Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/92

 This, however, may have been a custom of the day at free and easy meetings.

"Posthumous papers"—moreover, did not correctly describe the character of the Book, for the narrative did not profess to be founded on documents at all. He was, however, committed to this title by his early announcement, and indeed intended to carry out a device of using Snodgrass's "Note Books," whose duty it was during the course of the adventures to take down diligently all that he observed. But this cumbrous fiction was discarded after a couple of numbers. "Posthumous papers" had been used some ten years before, in another work.

Almost every page—save perhaps a dismal story or two—in the 609 pages of Pickwick is good; but there are two or three passages which are obscure, if not forced in humour. Witness Mr Bantam's recognition of Mr. Pickwick, as the gentleman residing on Clapham Green—not yet Common—"who