English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century Part 20

The artist possibly had this quotation in his mind when he designed the following:--The deponent is a country b.u.mpkin, to whom an official tenders the Testament, at the same time extending his disengaged palm.

"Pleas zur," says Hodge, "wot be I to zay?" (To him the officer), "Say, This is the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me G.o.d one and sixpence."

The open and notorious bribery, corruption, and intimidation which prevailed in those days at parliamentary elections; Sir Robert Peel's "New Police Act" (which was received with extraordinary suspicion and dislike); the Reform Bill; the universal distress and consequent bread riots of 1830-31, form the subjects of other pictorial satires by Robert Seymour, which seem, however, to call for little notice.

The artist's talent and services were constantly in demand as a designer on wood; but finding that the productions of his pencil suffered at the hands of the wood-engravers to whom they were entrusted, and the very inferior paper upon which the impressions were taken, he, in or about the year 1827, began to learn the art of etching on copper. We believe his earliest attempts in this direction will be found in a work now exceedingly rare, bearing the t.i.tle of "a.s.sisting, Resisting, and Desisting." A volume called "Vagaries, in Quest of the Wild and Wonderful," which appeared in 1827, was embellished with six clever plates after the manner of George Cruikshank, and ran through no less than three editions.

The "Humorous Sketches," several times republished, perhaps the only work by which Seymour is now known to the general public, appeared between the years 1834 and 1836. They were first published at threepence each by Richard Carlisle, of Fleet Street, who is said to have paid the artist fifteen s.h.i.+llings for each drawing on the stone. Carlisle falling into difficulties shortly before Seymour's death, sold the copyright and lithographic stones to Henry Wallis, who in turn parted with the latter to Mr. Tregear, of Cheapside, but retaining his property in the copyright, transferred the drawings to steel, and published them in 1838, with letterpress by Alfred Crowquill. Mr. Henry G. Bohn issued an edition in 1842, and another some twenty-three years later, with plates so sadly worn and blurred by over use that the best part of this last edition (issued by the Routledges in 1878) is the binding.

The "Humorous Sketches" (we refer, of course, only to the early impressions), although affording fair examples of the artist's comic style and manner, are in truth of very unequal merit. They comprise some eighty subjects, which, owing to the frequent republications, are so well known that it would be superfluous to attempt a detailed description of them here. The best is unquestionably the one numbered XXV., "This is a werry lonely spot, Sir; I wonder you arn't afeard of being rob'd." The inevitable sequel is amusingly related by Crowquill:--

"Poor Timmins trembled as he gazed Upon the stranger's face; For cut-purse! robber! all too plain, His eye could therein trace.

'Them's werry handsome boots o' yourn,'

The ruffian smiling cried; 'Jist draw your trotters out, my pal, And we'll swop tiles beside.

That coat, too, is a pretty fit,-- Don't tremble so--for I Vont rob you of a single fish, I've other fish to fry.'"

The "Sketches," with other detached works by the artist, reappeared in an edition published by the late John Camden Hotten, ent.i.tled "Sketches by Seymour," comprising in all 186 subjects, for the most part sadly worn impressions. Although there is nothing whatever "Hogarthian" about the originals, as the amiable publisher would have us (as usual) believe, we may admit that the faces in No. 24, _At a Concert_, are a perfect study, and that this sketch, with Nos. 45 and 46 (_Snuffing_ and _Smoking_), afford excellent examples of the artist's ability as a draughtsman.

"THE BOOK OF CHRISTMAS."

But the work which contains probably some of the best specimens of the artist's style is one now exceedingly scarce. Christmas books, like Christmas cards, are practically unsaleable after the great Christian festival has come and gone; and this was the experience of Mr. T. K.

Hervey's "Book of Christmas," which, owing to the author's dilatoriness, came out "a day after the fair," and despite its attractions proved unmarketable. This circ.u.mstance, we need not say, by no means detracts from its value, and as a matter of fact, the collector will now deem himself fortunate if he succeeds in securing a copy at a price exceeding by one half the original cost. Those who have formed their ideas of Seymour's powers from the oft republished and irretrievably damaged impressions of the "Humorous Sketches," will be astonished at the unaccustomed style, vigour, and beauty of these ill.u.s.trations. A few of the earlier _etchings_ are somewhat faint and indistinct, as if the artist, even at that time, was scarcely accustomed to work on copper.

