A
HISTORY OF ADVERTISING.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY
EDINBURGH AND LONDON

Large illutration (480 kB)

ILLUSTRATED BY ANECDOTES, CURIOUS SPECIMENS, AND
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

By HENRY SAMPSON.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES.

London:
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1874.

[v]

In presenting the following humble attempt at history-writing to the reader, I am selfish enough to admit a preference for his tender mercy rather than for his critical judgment. I would ask him to remember that there are many almost insurmountable difficulties to be faced in the accomplishment of a work like this, and a narrowed space adds to rather than diminishes from their antagonistic power.

When the work was first proposed to me, it was imagined that the subject could be fully disposed of in less than five hundred pages. I have already gone considerably over that number, and feel that the charge of incompleteness may still be brought against the book. But I also feel that if I had extended it to five thousand pages, the charge could still have been made, for with such a subject actual exhaustion cannot be expected; and so, despite the great quantity of unused material I have yet by me, I must rest satisfied with what I have done. I trust the reader will be satisfied also.

[vi]

Almost everybody has in the course of his lifetime discovered some sort of a pet advertisement without which he considers no collection can be complete. During the progress of this “history” I have received many hundreds such—have received sufficient, with accompanying notes, to fill a bigger volume than this—and I can therefore imagine every fresh reader turning to look for his favourite, and, in the event of his finding it not, condemning the book unconditionally. I hope that in the event of a reconsideration some worthy representative will be found occupying the missing one’s place. In like manner, and judging by my own friends’ observations, I have found that almost every one would have treated the “history” differently, not only from my way but from each other’s. Every one would have done something wonderful with such a wonderful subject. It will not be out of place perhaps, therefore, to ask the reader to think, that because the system adopted has not been that which would have suggested itself to him, it is not necessarily the wrong one after all.

I have received much assistance during the time I have been at work, in the way of hints and observations. For those which I have accepted, as well as for those I have been compelled to reject, I hereby tender my heartfelt thanks. Little in the way of so-called statistics of modern advertisers will be found[vii] in the book, as I fancy it is better to be silent than to make untrustworthy statements; and this remark will particularly apply to the amounts of annual outlay generally published in connection with the names of large advertising firms. My own experience is that the firms or their managers are not aware of the exact sums expended by them, or, if they are, do not feel inclined to tell in anything but the vaguest manner. Another observation I have made is, that extensive advertising is likely to result in a desire for the exaggeration of facts—at all events, so far as the individual advertisers themselves are concerned. That any firm, tradesmen, manufacturers, agents, quacks, perfumers, patentees, or whatever they may be, pay a settled annual sum, no more and no less, for advertising, I do not believe now, whatever I may have done before commencing my inquiries.

I have endeavoured as much as possible, and wherever practicable, to make the advertisements tell their own story. At the same time I have tried hard to prevent waste of space, and so far have, if in no other way, succeeded. This is but little merit to claim, and if I am allowed that, I shall be satisfied. Also, if my endeavour should lead to a development of that laudable spirit of emulation so apparent nowadays after the ice has been once[viii] broken, I shall be happy to supply any fresh adventurer with copious material which has grown up during the progress of this “history,” and which has been omitted only through lack of room. As far as my judgment has allowed me, I have selected what appeared best; other tastes might lead to other results. With this I will take leave of a somewhat unpleasant and apparently egotistical task; and in doing so beg to say that I trust to the reader’s kindness, and hope he will overlook the blemishes of a hurried and certainly an unpretentious work, which may, however, be found to contain a little amusement and some amount of information.

H. S.

London, September 1874.

[1]

A
HISTORY OF ADVERTISING.

It must be patent to every one who takes the least interest in the subject, that the study of so important a branch of our present system of commerce as advertising, with its rise and growth, cannot fail to be full of interest. Indeed it is highly suggestive of amusement, as a reference to any of our old newspapers, full as they are of quaint announcements, untrammelled by the squeamishness of the present age, will show. Advertising has, of course, within the last fifty years, developed entirely new courses, and has become an institution differing much from the arrangement in which, so far as our references show, it first appeared in this country; its growth has been attended by an almost entire revulsion of mode, and where we now get long or short announcements by the hundred, dictated by a spirit of business, our fathers received statements couched in a style of pure romance, which fully compensated for their comparatively meagre proportions. Of course, even in the present day, and in the most pure-minded papers, ignorance, intolerance,[2] and cupidity exhibit themselves frequently, often to the amusement, but still more often to the annoyance and disgust, of thinkers; but in the good old days, when a spade was a spade, and when people did not seek to gloss over their weaknesses and frivolities, as they do now, by a pretence of virtue and coldness, which, after all, imposes only on the weak and credulous, advertisements gave a real insight into the life of the people; and so, in the hope that our researches will tend to dispel some of the mists which still hang over the sayings and doings of folk who lived up to comparatively modern days, we present this work to the curious reader.

It is generally assumed—though the assumption has no ground for existence beyond that so common amongst us, that nothing exists of which we are ignorant—that advertisements are of comparatively modern origin. This idea has probably been fostered in the public mind by the fact that so little trouble has ever been taken by encyclopædists to discover anything about them; and as time begets difficulties in research, we are almost driven to regard the first advertisement with which we are acquainted as the actual inaugurator of a system which now has hardly any bounds. That this is wrong will be shown most conclusively, and even so far evidence is given by the statement, made by Smith and others, that advertisements were published in Greece and Rome in reference to the gladiatorial exhibitions, so important a feature of the ancient days of those once great countries. That these advertisements took the form of what is now generally known as “billing,” seems most probable, and Rome must have often looked like a modern country town when the advent of a circus or other travelling company is first made known.

The first newspaper supposed to have been published in England appeared in the reign of Queen Elizabeth during the Spanish Armada panic. This journal was called the English Mercurie, and was by authority “imprinted at London by[3] Christopher Barker, Her Highnesses printer, 1583.” This paper was said to be started for the prevention of the fulmination of false reports, but it was more like a succession of extraordinary gazettes, and had by no means the appearance of a regular journal, as we understand the term. It was promoted by Burleigh, and used by him to soothe, inform, or exasperate the people as occasion required.[1] Periodicals and papers really first came into general use during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I., and in the time of the Commonwealth; in fact, each party had its organs, to disseminate sentiments of loyalty, or to foster a spirit of resistance against the inroads of power.[2] The country was[4] accordingly overflowed with tracts of every size and of various denominations, many of them displaying great courage, and being written with uncommon ability. Mercury was the prevailing title, generally qualified with some epithet; and the quaintness peculiar to the age is curiously exemplified in the names of some of the news-books, as they were called: the Dutch Spye, the Scots Dove, the Parliament Kite, the Screech Owle, and the Parliamentary Screech Owle, being instances in point. The list of Mercuries is almost too full for publication. There was Mercurius Acheronticus, which brought tidings weekly from the infernal regions; there was Mercurius Democritus, whose information was supposed to be derived from the moon; and among other Mercuries there was the Mercurius Mastix, whose mission was to criticise all its namesakes. It was not, however, until the reign of Queen Anne that a daily paper existed in London—this was the Daily Courant, which occupied the field alone for a long period, but which ultimately found two rivals in the Daily Post and the Daily Journal, the three being simultaneously published in 1724. This state of things continued with very little change during the reign of George I., but publications of every kind increased abundantly during the reign of his successor. The number of newspapers annually sold in England, according to an average of three years ending with 1753, was 7,411,757; in 1760 it amounted to 9,464,790; in 1767 it rose to 11,300,980; in 1790 it was as high as 14,035,636; and in 1792 it amounted to 15,005,760. All this time advertising was a growing art, and advertisements were beginning to make themselves manifest as the main support and chief source of profit of newspapers, as well as the most natural channel of communication between the buyers and sellers, the needing and supplying members of a vast community.

Facsimile of newspaper pages

[5]

The victories of Cromwell gave Scotland her first newspaper. This was called the Mercurius Politicus, and appeared at Leith in October 1653; but it was in November 1654 transferred to Edinburgh, where it was continued until the 11th April 1660, when it was rechristened, and appeared as the Mercurius Publicus. This paper was but a reprint, for the information of the English soldiers, of a London publication. But a newspaper of native manufacture, we are told by a contemporary writer, soon made its appearance under the title of Mercurius Caledonius. The first number of this was published at Edinburgh on the 31st December 1660, and comprised, as its title sets forth, “the affairs in agitation in Scotland, with a summary of foreign intelligence.” The publication, however, extended to no more than ten numbers, which, it is said by Chambers, “were very loyal, very illiterate, and very affected.” After the Revolution the custom was still to reprint in Scotland the papers published in London, an economic way of doing business, which savours much of the proverbial thrift peculiar to the Land o’ Cakes. In February 1699 the Edinburgh Gazette, the first original Scotch newspaper or periodical, was published by James Watson, author of a “History of Printing;” but he, after producing forty numbers, transferred it to a Mr John Reid, whose son continued to print the paper till even after the Union. In February 1705, Watson, who seems to have been what would now be called a promoter of newspapers, established the Edinburgh Courant, but relinquished it after the publication of fifty-five numbers, and in September 1706 commenced the Scots Courant, with which he remained connected until about 1718. To these papers were added in October 1708 the Edinburgh Flying Post; in[6] August 1709 the Scots Postman, “printed by David Fearne for John Moncur;” and in March 1710 the North Tatler, “printed by John Reid for Samuel Colvil.” In 1715 the foundation was laid of the present splendid Glasgow press by the establishment of the Courant, but this did not in any way affect the publications in the then far more important town of Edinburgh. In March 1714 Robert Brown commenced the Edinburgh Gazette or Scots Postman, which was published twice a week; and in December 1718 the Town Council gave an exclusive privilege to James M‘Ewen to publish three times a week the Edinburgh Evening Courant, upon condition, however, that before publication “the said James should give ane coppie of his print to the magistrates.” This journal is still published, and it is but fair to assume that the original stipulation is yet complied with. The Caledonian Mercury followed the Courant on the 28th of April 1720, and was, like its forerunner, a tri-weekly organ. In these, as well as in those we have mentioned, advertisements slowly but gradually and surely began to make their appearance, and, as the sequel proves, to show their value.

