If any one had been guilty of plagiarism, it was Dickens, for the first number of the “Pickwick Papers” appeared in April, 1836, while the early chapters of “The Clockmaker” were published in 1835, and were at once widely copied by the American press, and may have been seen by Dickens.
The Cockney dialect was used as far back as 1811 in a farce by Samuel Beazley, architect; and no doubt the Yankee dialect in “The Clockmaker” was not its first appearance in literature.
Duncan Campbell says in his “History of Nova Scotia” (p. 335), “Sam Slick, the Clockmaker, immediately attracted attention. The character proved to be as original and amusing as Sam Weller. Samuel amuses us only. Slick both amuses and instructs. Rarely do we find in any character, not excepting the best of Scott’s, the same degree of originality and force, combined with humor, sagacity, and sound sense, as we find in the Clockmaker. Industry and perseverance are effectively inculcated in comic story and racy narrative. In the department of instructive humor Haliburton stands, perhaps, unrivalled in English literature.”
The Spectator (London) calls him “One of the shrewdest of humorists;” and his biographer in Chambers’ Encyclopedia says, “he attained a place and fame difficult to acquire at all times—that of a man whose humor was a native of one country and became naturalized in another, for humor is the least exotic of the gifts of Genius.”
Philarète Chasles in the Revue des Deux Mondes,[[7]] in a long and favorable notice of Judge Haliburton’s works, pronounced them to be unequalled by anything that had been written in England since the days of Sir Walter Scott.
Long after “Sam Slick, the Clockmaker,” first appeared, it was by many persons referred to as a store-house of practical wisdom and common sense, and a vade mecum as to the affairs of every-day life. Forty years ago an able but very eccentric Danish Governor at St. Thomas, in the West Indies, was noted far and wide for his excessive admiration for Sam Slick’s works. Whenever a very knotty point arose before him and his Council, which consisted of three persons, he used to say “We must adjourn till to-morrow. I should like to look into this point. I must see what Sam Slick has to say about it.”
A traveller on reaching the most northern town in the world, Hammerfest, found that Sam Slick had been there before him, for the “Clockmaker” was a hobby and a textbook of a humorous Scotchman, who was the British consul there at that time.
Judge Haliburton was very fond of youthful society; old men were too old for him, for he used to say that a large majority of men when they begin to grow old become very prosy. On the other hand, his humor and conversational powers were very attractive to young men. In illustration of this, the late Sir Fitzroy Kelly, who considered him the most agreeable talker he had ever met, used to tell of meeting him once during the shooting season, at a country house. Next morning, to his surprise, he found all the young men gathered around the Judge in the smoking room, instead of their being among the turnips. They preferred hearing Sam Slick talk to the delights of shooting.
Library, Gordon House, Isleworth.