Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/316

 of Christmas." Out of this undeveloped idea, and out of the four apparently unimportant drawings to which we have alluded, was destined to evolve the strange and melancholy story which will be associated for all time with the mirth-inspiring novel of the "Pickwick Papers."

The difficulty at the outset was to find an author to carry out the artist's idea, indefinite as it was. In this direction there was in 1836, a very embarras de richesses, for, if comic artists were few, there was on the other hand no lack of humourists of the highest order of merit. Theodore Hook, Clark (the author of "Three Courses and a Dessert")—probably many others were suggested by the publishers who were taken into consultation by Seymour; but all were rejected. He himself seems to have inclined towards Mayhew, with whom it will be recollected he was associated at this time on "Figaro in London." The man of all others most fitted to carry out the artist's own idea seems to us to have been John Poole, one of the most original of English humourists, whose productions, now forgotten, are worth searching for in the pages of the "New Monthly" and other periodical publications of a past day. It is a singular fact, too, that on the first appearance of the "Pickwick Papers," the authorship was by many ascribed to this very man. In the end, Mr. Chapman, of the firm of Chapman & Hall, introduced the artist to one of the most unlikely men for his own purpose that could possibly have been selected, the man, as we have already seen, of all others the least fitted and the least disposed to act the part of William Coombe to Seymour's character of Thomas Rowlandson.

At this time Charles Dickens was reporter on the staff of a newspaper; he had written a book which, although successful, had created no very intense excitement; he was moreover a young man, and consequently plastic, and fifteen pounds a month would be a small fortune to him; so at least argued the artist and his friends. How little they understood the resolute, self-reliant character of this unknown writer! The result was altogether different from anything they expected. Author and artist differed at the outset as to the form the narrative should take; but the man with the strongest