CHARLES DICKENS. 175 



His great regi'et at this work consisted in the feeling that 

 he was sinking in his companionships, and that his hopes of 

 becoming learned and distinguished were doomed to dis- 

 appointment. Proud he was, nevertheless, to be able to 

 march home with six shillings he earned weekly in his pocket. 



Some of the characters he met with while the Dickens 

 family resided in Marshalsea prison were afterwards made 

 use of in Pickwick and other novels. When they left this 

 place, they removed to lodgings in Little College Street, and 

 afterwards resided in Somers Town. He quitted the blacking 

 warehouse when twelve years of age. Writing in 1862, he 

 says : ' The never-to-be-forgotten misery of that old time 

 bred a certain shrinking sensitiveness in a certain ill-clad, 

 ill-fed child, that I have found come back in the never-to- 

 be-forgotten misery of this later time.' But he never became 

 a creature of circumstances ; his early untoward surroundings 

 only strengthened him to put forth the most determined and 

 persevering energy to overcome them. His gift of animal 

 spirit and sense of humour also helped to bear him up. In 

 1824 he went to a certain seminary called Wellington House 

 Academy, kept by Mr. Jones, a Welshman, which he attended 

 for two years. Mr. Thomas, one of his schoolfellows, says 

 of this period : ' My recollection of Dickens whilst at school 

 is that of a healthy-looking boy; small, but well built, with 

 a more than usual flow of spirits, inducing to harmless fun, 

 seldom, if ever, I think, to mischief, to which so many lads 

 at that age are prone. I cannot recall anything that then 

 indicated he would hereafter become a literary celebrity ; 

 but perhaps he was too young then. He usually held his 

 head more erect than lads ordinarily do, and there was a 

 general smartness about him.' Another schoolfellow says: 