It is stated by several writers that the earliest English provincial newspaper is believed to be the Norwich Postman, which was published in 1706 at the price of a penny, and which bore the quaint statement, that a halfpenny would not be refused. Newspaper proprietors, publishers, and editors were then evidently, so far as Norwich is concerned, less strong than they are now in their own conceit, and in their belief in the press as an organ of great power. This Postman was followed in 1714 by the Norwich Courant or Weekly Packet. York and Leeds followed in 1720, Manchester in 1730, and Oxford in 1740. It was not, however, until advertising became an important branch of commercial speculation that the provincial press began in any way to flourish. Now the journals published in our largest country towns[7] command extensive circulations, and are regarded by many advertising agents, whose opinions are fairly worth taking, as being much more remunerative media than our best London papers. For certain purposes, and under certain circumstances, the same may be said of colonial newspapers, which have, of course, grown up with the colonies in which they are published; for it must be always borne in mind that the essence of advertising is to place your statement where it is most likely to be seen by those most interested in it, and so a newspaper with a very limited supply of readers indeed is often more valuable to the advertiser of peculiar wares or wants than one with “the largest circulation in the world,” if that circulation does not reach the class of readers most affected by those who pay for publicity. It would seem, however, that the largest class of advertisers, the general public, who employ no agents, and who consider a large sale everything that is necessary, ignore the argument of the true expert, and lose sight of the fact that, no matter how extensive a circulation may be, it is intrinsically useless unless flowing through the channel which is fairly likely to effect the purpose for which the advertisement is inserted. It is customary to see a sheet, detached from the paper with which it is issued, full of advertisements, which are, of course, unread by all but those who are professedly readers of public announcements, and who are also, of course, not only in a decided minority, but not at all the people to whom the notices are generally directed. The smallest modicum of thought will show how grievous is the error which leads to such a result, and how much better it is to regard actual circulation but as so much evidence as to the value of an advertisement only, and not as a whole, sole, and complete qualification. Not in any incautious way do those who are most qualified to judge of value for money act. Turn to any paper of repute, and it will be seen that the professional advertiser, the theatrical manager, the publisher, the auctioneer, and[8] the others whom constant practice has made wary, lay out their money on quite a different principle from that of the casual advertiser. They have learned their lesson, and if they pay extra for position or insertion, they know that their outlay is remunerative; whereas, if it were not governed by caution and system, it would be simply ruinous. In fact, advertising is a most expensive luxury if not properly regulated, and a most valuable adjunct when coolness and calculation are brought to bear upon it as accessories.

The heavy duties originally imposed upon newspapers, both on them and their advertisements, were at first a considerable check to the number of notices appearing in them. For, in the first place, the high price of the papers narrowed the limits of their application; and, in the second, the extra charge on the advertisements made them above the reach of almost all but those who were themselves possessed of means, or whose business it was to pander to the unholy and libidinous desires of the wealthy. This, we fancy, will be extensively proved by a reference to the following pages; for while it is our endeavour to keep from this book all really objectionable items, we are desirous that it shall place before the reader a true picture of the times in which the advertisements appeared; and we are not to be checked in our duty by any false delicacy, or turned from the true course by any squeamishness, which, unfortunately for us in these days, but encourages the vices it attempts to ignore.

The stamp duty on newspapers was first imposed in 1713, and was one halfpenny for half a sheet or less, and one penny “if larger than half a sheet and not exceeding a whole sheet.” This duty was increased a halfpenny by an Act of Parliament, 30 Geo. II. c. 19; and by another Act, 16 Geo. III. c. 34, another halfpenny was added to the tax. This not being considered sufficient, a further addition of a halfpenny was made (29 Geo. III. c. 50), and in the thirty-seventh year of the same wise monarch’s reign (c. 90) three-halfpence more was all at once placed to the debit[9] of newspaper readers, which brought the sum total of the duty up to fourpence. An Act of 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 76 reduced this duty to one penny, with the proviso, however, that when the sheet contained 1550 superficial inches on either side, an extra halfpenny was to be paid, and when it contained 2295, an extra penny. An additional halfpenny was also charged on a supplement, which may be regarded, when the use of supplements in the present day is taken into consideration, as an indirect tax on advertisements. In 1855, by an Act 18 & 19 Vict. c. 27, this stamp duty was abolished, and immediately an immense number of newspapers started into existence, most of which, however, obtained but a most ephemeral being, and died away, leaving no sign. There are, however, a large number of good and useful papers still flourishing, which would never have been published but for the repeal of the newspaper stamp duty. To such repeal many rich men owe their prosperity, while to the same source may now be ascribed the poverty of numbers who were once affluent. At this time, of course, the old papers also reduced their rates, and from thence has grown a system of newspaper reading and advertising which twenty years ago could hardly have been imagined. Up to the repeal of the stamp duty few people bought newspapers for themselves, and many newsvendors’ chief duty was to lend the Times out for a penny per hour, while a second or third day’s newspaper was considered quite a luxury by those whom business or habit compelled to stay at home, and therefore who were unable to glance over the news—generally while some impatient person was scowlingly waiting his turn—at the tavern bar or the coffee-house. Now almost every one buys a penny paper for himself, and with the increase in the circulation of newspapers has, in proportionate ratio, gone on the increase in the demand for advertisements. The supply has, as every one knows, been in no way short of the demand. The repeal of the paper duty in 1861 also affected newspapers[10] much, though naturally in a smaller degree than the abolition of the compulsory stamp. Still the effect on both the papers and their advertisements—especially as concerns those journals which were enabled to still farther reduce their rates—was considerable, and deserves to be noted. In September 1870 the compulsory stamp, which had been retained for postal purposes, was abolished, and on the 1st of October papers were first sent by post with a halfpenny stamp affixed on the wrappers, and not on the journals themselves.

But it was to the abolition of the impost upon advertisements that their present great demand and importance can be most directly traced. For many years a very heavy tax was charged upon every notice published in a paper and paid for, until 1833 no less than 3s. 6d. being chargeable upon each advertisement inserted, no matter what its length or subject-matter. People then, we should imagine—in fact, as application to the papers of that time proves—were not so fond of cutting a long advertisement into short and separate pieces as they are now, for every cut-off rule then meant a charge of 3s. 6d. In 1832, the last year of this charge, the produce of this branch of the revenue in Great Britain and Ireland amounted to £170,649. Fancy what the returns would be if 3s. 6d. were charged on every advertisement published throughout the United Kingdom for the year ending December 31, 1873! It seems almost too great a sum for calculation. There is no doubt, however, that many people would be very glad to do the figures for a very slight percentage on the returns, which would be fabulous, and which would, if properly calculated, amaze many of those laudatores temporis acti who, without reason or provocation, are always deploring the decay of everything, and who would unhesitatingly affirm in their ignorance that even newspapers and newspaper advertisements have deteriorated in tone and quantity since the good old times, of which they prove they know nothing by their persistent[11] praises. Certainly if they did say this, they would not be much more wrong than they are generally when lamenting over a period which, could it but return, they would be, as a rule, the very first to object to. Of the sum of £170,649 just referred to, about £127,986, or three-fourths of the whole, may be regarded as being drawn from newspapers, and the other fourth from periodical publications. In 1837, four years after the reduced charge of 1s. 6d. for each advertisement had become law, a table was compiled from the detailed returns of the first six months. As it will doubtless prove interesting to those who take an interest in the growth and increase of newspapers, as well as in those of advertisements, we append it:—

The reduction to which we have alluded was followed in 1853 by the total abolition of the advertisement duty, the effect of which can be best appreciated by a glance at the columns of any daily or weekly paper, class or general, which possesses a good circulation.

The first paper published in Ireland was a sheet called Warranted Tidings from Ireland, and this appeared during[12] the rebellion of 1641; but the first Irish newspaper worthy of the name was the Dublin Newsletter, commenced in 1685. Pue’s Occurrences, a Dublin daily paper, originated in 1700, was continued for half a century, and was followed in 1728 by another daily paper, Faulkner’s Journal, established by one George Faulkner, “a man celebrated for the goodness of his heart and the weakness of his head.” The oldest existing Dublin papers are Saunders’s (originally Esdaile’s) Newsletter, begun in 1744, and the Freeman’s Journal, instituted under the title of the Public Register, by Dr Lucas in 1755. The Limerick Chronicle, the oldest Irish provincial newspaper, dates from 1768. Ireland has now nearly 150 newspapers, most of them celebrated for the energy of their language and the extreme fervour of their political opinions. Their Conservatism and Liberalism are nearly equally divided; about a score take independent views, and nearly fifty completely eschew politics. Irish newspapers flourish as vehicles for advertisement, and their tariffs are about on a par with those of our leading provincial journals.

Colonial newspapers are plentiful and good, and the best of them filled with advertisements of a general character at fairly high rates. Those papers published in Melbourne are perhaps the best specimens of colonial journalism, and best among these are the Argus and Age (daily), and the Australasian and Leader (weekly). In fact, we have hardly a weekly paper in London that is fit to compare on all-round merits with the last-named, which is a complete representative of the best class of Australian life, and contains a great show of advertisements, which do much to enlighten the reader as to Antipodean manners and customs.

American newspapers are of course plentiful, and their advertisements, as will be shown during the progress of this volume, are often of an almost unique character. Throughout the United States, newspapers start up like rockets, to fall like sticks; but now and then a success is made, and if once Fortune is secured by an adventurous[13] speculator, she is rarely indeed allowed to escape. The system of work on American (U.S.) journals is very different from that pursued here, everything on such establishments as those of the New York Herald, the Tribune, and the Times, being sacrificed to news. This is more particularly the case with regard to the Herald, which has an immense circulation and great numbers of highly-priced advertisements, most of which are unfortunately regarded more in connection with the amount of money they produce to the proprietor than in reference to any effect, moral or otherwise, they may have on the community. It is the boast of American journalists that they have papers in obscure towns many hundreds of miles inland, any one of which contains in a single issue as much news—news in the strictest meaning of the word—as the London Times does in six. And, singular as it may at first sight seem, there is a great element of truth about the statement, the telegraph being used in the States with a liberality which would drive an English proprietor to the depths of black despair. The Associated Telegraph Company seem to enjoy a monopoly, and to exercise almost unlimited powers; and not long ago they almost completely ruined a journal of standing in California by refusing to transmit intelligence to it because its editor and proprietor had taken exception to the acts of some members of the Associated Telegraph Company’s staff, and it was only on receipt of a most abject apology from the delinquents that the most autocratic power in the States decided to reinstate the paper on its list. This Telegraph Company charges very high rates, and the only visible means by which this system of journalism is successfully carried out is that of advertisements, which are comparatively more plentiful in these papers than in the English, and are charged for at considerably higher rates. Some of these newspapers, notably a small hebdomadal called the San Francisco Newsletter, go in for a deliberate system of blackmailing, and have no hesitation in acknowledging[14] that their pages, not the advertisement portions, but their editorial columns, are to be bought for any purpose—for the promotion of blasphemy, obscenity, atheism, or any other “notion”—at a price which is regulated according to the editor’s opinion of the former’s value, or the amount of money he may have in his pocket at the time. This is a system of advertising little known, happily, in this “effete old country,” where we have not yet learned to sacrifice all that should be dear and honourable to humanity—openly, at all events—for a money consideration. It is almost impossible to tell the number of papers published throughout the United States of America, each individual State being hardly aware of the quantity it contains, or how many have been born and died within the current twelvemonths. The Americans are a truly great people, but they have not yet settled down into a regular system, so far, at all events, as newspapers and advertisements are concerned.[3]

The first paper published in America is said to have been the Boston Newsletter, which made its appearance in 1704. The inhabitants of the United States have ever been wideawake to the advantages of advertising, but it would seem that the Empire City is not, as is generally supposed here, first in rank, so far as the speculative powers of its denizens go, if we are to believe the New Orleans correspondent of the New York Tribune, who says in one of his letters:—“The[15] merchants of New Orleans are far more liberal in advertising than those of your city, and it is they alone which support most of our papers. One firm in this city, in the drug business, expends 20,000 dollars a year in job printing, and 30,000 dollars in advertising. A clothing firm has expended 50,000 dollars in advertising in six months. Both establishments are now enjoying the lion’s share of patronage, and are determined to continue such profits and investments. A corn doctor is advertising at over 10,000 dollars a month, and the proprietor of a ‘corner grocery’ on the outskirts of the city has found it advantageous to advertise to the extent of 7000 dollars during the past winter.”

