birthplace in Commercial Road Portsmouth is justifiably proud; but we
must think of him rather as a Kentishman and a Londoner, since he never
lived in Hampshire after his fourth year. The earliest years which left
a distinct impress on his mind were those passed at Chatham, to which
his father moved in 1816. This town and its neighbouring cathedral city
of Rochester, with their narrow old streets, their riverside and
dockyard, took firm hold of his memory and imagination. To-day no places
speak more intimately of him to the readers of his books. Here he passed
five years of happy childhood till his father's work took the family to
London and his father's improvidence plunged them into misfortune.

For those who know Wilkins Micawber it is needless to describe the
failings of Mr. Dickens; for others we may be content to say that he was
kindhearted, sanguine and improvident, quite incapable of the steady
industry needed to support a growing family. When his debts overwhelmed
him and he was carried off to the Marshalsea prison, Charles was only
ten years old, but already he took the lead in the house. On him fell
the duty of pacifying creditors at the door, and of making visits to the
pawn-broker to meet the daily needs of the household. His initiation
into life was a hard one and it began cruelly soon. If he was active and
enterprising beyond his years, with his nervous high-strung temperament
he was capable of suffering acutely; and this capacity was now to be
sorely tried. For a year or more of his life this proud sensitive child
had to spend long hours in the cellars of a warehouse, with rough
uneducated companions, occupied in pasting labels on pots of
boot-blacking. This situation was all that the influence of his family
could procure for him; and into this he was thrust at the age of ten
with no ray of hope, no expectation of release. His shiftless parents
seemed to acquiesce in this drudgery as an opening for their cleverest
son; and instead of their helping and comforting him in his sorrow, it
was he who gave his Sundays to visiting them in prison and to offering
them such consolation as he could. The iron burnt deep into his soul.
Long after, in fact till the day when the district was rebuilt and
changed out of knowledge, he owned that he could not bear to revisit the
scene; so painful were his recollections, so vivid his sense of
degradation. Twenty-five years later he narrated the facts to his friend
and biogr