The Personal History of David Copperfield the Younger.

THIS work, which is by many considered to be Dickens's masterpiece, was originally brought out under the following title: "The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences, and Observations of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery (which he never meant to be published on any account)." It was issued in twenty monthly parts, with two illustrations by "Phiz" (Halbot K. Browne) in each part. The first number appeared May 1, 1849; and the preface was dated October, 1850. In it the author thus spoke of his work:

Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them; but, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child, and his name is DAVID COPPERFIELD.

Mr. Dickens's affection for his child was easily accounted for. It was at once seen that D. C. was only C. D. reversed, and that the story must be in several important respects autobiographic; for the hero, like the author, was employed in a lawyer's office, then turned parliamentary reporter, and finally became a successful novelist. But that the painful struggles and experiences of Copperfield's boyhood were a mere transcript of the writer's own sufferings and feelings was not fully known until the publication of Forster's "Life of Dickens." Yet such was the case.

For the poor little lad — with good ability and a most sensitive nature, turned at the age of ten into a "laboring hind" in the service of "Murdstone and Grinby," and conscious already of what made it seem very strange to him that he could so easily have been thrown away at such an age was indeed himself. His was the secret agony of soul at finding himself "companion to Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes; " and his the tears that mingled with the water in which he and they rinsed and washed out bottles. It had all been written as fact, before he thought of any other use for it; and it was not until several months later when the fancy of "David Copperfield," itself suggested by what he had

so written of his early troubles, began to take shape in his mind - that he abandoned his first intention of writing his own life. Those warehouse experiences fell then so aptly into the subject he had chosen, that he could not resist the temptation of immediately using them; and the manuscript recording them, which was but the first portion of what he had designed to write, was embodied in the substance of the eleventh and earlier chapters of his novel.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Adams. Head boy at Doctor Strong's; affable and good-humored, and with a turn for mathematics. (Ch. xvi, xviii.)

Babley, Richard, called MR. DICK. A mild lunatic, and a protégé of Miss Betsey Trotwood's, who insists that he is not mad.

"He had a favorite sister," said my aunt, - "a good creature, and very kind to him: but she did what they all do, took a husband; and he did what they all do, - made her wretched. It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick, (that's not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear of his brother and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a fever. That was before he came to me; but the recollection of it is oppressive to him even now. Did he say any thing to you about King Charles the First, child?"

"Yes, aunt."

"Ah!" said my aunt, rubbing her nose as if she were a little vexed. "That's his allegorical way of expressing it. He connects his illness with great disturbance and agitation, naturally; and that 's the figure, or the simile, or whatever it's called, which he chooses to use. And why should n't he, if he thinks proper?"

I said, "Certainly, aunt."

"It's not a business-like way of speaking," said my aunt, "nor a worldly way. I am aware of that; and that 's the reason why I insist upon it that there sha'n't be a word about it in his memorial."

"Is it a memorial about his own history that he is writing, aunt?"

"Yes, child," said my aunt, rubbing her nose again. "He is memorializing the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Somebody or other, -one of those people, at all events, who are paid to be memorialized, about his affairs. I suppose it will go in one of these days. He has n't been able to draw it up yet, without introducing that mode of expressing himself; but it don't signify; it keeps him employed."

In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavoring to keep King Charles the First out of the memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now.

(Ch. xiii-xv, xvii, xix, xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxviii, xlii, xliii, xlv, xlix, lii, liv, lx, lxii, lxiv.)

Bailey, Captain. An admirer of the eldest Miss Larkins. (Ch. xviii.)

Barkis, Mr. A carrier who takes David Copperfield from Blunderstone to Yarmouth, on his first being sent away to school. As they jog along, Copperfield asks Mr. Barkis if they are going no farther than Yarmouth together.

"That's about it," said the carrier. "And there I shall take you to the stage-cutch; and the stage-cutch, that 'll take you to-wherever it is."

As this was a great deal for the carrier to say, -he being of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational,- I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant; and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant's.

"Did she make 'em, now?" said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart, with an arm on each knee. "Peggotty, do you mean, sir?"

"Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking."

"Do she, though?" said Mr. Barkis.

He made up his mouth as if to whistle; but he did n't whistle. He sat looking at the horse's ears as if he saw something new there, and sat so for a considerable time. By and by, he said, —

"No sweethearts, I b'lieve?"

"Sweetmeats, did you say, Mr. Barkis?" For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment.

"Hearts," said Mr. Barkis,

"With Peggotty?"

"sweethearts: no person walks with her?"

"Ah!" he said, "her."

"Oh, no! She never had a sweetheart."

"Did n't she, though?" said Mr. Barkis.

Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he did n't whistle, but sat looking at the horse's ears.

"So she makes," said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, "all the apple-parsties, and does all the cooking; do she?"

I replied that such was the fact.

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Mr. Barkis. "P'raps you might be writin' to her?"

