Certain humorous pieces written by Dickens for Richard Bentley were also illustrated by Cruikshank. The first paper, entitled "Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, once Mayor of Mudfog" (published in January 1837), contains an etching of Ned[5] Twigger in the kitchen of Mudfog Hall, and the next contribution, purporting to be a "Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything" (September, 1838) is embellished with a very ludicrous illustration, entitled "Automaton Police Office and Real Offenders, from the model exhibited before Section B of the Mudfog Association." This design depicts the interior of a police-court in which all the officials are automatic--an ingenious rendering of the idea propounded by Mr. Coppernose to the President and members of the Association. To the second paper the artist also supplied a woodcut portrait of "The Tyrant Sowster," of whom he made no less than six studies before he succeeded in producing a satisfactory presentment of Mudfog's "active and intelligent" beadle. Footnote 5: In the original title on the plate, Ned Twigger's Christian name is incorrectly given as Tom. In his juvenile days Dickens wrote a farce entitled "The Lamplighter," which, owing to its non-acceptance by the theatrical management for whom it was composed, he converted into an amusing tale called "The Lamplighter's Story." This constituted his share in a collection of light essays and other papers gratuitously supplied by well-known authors, and issued in volume form under the title of "The Pic Nic Papers," for the benefit of the widow of Macrone, Dickens's first publisher. The work, edited by Dickens, was launched by Henry Colborn in 1841, in three volumes, with fourteen illustrations by Cruikshank, "Phiz," and other artists. The first volume opened with "The Lamplighter's Story," for which Cruikshank provided an etching entitled "The Philosopher's Stone," the subject represented being the unexpected explosion of Tom Grig's crucible. This was the last illustration executed by the artist for Dickens's writings,[6] and it may be added that some impressions of the plate were issued in proof state "before letters," but these are exceedingly rare. Although for many years afterwards they continued fast friends, it may be (as Mr. Graham Everitt conjectures) that Cruikshank found it impossible to co-operate any longer with so exacting an employer of artistic labour as Charles Dickens, who remonstrated, with some show of reason, that he was the best judge of what he required pictorially,--an argument, however, which did not suit the independent spirit of the artist. Of his genius Dickens was ever a warm admirer, and remarking upon the exclusion of so able a draughtsman from the honours of the Royal Academy, because, forsooth! his works were not produced in certain mediums, the novelist pertinently asks: "Will no Associates be found upon its books one of these days, the