a series of sporting plates to be done by Robert Seymour, who
was succeeded on his death by Hablot .Browne (Phiz), who became
the illustrator for most of Dickens' novels.
Very reminiscent of and definitely influenced by the Sketches
was Nicplaas Beets' 1814—1903Camera Obscura, which first
appeared in 1839 arid :in its present version in 1854» Beets, in
common with so many Dutch authors of the nineteenth century
e.g.Jten KateC.Busken Huet, and P. de Gênestet), had
studied theology and, for a large part of his long life, he
held religious posts in Heemstede and Utrecht»
Beets had begun his litary activity as a Romantic, but had soon
shed such leanings, which he later referred to as "the black
period," to devote hims,elf to "unromantic" reality or, what
Potgieter, an important nineteenth century Dutch literary
critic, called the "lcopijerlust van het dagelijkschen levens"
(delight in copying everyday life)Apart from Dickens, Beets
and his colleagues were also influenced by Leigh Hunt, Charles
Lamb, Jean Paul, and Balzac.
The Camera Obscura, which is prefaced by the following quota
tion from Horace "Nee lusisse pudet, sed non incidere ludum"
(one is not ashamed of having played, but of not having ceased
playing), consists of a number of short sketches dealing with
popular Dutch middle-class types, partly written in the
appropriate regional dialect (e.g.Marken fisherman, Girl from
North Brabant, Coachman), together with certain longer stories
(De Familie Stastok, Een Oude Kennis (An Old Acquaintance), De
Familie Kegge, and Gerrit Witse). These stories have much of
the homely tone of Dickens' work of the same type, being
characterized by humour, depiction of middle- and lower-class
life and, we must admit it, a goodly dose of sentimentality.
The sketches are, in certain respects, a projection into
literature of the genre paintings of such seventeenth century
Dutch artists as Steen, Metsu and Ostade, their eighteenth
century English counterpart Hogarth, and Daumier in nineteenth
century France. As with Dickens, Beets has created for us cer
tain "types" which are still referred to to-day and which con
jure up better than any description the traits of the people to
whom they are applied, e.g., the "Diakenhuismannetje" (beads
man) in "De Familie Stastok," Robertus Nurks (the unpleasant
person in the wood at Haarlem, in the story of the same name),
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