of Commons (the plans for the new Parliament buildings were
just then taking shape), where he was afterward acknowledged as being one
of the most skilful and accomplished shorthand reporters in the galleries
of that unconventional, if deliberate, body, which even in those days,
though often counting as members a group of leading statesmen, perhaps
ranking above those of the present day, was ever a democratic though
"faithful" parliamentary body.

In 1834 the old Houses of Parliament were burned, and with the remains of
St. Stephen's Hall the new structure grew up according to the plan
presented herein, which is taken from a contemporary print.

At the end of the Parliamentary session of 1836 Dickens closed his
engagement in the Reporters' Gallery, a circumstance which he recounts
thus in Copperfield, which may be presumed to be somewhat of
autobiography:

"I had been writing in the newspapers and elsewhere so prosperously that
when my new success was achieved I considered myself reasonably entitled
to escape from the dreary debates. One joyful night, therefore, I noted
down the music of the Parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have
never heard it since." ("David Copperfield," Chap. XLVIII.)

Again, in the same work, the novelist gives us some account of the effort
which he put into the production of "Pickwick." "I laboured hard"--said
he--"at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual
discharge of my newspaper duties, and it came out and was very successful.
I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding
that I was keenly alive to it. For this reason I retained my modesty in
very self-respect; and the more praise I got the more I tried to
deserve." ("David Copperfield," Chap. XLVIII.)

From this point onward in the career of Charles Dickens, he was well into
the maelstrom of the life of letters with which he was in the future to be
so gloriously identified; and from this point forward, also, the context
of these pages is to be more allied with the personality (if one may be
permitted to so use the word) of the environment which surrounded the life
and works of the novelist, than with the details of that life itself.

In reality, it was in 1833, when Dickens had just attained his majority,
that he first made the plunge into the literary whirlpool. He himself has
related how one evening at twilight he "had stealthily entered a dim
court" (Johnson's Court, Fleet S