e artist was pretty certain to caricature. Thus the author may have
felt the temptation to keep pace with the frolic humour of the artist.
Mr. Browne cannot be blamed for a tendency to exaggerate noses and other
features, which was almost universal in his time. None of us can say
what conception would now be entertained of Dickens's characters if Mr.
Browne had not drawn them. In the later works of Dickens (when they were
illustrated) other artists were employed, as Mr. Stone and Mr. Fildes.
These are accomplished painters of established reputation, and they of
course avoided the old system of caricature, the old forced humour. But
we doubt whether their designs are so intimately associated with the
persons in the stories as are the designs of Mr. Browne. The later
artists had this disadvantage, that the later novels (except "Great
Expectations," which was not illustrated) were neither so good nor so
popular as "Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "David
Copperfield," or even "Bleak House." We never can have any Mr. Micawber
but Phiz's indescribably jaunty Micawber. His Mr. Pecksniff is not very
like a human being, but his collars and his eye-glass redeem him, and
after all Pecksniff is a transcendental and incredible Tartuffe. Tom
Pinch is even less sympathetic in the drawings than in the novel. Jonas
Chuzzlewit is also "too steep," as a modern critic has said in modern
slang. But in the novel, too, Mr. Jonas is somewhat precipitous.
Nicholas Nickleby is a colourless sort of young man in the illustrations,
but then he is not very vividly presented in the text. Ralph Nickleby
and Arthur Gride may pair off with Jonas Chuzzlewit, but who can
disparage the immortal Mr. Squeers? From the first moment when we see
him at his inn, with the starveling little boys, through all the story,
Mr. Squeers is consistently exquisite. In spite of his cruelty,
coarseness, hypocrisy, there is a kind of humour in Mr. Squeers which
makes him not quite detestable. In "David Copperfield" Mr. Micawber is
perhaps the only artistic creation of much permanent merit, unless it be
the waiter who consumed David's dinner, and the landlady who gave him a
pint of the Regular Stunning. In "Bleak House" Mr. Browne made some
credible attempts to be tragic and pathetic. Jo is remembered, and the
gateway of the churchyard where the rats were, and the Ghost's Walk in
the gloomy domain of Lady Dedlock.

It is a singular and gloo