By Larnaton seth started to celebrate the ten ary of the first publication "phe Pickwick Papers" as early on the 12th of this month. ually the famous series began Apsil, 1836, when Charles veens was 24' years of age, so week fitly marks the celebra~ 1 In London. vickens himself has loft on dan, authoritative account of inspiration of "The Posthumous ners of the Pickwick Club," as book was originally called.' His lishers, Messrs. Chapmin had been attracted by his tings in the "Morning Chronicle" proposed that he should publish lething in shilling numbers, then y known to Dickens, as he says, 'a dim recollection' of "certain srminable novels in that form, ich used to be carried about the ntry by pedlars, and over some which I remember to have shed rimerable tears before I had ved my apprenticeship to Life."
"ne publishers' proposal was igned to obtain letterpress that fitly be published with the porous sketches of Robert mour, and the artist proposed t " Nimrod Club should be imned in order that the illustra~ 1 of its members engaged in lous forms of sport might be veloped-on humorous—lines. eons objected to this because in fe of his having been born and din the country he was "no at sportsman," und that the idea not particularly novel, For-ately he had his way and he ight of Mr. Pickwick and thus st forth into the first number ch, as everyone remembers, tained the historic account of the ting of the Pickwick Club at d the heartless Mr. Blotton, of called Mr. Pickwick a and after the suitable car had subsided was There are strongly loyal Dickensians who cannot bear to read the tecok,, just as there are other people who will not touch Dickens in any form. So the true Dickens admirer need not necessarily be disconsolate it he cannot absorb the "Pickwick Papers." But there are others: to whom Pickwick is an abiding Joy, and after a hundred years it is remarkable to think how vivid the personalities of the -Papers have grown in the minds of English reading people and how many ouse-hold quotations. and phrases the book has provided.
It Is quite easy to understand that the ponderous humour of the trial of Bardell vs. Pickwick may Inritate the modern reader and there is no satisfactory way of rebutting that criticism. But the /Pickwickian will not be discouraged. He will chuckle to himself as he recalls the saturnine figure of the chemist who, was sworn to the jury against his will; the wickedly unfair way in which Mr. Sam Weller is allowed to be the only person who scores against the for~ midable Serjeant Buzfuz; and the terrible plight of the unfortunate Mr. Phunky.
But all is forgiven because of the impishness which the famous report of the trial, as when Serjeant Buzfuz in his address to the jury, draws a picture of the late Mr. Bardell:
"The plaintiff, gentlemen," continued Serjeant' Buzfuz, in' a soft and melancholy voice, "The plaintitt a widow; yes, gentlemen, a widow, The Into Mr, Bardell, after enjoying. for many years, the esteem and confidence of his sovereign, as one of the guardians of his royal rev-ennes, glided almost imperceptibly from the world, to seek elsewhere been knocked on the quart-pot in a public-house cellar, the learned serjeant's voice faltered and he proceeded with emotion Pickwickian sense, se tragedy intervened between frst and second numbers, for ort Seymour committed suicide.
Buss was engaged to prepare next plates, but his work was regarded with approval, and the lishers considered a change to necessary, Offers were made to M, "Thackeray and Hablot int Browne, the latter having idy met Dickens and illustrated little pamphlet by the young hor. It is piquant to think of ckeray competing with Browne the' honour of Mlustrating kens' novel, 'Thackeray being year older' than Dickens and ing not even reached the stage he "Yellow Plush Papers" which to appear in the following ickens preferred Browne, whose idonym was "Phiz," although the first two plates Browne's ings were signed "Nema." The 1or's name was not attached to rst numbers of the "Pickwick ers," but his signature in the ning Chronicle," "Boz," was 1 and long retained, "Boz" being nickname of a younger brother m Dickens had dubbed Moses honour of the "Vicar of Wake-"Boz" being the cockney way pronouncing Moses, as Dickens "facetiously through the It all goes to show how Dickens, in his capacity as a Parliamentary reporter, knew exactly how to keep the interest of the reader.
'The triumph of Charles Dickens' characterization of Mr. Pickwick may be tested br anyone who visits Ipswich. In the narrow High Street of that important Suffolk tors: there stands the: great White Horse orel, all complete with the White Horse over the door, It is really a glorified country inn surrounded, as it were, with the signs of urban progress. The visitor will not be in the inn very long before hho 1s aware of the fact that he can be escorted to the very room in which Mr. Pickwick had the adventure with the lady with the curl papers, and if memory is not at fault a sum of money is charged for the privilege of inspecting the room and buying picture post-cards of the historic surroundings. Yet the intelligent reader knows Mr. Pickwick is entirely a fictitious character, and the good people of Ipswich might just as well endeavour to show the traveller the house where Mr. Horatio Nupkins, the Ipswich magistrate, lived, and out of which Mr. Samuel Weller was able to kick Mr. Jingle and Job Trotter with so much gusto, Yel visitors to Ipswich, who are reverently shown the house in which Wolsey was born or the ickens has defended his ization of Pickwick against charge that as the numbers eared the character became nitoly changed. The author's lanation is that such changes as discerned in the character due to its natural: develop-through the vicissitudes of story and the writer's gradual wzintance with all aspects of hero's oddities and affections.
of course, painfully easy to inconsistencies in "Pickwick," only lately it has been pointed that Sam Weller {s alternative-described' as an only child and eldest of a large family. cee ickensians need not necessarily clit in the "Pickwick Papers.".
Ancient House in the Buttermorket where a secret panelled room recalls the days when the Covenanters were being persecuted by Charles LI, more clearly recall hav-Ing stayed at the inn Where Mr. Pickwick got into the lady's bedroom. So vividly has Mr. Piekwick's personality been impressed lapon the country side of England, for in Bath, where nobody was fat or old, as Mr. Bantam said, there are traces of his wanderings, and, of course, in London, where Sam Weller started life as Boots at the White Hart in the Borough.
Written as it was in Charles Dickens' early days, the book throws an interesting light on the development of his marvellous gift of plot-weaving, and caricaturing. In the "Pickwick. Papers" his
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.