In London the Times and Telegraph absorb the lion’s share of the advertiser’s money. The former, the leading journal of the day, of independent politics and magnificent proportions, stands forth first, and, to use a sporting phrase, has no second, so far is it in front of all others as regards advertisements, as well as on other grounds. An average number of the Times contains about 2500 advertisements, counting between every cut-off rule; and the receipts in the advertisement department are said to be about £1000 a day, or 8s. each. A number of the Daily Telegraph in December 1873 contains 1444 advertisements (also counting between every cut-off rule), and these may fairly be calculated to produce £500 or thereabouts, the tariff being throughout little less than that of the Times; for what it lacks in power and influence the Telegraph is supposed to make up in circulation. This is rather a change for the organ of Peterborough Court, which little more than eighteen years ago was started with good advertisements to the extent of seven shillings and sixpence. The Telegraph proprietors do not, however, get all the profit out of the advertisements, for in its early and struggling days they were glad, naturally, to close with advertisement agents, who agreed to take so many columns a day at the then trade[16] price, and who now have a vast deal the best of the bargain. To such lucky accidents, which occur often in the newspaper world, are due the happy positions of some men, who live upon the profits accruing from their columns, and ride in neat broughams, oblivious of the days when they went canvassing afoot, and have almost brought themselves to the belief that they are gentlemen, and always were such. This must be the only bitter drop in the cup of the otherwise happy possessors of the Telegraph, which is at once a mine of wealth to them, and an instrument by which they become quite a power in the state. They can, however, well afford the lucky advertisement-agents their profits, and, looking back, may rest satisfied that things are as they are.

But there are many daily papers in London besides the Times and Telegraph, and all these receive a plentiful share of advertisements. The Standard has, within the past few years, developed its resources wonderfully, and may be now considered a good fair third in the race for wealth, and not by any means a distant third, so far as the Telegraph is concerned. This paper has a most extensive circulation, being the only cheap Conservative organ in London, if we may except the Hour, and as it offers to advertisers a repetition of their notices in the Evening Standard, it is not surprising that, spacious as are its advertisement columns, it manages to fill them constantly, and at a rate which would have considerably astonished its old proprietors. The Daily News, which a few years back reduced its price to one penny, has, since the Franco-Prussian war, been picking up wonderfully, and with its increased health as a paper its outer columns have proportionally improved in appearance; many experienced advertisers have a great regard for the News, which they look upon as offering a good return for investments. The Morning Advertiser, as the organ of the licensed victuallers, is of course an invaluable medium of inter-communication among members of “the trade,” and in it are to be found advertisements of[17] everything to be obtained in connection with the distillery, the brewery, and the tavern. Publicans who want potboys, and potboys who want employers, barmaids, barmen, and people in want of “snug” businesses, or with “good family trades” to dispose of, all consult the ’Tiser, which is under the special supervision of a committee of licensed victuallers, who act as stewards, and annually hand over the profits to the Licensed Victuallers’ School. An important body is this committee, a body which feels that the eye of Europe is upon it, and which therefore takes copious notes of everything; is broad wideawake, and is not to be imposed on. But it is a kindly and beneficent body, as its purpose shows; and a little licence can well be afforded to a committee which gives its time and trouble, to say nothing of voting its money, in the interest of the widow and the fatherless. A few years back great fun used to be got out of the ’Tiser, or the “Gin and Gospel Gazette,” as it was called, on account of its peculiar views on current questions; but all that is altered now, and since the advent of the present régime the Advertiser has improved sufficiently to be regarded as a general paper, and therefore as a general advertising medium. The Hour is a new journal, started in opposition to the Standard, and professing the same politics. It is hardly within our ken so far, and the same may be said of the Morning Post, which has its own exclusive clientèle. In referring to the foregoing journals, we have made no remarks beyond those to which we are guided by their own published statements, and we have intended nothing invidious in the order of selection. For obvious reasons we shall say nothing of the evening papers, beyond that all seem to fill their advertisement columns with ease, and to be excellent mediums of publicity.

The weekly press and the provincial press can tell their own story without assistance. In the former the advertisements are fairly classed, according to the pretensions of the papers or the cause they adopt, while with the provincials[18] it is the story of the London dailies told over again. Manchester and Liverpool possess magnificent journals, full of advertisements and of large circulation, and so do all other large towns in the country; but we doubt much if, out of London, Glasgow is to be beaten on the score of its papers or the energy of its advertisers.

[19]

It seems indeed singular that we are obliged to regard advertising as a comparatively modern institution; for, as will be shown in the progress of this work, the first advertisement which can be depended upon as being what it appears to be was, so far as can be discovered, published not much more than two hundred years ago. But though we cannot find any instances of business notices appearing in papers before the middle of the seventeenth century, mainly because there were not, so far as our knowledge goes, papers in which to advertise, there is little doubt that the desire among tradesmen and merchants to make good their wares has had an existence almost as long as the customs of buying and selling, and it is but natural to suppose that advertisements in some shape or form have existed not only from time immemorial, but almost for all time. Signs over shops and stalls seem naturally to have been the first efforts in the direction of advertisements, and they go back to the remotest portions of the world’s history. Public notices also were posted about in the first days of the children of Israel, the utterances of the kings and prophets being inscribed on parchments and exposed in the high places of the cities. It was also customary, early in the Christian era, for a scroll to be exhibited when any of the Passion or other sacred plays were about to be performed, and comparatively recently we have received positive intelligence that in Pompeii and similar places[20] advertising by means of signs and inscriptions was quite common. The “History of Signboards,” a very exhaustive and valuable book, quotes Aristotle, and refers to Lucian, Aristophanes, and others, in proof of the fact that signboard advertisements were used in ancient Greece, but the information is extremely vague. Of the Romans, however, more is known. Some streets were with them known by means of signs. The book referred to tells us that the bush, the Romans’ tavern sign, gave rise to the proverb, “Vino vendibili suspensa hedera non opus est;” and hence we derive our own sign of the bush, and our proverb, “Good wine needs no bush.” An ansa or handle of a pitcher was then the sign of a pothouse, and hence establishments of this kind were afterwards denominated ansæ.

A correspondent writing to Notes and Queries, in answer to a question in reference to early advertising, says that the mode adopted by the Hebrews appears to have been chiefly by word of mouth, not by writing. Hence the Hebrew word kara signifies to cry aloud, and to announce or make known publicly (κηρύσσειν); and the announcement or proclamation, as a matter of course, was usually made in the streets and chief places of concourse. The matters thus proclaimed were chiefly of a sacred kind, as might be expected under a theocracy; and we have no evidence that secular affairs were made the subject of similar announcements. In one instance, indeed (Isa. xiii. 3), kara has been supposed to signify the calling out of troops; but this may be doubted. The Greeks came a step nearer to our idea of advertising, for they made their public announcements by writing as well as orally. For announcement by word of mouth they had their κήρυξ, who, with various offices besides, combined that of public crier. His duties as crier appear to have been restricted, with few exceptions, to state announcements and to great occasions. He gave notice, however, of sales. For the publication of their laws the Greeks employed various kinds of tablets,[21] πίνακες, ἄξονες, κύρβεις. On these the laws were written, to be displayed for public inspection. The Romans largely advertised private as well as public matters, and by writing as well as by word of mouth. They had their præcones, or criers, who not only had their public duties, but announced the times, places, and conditions of sales, and cried things lost. Hawkers cried their own goods. Thus Cicero speaks of one who cried figs, Cauneas clamitabat (De Divin. ii. 40). But the Romans also advertised, in a stricter sense of the term, by writing. The bills were called libelli, and were used for advertising sales of estates, for absconded debtors, and for things lost or found. The advertisements were often written on tablets (tabellæ), which were affixed to pillars (pilæ columnæ). On the walls of Pompeii have been discovered various advertisements. There will be a dedication or formal opening of certain baths. The company attending are promised slaughter of wild beasts, athletic games, perfumed sprinkling, and awnings to keep off the sun (venatia, athletæ, sparsiones, vela).[4] One other mode of public announcement employed by the Romans should be mentioned, and that was by signs suspended or painted on the wall. Thus a suspended shield served as the sign of a tavern (Quintil. vi. 3), and nuisances were prohibited by the painting of two sacred serpents. Among the French, advertising appears to have become very general towards the close of the sixteenth century. In particular, placards attacking private character had, in consequence of the religious wars, become so numerous and outrageous, that subsequently, in 1652, the Government found it necessary to interpose for their repression.[5]

Speaking of the signs of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the[22] “History of Signboards” says that a few were painted, but, as a rule, they appear to have been made of stone, or terra cotta relievo, and set into the pilasters at the sides of the open shop fronts. Thus there have been found a goat, the sign of a dairy, and a mule driving a mill, the sign of a baker. At the door of a school was the highly suggestive and not particularly pleasant sign to pupils of a boy being birched. Like to our own signs of two brewers carrying a tun slung on a pole, a Pompeian publican had two slaves represented above his door carrying an amphora, and another dispenser of drink had a painting of Bacchus pressing a bunch of grapes. At a perfumer’s shop in the street of Mercury were represented various items of that profession, notably four men carrying a box with vases of perfume, and men laying out and perfuming a corpse. There was also a sign of the Two Gladiators, under which, in the usual Pompeian cacography, was the following:—“Abiam venerem Pompeiianama iradam qui hoc læserit.” Besides these were the signs of the Anchor, the Ship (possibly a ship-chandler’s), a sort of a Cross, the Chequers, the Phallus on a baker’s shop, with the words, “Hic habitat felicitas;” whilst in Herculaneum there was a very cleverly painted Amorino, or Cupid, carrying a pair of lady’s shoes, one on his head and the other in his hand. It is also probable that the various artificers of Rome used their tools as signs over their workshops and residences, as it is found that they were sculptured on their tombs in the catacombs. On the tombstone of Diogenes, the grave-digger, there is a pickaxe and a lamp; Banto and Maxima have the tools of carpenters, a saw, an adze, and a chisel; Veneria, a tire-woman, has a mirror and a comb. There are others with wool-combers’ implements; a physician has a cupping-glass; a poulterer, a case of fowls; a surveyor, a measuring rule; a baker, a bushel measure, a millstone, and some ears of corn; and other signs are numerous on the graves of the departed. Even the modern custom of punning on the name, so common on signboards, finds its precedent on these stones. The grave of Dracontius was embellished with a dragon, that of Onager with a wild ass, and that of Umbricius with a shady tree. Leo’s grave received a lion; Doleus, father and son, two casks; Herbacia, two baskets of herbs; and Porcula, a pig. It requires, therefore, but the least possible imagination to see that all these symbols and advertisements were by no means confined to the use of the dead, but were extensively used in the interests of the living.

