'One Caleb D'Anvers' (Nicholas Amherst, of the Craftsman), 'and, if I mistake not, one Fog, are accused of seditiously asserting that a crow is black; but the writers on the other side have, with infinite wit, proved a black crow to be the whitest bird of all the feathered tribe.' These old newspapers give us curious glimpses of the manners of the time. The _Grub-Street Journal_ has an article upon 'an operation designed to be performed upon one Ray, a condemned malefactor, by Mr. Cheselden, so as to discover whether or no not only the drum but even the whole organ be of any use at all in hearing.' The writer must have been an ardent vivisector, for he concludes by a suggestion that 'all malefactors should be kept for experiments instead of being hanged.' In another number this periodical indulges in a criticism upon the new ode of the poet laureate (Colley Cibber), in the course of which the writer expresses an opinion that 'when a song is good sense, it must be made nonsense before it is made music; so when a song is nonsense, there is no other way but by singing it to make it seem tolerable sense'--a criticism which, whether it were true of that period or no, may be fairly said to apply with great force to the times in which we live. The _Weekly Register_ makes war upon the _Grub-Street Journal_, and, in a satirical article upon the title of that newspaper, likens the writers to caterpillars and grubs, etc., 'deriving their origin from Egyptian locusts;' and, in another article, accuses them of 'having undertaken the drudgery of invective under pretence of being champions of politeness.' The other papers summarized are the _Free Briton_, a violent opponent of the _Craftsman_, the _British Journal_, and the _Universal Spectator_, the forte of the last two lying in essays and criticisms.