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He died in September, 1832, nearly four years before Pickwick was thought of, but Boz had learned the incident long before the Grimaldi MSS. were given him to edit, and I am inclined to think he must have learned them from his friend Harley who was intimate with the Grimaldis.
We knew well, however, that she was in good hands while Uncle Boz and Aunt Deborah had charge of her. We were not disappointed. Hers was a happy life, and a brighter or sweeter little rosebud never was seen. It may easily be supposed that she was a pet among us boys in the holidays, and each one of us would have gone through fire and water to serve her.
We were looking forward to skating the next day on a piece of water a mile or so inland, and we were to build a snow man, and a snow castle, which Uncle Boz undertook to defend with Bambo against all assailants. Aunt Deborah not being a combatant, was to be employed in the heroine-like occupation of making ammunition for both sides, in the shape of snowballs.
Scott's astonishing Waverley series, Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," Boz's own "Nicholas Nickleby," "Oliver Twist," in fact, not one of the whole series save "the immortal 'Pickwick'" has produced anything in the way of books or commentaries. I believe it is really owing to this. Boz was a great admirer of Boswell's equally immortal book. I have heard him speak of it. He attempted parodies of it even.
Driving one day to Hook, they met Charles Dickens, then best known as 'Boz, in one of his long tramps, with Harrison Ainsworth as his companion. When Dickens's next work, Master Humphrey's Clock, appeared, the Howitts were amused to see that their stout and wilful Peg had not escaped the novelist's keen eye, but had been pressed into service for Mr. Garland's chaise.
He began his career as an author early in life, publishing Vivian Grey when he was twenty-three years old. He was very young for such work, though hardly young enough to justify the excuse that he makes in his own preface, that it is a book written by a boy. Dickens was, I think, younger when he wrote his Sketches by Boz, and as young when he was writing the Pickwick Papers.
We could imagine the latter at Dulwich examining and measuring his holly bushes. It would not be too fanciful to suppose that Boz constantly with him, dining with him, and consulting him on every point must have been impressed, and influenced too, by those amiable qualities, particularly by that unaffected simplicity and good-will which is also so notable in his hero.
That evening Uncle Boz showed us an apparatus for sending a line on board a stranded ship, whether invented or improved by him I am not prepared to say, nor whether the projectile was a rocket or a shot, or both, fired from a gun. Hollis, the eldest of our party, who had considerable mechanical talent, seemed clearly to understand its use, I remember.
He had heard that some rivers in China freeze in summer from the same cause. In 1726, a further communication was made to the Academy by M. des Boz, Royal Engineer, describing four visits which he had made to the grotto near Besançon at four different seasons of the year, viz., in May and November 1725, and in March and August 1726.
It happened that Aunt Deborah had caught a cold, and was compelled to keep the house; the rest of us were going out trout-fishing with Uncle Boz; but Jack made excuses for remaining behind, wishing, in fact, to offer his services to take Katty a walk, or perhaps a row in our boat, if Bambo could be spared to accompany him; if not, he proposed asking one of the fishermen from the village, should any be found sauntering about on the beach.
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