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[23]

Street advertising, in its most original form among us, was therefore without doubt derived from the Romans; and this system gradually grew, until, in the Middle Ages, there was hardly a house of business without its distinctive sign or advertisement; which was the more necessary, as in those days numbers to houses were unknown. “In the Middle Ages the houses of the nobility, both in town and country, when the family was absent, were used as hostelries for travellers. The family arms always hung in front of the house, and the most conspicuous object in those arms gave a name to the establishment amongst travellers, who, unacquainted with the mysteries of heraldry, called a lion gules or azure by the vernacular name of the Red or Blue Lion. Such coats of arms gradually became a very popular intimation that there was—

And innkeepers began to adopt them, hanging out red lions and green dragons as the best way to acquaint the public that they offered food and shelter. Still, as long as civilisation was only at a low ebb, the so-called open houses few, and competition trifling, signs were of but little use. A few objects, typical of the trade carried on, would suffice; a knife for the cutler, a stocking for the hosier, a hand for the glover, a pair of scissors for the tailor, a bunch of grapes for the vintner, fully answered public requirements.[24] But as luxury increased, and the number of houses or shops dealing in the same article multiplied, something more was wanted. Particular trades continued to be confined to particular streets; the desideratum then was to give to each shop a name or token by which it might be mentioned in conversation, so that it could be recommended and customers sent to it. Reading was still a scarce acquirement, consequently to write up the owner’s name would have been of little use. Those that could advertised their name by a rebus—thus, a hare and a bottle stood for Harebottle, and two cocks for Cox. Others, whose names could represent, adopted pictorial objects; and as the quantity of these augmented, new subjects were continually required. The animal kingdom was ransacked, from the mighty elephant to the humble bee, from the eagle to the sparrow; the vegetable kingdom, from the palm-tree and cedar to the marigold and daisy; everything on the earth and in the firmament above it was put under contribution. Portraits of the great men of all ages, and views of towns, both painted with a great deal more of fancy than of truth; articles of dress, implements of trades, domestic utensils, things visible and invisible, ‘Ea quæ sunt tanquam ea quæ non sunt,’ everything was attempted in order to attract attention and to obtain publicity. Finally, as all signs in a town were painted by the same small number of individuals, whose talents and imagination were limited, it followed that the same subjects were often repeated, introducing only a change in the colour for a difference.”[6]

From the foregoing can be traced the gradual growth of street advertising until it has reached its present extensive pitch; and though the process may be characterised as slow, no one who looks around at the well-covered hoardings and the be-plastered signs on detached and prominent [25]houses can doubt that it is sure. Proclamations, and suchlike official announcements, were probably the first specimens of street advertising, as we now understand the term; but it was not until printing became general, and until the people became conversant with the mysteries of reading and writing, that posters and handbills were to any extent used. Mention is made in 1679 of a tradesman named Jonathan Holder, haberdasher, of the city of London, who gave to every purchaser to the extent of a guinea a printed list of the articles kept in stock by him, with the prices affixed. The paper in which this item of news was recorded seems to have regarded Mr Holder’s practice as a dangerous innovation, and remarks that it would be quite destructive to trade if shopkeepers lavished so much of their capital in printing useless bills. This utterance now seems ridiculous; but in the course of another two centuries many orthodox opinions of the present day will receive as complete a downfall as that just recorded.

Within the recollections of men who are still young street advertising has considerably changed. Twenty years ago the billsticker was a nuisance of the most intolerable kind, and though we can hardly now consider him a blessing, his habits have changed very much for the better. Never heeding the constant announcement to him to beware, the billsticker cared nothing for the privacy of dead walls, or, for the matter of that, of dwelling-houses and street doors; and though he was hardly ever himself to be seen, his disfigurative work was a prominent feature of the metropolis. It was also considered by him a point of honour—if the term may be used in connection with billstickers—to paste over the work of a rival; and so the hoardings used to present the most heterogeneous possible appearance, and though bills were plentiful, their intelligibility was of a very limited description. Sunday morning early used to be a busy time with the wandering billsticker. Provided with a light cart and an assistant, he would make a raid on[26] a whole district, sticking his notices and disappearing with marvellous rapidity. And how he would chuckle as he drove away, more especially if, in addition to disfiguring a private wall, he had succeeded in covering over the handiwork of a rival! For this reason the artful billsticker used to select a time when it was still early enough to evade detection, and yet late enough to deface the work of those who had gone before him. Billsticking was thus an art attended with some difficulties; and it was not until the advent of contractors, like Willing, Partington, and others, that any positive publicity could be depended upon in connection with posting.

Yet, in the days of which we have just been speaking, the man of paste considered himself a very important personage; and it is not so very long since one individual published himself under the style and title of “Champion Billposter,” and as such defied all comers. It was for some time doubtful whether his claims depended upon his ability to beat and thrash all rivals at fisticuffs, whether he was able to stick more bills in a given time than any other man, or whether he had a larger and more important connection than usually fell to the poster’s lot; in fact, the question has never been settled, for exception having been taken to his assumption of the title of champion from any point of view, and reference having been made to the editors of sporting papers, the ambitious one gracefully withdrew his pretensions, and the matter subsided. A generation ago one of the most popular songs of the day commenced something like this—

[27]

The advent of advertisement contractors, who purchased the right, exclusive and absolute, to stick bills on a hoarding, considerably narrowed the avocations of what might almost have been called the predatory billsticker. For a long time the fight was fierce and often; as soon as an “advertisement station” had been finished off, its bills and announcements being all regulated with mathematical precision, a cloud of skirmishers, armed to the teeth with bills, pots, and brushes, would convert, in a few minutes, the orderly arrangements of the contractor to a perfect chaos. But time, which rights all things, aided in the present instance by a few magisterial decisions, and by an unlooked-for and unaccountable alacrity on the part of the police, set these matters straight; and now it is hard to find an enclosure in London the hoarding of which is not notified as being the “advertisement station” of some contractor or other who would blush to be called billsticker. In the suburbs the flying brigade is still to be found hard at work, but daily its campaigning ground becomes more limited, and gradually these Bashi-Bazouks of billsticking are becoming absorbed into the regular ranks of the agents’ standing corps.

Placard advertising, of an orderly, and even ornamental, character, has assumed extensive proportions at most of the metropolitan railway stations, the agents to whom we have just referred having extended their operations in the direction of blank spaces on the walls, which they sublet to the general advertising public. Often firms which advertise on an extensive scale themselves contract with the railway companies, and not a few have extended their announcements from the stations to the sides of the line, little enamelled plates being used for this purpose. Any one having a vacant space at the side of his house, or a blank wall to the same, may, provided he live in anything like a business thoroughfare, and that the vantage place is free from obstruction, do advantageous business with an[28] advertisement contractor; and, as matters are progressing, we may some day expect to see not only the private walls of the houses in Belgrave Square and suchlike fashionable localities well papered, but the outsides and insides of our public buildings utilised as well by the hand of the advertiser. One thing is certain, no one could say that many of the latter would be spoiled, no matter what the innovation to which they were subjected.

The most recent novelty in advertising has been the introduction of a cabinet, surmounted by a clock face, into public-house bars and luncheon rooms. These cabinets are divided into spaces of say a superficial foot each, which are to be let off at a set price. So far as we have yet seen, these squares have been filled for the most part with the promoters’ advertisements only; and it is admitted by all who know most about advertising that the very worst sign one can have as to the success of a medium is that of an advertisement emanating from the promoters or proprietors of anything in which such advertisement appears. Why this should be we are not prepared to say. We are more able to show why it should not be; for no man, advertisement contractor or otherwise, should, under fair commercial conditions, ask another to do what he would not do himself. So we are satisfied to rest content with the knowledge that what we have stated is fact, however incongruous it may seem, which any one can endorse by applying himself to the ethics of advertising. Certainly, in the instance quoted, the matter looks very suggestive; perhaps it depends on the paradox, that he who is most anxious that others should advertise is least inclined to do so himself.

Not long ago the promoters of a patent umbrella, which seems to have gone the mysterious way of all umbrellas, patent or otherwise, and to have disappeared, availed themselves of a great boat-race to attract public attention to their wares. Skiffs fitted with sails, on each of which were painted the patent parapluie, and a recommendation to buy[29] it, dotted the river, and continually evaded the efforts of the Conservancy Police, who were endeavouring to marshal all the small craft together, so as to leave a clear course for the competitors. Every time one of these advertising boats broke out into mid-stream, carrying its eternal umbrella between the dense lines of spectators, the advertisement was extremely valuable, for straying boats of any kind are on such occasions very noticeable, and these were of course much more so. Still it would seem from the sequel that this bold innovation had been better applied to something more likely to hit the public taste; for whether it was that people, knowing how fleeting a joy is a good umbrella, were determined not to put temptation in the way of their friends, or whether the experiment absorbed all the spare capital of the inventor and patentees, we know not; but this we do know, that since the time of which we speak little or nothing has been heard of the novel “gingham.”

Another innovation in the way of advertisements was that, common a few years back, of stencilling the flagstones. At first this system assumed very small proportions, a parallelogram, looking like an envelope with a black border that had been dropped, and containing the address of the advertiser, being the object of the artist entrusted with the mission. Gradually, however, the inscriptions grew, until they became a perfect nuisance, and were put down—if the term applies to anything on such a low level—by the intervention of the police and the magistrates. The undertakers were the greatest sinners in this respect, the invitations to be buried being most numerous and varied. These “black workers” or “death-hunters,” as they are often called, are in London most persistent advertisers. They can hardly think that people will die to oblige them and do good for trade, yet in some districts they will, with the most undeviating persistency, drop their little books, informing you how, when, where, and at what rates you may be buried with economy or despatch, or both, as the case may be,[30] down your area, or poke them under your door, or into the letter-box. More, it is stated on good authority, than one pushing contractor, living in a poor neighbourhood, obtains a list of all the folk attended by the parish doctor, and at each of the houses leaves his little pamphlet, let us hope with the desire of cheering and comforting the sick and ailing. To such a man Death must come indeed as a friend, so long, of course, as the grim king comes to the customers only.

A few years back, when hoardings were common property, the undertakers had a knack of posting their dismal little price-lists in the centre of great broadsheets likely to attract any unusual share of attention. They were not particular, however, and any vantage space, from a doorpost to a dead wall, came within their comprehension. Another ingenious, and, from its colour, somewhat suggestive, plan was about this time brought into requisition by an undertaker for the destruction of a successful rival’s advertisements. He armed one of his assistants with a great can of blacking and a brush, and instructed him to go by secret ways and deface the opposition placards. Of course the other man followed suit, and for a time an undertaker’s bill was known best by its illegibility. But ultimately these two men of colour met and fought with the instruments provided by their employers. They did not look lovely when charged before a magistrate next morning, and being bound over to keep the peace, departed to worry each other, or each other’s bills, no more. There is another small bill feature of advertising London which is so objectionable that we will pass it by with a simple thankful notice that its promoters are sometimes overtaken by tardy but ironhanded justice.

