The papers I have now collected into a volume under the title of “Twice Round the Clock, or the Hours of the Day and Night in London,” were originally published in the pages of the “Welcome Guest,” a weekly periodical whose first and surprising success must be mainly ascribed to the taste and spirit of its original proprietor, Mr. Henry Vizetelly. I confess that I thought as little of “Twice Round the Clock” in the earlier hours of its publication as the critics of the _Saturday Review_—who, because I contributed for six years to another periodical whose conductor they hold in hatred, have been pleased to pursue me with an _acharnement_ quite exciting to experience—may think of it, now. I looked upon the articles as mere ephemeral essays, of a description of which I had thrown off hundreds during a desultory, albeit industrious, literary career. But I found ere long that I had committed myself to a task whose items were to form an Entirety in the end; that I had begun the first act of a Drama which imperatively demanded working out to its catastrophe. I grew more interested in the thing; I took more pains; I felt myself spurred to accuracy by the conscientious zeal of the admirable artist, Mr. William M’Connell, whose graphic and truthful designs embellished my often halting text. I found, to my great surprise, that the scenes and characters I had endeavoured to embody were awakening feelings of curiosity and interest among the many thousand readers of the journal to which I contributed. The work, such as it is, was in the outset not very deliberately planned. I can only regret now, when it is terminated, that the details I have sometimes only glanced at were not more elaborately and completely carried out. It would be a sorry piece of vanity on my part to imagine that the conception of the History of a Day and Night in London is original. I will tell you how I came to think of the scheme of “Twice Round the Clock.” Four years ago, in Paris, my then Master in literature, Mr. Charles Dickens, lent me a little thin octavo volume, which, I believe, had been presented to him by another Master of the craft, Mr. Thackeray, entitled—but I will transcribe the title-page in full. LOW LIFE; OR, ONE HALF THE WORLD KNOWS NOT HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVE. Being a Critical Account of what is Transacted by People of almost all Religions, Nations, Circumstances, and Sizes of Understanding, in the TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, BETWEEN SATURDAY NIGHT AND MONDAY MORNING. In a true Description of a SUNDAY, As it is usually spent within the Bills of Mortality, calculated for the twenty-first of June. WITH AN ADDRESS TO THE INGENIOUS AND INGENUOUS MR. HOGARTH. Let Fancy guess the rest.—_Buckingham._