t; but he has nowhere given such variety of play to
his invention, and the book is unapproached among his writings for its
completeness of effect and uniform pleasantness of tone.

What has to be said hereafter of those writings generally, will properly
restrict what is said here, as in previous instances, mainly to personal
illustration. The _Copperfield_ disclosures formerly made will for ever
connect the book with the author's individual story; but too much has
been assumed, from those revelations, of a full identity of Dickens with
his hero, and of a supposed intention that his own character as well as
parts of his career should be expressed in the narrative. It is right to
warn the reader as to this. He can judge for himself how far the
childish experiences are likely to have given the turn to Dickens's
genius; whether their bitterness had so burnt into his nature, as, in
the hatred of oppression, the revolt against abuse of power, and the war
with injustice under every form displayed in his earliest books, to have
reproduced itself only; and to what extent mere compassion for his own
childhood may account for the strange fascination always exerted over
him by child-suffering and sorrow. But, many as are the resemblances in
Copperfield's adventures to portions of those of Dickens, and often as
reflections occur to David which no one intimate with Dickens could fail
to recognize as but the reproduction of his, it would be the greatest
mistake to imagine anything like a complete identity of the fictitious
novelist with the real one, beyond the Hungerford scenes; or to suppose
that the youth, who then received his first harsh schooling in life,
came out of it as little harmed or hardened as David did. The language
of the fiction reflects only faintly the narrative of the actual fact;
and the man whose character it helped to form was expressed not less
faintly in the impulsive impressionable youth, incapable of resisting
the leading of others, and only disciplined into self-control by the
later griefs of his entrance into manhood. Here was but another proof
how thoroughly Dickens understood his calling, and that to weave fact
with fiction unskilfully would be only to make truth less true.

The character of the hero of the novel finds indeed his right place in
the story he is supposed to tell, rather by unlikeness than by likeness
to Dickens, even where intentional resemblance might seem to be
prominent. Take autobiogra