Most people can recollect the hideous glass pillars or “indicators” which, for advertising purposes, were stuck about London. The first one made its appearance at Hyde Park Corner, and though, in deference to public opinion, it[31] did not remain there very long, less aristocratic neighbourhoods had to bear their adornments until the complete failure of the attempt to obtain advertisements to fill the vacant spaces showed how fatuous was the project. The last of these posts, we remember, was opposite the Angel at Islington, and there, assisted by local faith and indolence, it remained until a short time back. But it too has gone now, and with it has almost faded the recollection of these hideous nightmares of advertising.

The huge vans, plastered all over with bills, which used to traverse London, to the terror of the horses and wonder of the yokels, were improved off the face of the earth a quarter of a century ago; and now the only perambulating advertisement we have is the melancholy sandwich-man and the dispenser of handbills, gentlemen who sometimes “double their parts,” to use a theatrical expression. To a playhouse manager we owe the biggest thing in street and general advertising—that in connection with the “Dead Heart”—that has yet been recorded. Mr Smith, who had charge of this department of the Adelphi, has published a statement which gives the totals as follows:—10,000,000 adhesive labels (which, by the way, were an intolerable nuisance), 30,000 small cuts of the guillotine scene, 5000 reams of note-paper, 110,000 business envelopes, 60,000 stamped envelopes, 2000 six-sheet cuts of Bastile scene, 5,000,000 handbills, 1000 six-sheet posters, 500 slips, 1,000,000 cards heartshaped, 100 twenty-eight sheet posters, and 20,000 folio cards for shop windows. This was quite exclusive of newspaper wrappers and various other ingenious means of attracting attention to the play throughout the United Kingdom.

Among other forms of advertising, that on the copper coinage must not be forgotten. The extensive defacement of the pence and halfpence of the realm in the interests of a well-known weekly paper ultimately led to the interference of Parliament, and may fairly be regarded as the cause, or[32] at all events as one of the principal causes, of the sum of £10,000 being voted in July 1855 for the replacement of the old, worn, battered, and mixed coppers by our present bronze coinage.

And now, having given a hurried and summarised glance at the growth and progress of advertising of all kinds and descriptions, from the earliest periods till the present time, we will begin at the beginning, and tell the story with all its ramifications, mainly according to those best possible authorities, the advertisements themselves.

[33]

Though it would be quite impossible to give any exact idea as to the period when the identical first advertisement of any kind made its appearance, or what particular clime has the honour of introducing a system which now plays so important a part in all civilised countries, there need be no hesitation in ascribing the origin of advertising to the remotest possible times—to the earliest times when competition, caused by an increasing population, led each man to make efforts in that race for prominence which has in one way or other gone on ever since. As soon as the progress of events or the development of civilisation had cast communities together, each individual member naturally tried to do the best he could for himself, and as he, in the course of events, had naturally to encounter rivals in his way of life, it is not hard to understand that some means of preventing a particular light being hid under a bushel soon presented itself. That this means was an advertisement is almost certain; and so almost as long as there has been a world—or quite as long, using the term as it is best understood now—there have been advertisements. At this early stage of history, almost every trade and profession was still exercised by itinerants, who proclaimed their wares or their qualifications with more or less flowery encomiums, with, in fact, the advertisement verbal, which, under some circumstances, is still very useful. But the time came when the tradesman or professor settled down, and opened what,[34] for argument’s sake, we will call a shop. Then another method of obtaining publicity became requisite, and the crier stepped forward to act as a medium between the provider and the consumer. This is, however, but another form of the same system, and, like its simpler congener, has still an existence, though not an ostentatious one. When the art of writing was invented, the means of extending the knowledge which had heretofore been simply cried, was greatly extended, and advertising gradually became an art to be cultivated.

Very soon after the invention of writing in its rudest form, it was turned to account in the way of giving publicity to events in the way of advertisement; for rewards for and descriptions of runaway slaves, written on papyri more than three thousand years ago, have been exhumed from the ruins of Thebes. An early but mythical instance of a reward being offered in an advertisement is related by Pausanias,[7] who, speaking of the art of working metals, says that the people of Phineum, in Arcadia, pretended that Ulysses dedicated a statue of bronze to Neptune, in the hope that by that deity’s intervention he might recover the horses he had lost; and, he adds, “they showed me an inscription on the pedestal of the statue offering a reward to any person who should find and take care of the animals.”

The Greeks used another mode of giving publicity which is worthy of remark here. They used to affix to the statues of the infernal deities, in the temenos of their temples, curses inscribed on sheets of lead, by which they devoted to the vengeance of those gods the persons who had found or stolen certain things, or injured the advertisers in any other way. As the names of the offenders were given in full in these singular inscriptions, they had the effect of making the grievances known to mortals as well[35] as immortals, and thus the advertisement was attained. The only difference between these and ordinary public notices was that the threat of punishment was held out instead of the offer of reward. A compromise was endeavoured generally at the same time, the evil invoked being deprecated in case of restitution of the property. A most interesting collection of such imprecations (diræ defixiones, or κατάδεσμοι) was found in 1858 in the temenos of the infernal deities attached to the temple of Demeter at Cnidus. It is at present deposited in the British Museum, where the curious reader may inspect it in the second vase-room.

A common mode of advertising, about the same time, was by means of the public crier, κήρυξ. In comparatively modern times our town-criers have been proverbial for murdering the king’s English, or, at all events, of robbing it of all elecutionary beauties. Not so among the Greeks, who were so nice in point of oratorical power, and so offended by a vicious pronunciation, that they would not suffer even the public crier to proclaim their laws unless he was accompanied by a musician, who, in case of an inexact tone, might be ready to give him the proper pitch and expression. But this would hardly be the case when the public crier was employed by private individuals. In Apuleius (“Golden Ass”) we are brought face to face with one of these characters, a cunning rogue, full of low humour, who appears to have combined the duties of crier and auctioneer. Thus, when the slave and the ass are led out for sale, the crier proclaims the price of each with a loud voice, joking at the same time to the best of his abilities, in order to keep the audience in good humour. This latter idea has not been lost sight of in more modern days. “The crier, bawling till his throat was almost split, cracked all sorts of ridiculous jokes upon me [the ass]. ‘What is the use,’ said he, ‘of offering for sale this old screw of a jackass, with his foundered hoofs, his ugly colour, his sluggishness in everything but vice, and a hide that is[36] nothing but a ready-made sieve? Let us even make a present of him, if we can find any one who will not be loth to throw away hay on the brute.’ In this way the crier kept the bystanders in roars of laughter.”[8]

The same story furnishes further particulars regarding the ancient mode of crying. When Psyche has absconded, Venus requests Mercury “to proclaim her in public, and announce a reward to him who shall find her.” She further enjoins the divine crier to “clearly describe the marks by which Psyche may be recognised, that no one may excuse himself on the plea of ignorance, if he incurs the crime of unlawfully concealing her.” So saying, she gives him a little book, in which is written Psyche’s name and sundry particulars. Mercury thereupon descends to the earth, and goes about among all nations, where he thus proclaims the loss of Psyche, and the reward for her return:—“If any one can seize her in her flight, and bring back a fugitive daughter of a king, a handmaid of Venus, by name Psyche, or discover where she has concealed herself, let such person repair to Mercury, the crier, behind the boundaries of Murtia,[9] and receive by way of reward for the discovery seven sweet kisses from Venus herself, and one exquisitely delicious touch of her charming tongue.” A somewhat similar reward is offered by Venus in the hue and cry she raises after her fugitive son in the first idyl of Moschus, a Syracusan poet who flourished about 250 years before the Christian era: “If any one has seen my son Eros straying in the cross roads, [know ye] he is a runaway. The informer shall have a reward. The kiss of Venus shall be your pay; and if you bring him, not the bare kiss only, but, stranger, you shall have something[37] more.”[10] This something more is probably the “quidquid post oscula dulce” of Secundus, but is sufficiently vague to be anything else, and certainly promises much more than the “will be rewarded” of our own time.

So far with the Greeks and their advertisements. Details grow more abundant when we enter upon the subject of advertising in Rome. The cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried in the midst of their sorrows and pleasures, their joys and cares, in the very midst of the turmoil of life and commerce, and discovered ages after exactly as they were on the morning of that ominous 24th of August A.D. 79, show us that the benefit to be derived from publicity was well understood in those luxurious and highly-cultivated cities. The walls in the most frequented parts are covered with notices of a different kind, painted in black or red. Their spelling is very indifferent, and the painters who busied themselves with this branch of the profession do not appear to have aimed at anything like artistic uniformity or high finish. Still these advertisements, hasty and transitory as they are, bear voluminous testimony as to the state of society, the wants and requirements, and the actual standard of public taste of the Romans in that age. As might be expected, advertisements of plays and gladiators are common. Of these the public were acquainted in the following forms,—

AEDILIS . FAMILIA . GLADIATORIA . PUGNABIT
POMPEIS . PR . K . JUNIAS . VENATIO ET VELA
ERUNT.

or,

N . FESTI AMPLIATI
FAMILIA GLADIATORIA . PUGNA ITERUM
PUGNA . XVI . K . JVN . VENAT . VELA.[11]

[38]

Such inscriptions occur in various parts of Pompeii, sometimes written on smooth surfaces between pilasters (denominated albua), at other times painted on the walls. Places of great resort were selected for preference, and thus it is that numerous advertisements are found under the portico of the baths at Pompeii, where persons waited for admission, and where notices of shows, exhibitions, or sales would be sure to attract the attention of the weary lounger.

Baths we find advertised in the following terms,—

THERMAE
M . CRASSI FRUGII
AQUA . MARINA . ET . BALN.
AQUA . DULCI . JANUARIUS . L.

which of course means “warm, sea, and fresh water baths.” As provincials add to their notices “as in London,” or “à la mode de Paris,” so Pompeians and others not unfrequently proclaimed that they followed the customs of Rome at their several establishments. Thus the keeper of a bathing-house near Bologna acquainted the public that—

IN . PRAEDIS
C . LEGIANNI VERI
BALNEUM . MORE . URBICO . LAVAT.
OMNIA COMMODA . PRAESTANTUR.

At his establishments there were baths according to the fashion of “the town,” besides “every convenience.” And a similar inscription occurred by the Via Nomentana, eight miles from Rome—

IN . PRAEDIS . AURE
LIAE . FAUSTINIANAE
BALINEUS . LAVAT . MO
RE . URBICO . ET OMNIS.
HUMANITAS . PRAESTA
TUR.

Large illustration (118 kB)

[39]

Those who had premises to let or sell affixed a short notice to the house itself, and more detailed bills were posted at the “advertising stations.” Thus in Plautus’s “Trinummus,” Act v., the indignant Callicles says to his spendthrift son, “You have dared to put up in my absence, and unknown to me, that this house is to be sold”—(“Ædes venales hasce inscribit literis”). Sometimes, also, the inscription, “Illico ædes venales” (“here is a house for sale”) appears to have been painted on the door, or on the album. An auctioneer would describe a house as “Villa bona beneque edificata” (a good and well-built house), and full details of the premises were given in the larger placards painted on walls. In the street of the Fullers in Pompeii occurs the following inscription, painted in red, over another which had been painted in black and whitewashed over,—

IN . PRAEDIS . JULIAE . S . P . F . FELICIS
LOCANTUR
BALNEUM . VENEREUM . ET . NONGENTUM . PERGULAE
CENACULA . EX . IDIBUS . AUG . PRIORIS . IN . IDUS . AUG .
SEXTAS . ANNOS . CONTINUOS . QUINQUE.
S . Q . D . L . E . N . C.

