* * * * * With due allowance for a small degree of asperity, for which the writer can have no good excuse, the Anti-Jacobin Review of December last contains some argumentative strictures on the arrangement of this work, as it appeared in the first edition. When a book is offered to the world, it cannot be expected that every fact in it, and the method, should meet the approbation of all descriptions of persons; as taste and opinions are acknowledged to be as various as the features of the face. That the publick at large have not disapproved of the progressive chronological manner adopted, I have the most positive evidence by the rapid sale of the work; and this I shall retain. However, as objections have been raised by individuals who act as Public Censors, I have adopted their suggestions in part, and given the Anecdotes a more connected form, by removing the breaks between each. But, while I submit to their decision in the above instance, I beg leave to deny that _any_ of the materials are too trivial for insertion. I was to give the habits and manners of the Londoners as I found them. If their conduct was even infantile in some cases, the fault lay with them, not with me; if part of their conduct resembles that of all the rest of the world, it is still a part of their conduct, and requires notice as much as their peculiarities; and it is mere wanton contradiction to assert the contrary. The Reviewer next discovers, that periodical publications are not the best authorities for ascertaining the manners of the times. This I utterly deny; and I challenge the Reviewer to point out the cases where falsehood and inaccuracy are discoverable, in the use I have made of them. In truth, they are almost the only vehicles by which we obtain any thing like a correct account of the foibles of the day--nay, any account at all. What does he say to the Spectator, the Tatler, the World, the Rambler, the Guardian, the Observator, the Female Tatler? Were they not periodical publications? Do they abound in "_shameful lies_" (the gross words of the Reviewer)? or are they not considered as faithful sketches of those customs which escape the notice of the Historian?