class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="p. 52" id="pgepubid00050"/>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, and the rest, as his members and “followers:” Mr. Pickwick had his Tupman, Snodgrass, Winkle, and others.  These were the “travelling members,” just as Dr. Johnson and Boswell were the travelling members of their Club.  Boswell was the notetaker, so was Snodgrass.  When we see the pair staying at the Three Crowns at Lichfield—calling on friends—waited on by

the manager of the local Theatre, etc., we are forcibly reminded of the visits to Rochester and Ipswich.

Boswell one night dropped into a tavern in Butcher Row, and saw his great friend in a warm discussion with a strange Irishman, who was very short with him, and the sketch recalls very forcibly Mr. Pickwick at the Magpie and Stump, where old Jack Bamber told him that he knew nothing about the mysteries of the old haunted chambers in Clifford’s Inn and such places.  The Turk’s Head, the Crown and Anchor, the Cheshire Cheese, The Mitre, may be set beside the Magpie and Stump, the George and Vulture, and White Horse Cellars.

More curious still in Boswell’s life, there is mentioned a friend of Johnson’s who is actually named—Weller!  I leave it as a pleasant crux for the ingenious Pickwickian to find out where.

Johnson had his faithful servant, Frank: Mr. Pickwick his Sam.  The two sages

equally revelled in travelling in post-chaises and staying at inns; both made friends with people in the coaches and commercial rooms.  There are also some odd accidental coincidences which help in the likeness.  Johnson was constantly in the Borough, and we have a good scene with Mr. Pickwick at the White Hart in the same place.  Mr. Pickwick had his widow, Mrs. Bardell; and Johnson his in the person of the fair Thrale.  Johnson had his friend Taylor at Ashbourne, to whom he often went on visits, always going down by coach; while Mr. Pickwick had his friend Wardle, with whom he stayed at Manor Farm, in Kent.  We know of the review at Rochester which Mr. Pickwick and friends attended, and how they were charged by the soldiery.  Oddly enough Dr. Johnson attended a review also at Rochester, when he was on a visit to his friend Captain Langton.  Johnson, again, found his way to Bath, went to the Assembly Rooms, etc.; and our friend Mr. Pickwick, we need not say,

also enjoyed himself there.  In Boswell’s record we have a character called Mudge, an “out of the way” name; and in Pickwick we find a Mudge.  George Steevens, who figures so much in Boswell’s work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as “Bill Stumps, his mark.”  He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker’s shop, where it was greedily purchased by the credulous virtuoso.  The notion, by the way, of the Club button was taken from the Prince Regent, who had his Club and uniform, which he allowed favourites to wear.

There is a story in Boswell’s Biography which is transferred to “Pickwick,” that of the unlucky gentleman who died from a surfeit of crumpets; Sam, it will be recollected, describes it as a case of the man “as killed hisself on principle.”

“He used to go away to a coffee-house after

his dinner and have a small pot o’ coffee and four crumpets.  He fell ill and sent for the doctor.  Doctor comes in a green fly vith a kind o’ Robinson Crusoe set o’ steps as he could let down ven he got out, and pull up arter him ven he got in, to perwent the necessity o’ the coachman’s gettin’ down, and thereby undeceivin’ the public by lettin’ ’em see that it wos only a livery coat he’d got on, and not the trousers to match.  ‘How many crumpets at a sittin’ do you think ’ud kill me off at once?’ said the patient.  ‘I don’t know,’ says the doctor.  ‘Do you think half a crown’s vurth ’ud do it?’ says the patient.  ‘I think it might,’ says the doctor.  ‘Three shillin’ ’s vurth ’ud be sure to do it, I s’pose?’ says the patient.  ‘Certainly,’ says the doctor.  ‘Wery good,’ says the patient; ‘good-night.’  Next mornin’ he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillin’s’ vurth o’ crumpets, toasts ’em all, eat ’em all, and blows his brains out.”

“What did he do that for?” inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly; for he was considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative.

“Wot did he do it for, sir?” reiterated Sam.  “Wy, in support of his great principle that crumpets was wholesome, and to show that he vouldn’t be put out of his vay for nobody!”