Which has been translated, “On the estate of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius Felix, are to let from the 1st to the[40] 6th of the ides of August (i.e., between August 6th and 8th), on a lease of five years, a bath, a venereum, and nine hundred shops, bowers, and upper apartments.”[12] The seven final initials, antiquaries, who profess to read what to others is unreadable, explain, “They are not to let to any person exercising an infamous profession.” But as this seems a singular clause where there is a venereum to be let, other erudites have seen in it, “Si quis dominam loci eius non cognoverit,” and fancy that they read underneath, “Adeat Suettum Verum,” in which case the whole should mean, “If anybody should not know the lady of the house, let him go to Suettus Verus.” The following is another example of the way in which Roman landlords advertised “desirable residences,” and “commodious business premises”—

INSULA ARRIANA
POLLIANA . GN . ALIF I . NIGID I MAI
LOCANTUR . EX . I . JULIS . PRIMIS . TABERNAE
CUM . PERGULIS . SUIS . ET COENACULA
EQUESTRIA . ET . DOMUS . CONDUCTOR
CONVENITO . PRIMUM GN . ALIF I
NIGID I . MAI SER.

Said to mean, “In the Arrian Pollian block of houses, the property of Cn. Alifius Nigidius, senior, are to let from the first of the ides of July, shops with their bowers, and gentlemen’s apartments. The hirer must apply to the slave of Cn. Alifius Nigidius, senior.”

Large illustration (106 kB)

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Both the Greeks and the Romans had on their houses a piece of the wall whitened to receive inscriptions relative to their affairs. The first called this λεύκωμα, the latter album. Many examples of them are found in Pompeii, generally in very inferior writing and spelling. Even the schoolmaster Valentinus, who on his album, as was the constant practice, invoked the patronage of some high personages, was very loose in his grammar, and the untoward outbreak of Vesuvius has perpetuated his blundering use of an accusative instead of an ablative: “Cum discentes suos.” All the Pompeian inscriptions mentioned above were painted, but a few instances also occur of notices being merely scratched on the wall. Thus we find in one place, “Damas audi,” and on a pier at the angle of the house of the tragic poet is an Etruscan inscription scratched in the wall with a nail, which has been translated by a learned Neapolitan, “You shall hear a poem of Numerius.” But these so-called Etruscan inscriptions are by no means so well understood as we could wish, and their interpretation is far from incontestable. There is another on a house of Pompeii, which has been Latinised into, “Ex hinc viatoriens ante turri xii inibi. Sarinus Publii cauponatur. Ut adires. Vale.” That is, “Traveller, going from here to the twelfth tower, there Sarinus keeps a tavern. This is to request you to enter. Farewell.” This inscription, however, is so obscure that another savant has read in it a notification that a certain magistrate, Adirens Caius, had brought the waters of the Sarno to Pompeii—a most material difference certainly.

We are made acquainted with other Roman bills and advertisements by the works of the poets and dramatists. Thus at Trimalchion’s banquet, in the “Satyricon,” Pliny mentions that a poet hired a house, built an oratory, hired forms, and dispersed prospectuses. They also read their[42] works publicly,[13] an occupation in which they were much interrupted and annoyed by idlers and impertinent boys. Another mode of advertising new works more resembled that of our own country. The Roman booksellers used to placard their shops with the titles of the new books they had for sale. Such was the shop of Atrectus, described by Martial—

[43]

In the ages which immediately succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire, and the western migration of the barbarian hordes, darkness and ignorance held paramount sway, education was at a terrible discount, and the arts of reading and writing were confined almost entirely to the monks and the superior clergy. In fact, it was regarded as evidence of effeminacy for any knight or noble to be able to make marks on parchment or vellum, or to be able to decipher them when made. Newspapers were, of course, things undreamt of, but newsmen—itinerants who collected scraps of information and retailed them in the towns and market-places—were now and again to be found. The travelling packman or pedlar was, however, the chief medium of intercommunication in the Middle Ages, and it is not hard to imagine how welcome his appearance must have been in those days, when a hundred miles constituted an immense and almost interminable journey. We know how bad the roads were, and how difficult travelling was in comparatively modern days, but we can form very little idea of the obstacles which beset all attempts at the communication of one commercial centre with another in the early Middle Ages. Everybody being alike shrouded in the darkness of ignorance, it is safe to assume, therefore, that written advertisements were quite unknown, as few beyond those who had written them would have been able to understand them. Nearly the whole of the laity, from the king to the villain or thrall, were equally illiterate, and once more the[44] public crier became the only medium for obtaining publicity; but from the simple mode in which all business was conducted his position was probably a sinecure. An occasional proclamation of peace or war, or a sale of slaves or plunder, was probably the only topic which gave him the opportunity of exercising his eloquence. But with the increase of civilisation, and consequent wealth and competition, the crier’s labours assumed a wider field.

The mediæval crier used to carry a horn, by means of which he attracted the people’s attention when about to make a proclamation or publication. Public criers appear to have formed a well-organised body in France as early as the twelfth century; for by a charter of Louis VII., granted in the year 1141 to the inhabitants of the province of Berry, the old custom of the country was confirmed, according to which there were to be only twelve criers, five of which should go about the taverns crying with their usual cry, and carrying with them samples of the wine they cried, in order that the people might taste. For the first time they blew the horn they were entitled to a penny, and the same for every time after, according to custom. These criers of wine were a French peculiarity, of which we find no parallel in the history of England. They perambulated the streets of Paris in troops, each with a large wooden measure of wine in his hand, from which to make the passers-by taste the wine they proclaimed, a mode of advertising which would be very agreeable in the present day, but which would, we fancy, be rather too successful for the advertiser. These wine-criers are mentioned by John de Garlando, a Norman writer, who was probably a contemporary of William the Conqueror. “Præcones vini,” says he, “clamant hiante gula, vinum venumdandum in tabernis ad quatuor denarios.”[14] A quaint and significant[45] story is told in an old chronicle in connection with this system of advertising. An old woman, named Adelheid, was possessed of a strong desire to proclaim the Word of God, but not having lungs sufficiently powerful for the noisy propagation contemplated by her, she paid a wine-crier to go about the town, and, instead of proclaiming the prices of the wine, to proclaim these sacred words: “God is righteous! God is merciful! God is good and excellent!” And as the man went about shouting these words she followed him, exclaiming, “He speaks well! he says truly!” The poor old body hardly succeeded according to her pious desire, for she was arrested and tried, and as it was thought she had done this out of vanity (causa laudis humanæ), she was burned alive.[15] From this it would seem that there was as much protection for the monks in their profession as for the criers, who were very proud of their special prerogatives.

The public criers in France, at an early period, were formed into a corporation, and in 1258 obtained various statutes from Philip Augustus, some of which, relating to the criers of wine, are excessively curious. Thus it was ordained that—

“Whosoever is a crier in Paris may go to any tavern he likes and cry its wine, provided they sell wine from the wood, and that there is no other crier employed for that tavern; and the tavern-keeper cannot prohibit him.

“If a crier finds people drinking in a tavern, he may ask what they pay for the wine they drink; and he may go out and cry the wine at the prices they pay, whether the tavern-keeper wishes it or not, provided always that there be no other crier employed for that tavern.

“If a tavern-keeper sells wine in Paris and employs no crier, and closes his door against the criers, the crier may[46] proclaim that tavern-keeper’s wine at the same price as the king’s wine (the current price), that is to say, if it be a good wine year, at seven denarii, and if it be a bad wine year, at twelve denarii.

“Each crier to receive daily from the tavern for which he cries at least four denarii, and he is bound on his oath not to claim more.

“The crier shall go about crying twice a day, except in Lent, on Sundays and Fridays, the eight days of Christmas, and the Vigils, when they shall only cry once. On the Friday of the Adoration of the Cross they shall cry not at all. Neither are they to cry on the day on which the king, the queen, or any of the children of the royal family happens to die.”

This crying of wines is frequently alluded to in those French ballads of street-criers known as “Les crieries de Paris.” One of them has—

And another—

Early in the Middle Ages the public crier was still called Præco, as among the Romans; and an edict of the town of Tournay, dated 1368, describes him as “the sergeant of the rod (sergent à verge), who makes publications (crie les bans), and cries whatever else there is to be made known to the town.” The Assizes of Jerusalem, which contained[47] the code of civil laws of the whole of civilised Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which take us back to the most ancient forms of our own civil institutions, make mention in the following manner of the public crier: “Whosoever desires to sell anything by auction, must have it proclaimed by the crier, who is appointed by the lord viscount; and nobody else has a right to make any publication by crying. If anybody causes any such auction to be proclaimed by any other than the public crier, then the lord has a right by assize and custom to claim the property so cried as his own, and the crier shall be at the mercy of the lord. And whoever causes anything to be cried by the appointed public crier in any other way than it ought to be cried, and in any other way than is done by the lord or his representative, the lord may claim the property as his own, and the crier who thus cries it shall be amenable for falsehood, and is at the mercy of the lord, who may take from him all he possesses. But if he [the lord] does not do that, then he shall not suffer any other punishment; and if he be charged, he must be believed on his oath.”

From these very stringent and protective regulations it appears, then, that at this early period the public criers, or præcones, appointed by the lord, had the exclusive right of proclaiming all sales by auction, not only voluntary, but also judicial, of movables, as well as of fixtures; of “personal,” as well as of “real” property.

In England criers appear to have been also a national institution at an early period. They were sworn to sell truly and well to the best of their power and ability. They proclaimed the cause of the condemnation of all criminals, and made proclamations of every kind, except as concerned matters ecclesiastical, which were exclusively the province of the archbishop. They also cried all kinds of goods. In London we find Edmund le Criour mentioned in the documents relating to the Guildhall as early as 1299.[48] That criers used horns, as in France, appears from the will of a citizen of Bristol, dated 1388, who, disposing of some house property, desires “that the tenements so bequeathed shall be sold separately by the sound of the trumpet at the high cross of Bristol, without any fraud or collusion.” In Ipswich it was still customary in the last century to proclaim the meetings of the town council, the previous night at twelve o’clock, by the sound of a large horn, which is still preserved in the town hall of that borough. These horns were provided by the mayors of the different towns.

