r difficult the identification of mental peculiarities, he was
only eager to get in the whole man complete upon his page, figure and
face as well as manners and mind.

He wrote accordingly (from Doughty-street on the 3rd of June 1837) to
Mr. Haines,[164] a gentleman who then had general supervision over the
police reports for the daily papers. "In my next number of _Oliver
Twist_ I must have a magistrate; and, casting about for a magistrate
whose harshness and insolence would render him a fit subject to be
_shown up_, I have as a necessary consequence stumbled upon Mr. Laing of
Hatton-garden celebrity. I know the man's character perfectly well; but
as it would be necessary to describe his personal appearance also, I
ought to have seen him, which (fortunately or unfortunately as the case
may be) I have never done. In this dilemma it occurred to me that
perhaps I might under your auspices be smuggled into the Hatton-garden
office for a few moments some morning. If you can further my object I
shall be really very greatly obliged to you." The opportunity was found;
the magistrate was brought up before the novelist; and shortly after, on
some fresh outbreak of intolerable temper, the home-secretary found it
an easy and popular step to remove Mr. Laing from the bench.

This was a comfort to everybody, saving only the principal person; but
the instance was highly exceptional, and it rarely indeed happens that
to the individual objection natural in every such case some
consideration should not be paid. In the book that followed
_Copperfield_, two characters appeared having resemblances in manner and
speech to two distinguished writers too vivid to be mistaken by their
personal friends. To Lawrence Boythorn, under whom Landor figured, no
objection was made; but Harold Skimpole, recognizable for Leigh Hunt,
led to much remark; the difference being, that ludicrous traits were
employed in the first to enrich without impairing an attractive person
in the tale, whereas to the last was assigned a part in the plot which
no fascinating foibles or gaieties of speech could redeem from contempt.
Though a want of consideration was thus shown to the friend whom the
character would be likely to recall to many readers, it is nevertheless
very certain that the intention of Dickens was not at first, or at any
time, an unkind one. He erred from thoughtlessness only. What led him to
the subject at all, he has himself stated. Hunt's philosophy of m