indignation it evoked in the _Monthly Review_ (vol. xxvii. 1762). The object of the puff paragraph had been an insipid panegyric on Lord Halifax, called “The Minister of State,” which sacrificed on the altar of Halifax the characters of all preceding premiers, from Burleigh to Bute, and the attempt to force its sale evoked the wrath of the _Review_, which commences as follows:--“As the practice of puffing is now arrived at the utmost height of assurance, it will not be improper for the Reviewers occasionally to mark some of the grosser instances that may occur of this kind.” Thereupon it notices the “lying paragraph,” to which we have already referred, the words within brackets being the comments of the Reviewer: A noble Peer has absolutely given directions to his Solicitor to commence a Prosecution against the Author of the Poem called, _The Minister of State, a Satire_, as a most licentious and libellous composition.--The writer, no doubt, merits a severer censure of the Law than any of his brethren, because instead of employing those _great talents for poetry and satire for which he is so deservedly celebrated_ [what does he not deserve for his effrontery?] in the service of Virtue and his Country, he has _basely_ [basely enough!] prostituted them to the unworthy purpose of defaming, lampooning and abusing some of the greatest characters in this Kingdom. [All a puff to excite curiosity.] We think this LITERARY LUMINARY, of the age [this illiterate farthing candle!] should pay a greater deference to the words of his predecessor Mr Pope: “Curs’d be the verse, how smooth soe’er it flow,” etc. [We doubt, however, if any of this _honest_ gentleman’s readers will think his verses worth a curse, whatever they may think he deserves for his impudence.] This energetic effort on the part of the _Review_ to prevent undue reputations being made by disguised advertisements, had little effect in checking an evil which flourishes unto this day--which will, in fact, flourish as long as a majority exist ready to believe anything they are told, and to be more than usually prompt with their credulity when what they are told is more than usually wrong. The next notification we select is from the _British Chronicle_ of January 4-6, 1762, and is of a literary character also, though, judging by the motto adopted, the work is more likely to produce melancholy than amusement:-- This day are published, Price 1s., THE Songs of Selma, attempted in English verse, from the original of Ossian, the son of Fingal. . . . . _Quis talia fando Tempenet a lacrymis?_. . . . Printed for R. Griffiths, opposite Somerset House in the Strand; C. Henderson, at the Royal Exchange; and G. Woodfall, Charing Cross.