The public crier, then, was the chief organ by which the mediæval shopkeeper, in the absence of what we now know as “advertising mediums,” obtained publicity: it was also customary for most traders to have touters at their doors, who did duty as living advertisements. In low neighbourhoods this system still obtains, especially in connection with cheap photographic establishments, whose “doorsmen” select as a rule the most improbable people for their attentions, but compensate for this by their pertinacity and glibness. Possibly the triumph is the greater when the customer has been persuaded quite out of his or her original intentions. Most trades, in early times, were almost exclusively confined to certain streets, and as all the shops were alike unpretending, and open to the gaze—in fact, were stalls or booths—it behoved the shopkeeper to do something in order to attract customers. This he effected sometimes by means of a glaring sign, sometimes by means of a man or youth standing at the door, and vociferating with the full power of his lungs, “What d’ye lack, sir? what d’ye lack?” Our country is rather deficient in that kind of mediæval literature known in France as dicts and fabliaux, which teem with allusions to this custom of touting, which is noticeable, though, in Lydgate’s ballad of “London Lyckpenny” (Lack-penny), written in the first half of the fifteenth century. There we see the shopmen standing at the door, trying to outbawl each other to gain the custom of the passers-by. The spicer or grocer[49] bids the Kentish countryman to come and buy some spice, pepper, or saffron. In Cheapside, the mercers bewilder him with their velvet, silk, and lawn, and lay violent hands on him, in order to show him their “Paris thread, the finest in the land.” Throughout all Canwick (now Cannon Street), he is persecuted by drapers, who offer him cloth; and in other parts, particularly in East Cheap, the keepers of the eating-houses sorely tempt him with their cries of “Hot sheep’s feet, fresh maqurel, pies, and ribs of beef.” At last he falls a prey to the tempting invitation of a taverner, who makes up to him from his door with a cringing bow, and taking him by the sleeve, pronounces the words, “Sir, will you try our wine?” with such an insinuating and irresistible accent, that the Kentish man enters and spends his only penny in that tempting and hospitable house. Worthy old Stow supposes this interesting incident to have happened at the Pope’s Head, in Cornhill, and bids us enjoy the knowledge of the fact, that for his one penny the countryman had a pint of wine, and “for bread nothing did he pay, for that was allowed free” in those good old days. Free luncheons, though rare now, were commonly bestowed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on regular drinkers; and the practice of giving food to those who pay for drink is still current in many parts of the United States. The “Lyckpenny” story is one of the few instances in English literature of this early period, in which the custom of touting at shop doors is distinctly mentioned, but, as before remarked, the French fabliaux abound with such allusions. In the story of “Courtois d’Arras”—a travestie of the Prodigal Son in a thirteenth-century garb—Courtois finds the host standing at his door shouting, “Bon vin de Soissons, à six deniers le lot.” And in a mediæval mystery entitled “Li Jus de S. Nicolas,” the innkeeper, standing on the threshold, roars out, that in his house excellent dinners are to be had, with warm bread and warm herrings, and barrelfuls of Auxerre wine: “Céans il fait bon diner, céans il y a pain chaud et[50] harengs chauds, et vin d’Auxerre à plein tonneau.” In the “Trois Aveugles de Compiègne,” the thirsty wanderers hear mine host proclaiming in the street that he has “good, cool, and new wine, from Auxerre and from Soissons; bread and meat, and wine and fish: within is a good place to spend your money; within is accommodation for all kind of people; here is good lodging:”—

And in the “Débats et facétieuses rencontres de Gringald et de Guillot Gorgen, son maistre,” the servant, who would not pay his reckoning, excuses himself, saying, “The taverner is more to blame than I, for as I passed before his door, and he being seated at it as usual, called to me, saying, ‘Will you be pleased to breakfast here? I have good bread, good wine, and good meat.’” “Le tavernier a plus de tort que moy; car, passant devant sa porte, et luy étant assiz (ainsy qu’ils sont ordinairement) il me cria, me disant: Vous plaist-il de dejeuner céans? Il y a de bon pain, de bon vin, et de bonne viande.”

Other modes of advertising, of a less obtrusive nature, were, however, in use at the same time; as in Rome, written handbills were affixed in public places; and almost as soon as the art of printing was discovered, it was applied to the purpose of multiplying advertisements of this kind. We may fairly assume that one of the very first posters ever printed in England was that by which Caxton announced, circa 1480, the sale of the “Pyes of Salisbury use,”[18] at the[51] Red Pole, in the Almonry, Westminster. Of this first of broadsides two copies are still extant, one in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, the other in Earl Spencer’s library. Their dimensions are five inches by seven, and their contents as follows:—

Foreigners appear to have appreciated the boon of this kind of advertising equally rapidly, although, from the fugitive nature of such productions, copies of their posters are rarely to be found. Still an interesting list of books, printed by Coburger at Nuremberg in the fifteenth century, is preserved in the British Museum, to which is attached the following heading: “Cupientes emere libros infra notatos venient ad hospitium subnotatum,” &c.—i.e., “Those who wish to buy the books hereunder mentioned, must come to the house now named,” &c. The Parisian printers soon went a step further. Long before the invention of the typographic art, the University had compelled the booksellers to advertise in their shop windows any new manuscripts they might obtain. But after the invention of printing they soon commenced to proclaim the wonderful cheapness of the works they produced. It did not strike them, however, that this might have been done effectually on a large scale, and they were content to extol the low price of the work in the book itself. Such notices as the following are common in early books. Ulric Gering, in[52] his “Corpus Juris Canonici,” 1500, allays the fear of the public with a distich:—“Don’t run away on account of the price,” he says. “Come rich and poor; this excellent work is sold for a very small sum:”—

Berthold Remboldt subjoins to his edition of “S. Bruno on the Psalms,” 1509, the information that he does not lock away his wares (books) like a miser, but that anybody can carry them away for very little money.

And in his “Corpus Juris Canonici,” he boasts that this splendid volume is to be had for a trifling sum, after having, with considerable labour, been weeded of its misprints.

Thielman Kerver, Jean Petit, and various other printers, give similar intelligence to the purchasers of their works. Sometimes they even resort to the process of having a book puffed on account of its cheapness by editors or scholars of known eminence, who address the public on behalf of the printer. Thus in a work termed by the French savant Chevillier, “Les Opuscules du Docteur Almain,” printed by Chevalon and Gourmont, 1518, a certain dignified member of the University condescends to inform the public that they have to be grateful to the publishers for the beautiful and cheap book they have produced:—“Gratias agant Claudio Chevallon et Ægydio Gourmont, qui pulchris typis et characteribus impressum opus hoc vili dant pretio.” This, be it observed, is the earliest instance of the puff direct which has so far been discovered.

Meanwhile, though the art of printing had become established, and was daily taking more and more work out of[53] the hands of scribes, writing continued to be almost the only advertising media for wellnigh two centuries longer. Like the ancient advertisement already noticed, that of Venus about her runaway son, they commenced almost invariably with the words “If anybody,” or, if in Latin, Si quis; and from these last two words they obtained their name. They were posted in the most frequented parts of the towns, preferably near churches; and hence has survived the practice of attaching to church doors lists of voters and various other notifications, particularly in villages. In the metropolis one of the places used for this purpose may probably have been London Stone. In “Pasquil and Marforius,” 1589, we read, “Set up this bill at London Stone; let it be done solemnly with drum and trumpet;” and further on in the same pamphlet, “If it please them, these dark winter nights, to stick up these papers upon London Stone.” These two allusions are, however, not particularly conclusive.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the principal place for affixing a siquis was in the middle aisle of St Paul’s. From the era of the Reformation to the Restoration, all sorts of disorderly conduct was practised in the old cathedral. A lengthy catalogue of improper customs and disgusting practices might be collected from the works of the period, and bills were stuck up in various parts to restrain the grossest abuses. “At every door of this church,” says Weever, “was anciently this vers depicted; and in my time [he died in 1632] it might be perfectly read at the great south door, Hic Locus sacer est, hic nulli mingere fas est.”

There were also within the sacred edifice tobacco, book, and sempstress’ shops; there was a pillar at which serving-men stood for hire, and another place where lawyers had their regular stands, like merchants on ’Change. At the period when Decker wrote his curious “Gull’s Horn-Book” (1609), and for many years after, the cathedral was the lounging place for all idlers and hunters after news, as well[54] as of men of almost every profession, cheats, usurers, and knights of the post. The cathedral was likewise a seat of traffic and negotiation, even pimps and procuresses had their stations there; and the font itself, if credit may be given to a black-letter tract on the “Detestable Use of Dice-play,” printed early in Elizabeth’s reign, was made a place for the advance and payment of loans, and the sealing of indentures and obligations for the security of the moneys borrowed. Such a busy haunt was, of course, the very best place for bills and advertisements to be posted.

No bonâ fide siquis has come down to us, but it appears that among them the applications for ecclesiastics were very common, as Bishop Earle in his “Microcosmographia,” published in 1629, describes “Paul’s Walke” as the “market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes;” and this allusion is confirmed by a passage in Bishop Hall’s “Satires” (B. ii. s. 5), in which also the custom of affixing advertisements to a particular door is distinctly noticed:—

But the siquis door was not confined to notices of ecclesiastical matters; it was appropriated generally to the variety of applications that is now to be found in the columns of a newspaper or the books of a registry office. Though no authentic specimens of the siquis remain, we are possessed of several imitations, as the old dramatists delighted in reproducing the inflated language of these documents. Thus, in Holiday’s “Technogamia” (1618), Act i. scene 7, Geographus sets up the following notice:—

Again, Ben Jonson’s “Every Man out of his Humour” introduces Shift, “a threadbare shark,” whose “profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul’s.” Speaking of Shift in the opening scene of the third act, which the dramatist has laid in “the middle aisle of Paules,” Cordatus says that Shift is at that moment in Paules “for the advancement of a siquis or two, wherein he hath so varied himselfe, that if any one of them take, he may hull up and doune in the humorous world a little longer.” Shift’s productions deserved to succeed, as they were masterpieces of their kind, and might even now, though the world is so much older, and professes to be so much wiser, be studied with advantage by gentlemen who cultivate the literature of advertisements in the interest of certain firms. Here are some of his compositions, which would certainly shine among the examples of the present day:—

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The following is even an improvement:—

It is noticeable that most of these advertisements commence with the English equivalent for the Latin si quis, and furthermore that Ben Jonson concludes with the same formula as Caxton, stet quæso, imploring the “candid reader” not to tear off the bill. The word siquis is of frequent occurrence in the old writers. Green, for instance, in his “Tu Quoque,” says of certain women that “they stand like the devil’s siquis at a tavern or alehouse door.” At present the term has more particular reference to ecclesiastical matters. A candidate for holy orders who has not been educated at the University, or has been absent some time from thence, is still obliged to have his intention proclaimed, by having a notice to that effect hung up in the church of the place where he has recently resided. If, after a certain time, no objection is made, a certificate of his siquis, signed by the churchwardens, is given to him to be presented to the bishop when he seeks ordination.

