray's early pictures of
women; and Mr. Du Maurier's are sometimes sicklied o'er with the pale
cast of an aesthetic period.

It is probable that the influence of Mr. Browne's art reacted in some
degree on Dickens. In the old times every one whom the author invented
th