and studied rendering” of events.  But many of Mr. Browne’s illustrations of Dickens are immortal.  They are closely bound up with our earliest and latest recollections of the work of the “incomparable Boz.”  Mr. Pickwick, we believe, was not wholly due to the fancy of Mr. Browne, but of the unfortunate Seymour, whom death prevented from continuing the series.  Every one has heard how Mr. Thackeray, then an unknown man, wished to illustrate one of Mr. Dickens’s early stories, and brought Mr. Dickens examples of his skill.  Fortunately, his offer was not accepted.  Mr. Thackeray’s pencil was the proper ally of his pen.  He saw and drew Costigan, Becky, Emmy, Lord Steyne, as no one else could have drawn them.  But he had not beheld the creations of Boz in the same light of imaginative vision.  Sometimes, too, it must be allowed that Mr. Thackeray drew very badly.  His “Peg of Limavaddy,” in the “Irish Sketch Book,” is a most formless lady, and by no means justifies the enthusiasm of her poet.  Thus the task of illustrating “Pickwick” fell to Mr. Browne, and he carried on the conceptions of his predecessor with extraordinary vigour.  The old vein of exaggerated caricature he inherited from the taste of an elder generation.  But making allowance for the exaggeration, what can be better than Mr. Pickwick sliding, or the awful punishment of Stiggins at the hands of the long-suffering Weller?  We might wish that the young lady in fur-topped boots was prettier, and indeed more of a lady.  But Mr. Browne never had much success, we think, in drawing pretty faces.  He tried to improve in this respect, but either his girls had little character, or the standard of female beauty has altered.  As to this latter change, there can be no doubt at all.  Leech’s girls are not like Thackeray’s early pictures of women; and Mr. Du Maurier’s are sometimes sicklied o’er with the pale cast of an aesthetic period.

It is probable that the influence of Mr. Browne’s art reacted in some degree on Dickens.  In the old times every one whom the author invented the artist was pretty certain to caricature.  Thus the author may have felt the temptation to keep pace with the frolic humour of the artist.  Mr. Browne cannot be blamed for a tendency to exaggerate noses and other features, which was almost universal in his time.  None of us can say what conception would now be entertained of Dickens’s characters if Mr. Browne had not drawn them.  In the later works of Dickens (when they were illustrated) other artists were employed, as Mr. Stone and Mr. Fildes.  These are accomplished painters of established reputation, and they of course avoided the old system of caricature, the old forced humour.  But we doubt whether their designs are so intimately associated with the persons in the stories as are the designs of Mr. Browne.  The later artists had this disadvantage, that the later novels (except “Great Expectations,” which was not illustrated) were neither so good nor so popular