THE Scope and intent of these volumes are sufficiently indicated upon their title-page. They consist of a series of short chapters embodying the results of a study of the manners, the customs the daily life, the occupations, and the general social condition of the English people in the eighteenth century, an age which, in spite of its close proximity to that in which we live, and in spite of the many books which have been written to illustrate its history, is still, perhaps, more imperfectly known and understood than any of those to which it immediately succeeded.
That the specification of every source of information which has been consulted would hardly have been possible, will be obvious, nevertheless the work contains few, if indeed any, statements of importance which are unaccompanied by the means whereby their accuracy can be tested by such as may be desirous of so doing.
If such a pendant to historical literature shall be found instrumental in casting even a very slight semblance of the