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."