They, however, improve as he proceeds with his work; the larger number are really beautiful, and are characterised by a vigour of conception and execution, of which no possible idea can be formed by those who have seen only the "Humorous Sketches." Noteworthy among the ill.u.s.trations may be mentioned the finely executed head of _Old Christmas_, facing page 23; the _Baronial Hall_ (a picture highly realistic of the Christmas comfort and good cheer which is little better than a myth to many of us); _The Mummers_; _Christmas Pantomime_; _Market, Christmas Eve_; _Boxing Day_; and _Twelfth Night in the London Streets_. The cheery seasonable book shows us the _Norfolk Coach_ with its spanking team rattling into London on a foggy Christmas Eve, heaped with fat turkeys, poultry, Christmas hampers and parcels. William Congreve tells us--

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

The irritable personage awoke from his slumbers by the music of the waits, certainly does not belong to any of the order of animate or inanimate subjects so softened, soothed, or bent, as aforesaid, for he opens his window and prepares to discharge the contents of his jug on the heads of the devoted minstrels. If the ancient ophicleide player, with the brandy bottle protruding from his great coat pocket, might but know of the impending cataract which more immediately threatens himself, he would convey himself from the dangerous neighbourhood with all the alacrity of which his spindle shanks are capable. A younger neighbour on the opposite side of the street awaits the catastrophe with amused interest, whilst a drunken "unfortunate" executes--under the elevating influences of music and drink--a _pas seul_ on the pavement below. In the etching of _Story Telling_, the deep shadows of an old baronial hall are illuminated solely by the moonbeams and the flickering flame of the firelight; a door opens into a gallery beyond, and one of the listeners, fascinated by the ghost story to which she is listening, glances fearfully over her shoulder as if apprehensive that something uncanny will presently issue out of the black recesses. The ghostly surroundings have their influences on the very cat, who looks uneasily about her as if afraid of her shadow. Besides the thirty-six etchings on copper, the book contains several charming woodcuts, impressed on paper of a very different quality to that on which the artist was accustomed to behold impressions from his wood blocks.

Of a cla.s.s entirely different to the foregoing may be mentioned the still rarer series of comicalities executed by the artist under the t.i.tle of "New Readings of old Authors," of which we may notice the following: _Moved in Good Time_ (_Taming of the Shrew_, Act 2, Sc. 1), a tax-gatherer and other creditors bemoaning themselves outside the premises of a levanted debtor; _I am to get a man, whate'er he be_ (Act 3, Sc. 2), disciples of Burke and Hare providing themselves with a living subject; _I do remember when the fight was done, when I was dry_ (King Henry IV., Part 1, Act 1, Sc. 3), a victorious prize-fighter recruiting his exhausted frame by imbibing many quarts of strong ale; _He was much Feared by his Physicians_ (Act 4, Sc. 1), an irascible gouty patient flinging medicine bottles and nostrums at one of his doctors, and stamping a prostrate one under foot; _You are too great to be by me gainsaid_ (_King Henry_ IV., Part 2, Act 1, Sc. 1), a huge woman administering chastis.e.m.e.nt to a small and probably (in more senses than one) _frail_ husband; _My Lord, I over rode him on the way_ (Act 1, Sc. 1), a miserable huntsman who has ridden over and killed one of the master's fox-hounds; _He came, saw, and overcame_ (Act 4, Sc. 2), a wretched Frenchman, who, overbalancing himself, falls over the rails of a bear-pit amongst the hungry animals below; _Never was such a sudden scholar made_, (_King Henry_ V., Act 1, Sc. 1), in allusion to the installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of Oxford University; _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, a fat sleeper suffering under the agonies of nightmare, under the influence of whose delusion he fancies himself roasting before a vast fire, with a huge hook stuck through his stomach; and, _I beg the ancient privilege of Athens: as she is mine, I may dispose of her_ (Act 1, Sc. 1), an Englishman attempting to dispose of his ugly, wooden-legged old harridan of a wife by auction.

The lithographic stones on which the drawings to these "New Readings"

were made, and which comprised no less than three hundred drawings, were effaced before the artist's death, and impressions from them are now, of course, more than difficult to procure. The Shakespeare series were collected and republished in four volumes, in 1841-2, by Tilt & Bogue, of Fleet Street, and even these last are very seldom met with.

