And it was with the greatest curiosity and interest that we saw the creator of all this enjoyment enter in the flesh.
We were at first disappointed, and disposed to imagine there must be some mistake! No! _that_ is not the man who wrote _Pickwick_! What we saw was a dandified, pretty-boy-looking sort of figure, singularly young looking, I thought, with a slight flavour of the whipper-snapper genus of humanity.
Here is Carlyle's description of his appearance at about that period of his life, quoted from Froude's _History of Carlyle's Life in London_: "He is a fine little fellow--Boz--I think.

Clear blue, intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large, protrusive, rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility, which he shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular manner when speaking.

Surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very small, and dressed _a la_ D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick.

For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to guess pretty well what he is and what others are." One may perhaps venture to suppose that had the second of these guesses been less accurate, the description might have been a less kindly one.
But there are two errors to be noted in this sketch, graphic as it is.

Firstly, Dickens's eyes were not blue, but of a very distinct and brilliant hazel--the colour traditionally assigned to Shakspeare's eyes.