ecollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the spell,
and even, finally, to exorcise it in Mr. Redlaw's own breast.

"David Copperfield" was published between May, 1849, and the autumn of
1850, and marks, I think, the culminating point in Dickens' career as
a writer. So far there had been, not perhaps from book to book, but on
the whole, decided progress, the gradual attainment of greater ease,
and of the power of obtaining results of equal power by simpler means.
Beyond this there was, if not absolute declension, for he never wrote
anything that could properly be called careless and unworthy of
himself, yet at least no advance. Of the interest that attaches to the
book from the fact that so many portions are autobiographical, I have
already spoken; nor need I go over the ground again. But quite apart
from such adventitious attractions, the novel is an admirable one.
All the scenes of little David's childhood in the Norfolk home--the
Blunderstone rookery, where there were no rooks--are among the most
beautiful pictures of childhood in existence. In what sunshine of love
does the lad bask with his mother and Peggotty, till Mrs. Copperfield
contracts her disastrous second marriage with Mr. Murdstone! Then how
the scene changes. There come harshness and cruelty; banishment to Mr.
Creakle's villainous school; the poor mother's death; the worse
banishment to London, and descent into warehouse drudgery; the strange
shabby-genteel, happy-go-lucky life with the Micawbers; the flight
from intolerable ills in the forlorn hope that David's aunt will take
pity on him. Here the scene changes again. Miss Betsy Trotwood, a fine
old gnarled piece of womanhood, places the boy at school at
Canterbury, where he makes acquaintance with Agnes, the woman whom he
marries far, far on in the story; and with her father, Mr. Wickham, a
somewhat port wine-loving lawyer; and with Uriah Heep, the fawning
villain of the piece. How David is first articled to a proctor in
Doctors' Commons, and then becomes a reporter, and then a successful
author; and how he marries his first wife, the childish Dora, who
dies; and how, meanwhile, Uriah is effecting the general ruin, and
aspiring to the hand of Agnes, till his villanies are detected and his
machinations defeated by Micawber--how all this comes about, would be
a long story to tell. But, as is usual with Dickens, there are
subsidiary rills of story running into the main stream, and by one of