effect: without these adjuncts the Head of the Club and his friends would have been more or less abstractions, very much what the characters in Theodore Hook’s “Gilbert Gurney” are. Take Mr. Pickwick. The author supplied only a few hints as to his personal appearance—he was bald, mild, pale, wore spectacles and gaiters; but who would have imagined him as we have him now, with his high forehead, bland air, protuberant front. The same with the others. Mr. Thackeray tried in many ways to give some corporeal existence to his own characters to “Becky,” Pendennis, and others; but who sees them as we do Mr. Pickwick? So with his various “situations”—many most dramatic and effective, but no one would guess it from the etchings. The Pickwick scenes all tell a story of their own; and a person—say a foreigner—who had never even heard of the story would certainly smile over the situations, and be piqued into speculating what could be the ultimate meaning.
At the exhibition “illustrating a century and a half of English humorists,” given by the Fine Art Society—under the direction of Mr. Joseph Grego—in October, 1896, there was a collection of original Pickwick drawings no less than fifty-six in number. There were three by Seymour, two by Bass and thirty-four by Phiz, all used in the book; while of those unused—probably found unsuitable, there were five by Buss, including a proposed title-page, and two of the Fat Boy “awake on this occasion only.” There were also five by Phiz, which were not engraved, and one by Leech. The drawing of the dying clown, Seymour was engaged upon when he committed suicide. Of Buss’ there were two of Mr. Pickwick at the Review, two of the cricket match, two of the Fat Boy “awake,” “the influence of the salmon”—unused, “Mr. Winkle’s first shot”—unused, studies of character in Pickwick, and a study for the title-page. The poor, discarded Buss took a vast deal of pains therefore to accomplish
his task. Of Phiz’s unused designs there was “Mr. Winkle’s first shot” and two for the Gabriel Grub story, also one for “the Warden’s room.” Most interesting of all was his “original study” for the figure of Mr. Pickwick.
Mr. Grego, himself an excellent artist, placed at the door of the society a very telling figure of Mr. Pickwick displayed on a poster and effectively coloured. It was new to find our genial old friend smiling an invitation to us—in Bond Street. This—which I took for a lithographed “poster”—was Mr. Grego’s own work, portrayed in water colours.
There have been many would-be illustrators of the chronicle, some on original lines of their own; but these must be on the whole pronounced to be failures. On looking at them we somehow feel that the figures and situations are wholly strange to us; that we don’t know them or recognize them. The reason is possibly that the artists are not in perfect sympathy or intelligence with the
story; they do not know every turning, corner and cranny of it, as did “Phiz”—and indeed as did everyone else living at that time; they were not inspired, above all, by its author. But there was a more serious reason still for the failure. It will be seen that in Phiz’s wonderful plates the faces and figures are more or less generalized. We cannot tell exactly, for instance, what were Mr. Winkle’s or even Sam Weller’s features. Neither their mouths, eyes, or noses, could be put in distinct shape. We have only the general air and tone and suggestion—as of persons seen afar off in a crowd. Yet they are always recognizable. This is art, and it gave the artist a greater freedom in his treatment. Now when an illustrator like the late Frederick Barnard came, he drew his Jingle, his Pickwick, Weller, and Winkle, with all their features, in quite a literal and particular fashion—the features were minutely and carefully brought out, with the result that they seem almost strange to us. Nor do they express
the characters. There is an expression, but it seems not the one to which we are accustomed. Mr. Pickwick is generally shown as a rather “cranky” and testy old gentleman in his expressions, whereas the note of all “Phiz’s” faces is a good softness and unctuousness even. Now this somewhat philosophical analysis points to a principle in art illustration which accounts in a great measure for the unsatisfactory results where it is attempted to illustrate familiar works—such as those of Tennyson, Shakespeare, etc. The reader has a fixed idea before him, which he has formed for himself—an indistinct, shapeless one it might be, but still of sufficient outline to be disturbed. Among the innumerable presentments of Shakespeare’s heroines no one has ever seen any that satisfied or that even corresponded. They are usually not generalized enough. Again, the readers of “Pickwick” grew month by month, or number by number, more and more acquainted with the characters:
for the figures and faces appeared over and over and yet over again.
The most diverting, however, of all these imitators and extra-illustrators is assuredly the artist of the German edition. The series is admirably drawn, every figure well finished, but figures, faces, and scenes are unrecognizable. It is the Frenchman’s idea of Hamlet. Mr. Pickwick and his friends are stout Germans, dressed in German garments, sitting in German restaurants with long tankards with lids before them. The incidents are made as literal and historical as possible. The difficulty, of course, was that none of their adventures could have occurred in a country like Germany, or if they did, would have become an affair of police. No German could see humour in that. Notwithstanding all this, the true Pickwickian will welcome them as a pleasant contribution to the Pickwickian humour, and no one would have laughed so loudly at them as Boz himself.
The original illustrations form a serious and important department of Pickwickian lore, and entail an almost scientific knowledge. Little, indeed, did the young “Boz” dream, when he was settling with his publishers that the work was to contain forty-two plates—an immense number it might seem—that these were to fructify into such an enormous progeny. We, begin, of course, with the regular official plates that belong strictly to the work. Here we find three artists at work—each succeeding the other—the unfortunate Robert Seymour coming first with his seven spirited pictures; next the unlucky Buss, with his two condemned productions, later to be dismissed from the book altogether; and finally, “Phiz,” or Hablot K. Browne, who furnished the remaining plates to the end. As is well known, so great was the run upon the book that the plates were unequal to the duty, and “Phiz” had to re-engrave them several times—often duplicates on the one plate—naturally not copying them