It is a strange coincidence that the representatives of Seymour, after his death, claimed for him some share in the invention of _Pickwick_. But Dickens was alive to set this pretension at rest for ever, and others were at hand to bear witness to the fidelity of his memory. Seymour never originated nor suggested “an incident, a phrase, or a word,” and died when only twenty-four pages had been published. The very name originally belonged to a celebrated coach proprietor of Bath; and even the immortal figure of Mr. Pickwick is but a faithful portrait of Dickens’s model, a Mr. Foster, who lived at the time at Richmond. Pleased as Dickens was to see Cruikshank illustrating his pages, it was not to him he (or his publishers) turned when poor Seymour suddenly disappeared from the scene, but to Hablot K. Browne, who, as Phiz, became afterwards associated with Boz’s greatest triumphs. But while _Pickwick_ was running its triumphant career, Dickens made arrangements that were destined to bring him into relations with Cruikshank a second time. In August 1836, when the sixth number of _Pickwick_ was about to be issued, Dickens signed an agreement with the late Mr. Bentley, to undertake the editorship of a monthly magazine, to be started in the following January, * In this magazine Dickens was to “run” a _Magazine_. “But now,” he added, “we have settled to call it simply _Bentley’s Miscellany_.” * When the _Miscellany_, with Dickens for editor, was resolved upon, the late Mr. Bentley observed at a dinner given to complete preliminaries, “that the first title suggested was the _Wits_.’ “We have gone to the opposite extreme?” cried Jerdan. So the work was entered upon with a hearty laugh. I will now set before the reader impartially the story of Cruikshank’s contention as to his share in “Oliver Twist.” In his letter to the _Times_, Cruikshank said:-- “When _Bentley’s Miscellany_ was first started, it was arranged that Mr. Charles Dickens should write a serial in it, and which was to be illustrated by me; and in a conversation with him as to what the subject should be for the first serial, I suggested to Mr. Dickens that he should write the life of a London boy, and strongly advised him to do this, assuring him that I would furnish him with the subject, and supply him with all the characters, which my large experience of London life would enable me to do.