no comments, having reference to a letter signed 'R. Seymour,' which in your editorial discretion you published last week.

"Mr. Seymour, the artist, never originated, suggested, or in any way had to do with, save as illustrator of what I devised, an incident, a character (except the sporting tastes of Mr. Winkle), a name, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the 'Pickwick Papers.'

"I never saw Mr. Seymour's handwriting, I believe, in my life.

"I never even saw Mr. Seymour but once in my life, and that was within eight-and-forty hours of his untimely death. Two persons, both still living, were present on that short occasion.

"Mr. Seymour died when only the first twenty-four printed pages of the 'Pickwick Papers' were published; I think before the next three or four pages were completely written; I am sure before one subsequent line of the book was invented.

"In the Preface to the cheap edition of the 'Pickwick Papers,' published in October, 1847, I thus described the origin of that work:-'I was a young man of three-and-twenty, when the present publishers, attracted by some pieces I was at that time writing in the Morning Chronicle newspaper (of which one series had lately been collected and published in two volumes, illustrated by my esteemed friend Mr. George Cruikshank), waited upon me to propose a something that should be published in shilling

*

numbers then only known to me, or, I believe, to anybody else, by a dim recollection of certain interminable novels in that form, which used, some fiveand-twenty years ago, to be carried about the country by pedlars, and over some of which I remember to have shed innumerable tears before I served my apprenticeship to Life. The idea propounded to me was that the monthly something should be a vehicle for certain plates, to be executed by Mr. Seymour; and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable humorous artist, or of my visitor (I forget which), that a "Nimrod Club," the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing these. I objected, on consideration, that although born and partly bred in the country, I was no great sportsman, except in regard of all kinds of locomotion; that the idea was not novel, and had been already much used; that it would be infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text; and that I should like to take my own way, with a freer range of English scenes and people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so in any case, whatever course I might prescribe to myself at starting. My views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the proof sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club, and that happy portrait of its founder, by which he is always recognized,

and which may be said to have made him a reality. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a club because of the original suggestion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour. We started with a number of twenty-four pages instead of thirty-two, and four illustrations in lieu of a couple. Mr. Seymour's sudden and lamented death before. the second number was published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in agitation; the number became one of thirty-two pages with two illustrations, and remained so to the end.

"In July, 1849, some incoherent assertions made by the widow of Mr. Seymour, in the course of certain endeavours of hers to raise money, induced me to address a letter to Mr. Edward Chapman, then the only surviving business partner in the original firm of Chapman and Hall, who first published the 'Pickwick Papers,' requesting him to inform me in writing whether the foregoing statement was correct.

"In Mr. Chapman's confirmatory answer, immediately written, he reminded me that I had given Mr. Seymour more credit than was his due. As this letter is to be historical,' he wrote, 'I may as well claim what little belongs to me in the matter, and that is, the figure of Pickwick. Seymour's first sketch' (made from the proof of my first chapter) was for a long, thin man. The present immortal one he made from my description of a friend of mine at Richmond.""

CHAPTER III.

POPULARITY OF THE "PICKWICK PAPERS."

R. JAMES GRANT'S account of Dickens's earliest writings we have already given.

M

The same gentleman has favoured us with some personal recollections of the fortune which attended the first publication of "Pickwick":

"In connection with the rapidity of Mr. Dickens's rise, and the heights to which he soared in the regions of literature, I may mention a few facts which have not before found their way into print. The terms on which he concluded an arrangement with Messrs. Chapman and Hall for the publication of the Pickwick Papers,' were fifteen guineas for each number, the number consisting of two sheets, or thirty-two pages. That was a rather smaller sum than that at which he offered, just at the same time, to contribute to the Monthly Magazine, then under my Editorship.

'For the first five months of its existence Mr. Dickens's first serial, the 'Pickwick Papers,' was a signal failure, and notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Charles Tilt, at that time a publisher of considerable eminence, made extraordinary exertions, out

of friendship for Messrs. Chapman and Hall, to ensure its success. He sent out, on what is called sale or return, to all parts of the provinces, no fewer than fifteen hundred copies of each of the first five numbers. This gave the 'Pickwick Papers' a very extensive publicity, yet Mr. Tilt's only result was an average sale of about fifty copies of each of the five parts. A certain number of copies sold, of course, through other channels, but commercially the publication was a decided failure. Two months before this Mr. Seymour, the artist, died suddenly, but left sketches for two parts more, and the question was then debated by the publishers whether they ought not to discontinue the publication of the serial. But just while the matter was under their consideration, Sam Weller, who had been introduced in the previous number, began to attract great attention, and to call forth much admiration. The press was all but unanimous in praising 'Samivel' as an entirely original character, whom none but a great genius could have created; and all of a sudden, in consequence of Samivel's' popularity, the 'Pickwick Papers' rose to an unheard-of popularity. The back numbers of the work were ordered to a large extent, and of course all idea of discontinuing it was abandoned.

"No one can read these interesting incidents without being struck with the fact that the future literary career of Mr. Dickens should have been for a brief season placed in circumstances of so much risk