[25] An American edition (published in 1844) contains fourteen clever replicas of the "Dombey" etchings.
[26] In Mr. Andrew Lang's opinion, these sketches for Mr. Dombey look like "a collection of criminal butlers."
[27] This letter was by chance preserved from a bonfire made by Browne of his old letters and unfinished drawings previous to a change of residence.
HABLÔT K. BROWNE
III
"David Copperfield"—The Designs prepared in Duplicate—"Phiz's" Portrait of Mr. Micawber—Peggotty's Hut—Trifling Errors in the Plates—Original Drawings—Designs for "I Make myself Known to my Aunt"—Variations in the Etchings—Frontispiece for the First Cheap Edition—Vignettes for the Library Edition—"Bleak House"—Plates partly Duplicated—Some Curious Inaccuracies—Skimpole successfully Portrayed—"Phiz" takes Mental Notes—Original Drawings—Alterations in the Plates—The "Bleak House" Illustrations Criticised—Frontispiece for the First Cheap Edition—Vignettes for the Library Edition—"Little Dorrit"—Illustrations Unsigned—"Machine-ruled Designs"—A Letter from Dickens respecting one of the Plates—Original Drawings—Pictorial Wrapper—"A Tale Of Two Cities"—A Letter from "Phiz" to his Son—Dickens Forestalled—An Unpublished Design—Last of Dickens's Stories Illustrated by "Phiz"—The Artist's Conjectures as to the Cause of the Severance—His Tender Regard for the Novelist—His Antecedents—Apprenticeship at Finden's—Exhibits at the Royal Academy—Inability to Draw from "the Life"—Some Letters to Dickens—"The Pic Nic Papers"—An Early Reminiscence of Dickens—"Phiz's" Remuneration—From Prosperity to Adversity—Serious Illness—A Broken-down Old Man—Paralysis—A Pathetic Grievance—Applies for a Government Pension—Recognition by the Royal Academy—Decline of Imagination and Power of Invention—Death of the Artist—Mr. J. G. Fennell's Tribute—"Phiz's" Shyness—An Extraordinary Commission—Water-colour Replicas of the Dickens Illustrations—Vignettes for the Library Edition of "Sketches by Boz" and "Oliver Twist"—"Phiz's" Fellow-Apprentice, Coadjutor, and Friend—Etching the Plates—Mezzotint Effects—Furnival's Inn—A Note from "Phiz" to his Colleague—Mr. Robert Young's Autobiographical Sketch.
David Copperfield, 1849-50.In "David Copperfield," the most fascinating of Dickens's novels, it cannot be said that "Phiz" quite rose to the occasion. Although some of these plates he never excelled, the majority are marked by a certain hardness and stiffness of treatment, and are conspicuously deficient in that vigour and deftness of touch which characterise his previous efforts.
As in the case of "Dombey and Son," the whole of the designs were etched in duplicate, the replicas differing but slightly from the originals. About half of the series were executed singly on octavo steels, instead of in couples on the usual quarto plates. In one of the designs, viz., "The River," the artist has again resorted to the ruling-machine for attaining the desired effect, but the result is poor and meagre. He has succeeded admirably in his presentment of Micawber, respecting which Dickens wrote to Forster: "Browne has sketched an uncommonly characteristic and capital Mr. Micawber for the next number." The most pleasing of all these etchings, however, are those in which the boy-hero figures, such as those depicting him with the "friendly waiter" at the bar of the public-house, and as, with battered hat and ragged raiment, he "makes himself known to his aunt."
It has been asserted that "Phiz" at this period sometimes grew careless, and that Dickens did not exercise that particular surveillance over the artist's work which he customarily bestowed upon it in the early days. For example, the novelist thus describes Peggotty's odd residence, an old boat drawn up on land and fashioned into a house: "There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it." He never refers to it as an inverted boat, although it is so delineated by "Phiz,"—indeed, the inference is that the vessel stood upon its keel, for elsewhere it is mentioned as being left "high and dry," as though it were a boat that had been washed ashore. If such was the novelist's conception, it seems strange and unaccountable that he should have accepted without a protest the artist's misrepresentation of Peggotty's home. Curiously enough, there might have been seen within recent years, on the open Denes at Yarmouth, an inverted boat similarly converted into a cosy residence, the existence of which apparently gives actuality to "Phiz's" drawing.