The victim, from my cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career.”’

The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.

‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered the office — or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the Bureau — of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and —