Of the eight papers printed here, “Some Eighteenth-Century Men About Town,” “A Forgotten Satirist: ‘Peter Pindar’,” “Sterne’s Eliza,” and “William Beckford, of Fonthill Abbey,” have appeared in the Fortnightly Review; “Charles James Fox” appeared in the Monthly Review, “Exquisites of the Regency” in Chambers’s Journal, and “The Demoniacs” in the American Bookman. To the editors of these periodicals I am indebted either for permission to reprint, or for their courtesy in having permitted me to reserve the right of publication in book form. “Philip, Duke of Wharton” is now printed for the first time.