Dickens and His Illustrators. Frederic George Kitton
of "Pickwick," he had numerous other engagements to fulfil, so great was the demand for his designs. Although a rapid executant, the commissions he received from publishers accumulated to such an extent, that the excessive strain resulting from overwork at starvation prices began seriously to affect his health. Not only did the monthly supply of the "Pickwick" plates constitute an additional demand upon his mental resources, but he was harassed by the uncertainty of receiving from the printer the proofs from which he deduced his subjects, these sometimes being delayed so that very little time was allowed for the preparation of the plates. Unhappily his brain was unable to bear such pressure; constant business worries and anxieties induced symptoms of insanity, and before he had completed the second quartette of etchings for "Pickwick," the unfortunate artist committed suicide. This deplorable act took place on April 20, 1836, in a summer-house in the garden at the back of his residence in Liverpool Road, Islington, where, by the aid of a string attached to the trigger of a fowling-piece, he deliberately sent the charge through his head.
Seymour, we are assured, had not the slightest pecuniary embarrassment; he was quite happy, too, in his domestic affairs, extremely fond of his family, and naturally of a very cheerful disposition. His melancholy fate caused a general feeling of regret among the public, with whom he was a great favourite, and to whom he was then better known than Dickens himself. In the second number of "Pickwick" appeared the following just tribute to the merits of the artist: "Some time must elapse before the void the deceased gentleman has left in his profession can be filled up; the blank his death has occasioned in the Society, which his amiable nature won, and his talents adorned, we can hardly hope to see supplied. We do not allude to this distressing event, in the vain hope of adding, by any eulogium of ours, to the respect in which the late Mr. Seymour's memory is held by all who ever knew him."
In the original announcement of "The Pickwick Papers" we read: "Seymour has devoted himself, heart and graver, to the task of illustrating the beauties of 'Pickwick.' It was reserved to Gibbon to paint, in colours that will never fade, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—to Hume to chronicle the strife and turmoil of the two proud Houses that divided England against herself—to Napier to pen, in burning words, the History of the War in the Peninsula;—the deeds and actions of the gifted Pickwick yet remain for 'Boz' and Seymour to hand down to posterity." This projected collaboration, alas! was speedily frustrated by the unexpected tragedy, for Seymour had produced but seven plates when he terminated his life, the following being the subjects of his designs in the order of their publication:
| First Number. |
| "Mr. Pickwick Addresses the Club." |
| "The Pugnacious Cabman." |
| "The Sagacious Dog." |
| "Dr. Slammer's Defiance of Jingle." |
| Second Number. |
| "The Dying Clown." |
| "Mr. Pickwick in Chase of his Hat." |
| "Mr. Winkle Soothes the Refractory Steed." |
The Address issued with the Second Part contains an apology for the appearance therein of only three plates instead of four, as promised. "When we state," says the author, "that they comprise Mr. Seymour's last efforts, and that on one of them, in particular, (the embellishment to the Stroller's Tale,) he was engaged up to a late hour of the night preceding his death, we feel confident that the excuse will be deemed a sufficient one." Dickens had seen the unhappy man only once, forty-eight hours before his death, on the occasion of his visit to Furnival's Inn with the etching just referred to, which, altered at Dickens's suggestion, he brought away again for the few further touches that occupied him to a late hour of the night before he destroyed himself.[8] In an unpublished letter (dated April 3, 1866) addressed by the novelist to a correspondent who required certain particulars respecting "Pickwick," he thus referred to the artist: "Mr. Seymour shot himself before the second number of 'The Pickwick Papers' … was published. While he lay dead, it was necessary that search should be made in his working room for the plates to the second number, the day for the publication of which was then drawing on. The plates were found unfinished, with their faces turned to the wall. It was Mr. Chapman who found them and brought them away."
Plate XVIII
"DR. SLAMMER'S DEFIANCE OF JINGLE"
Facsimile of the Original Drawing for "The Pickwick Papers" by R. SEYMOUR
Lent by Mr. Augustin Daly.
In 1887 Messrs. Chapman & Hall appropriately celebrated the Jubilee of "The Pickwick Papers" by publishing an Edition de luxe, with facsimiles of the original drawings made for the work, or, rather, of as many of these as were then available. In the editor's preface it is stated that four out of the seven drawings etched by Seymour for "Pickwick" had disappeared, but it afterwards transpired that two of the missing designs remained in the possession of the artist's family, until they were sold to a private purchaser, who, in 1889, disposed of them by auction. Of these drawings, therefore, only one, viz., "The Sagacious Dog," is undiscoverable. The album in which the missing designs were found also contained other original drawings for "Pickwick," as well as the Dickens letter to Seymour and an excellent portrait of the artist; this important collection included the three published designs (viz., "Mr. Pickwick Addresses the Club," "The Pugnacious Cabman," and "Dr. Slammer's Defiance of Jingle,"—the latter differing slightly from the etching), together with the first sketch for "The Dying Clown," and two unpublished drawings (evidently alternative subjects, illustrating incidents in the fifth chapter), respectively representing "The Runaway Chaise" and "The Pickwickians in Mr. Wardle's Kitchen." All these drawings, except that of "The Dying Clown," are outlined with pen-and-ink, and the effects washed in with a brownish tint. Perhaps the most astonishing circumstance in connection with this collection is the extravagant sum it realised in the auction-room, for, as might be anticipated, many were anxious to secure so valuable a memento. The bidding was brisk until £200 was reached, when competition was confined to the representative of Mr. Augustin Daly (of New York) and another whose name is unrecorded, the result being that the prize fell to Mr. Daly for £500—probably a record figure for such an item. No one experienced greater surprise at this enormous price than the purchaser himself, who assures me that, although he imposed no limit, it was never his intention to offer so fabulous an amount; indeed, the sum he had in his mind was not so much as a quarter of that at which this attractive album eventually fell to the hammer. Owing to the generosity of Mr. Daly, I am enabled to reproduce in facsimile the whole of these extremely interesting designs, which he brought to England expressly for this purpose.
Seymour's method of work was to sketch with pencil or pen the outline of his subject, and add the shadow effects by means of light washes of a greyish tint. A precision and neatness of touch characterise these "Pickwick" drawings, the most interesting of which is undoubtedly that representing Mr. Pickwick addressing the Club, a scene such as Seymour may have actually witnessed in the parlour of almost any respectable public-house in his own neighbourhood of Islington. Here we have the first delineation of the immortal founder of the famous Club, "that happy portrait," as Dickens said of it, "by which he is always recognised, and which may be said to have made him a reality." Seymour originally sketched this figure as a long thin man, the familiar presentment of him as a rotund personage having been subsequently inspired by Edward Chapman's description of a friend of his at Richmond named John Foster, "a fat old beau, who would wear, in spite of the ladies' protests, drab tights and black gaiters." It is curious, however, that in "The Heiress," illustrated by Seymour six years previously, we find in the second plate a character bearing a striking resemblance to Mr. Pickwick, and in "Maxims and Hints for an Angler" (1833), the artist similarly portrayed an old gentleman marvellously like him, both as regards physique and benignity of expression; indeed, this seems to have been a favourite type with Seymour, and thus it would appear that, in making Dickens's hero short and comfortable,