ter Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza;" better, from every point of view, than if he had gained his first knowledge of English fiction amid the brick walls of Camden Town. Dickens always had a true love of the country, especially of that which is near to picturesque old towns of historic interest; and this most precious characteristic, to which we owe some of the sweetest, freshest pages in his work, might never have developed in him but for the early years at Rochester. Very closely has he linked his memory with that district of Kent,—nowadays, of course, like every other district, easily accessible from London, all but robbed of the old charm. At Rochester begin the adventurous travels of Mr. Pickwick; near Rochester stands the house of Gadshill; and it was Rochester that he chose for the scene of his last story, the unfinished Edwin Drood.
With London began unhappiness. David Copperfield has made universally familiar that figure of the poor little lad slaving at ignoble tasks in some by-way near the River Thames. David works for a wine-merchant, cleaning bottles; his original had for taskmasters a firm of blacking-makers. We know how sorely this memory rankled in the mind of the suc-
