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again for the few further touches that occupied him to a late hour of the night before he destroyed himself.[8] In an unpublished letter (dated April 3, 1866) addressed by the novelist to a correspondent who required certain particulars respecting "Pickwick," he thus referred to the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." Footnote 8: The artist's son asserts that the last plate Seymour etched for "Pickwick" (viz., "The Dying Clown") was submitted to Dickens a fortnight (not forty-eight hours, as recorded by Forster) before his death. It seems that Seymour's final drawing was for a woodcut, executed for John Jackson, the engraver, to whom the artist delivered it on the evening of the fatal day, April 20, 1836. PLATE XVIII "DR. SLAMMER'S DEFIANCE OF JINGLE" _Facsimile_ of the Original Drawing for "The Pickwick Papers" by R. SEYMOUR