Hunting, fishing, riding, and other sports are the subjects for the current display of early 19th century books in the Poetry Room of Widener Library for this week and next, making a very appropriate exhibit for the fall season.

That Mr. Pickwick was not an original creation of Charles Dickens is illustrated by "Maxims and Hints for an Angler," by Robert Seymour. The pictures in this book show a short, pudgy figure with glasses on the end of his nose and with a long tail coat, the exact counterpart of Dickens' famous character. The fact is that Dickens probably derived the idea from the drawings of Seymour.

Another book in the exhibition, "Selections from Robert Seymour," contains drawings of this same figure, one illustration, indeed, having the type of situation in which Dickens constantly placed Mr. Pickwick. It shows this kindly gentleman explaining to an impudent youth behind him how to throw the fishing line into the water correctly. He points out that there was not even a ripple when his fly hit the water, but he fails to notice that the hook is really caught in a limb just over his head and has never reached the stream.

One of the first books on horses is displayed, printed in 1595. By its title it claims to instruct in how to "choose, ride, train, and diet both hunting and running horses." A book on hunting and riding. "The Sportsman at Home and Abroad," has on its titlepage an original handcolored drawing by Henry Alken, famous English illustrator of horses and hunting scenes.

Even football is represented in the exhibit. One of the pictures in the collection of drawings by Robert Cruikshank shows a game amongst some boys, evidently of a military school, as it was in 1830. Enough description of the picture is to say that it is exactly like sandlot football played by boys every where today.