On the 10th of December, 1831, there started into life a periodical of decidedly p.r.o.nounced political bias and opinions, ent.i.tled "Figaro in London." Politics ran high in those days; it was the time of the great agitation for "reform," which in those days, as we shall presently see, was both loudly called for and imperatively necessary. A mob of boys and degraded women had taken complete possession of Bristol,--had driven its deformed little mayor over a stone wall in ignominious flight,--had burnt down the gaol and the mansion-house, and laid Queen Square in ashes, whilst the military and its very strangely incompetent officer looked on while the city was burning.[103] Every one in those days was either a rabid Tory or an ultra Radical. It was just the period for an enthusiastic youth to plunge into the excitement of political life; but the crude, unformed opinions of a young man scarcely of age are of little value, and the political creed of the proprietor and originator of this literary (?) venture does not appear to have been clearly defined even to himself. In his valedictory addresses written three years afterwards, when things were not altogether so rosy with him as when he started his periodical, he confesses that he belongs to no party, for "we have had," he says, "such a thorough sickener of the Whigs, that we do expect something better from the new government, _although it be a Tory one_."

The price of "Figaro in London," one of the immediate predecessors of the comic publications of our day, was a penny, quite an experiment in times when the price of paper was dear, and periodical literature was heavily handicapped with an absurdly heavy duty. "Figaro" consisted of four weekly pages of letterpress ill.u.s.trated by Robert Seymour. The projector, proprietor, and editor, was Mr. Gilbert a Beckett, whose name--with those of men of vastly superior literary attainments--was a.s.sociated in after years with the early fortunes of _Punch_. The literary part of the performance was indeed sorry stuff,--the main stay and prop of the paper from its very commencement was Seymour, whose drawings however suffered severely at the hands of the engraver and paper maker. An eccentricity of the publication perhaps deserves notice.

It professed to look with sovereign contempt upon advertis.e.m.e.nts, as occupying a quant.i.ty of unnecessary s.p.a.ce--considering, however, that exception was made in favour of one particularly persevering hatter of the period, we are driven to the conclusion that the projector's contempt for a source of revenue which modern newspaper proprietors can by no means afford to despise, was nearly akin to that expressed by the fox after he had come to the melancholy conclusion that the grapes he longed for were absolutely beyond his reach.

The new periodical a.s.sumed from the outset a position which cannot fail to amuse the journalist and reader of the present day. It professed to look down upon all other publications (with certain exceptions of magnitude, whom the editor deemed it prudent to conciliate) with supercilious contempt. The absurdity of these pretensions will strike any one who turns over its forgotten pages, and compares his pretensions with Mr. a Beckett's own share of the performance. The mode in which this young gentleman's editorial duties were conducted, gathered from extracts taken at random from the "Notices to Correspondents," were, to say the least, peculiar: "A. B., who has written to us, is a fool of the very lowest order. His communication is rejected." Poor Mr. c.o.x of Bath is told he "is a rogue and a fool for sending us a letter without paying the postage. If he wants his t.i.tle page, let him order it of his bookseller, when it will be got as a matter of course from our publisher," and so on. The aristocracy are regarded with a disfavour which must have given them serious disquietude. The "coming out" of the daughter of the late Lord Byron, or a _soiree_ at the d.u.c.h.ess of Northumberland's town house, serve as occasions for indulging in splenetic abuse of what Mr. a Beckett was pleased to term "the beastly aristocracy." Authors, even of position, were not spared by this young Ishmael of the press, the respected Mrs. Trollope, for instance, being unceremoniously referred to as "Mother Trollope." The only excuse of course for this sort of thing is to be found in the fact that comic journalism being then in its infancy, personal abuse was mistaken for satire; while, so far as the bad taste of the editor is concerned, allowance must be made for an inexperienced young man who imagined that the editors.h.i.+p of a paper, wholly dest.i.tute of merit except that which Seymour brought to its aid, conferred upon himself a position which rendered him superior to the rules of literary courtesy.

With all these pretensions, however, a Beckett was conscious of the powerful a.s.sistance he was receiving from the artist; and we find him, after his own peculiar fas.h.i.+on and more than questionable taste, constantly alluding to the fact; describing him at various times as "that highly gifted and popular artist, Mr. Seymour;" "our ill.u.s.trious artist Seymour;" and so on. In the preface to his second volume, he indulges in the following flight of fancy, which will suffice to give us an idea of the literary merits of the editor himself: "In this our annual address," he says, "we cannot omit a puff for the rampant Seymour, in whom the public continue to _see-more_ and more every time he puts his pencil to the block for the ill.u.s.tration of our periodical."

