He executed various other oil paintings about this period, but the more pressing demand on his talents was for drawings on wood, a mode of book illustration then in great vogue. The various illustrated books and periodicals published for the next ten or twelve years bespeak his popularity and industry in that department.
Although Seymour's hands were full of commissions for drawing on wood, he was always desirous of practice in a more independent department of art, feeling that the engraver, however competent, frequently failed to communicate the full force of his drawing. He, therefore, determined—where possible, on etching or engraving his own designs on copper or steel. He was very successful in full length sketches of public characters, and has left us many life-like portraits of members of the Turf and Drama between 1830 and 1836.
But of all Seymour's various works his "Humorous Sketches" were his prime favourites, and will best perpetuate his name. They were first published between the years 1834 and 1836, in detached prints at 3d. each, by Mr. Richard Carlisle, of Fleet Street. The entire collection was subsequently engraved on steel, and published in 1838, with letterpress description by Crowquill (Alfred Henry Forrester), the popular humourist of the day.
Figaro in London—the popular predecessor of Punch, edited and published by Gilbert A'Beckett from December 1831 to 1836—contains nearly 300 woodcuts after Seymour. They were also published separately as "Seymour's Caricature Gallery," and after his death were all re-published on six large sheets, each containing 20 subjects, as "Seymour's Comic Scrap Sheets."
Seymour's connection with the publication and illustration of the now famous Pickwick Papers is well known to the reading world by the printed statement of Mrs. Seymour, and Charles Dickens' own account of the origin of the Pickwick Papers, to need repetition.
Fourteen
ILLUSTRATIONS
of the
DRAMA
by
Robert Cruikshank.