Pickwickian Manners and Custom | Page 9

with one of the most painful and distracting episodes of his life, which affected him so acutely, that he actually flung aside his work in the full tumult of success, and left the eager public without its regular monthly number. "I have been so unnerved" he writes, in an unpublished letter to Harrison Ainsworth, "and hurt by the loss of the dear girl whom I loved, after my wife, more dearly and fervently than anyone on earth, that I have been compelled for once to give up all idea of my monthly work, and to try a fortnight's rest and quiet."
In this long book, there are found allusions to only two or three other works. What these are might form one of the questions "set" at the next Pickwick examination. Fielding is quoted once. In the dedication allusion is made to Talfourd's three speeches in Parliament, on the copyright question; these were published in a little volume, and make, fairly enough, one of the illustrative documents of "Pickwick." In the first number of the first edition there is an odd note, rather out of place, but it was withdrawn later--meant to ridicule Mr. Jingle's story of "Ponto's" sagacity; it states that in Mr. Jesse's gleanings, there are more amazing stories than this.
Mr. Jesse was a sort of personage living at Richmond--where I well remember him, when I was there as a boy. "Jesse's gleanings" was then a well-known and popular book; and his stories of dogs are certainly extraordinary enough to have invoked Boz's ridicule. We are told of the French poodle, who after rolling himself in the mud of the Seine, would rub himself against any well-polished boots that he noticed, and would thus bring custom to his master, who was a shoe black on the Pont Neuf. He was taken to London by an English purchaser, but in a few days disappeared, and was discovered pursuing his old trade on the Bridge. Other dogs, we were told, after being transported long distances, would invariably find their way back. These prodigies, however, do not appear so wonderful now, after the strange things about dogs and cats that have been retailed in a well-known "weekly." A third allusion is to Sterne's Maria of Moulines, made, of all people in the world, by Sam Weller.

"BOZ" AND "BOZZY."
It may seem somewhat far-fetched to put "Pickwick" beside Boswell's also immortal work, but I think really the comparison is not a fanciful one. No one enjoyed the book so much as "Boz." He knew it thoroughly. Indeed, it is fitting that "Boz" should relish "Bozzy;" for "Bozzy" would certainly have relished "Boz" and have "attended him with respectful attention." It has not been yet shown how much there is in common between the two great books, and, indeed, between them and a third, greater than either, the immortal "Don Quixote." All three are "travelling stories." Sterne also was partial to a travelling story. Lately, when a guest at the "Johnson Club," I ventured to expound minutely, and at length, this curious similarity between Boswell and Dickens. Dickens' appreciation of "Bozzy" is proved by his admirable parody which is found in one of his letters to Wilkie Collins, and which is superior to anything of the sort--to Chalmers', Walcot's, or any that have been attempted:--
"Sir," as Dr. Johnson would have said, "if it be not irrational in a man to count his feathered bipeds before they are hatched, we will conjointly astonish them next year." Boswell. "Sir, I hardly understand you." Johnson. "You never understood anything." Boswell (in a sprightly manner). "Perhaps, sir, I am all the better for it." Johnson. "I do not know but that you are. There is Lord Carlisle (smiling)--he never understands anything, and yet the dog is well enough. Then, sir, there is Forster--he understands many things, and yet the fellow is fretful. Again, sir, there is Dickens, with a facile way with him--like Davy, sir, like Davy--yet I am told that the man is lying at a hedge alehouse by the seashore in Kent as long as they will trust him." Boswell. "But there are no hedges by the sea in Kent, sir." Johnson. "And why not, sir?" Boswell (at a loss). "I don't know, sir, unless--" Johnson (thundering). "Let us have no unlesses, sir. If your father had never said unless he would never have begotten you, sir." Boswell (yielding). "Sir, that is very true."
To begin, the Christian names of the two great men were the same. Sam Johnson and Samuel Pickwick. Johnson had a relation called Nathaniel, and Pickwick had a "follower" also Nathaniel. Both the great men founded Clubs: Johnson's was in Essex Street, Strand, to say nothing of the Literary or Johnson Club; the other in Huggin Lane. Johnson had his Goldsmith, Reynolds, Boswell, Burke,