stated the nature and extent of my labours, I
may perhaps be forgiven for adding my testimony
to the base ingratitude of the public.
I am known, certainly, wherever an alphabet
is known. I have written on all subjects—
and treated all subjects from every possible
point of view. I have agreed and disagreed
with every editor under the sun. I have been
referred to in Parliament; the printers of my
effusions have been indicted for libel; I have
been printed in every language that commands
type; I have been reproduced for private
circulation; I have been favourably criticised
a thousand times; and yet am I a neglected,
forlorn individual.

This is the first time that anything like a
history of my labours has been made public.
People have read my effusions under every
circumstance and through every channel;
and no person has been sufficiently curious
to institute inquiries respecting me. Yet the
agony I have suffered is incalculable. Papers
which no other person would approach, I
have patiently perused and written for;
subjects the most uninviting have "engaged
my serious attention for years;" and I have
"ventured to trespass" upon "valuable
columns," of which it was given to me alone
to understand the value. Then, who has not
noticed the "feelings of unmixed regret," or
the "deep satisfaction," with which I have
"ventured to address" the editors of countless
newspapers? Nobody. I am even more
forlorn than the gentleman who had an
obliging echo to answer his queries in the
affirmative. My boundless knowledge—my
intimacy with the private concerns of the
Sultan and the iniquities of the Nizam—my
correct information as to the price of starch
in the Prussian markets, and the
probability of receiving monies on account of the
Pennsylvanian Bonds, only aggravate the
hardship of my obscure condition. Even now,
while I am writing this account of myself with
my first finger, my second is employed upon an
urgent remonstrance with the discontented
party at the Cape; while my thumb is upon the
South Western Railway. I have long nursed
the hope of finding a finger unemployed, that
I might write my autobiography; but the
pressure of events; the bubble rising in the
South of Europe, upon which I have the one-
and-twentieth part of my eye; the doings of
the Americans in California, upon which
another fraction of my eye reposes; the anger
simmering in France, upon which another
small proportion of my optic rests;—these,
and many other events, warn that unhappy
elf, the Constant Reader (who is as constant
a writer) to give up his long cherished idea,
and be content with the most cursory record
of his career.

Posterity will do me justice. My writings
would fill one hundred thick octavo volumes;
whereas (such is the fate of genius in this
country) they now fill the shops of cheesemongers,
and weigh down the scales of
grocers. Who has not read a few of my
works ? Yet who knows anything about
me?—whether I am grey with age, or in
the prime of life; whether I am five or six
feet high; whether I live like a prince or like
a beggar; whether I adopt any extraordinary
costume, or dress simply like any ordinary
English gentleman. Ah! it is hard to have
performed gigantic labours, and yet to remain
personally unnoticed. I have had my imitators,
like most great men. There is that base
knave, the " Subscriber from the Beginning."
But, compared with mine, what are his
performances? I remember his letter to the
editor of the "Sledge Hammer" (in the
second number of that inoffensive journal),
but there was nothing in it. The measure of
public contempt will be filled to the brim,
when I declare that he could write only on
two subjects at once. "A Constant Admirer,"
too, was one of my imitators, but he soon died
off. "Veritas" has tried to disturb my status,
and the "Enemy to Humbug" has
endeavoured to jostle me out of the field. And
here I am at last, still hard at work, and
still without public acknowledgment of my
services. A few sagacious people have
deigned, from time to time, to express some
wonderment with regard to the variety of my
reading and writing, and my constant
appearance in every journal, both English and
foreign.

It is for the satisfaction of these in particular,
that I have employed the short
leisure of one of my fingers in giving a
description of the pains I have been at, and
the devices I have found it necessary to adopt,
to contribute daily articles of some importance
towards the newspaper literature of my
country. The finger I have been using upon
this sketch is now called upon to perform
another duty, the nineteenth section of one of
my eyes having caught an erroneous report
(which the finger must correct on the spot)
published in the "War Whoop," a New
Zealand Paper, published by the natives for
the suppression of Cannibalism, and to
discountenance particularly the consumption of
"Missionary Pie."

On the 29th instant will be published, price 5s. 6d., neatly
bound in Cloth,

THE THIRD VOLUME

OF

"HOUSEHOLD WORDS."

Publishing Monthly, price 2d., Stamped 3d.,

THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF CURRENT EVENTS.

** This Monthly Supplement of "Household Words,
containing a history of the previous month, is issued
regularly (pending the decision of the Barons of the
Exchequer as to whether it be liable, in law, to the Stamp
Duty) with the Magazines. The FIRST VOLUME, being a
Record of the Public Events of the Year 1850, is still to
be had of all Booksellers.

Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.