This very able and valuable work, as to which your correspondent inquires, was written by Wm. Paterson, the projector of the Bank of England and the Darien scheme; a great and memorable name, but which, to the discredit of British biography, will be sought for in vain in Chalmers's or our other biographical dictionaries. The book above noticed appears to be a continuation of another tract by the same author, entitled _An Inquiry into the Reasonableness and Consequences of an Union with Scotland, containing a brief Deduction of what hath been done, designed, or proposed in the Matter of the Union during the last Age, a Scheme of an Union as accommodated to the present Circumstances of the two Nations, also States of the respective Revenues, Debts, Weights, Measures, Taxes, and Impositions, and of other Facts of moment: with Observations thereupon, as communicated to Laurence Philips, Esq., near York_: London, printed and sold by R. Bragg, 1706, 8vo., 160 pages. This was preceded by an earlier tract by the same author: _Conferences on the Public Debts, by the Wednesday's Club in Friday Street_: London, 1695, 4to. The last is noticed, with a short account of the author, by Mr. M^cCulloch (_Lib. of Political Economy_, p. 159.), but he has not mentioned the two other works previously adverted to. In all of them the author adopts the form of a report of the proceedings of a club; but, without attempting to deny the actual existence of a Wednesday's club in Friday Street (the designation he assumes for it), nothing can be more clear to any one who reads the three tracts than that the conversations, proceedings, and personages mentioned are all the creatures of his own fertile invention, and made use of, more conveniently to bring out his facts, arguments, and statements. The dramatic form he gives them makes even the dry details of finance amusing; and abounding, as they do, in information and thought, these works may always be consulted with profit and pleasure. The _Inquiry into the State of the Union_, 1717, 8vo., for which Walpole is said to have furnished some of the materials, was answered, but rather feebly, in an anonymous pamphlet entitled _Wednesday Club Law; or the Injustice, Dishonour, and Ill Policy of breaking into Parliamentary Contracts for public Debts_: London, printed for E. Smith, 1717, 8vo., pp. 38. The author of this pamphlet appears to have been a Mr. Broome. Those who would wish see one of the financial questions discussed in the _Inquiry_ treated with equal force and ability, and with similar views, by a great cotemporary of Paterson, whose pamphlet came out simultaneously, may read _Fair Payment no Spunge; or some Considerations on the Unreasonableness of refusing to receive back Money lent on public Securities, and the Necessity of setting the Nation free from the unsupportable Burthen of Debt and Taxes, with a View of the great Advantage and Benefit which will arise to Trade and to the Landed Interest, as well