This was the sort of stuff which pa.s.sed for wit in 1832.[104] As for Seymour himself, he was annoyed at these fulsome and foolish compliments, and in a letter which he wrote to a Beckett after the quarrel to be presently related, told him in the plainest terms that, "the engraving, bad printing, and extravagant puffing of his designs were calculated to do him more harm than good as an artist."

But artist and editor jogged on together in perfect good will until the 16th of August, 1834, when, for the first and only time, "Figaro in London" made its appearance without any ill.u.s.trations at all. The two succeeding weekly issues contained each a single woodcut after Seymour's drawing, but from that time until the end of the year, when a Beckett himself retired from the proprietors.h.i.+p and disposed of his interest in the concern, the paper was ill.u.s.trated by Isaac Robert Cruikshank; this change was due to the following circ.u.mstance.

A special feature of "Figaro in London" was its theatrical leader. a Beckett had always taken an interest in dramatic matters, and was himself author of some thirty plays, the very t.i.tles of which are now forgotten. Not content with being proprietor and editor of a newspaper, he was concerned at this time in another venture, being proprietor and manager of a theatre in Tottenham Court Road, known at different times under the various designations of the Tottenham Street or West London Theatre, the Queen's, and latterly as the Prince of Wales' Theatre. The result was almost a foregone conclusion. A newspaper is a sufficiently hazardous speculation, but a theatre in the hands of an inexperienced manager is one of the most risky of all possible experiments; and the result in this case was so unfortunate, that a Beckett in the end had to seek the uncomfortable protection of the insolvent court. He was considerably indebted to Seymour for the ill.u.s.trations to "Figaro," half of the debt thus incurred being money actually paid away by the artist to the engraver who executed the cuts from his drawings on the wood.

Finding that a Beckett was in no position to discharge this debt or to remunerate him for his future services, Seymour did--what every man of business must have done who, like the artist, was dependent on his pencil for _bread_, refused any longer to continue his a.s.sistance. Apart from the bad paper and bad impressions of which he complained, and above all the bad taste displayed in fulsome adulation of his own merits, supremely distasteful to a man of real ability, Seymour appears. .h.i.therto to have entertained no bad feeling towards a Beckett personally.

The result however was a feud. a Beckett was not unnaturally angry, and an angry man in his pa.s.sion is apt to lose both his head and his memory.

Forgetting the manner in which he had shortly before acknowledged the services and talent of the artist, he now attacked him and his abilities with a malice which would be unintelligible if we had not seen something of his nature and disposition. In his favourite "Notices to Correspondents" in the number of 13th September, 1834, he professes to account for the employment of Isaac Robert Cruikshank after the following disingenuous fas.h.i.+on: "Mr. Seymour, our ex-artist, is much to be pitied for his extreme anguish at our having come to terms with the celebrated Robert Cruikshank in the supplying the designs of the caricatures in 'Figaro.' Seymour has been venting his rage in a manner as pointless as it is splenetic, and we are sorry for him. He ought, however, to feel, that notwithstanding our friendly wish to bring him forward, which we have done in an eminent degree, we must engage _first-rate_ ability when public patronage is bestowed so liberally, as it now is upon this periodical. He ought therefore not to be nettled at our having obtained a superior artist." The public, however, were not to be _gulled_; they perfectly well knew that Isaac Robert Cruikshank was an inferior artist in every respect to Seymour, and had not forgotten the tribute which the foolish editor had previously paid to the talents and ability of the latter. Conduct like this could only recoil on the head of the person who was injudicious and spiteful enough to be guilty of it. The "Notices to Correspondents" in subsequent numbers continued to be filled with references and allusions to Seymour, dictated by a malice which was alike silly and childish. They are not worthy of repet.i.tion here, and we must refer the reader for them to the numbers of "Figaro in London" of 20th September and 15th November, 1834, or (if he have not access to its pages) to the short biographical notice prefixed to the latest edition of the "Sketches" by Mr. Henry G. Bohn. We have no doubt whatever that the interval between these dates was employed in fruitless endeavours on the part of a Beckett to arrange terms with the artist, who, however, steadily refused to give the failing publication the indispensable benefit of his a.s.sistance. Left as it were to its own resources, the circulation, in spite of the graphic help accorded by Robert Cruikshank, steadily declined, and a Beckett finally retired from the editors.h.i.+p and proprietors.h.i.+p on the 27th of December, 1834. Seymour wielded a far more effectual weapon of offence than any which a Beckett possessed, and dealt him blows which at this time and in his then circ.u.mstances must have been keenly felt. One of Seymour's satires is aimed specially at the "Notices to Correspondents" already mentioned, and shows us a heavy, vulgar fellow seated at his desk, habited in a barber's striped dressing-gown _a la Figaro_. His features are distorted with pa.s.sion, for he has received a letter the contents of which are anything but flattering, addressed "To the Editor of the nastiest thing in London." This sketch bears the following descriptive t.i.tle: "An editor in a _small way_, after pretending a great deal about his correspondents, is here supposed to have received _a_ letter." A second skit shows us a critic examining a picture representing "the death of a Beckett, Archbishop of Cant." A figure in armour, with its vizor down (obviously intended for the artist) is depicted in the act of cutting at the "archbishop" with a sword, the blade of which is inscribed "debts due." His first blow has severed the mitre labelled "a.s.sumption," and the pastoral staff, inscribed "impudence," with which the victim vainly endeavours to defend himself. "Don't," says a Beckett, as he falls prostrate amid a heap of "spoilt paper," among which we recognise, "Figaro," "The Thief," "The Wag," and other periodicals with which his name was a.s.sociated. "Don't cut at me 'our own inimitable, our ill.u.s.trious, our talented;' pray don't give me any more cuts; think how many I have had and not paid you for already:" a hand indicates the way "to the Insolvent Court."