"I shall certainly write to her,” I rejoined.

"Ah!" he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. "Well ! If you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin'; would you?"

"That Barkis was willing," I repeated innocently. "Is that all the message?"

Ye-es," he said, considering. "Ye-es: Barkis is willin'."

"But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr. Barkis," I said, filtering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then," and could give your own message so much better."

As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying with profound gravity, *Barkis is willin'; that's the message," I readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth, that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which

ran thus: "My dear Peggotty, I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mamma. Yours affectionately. P. S.-He says he particularly wants you to know - Barkis is willing."

After the death of her mistress, Peggotty becomes "willin'" also, and marries Mr. Barkis, who makes her a very good husband, save that he is "rather near," as she expresses it, and jealously guards a box under his bed, which contains his money and valuables; although he persists in telling everybody that it is "old clothes." At last he is taken very ill; and David goes down from London to visit him.

"Barkis, my dear," said Peggotty, . . . bending over him,

...

"Here's my dear boy, my dear boy, Master Davy, who brought us together, Barkis; that you sent messages by, you know! Won't you speak to Master Davy?"

He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only expression it had.

He's a-going out with the tide," said Mr. Peggotty to me, behind his

hand.

My eyes were dim, and so were Mr. Peggotty's; but I repeated in a whisper, "With the tide?"

"People can't die along the coast," said Mr. Peggotty, "except when the tide 's pretty nigh out. They can't be born unless it 's pretty nigh in, — not · properly born, till flood. He 's a-going out with the tide. It 's ebb at half-arter three, slack water half an hour. If he lives till it turns, he 'll hold his own till past the flood, and go out with the next tide."

We remained there, watching him, a long time, - hours. What mysterious influence my presence had upon him in that state of his senses, I shall not pretend to say; but, when he at last began to wander feebly, it is certain he was muttering about driving me to school.

"He's coming to himself," said Peggotty.

Mr. Peggotty touched me, and whispered with much awe and reverence, "They are both a-going out fast."

"Barkis, my dear!" said Peggotty.
"C. P. Barkis," he cried faintly.
"Look!

eyes.

No better woman anywhere!

Here's Master Davy!" said Peggotty. For he now opened his

I was on the point of asking him if he knew me, when he tried to stretch out his arm, and said to me distinctly, with a pleasant smile, —

"Barkis is willin'!"

And, it being low water, he went out with the tide.

(Ch. ii-v, vii, viii, x, xxix, xxxi.)

Barkis, Mrs. See PEGGOTTY, CLARA.

Charley. A drunken, ugly old dealer in second-hand sailor's clothes and marine stores, to whom David Copperfield sells his jacket for fourpence when travelling on foot to his aunt's. (Ch. xiii.) Chestle, Mr. A hop-grower; a plain, elderly gentleman, who marries the eldest Miss Larkins. (Ch. xviii.)

Chillip, Mr. The doctor who officiates at the birth of David Copperfield. (Ch. i, ii, ix, x, xxii, xxx, lix.)

He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room to take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in "Hamlet," and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, - partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else. It is nothing to say that he had n't a word to throw at a dog. He could n't have thrown a word at a mad dog.

Clickett.

An "orfling" girl from St. Luke's Workhouse; servant to the Micawbers. She is a dark-complexioned young woman with a habit of snorting. (Ch. xi, xii.)

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Copperfield, Mrs. Clara. The mother of David; an artless, affectionate little woman, whom Miss Betsey Trotwood insists upon calling a mere baby. She marries Mr. Murdstone, a stern man, who, in conjunction with his sister, attempts to teach her "firmness,” but breaks her heart in the experiment. (Ch. i-iv, viii, ix.) See COPPERFIELD, DAVID. Copperfield, David. The character from whom the story takes its name, and by whom it is supposed to be told. He is a posthumous child, having been born six months after his father's death. His mother, young, beautiful, inexperienced, loving, and lovable, not long afterwards marries a handsome and plausible, but hard and stern man, Mr. Murdstone by name, who soon crushes her gentle spirit by his exacting tyranny and by his cruel treatment of her boy. After being for some time instructed at home by his mother, and reduced to a state of dullness and sullen desperation by his step-father, David is sent from home. He is sent to a villainous school, near London, kept by one Creakle, where he receives more stripes than lessons. Here he is kept until the death of his mother, when his step-father sends him (he being now ten years old) to London, to be employed in Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse in washing out empty wine-bottles, pasting labels on them when filled, and the like, at a salary of six shillings a week. such is the secret agony of his soul at sinking into companionship with Mick Walker, “Mealy Potatoes," and other boys with whom he is forced to associate, that he at length resolves to run away, and throw himself upon the kindness of a great-aunt (Miss Betsey Trotwood), whom he has never seen, but of whose eccentric habits and singular manner he has often heard. She receives him much better than he has expected, and soon adopts him, and sends him to school in the neighboring town of Canterbury. He does well here,

But