"Figaro," after the retirement of a Beckett, pa.s.sed into the editorial hands of Mr. H. Mayhew, and conscious of the injury which the defection of Seymour had done to the undertaking, he lost no time in opening negotiations with a view to his return. In this he experienced little difficulty, for Seymour was glad to avail himself of the opportunity of giving to the public the most convincing proof which could have been adduced of the falsity of the libels which had been published by the retiring and discomfited editor. The fourth volume commenced 3rd of January, and from that time until his death (in 1836) he continued to ill.u.s.trate the paper. Mayhew announces his return after the following curious fas.h.i.+on: "The generous Seymour, with a patriotic ardour unequalled since the days of Curtius, has abandoned all selfish considerations, and yielded to our request for his country's sake. Again he wields the satiric pencil, and corruption trembles to its very base.

His first peace-offering to 'Figaro in London,' is the rich etching [woodcut] our readers now gaze upon with laughing eyes." Constant references of a laudatory kind are made to him in succeeding numbers.

The woodcuts after Seymour's designs, which appear in "Figaro in London," are too small and unimportant to justify the t.i.tle which the editor gives them of "caricatures;" and relating to political matters which at that time were far more efficiently chronicled by the pencil of H. B., they have lost any interest which they once might have commanded.

The most interesting ill.u.s.trations which Seymour contributed to "Figaro," are the brief series of theatrical portraits, which are not only clever but evidently excellent likenesses.

It was not only in the case of "Figaro in London" that the slanders of a Beckett recoiled upon his own head. That gentleman in 1832 had started a sort of rival to Hood's "Comic Annual," under the t.i.tle of the "Comic Magazine." It was cheaper in price than the former publication, and contained an amazing number of amusing cuts of the punning order, after Seymour's designs. After the quarrel with a Beckett, the artist withdrew his a.s.sistance from its pages, and the ill.u.s.trations show a fearful falling off after 1833. Many of the wretched designs which follow bear the signature of "Dank," and so dest.i.tute are they of merit that the "embellishments" (as they are termed) for 1834, are altogether below criticism.

At the opening of the present chapter we said that Robert Seymour was _almost_ a genius. Genius, however, he never absolutely touched; he was dest.i.tute of the inventive faculties which distinguished John Leech, and lacked the vivid imagination which enabled George Cruikshank to realize any idea which occurred to him, whether comical, grave, realistic, or terrible. His talents as an artist, though undoubtedly great, ran in a narrow groove, and their bent is shown by the well-known "Humorous Sketches," and the less known but far more admirable designs which he executed for the "Comic Magazine." He always had a fancy for depicting and satirizing c.o.c.kneys and c.o.c.kney subjects, and had conceived the by no means new or ambitious idea of producing a series of such pictures with an appropriate letterpress to be furnished by a literary coadjutor, whose work, however, was to be subservient to his own. The idea was not perhaps a very definite one, but the pictorial part of the work was commenced, and four plates actually etched at the time the artist was retained to execute the ill.u.s.trations to the "Book of Christmas." Out of this undeveloped idea, and out of the four apparently unimportant drawings to which we have alluded, was destined to evolve the strange and melancholy story which will be a.s.sociated for all time with the mirth-inspiring novel of the "Pickwick Papers."

ORIGIN OF "PICKWICK."

The difficulty at the outset was to find an author to carry out the artist's idea, indefinite as it was. In this direction there was in 1836, a very _embarras de richesses_, for, if comic artists were few, there was on the other hand no lack of humourists of the highest order of merit. Theodore Hook, Clark (the author of "Three Courses and a Dessert")--probably many others were suggested by the publishers who were taken into consultation by Seymour; but all were rejected. He himself seems to have inclined towards Mayhew, with whom it will be recollected he was a.s.sociated at this time on "Figaro in London." The man of all others most fitted to carry out the artist's _own_ idea seems to us to have been John Poole, one of the most original of English humourists, whose productions, now forgotten, are worth searching for in the pages of the "New Monthly" and other periodical publications of a past day. It is a singular fact, too, that on the first appearance of the "Pickwick Papers," the authors.h.i.+p was by many ascribed to this very man. In the end, Mr. Chapman, of the firm of Chapman & Hall, introduced the artist to one of the most unlikely men for his own purpose that could possibly have been selected,--the man, as we have already seen, of all others the least fitted and the least disposed to act the part of William Coombe to Seymour's character of Thomas Rowlandson.

At this time Charles d.i.c.kens was reporter on the staff of a newspaper; he had written a book which, although successful, had created no very intense excitement; he was moreover a young man, and consequently plastic, and fifteen pounds a month would be a small fortune to him; so at least argued the artist and his friends. How little they understood the resolute, self-reliant character of this unknown writer! The result was altogether different from anything they expected. Author and artist differed at the outset as to the form the narrative should take; but the man with the strongest power of mind and will took his stand from the first, and Charles d.i.c.kens made it a condition of his retainer that the ill.u.s.trations should grow out of the text, instead of the latter being suggested (as Seymour desired) by the ill.u.s.trations, and the artist had reluctantly to give way. No one can doubt that the author was right. By way however of a concession, and of meeting Seymour's original idea as far as practicable, he introduced the absurd character of Winkle, the c.o.c.kney sportsman. The mode of publication followed was the artist's own suggestion, who, desiring the widest possible circulation, insisted on the work being published in monthly numbers at a s.h.i.+lling. Thus it was that "Pickwick" came to be written.

We are not called on in this place to discuss the merits of "Pickwick"; to compare Charles d.i.c.kens with the writers who had immediately preceded him; to enlarge upon the comic vein which he discovered and made so peculiarly his own; to show the influence which his humour exercised upon the literature of the next quarter of a century; to contrast such humour with his wonderful power of pathos; to marshal the shades of true-hearted, n.o.ble Nell, unhappy Smike, little Paul Dombey, world abandoned Joe, and compare them with the Wellers--father and son, Mr.

Jingle, Tracy Tupman, Bob Sawyer, and the spectacled but essentially owlish founder of the "Pickwick Club." All this we fancy has been done in another place; our task is altogether of a simpler character. We have to trace the connection which subsisted between the artist and author; to show how this book--the creation of a writer in the spring-time of his genius--the essence of fun, the unfailing source of merriment to countless readers past, present, and to come, came to be a.s.sociated with the memory of a terrible and still incomprehensible tragedy.

We have seen that, contrary to his own wishes, Seymour had yielded to Charles d.i.c.kens' suggestion, or rather condition, that the ill.u.s.trations should grow out of the text; but he does not seem to have abandoned (so far as we can judge) all idea of having a hand in the management of the story, and he never for one instant contemplated interference on the part of the author with any one of his own designs. If we are to believe his friends (and their testimony seems to us distinctly valuable in this place), he was extremely angry at the introduction into the plot of the "Stroller's Tale," and we may therefore fancy the spirit in which he would receive Charles d.i.c.kens' intimation, conveyed to him in the same manner that he afterwards communicated to Cruikshank his disapproval of the last etching in "Oliver Twist," that he objected to that etching "as not quite _his_ [d.i.c.kens'] idea;" that he wished "to have it as complete as possible, and would feel personally obliged if he would make another drawing." The letter (on the whole a kindly one) has been set out elsewhere,[105] and there is no occasion to repeat it here. What other causes of irritation existed will never be known. All that is still known is, that he executed a fresh design and handed it over to d.i.c.kens at the time appointed; that he went home and destroyed nearly all the correspondence relating to the subject of "Pickwick"; that he executed a drawing for a wood-engraver named John Jackson,[106] and delivered it himself on the evening of the 20th of April, 1836; that he then returned to his house in King Street, Islington, and committed self-destruction.

He left behind him an unfinished drawing for "Figaro in London," which afterwards appeared (in the state in which it was found) in the pages of that periodical.

Various reasons have been a.s.signed for this rash act, all more or less contradictory. According to some he was a man of equable temperament; while others, who knew him personally, have told us that he was nervous and subject to terrible fits of depression. Some would trace the act to his quarrel with a Beckett; but this is simply absurd, seeing that it had occurred some two years before. We need not, as it seems to us, travel out of our course to seek the real cause, which was probably due to over-work. His energies had been tasked to the utmost to keep pace with the supply which his ever-increasing popularity brought him. The state of his mind appears to us clearly indicated by his design of _The Dying Clown_, one of the last drawings which he etched for the "Pickwick Papers," and for which we must refer the reader to the _original_ edition only; anything more truly melancholy we can scarcely imagine.

Entirely appropriate to the story, it seems to tell its own tale of the morbid state of mind of the man who designed it; it is a pictorial commentary on the sad story we have attempted to tell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT SEYMOUR. "_Pickwick Papers._"

"THE DYING CLOWN."

_Face p. 233._]

A too zealous application to work has destroyed many men both of talent and genius; it produces different effects in different individuals, according to their respective temperaments: while it drove Robert Seymour to frenzy, it killed John Leech--a man of far finer imaginative faculties--with the terrible pangs of _angina pectoris_. Differently endowed as they were, both belonged to the order of men so touchingly described by _Manfred_:--

"There is an order Of mortals on the earth, who do become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age Without the violence of warlike death; Some peris.h.i.+ng of pleasure, some of study, Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness, Some of disease, and some insanity, And some of wither'd or of broken hearts; For this last is a malady which slays More than are numbered in the lists of fate."[107]

The coadjutors.h.i.+p of distinguished artists and authors has led to more than one strange controversy. Those who have read Forster's "Life of d.i.c.kens" will remember the curious claim which George Cruikshank preferred after d.i.c.kens' death to be the suggester of the story of "Oliver Twist," and the unceremonious mode in which Mr. Forster disposed of that pretension. We have referred elsewhere to the edifying controversy between George Cruikshank and Harrison Ainsworth, in relation to the origin of the latter's novels of the "Miser's Daughter"

and "The Tower of London." The republication of Seymour's "Humorous Sketches" in 1866, led to a very curious claim on the part of his friends, in which they sought to establish the fact that he was the originator and inventor of the incidents of "Pickwick." This claim happily was made while d.i.c.kens was yet alive, and was very promptly and satisfactorily disposed of by himself in a letter which he wrote to the _Athenaeum_ on the 20th of March, 1866. Author and artist have long since gone to their rest; and the plan which the author of this work proposed when he sat down to write the story of Robert Seymour, was to place that artist in the position which he believes him to occupy in the ranks of British graphic humourists, and not to rake up or revive the memory of a somewhat painful controversy. Of the claim itself we would simply remark, that not only was it made in all sincerity by those who loved and cherished the memory of Robert Seymour, but that to a certain extent the claim has a foundation of fact to rest upon; for who will deny that had not Seymour communicated his idea to Chapman, and Chapman introduced the artist to d.i.c.kens, the "Pickwick Papers" themselves would have remained unwritten. In this sense, but in this sense only, therefore, Robert Seymour was the undoubted originator of "Pickwick." He was an artist of great power, talent, and ability; and it seems to us that those only detract from his fame who, in a kind but mistaken spirit of zeal, would claim for him any other position than that which he so justly and honestly earned for himself, as one of the most talented of English graphic satirists.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] "Greville Memoirs." vol. i. p. 180.

[98] _Ibid._, p. 207.