At the time when the siquis was the most common form[57] of advertisement, other methods were used in order to give publicity to certain events. There were the proclamations of the will of the King, and of the Lord Mayor, whose edicts were proclaimed by the common trumpeter. There were also two richly carved and gilt posts at the door of the Sheriff’s office,[22] on which (some annotators of old plays say) it was customary to stick enactments of the Town Council. The common crier further made known matters of minor and commercial importance, and every shopkeeper still kept an apprentice at his door to attract the attention of the passers-by with a continuous “What do you lack, master?” or “mistress,” followed by a voluble enumeration of the wares vended by his master. The bookseller, as in ancient Rome, still advertised his new works by placards posted against his shop, or fixed in cleft sticks. This we gather from an epigram of Ben Jonson to his bookseller, in which he enjoins him rather to sell his works to Bucklersbury, to be used for wrappers and bags, than to force their sale by the usual means:—

Announcements of shows were given in the manner still followed by the equestrian circus troops in provincial towns, viz., by means of bills and processions. Thus notice of bearbaitings was given by the bears being led about the town, preceded by a flag and some noisy instruments. In the Duke of Newcastle’s play of “The Humorous Lovers” (1677), the sham bearward says, “I’ll set up my bills, that the gamesters of London, Horseleydown, Southwark, and Newmarket, may come in and bait him before the ladies. But first, boy, go, fetch me a bagpipe; we will walk the streets in triumph, and give the people notice of our sport.” Such a procession was, of course, a noisy one, and for that reason[58] it was one of the plagues the mischievous page sent to torment Morose, “the gentleman that loves no noise,” in Ben Jonson’s “Silent Woman.” “I entreated a bearward one day,” says the page, “to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did, and cried his game under Master Morose’s window.” And in Howard’s “English Monsieur” (1674), William, a country youth, says, “I saw two rough-haired things led by the nose with two strings, and a bull like ours in the country, with a brave garland about his head, and an horse, and the least gentleman upon him that ever I saw in my life, and brave bagpipes playing before ’um;” which is explained by Comely as occasioned by its being “bearbaiting day, and he has met with the bull, and the bears, and the jack-an-apes on horseback.” Trials of skill in the noble art of self-defence were announced in a similar manner, by the combatants promenading the streets divested of their upper garments, with their sleeves tucked up, sword or cudgel in hand, and preceded by a drum. Finally, for the use of the community at large, there was the bellman or town crier, a character which occupies a prominent place in all the old sets of “Cries of London.” In one of the earliest collections of that kind,[23] engraved early in the seventeenth century, we see him represented with a bunch of keys in his hand, which he no doubt proclaims as “found.” Underneath is the following “notice:”—

[59]

This was an old joke, which, more or less varied, occurs always under the print of the town crier. The prototype of this venerable witticism may be found in the tragedy of “Soliman and Perseda” (1599), where one of the characters says that he

Notwithstanding the immense development of advertising since the spread of newspapers, the services of the bellman are still used in most of the country towns of the United Kingdom, and even in London there are still bellmen and parish criers, though their offices would appear to be sinecures. The provincial crier’s duties are of the most various description, and relate to objects lost or found, sales by public auction or private contract, weddings, christenings, and funerals. Not much more than a century ago the burgh of Lanark was so poor that there was in it only one butcher, and even he dared never venture on killing a sheep till every part of the animal was ordered beforehand. When he felt disposed to engage in such an enterprise, he usually prevailed upon the minister, the provost, and the members of the town council to take a joint each; but when shares were not subscribed for readily, the sheep received a respite. On such occasion the services of the bellman, or “skelligman,” as he was there named, were called into request, and that official used to perambulate the streets of Lanark acquainting the lieges with the butcher’s intentions in the following rhyme:—

[60]

Sir Walter Scott, in one of his notes, gives a quaint specimen of vocal advertising. In the old days of Scotland, when persons of property (unless they happened to be nonjurors) were as regular as their inferiors in attendance on parochial worship, there was a kind of etiquette in waiting till the patron, or acknowledged great man of the parish, should make his appearance. This ceremonial was so sacred in the eyes of a parish beadle in the Isle of Bute, that the kirk bell being out of order, he is said to have mounted the steeple every Sunday to imitate with his voice the successive summonses which its mouth of metal used to send forth. The first part of this imitative harmony was simply the repetition of the words, “Bell, bell, bell, bell!” two or three times, in a manner as much resembling the sound as throat of flesh could imitate throat of iron. “Bellùm, Bellùm!” was sounded forth in a more urgent manner; but he never sent forth the third and conclusive peal, the varied tone of which is called in Scotland the “ringing-in,” until the two principal heritors of the parish approached, when the chime ran thus—

A story is also told of an old Welsh beadle, who, having no bell to his church, or the bell being out of order, used to mount the tower before the service on Sundays, and advertise the fact that they were just about to begin, in imitation of the chimes, and in compliment to the most conspicuous patronymics in the congregation list, thus—

Continued à discretion. And with this most singular form of vocal advertising we will conclude the chapter.

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By this time, and in various ways, the first transitory glimpses of a system at present all-powerful and universal began to show themselves—vague and uncertain, and often unsatisfactory, it must be admitted, but still the first evidences of the growth of an unparalleled institution; in fact, the base upon which the institution eventually reared itself. With improvements in printing, and the invention of movable type, the supply of pamphlets on current topics—the first rude forerunners of the newspaper as we understand it—began to be enlarged, and this opportunity was not lost on the bold spirits who even in those days could understand the advantages bound to accrue from a system of intercommunication at once advantageous to buyer and seller, and calling for special attention from both. There is a wonderful amount of attraction about these discoloured and moth-eaten papers, with their rude types and quaint spelling, which breathe, as much as do the words themselves, the spirit of a bygone age, and those who are so fond of praising past times might receive a valuable lesson from the perusal of these occasional publications, which are full of the spirit of an age when comfort, as we understand the word, was unknown to even the wealthy; when travelling was a luxury—a woeful luxury, it must be admitted—known only to those possessed of ample means, or others called forth on special or desperate[62] missions; when men lived long, and, as they thought, eventful lives, within a circle of half-a-dozen miles; and when the natural consequences of this isolation, ignorance and intolerance, held almost absolute sway over the length and breadth of the land. And in these old papers, as we get nearer and nearer to modern times, can be traced the gradual benefit which accrued from man’s intercourse with man, not only by the construction and improvement of roads, and the introduction of and competition among stage coaches, but by means of the subject of this work,—and very much by their means too,—advertisements.

As early as 1524, pamphlets or small books of news were printed in Vienna and other parts of Germany, but their publication was very irregular, and little or nothing is known of them beyond the fact of their being. It is not easy to determine which nation first found its way towards newspaper advertisements, but there is good reason to believe that France is entitled to the honour, so far as regular and consecutive business is concerned. The Journal Général d’Affiches, better known as the Petites Affiches, was first published on the 14th of October 1612. It obtained from Louis XIII. by letters-patent sundry privileges which were subsequently confirmed (1628 and 1635). Judging by the title of this publication, it would appear to have been an advertising medium, but this must be left to surmise, there being no opportunity, so far as we are aware, of inspecting the earliest numbers. Two centuries and a half have passed away since the first appearance of this periodical, and the Petites Affiches has neither changed its title, nor, it may be fairly presumed, the nature of its publicity. It is now the journal of the domestic wants of France; and servants seeking situations, or persons wanting servants, advertise in it in preference to all others. It is especially the medium for announcing any public or private sales of property, real or personal; and the publication of partnership deeds, articles of association[63] of public companies, and other legal notices, are required to be inserted in the Journal des Petites Affiches, which is published in a small octavo form.

The oldest newspaper paragraph approaching to an advertisement yet met with, is in one of those early German newsbooks preserved in the British Museum. It is printed in 1591, without name of place, and contains all the memorable occurrences of the years 1588 and 1589, such as the defeat of the Armada, the murder of King Henry III. of France, and other stale matter of the same kind; a curious instance of the tardiness with which news, whether good or ill, travelled in those times. Among the many signs and tokens which were then supposed to give warning of divine wrath at the general wickedness of mankind, was an unknown plant which had made its appearance in one of the suburbs of the town of Soltwedel. It grew in a garden amongst other plants, but nobody had ever seen its like. A certain Dr Laster thereupon wrote a book describing the plant, and giving a print of it in the frontispiece. “This book,” says the pamphlet, “which as yet is not much known, shows and explains all what this plant contains. Magister Cunan has published it, and Matthew Welack has printed it, in Wittemberg. Let whoever does not yet know the meaning of this [portend] buy the book at once, and read it with all possible zeal:”—

Though this is an advertisement to all intents and purposes, still it is of the kind now best known amongst those most interested as “puff pars,” and is similar to those that the early booksellers frequently inserted in their works. It is therefore not unlikely that the book in question and the newsletter were printed at the same shop. Another, in fact, the earliest instance of newspaper advertising, is that of Nathaniel Butler; still this also only relates to books. The first genuine miscellaneous advertisements yet discovered occur in a Dutch black-letter newspaper, which was published in the reign of our James I., without name or title. The advertisement in question is inserted at the end of the folio half-sheet which contains the news, November 21, 1626, and, in a type different from the rest of the paper, gives notice that there will be held a sale by auction of articles taken out of prizes, viz., sugar, ivory, pepper, tobacco, and logwood. At that time there appeared two newspapers in Amsterdam, and it is not a little curious that Broer Jansz[24] occasionally advertised the books he published in the paper of his rival, which was entitled “Courant from Italy and Germany.” Gradually the advertisements become more frequent, the following being some of them literally translated. The first is from the Courante uyt Italien ende Duytschland of July 23, 1633:—

Large illustration (440 kB)

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The two following are taken from the Tydinghen, the first appearing on May 27, 1634:—

A few days after, on June 7th, the inauguration of this school is advertised as about to take place on the ensuing Tuesday. There is one instance of an advertisement from a foreign country being inserted in this paper; it runs as follows, and is dated June 2, 1635:—

In England the first bonâ fide attempt at newspaper work was attempted in 1622, when the outbreak of the great Civil War caused an unusual demand to be made for news, and as the appetite grew by what it fed on, this unwonted request for information may be regarded as the fount-spring of that vast machine which “liners” delight to call “the fourth estate.” It was this demand which suggested to one Nathaniel Butler, a bookseller and a pamphleteer of twelve years’ standing, the idea of printing a weekly newspaper from the Venetian gazettes, which used to circulate in manuscript. After one or two preliminary attempts, he acquired sufficient confidence in his publication to issue the following advertisement:—

Like most innovations, this attempt met with an indifferent reception, and was greeted in the literary world with a shower of invective. Even Ben Jonson joined in the outcry, and ridiculed the newspaper office in his “Staple of News,” in which, among other notions, he publishes the paradox, as it now appears to us, that the information contained in the gazette “had ceased to be news by being printed.” Butler’s venture seems to have been anything but a success, and but for the fact that it gave rise to speculation on the subject of newspapers, and laid the foundation of our periodical literature, might, so far at all events as its promoter was concerned, never have had an existence. But the idea lost no ground, and newspapers began to make their way, though they did not assume anything like regularity, or definite shape and character, for nearly half a century. None of these precursors of newspaper history exceeded in size a single small leaf, and the quantity of news contained in fifty of them would be exceeded by a single issue of the present day.

What is generally supposed to be, but is not, the first authenticated advertisement is the following, the political and literary significance of which is apparent at a glance. It appears in the Mercurius Politicus for January 1652:—

In this chapter we have no intention of giving any specimens beyond those which are striking and characteristic. In subsequent chapters we shall carry the history in an unbroken line to modern times, but our intention is now[67] to select special instances and specimens of particular interest, and so we pass on to what may be almost considered a landmark in the history of our civilisation and refinement, the introduction of tea. The Mercurius Politicus of September 30, 1658, sets forth—

This announcement then marks an era; it shows that “l’impertinente nouveauté du siècle,” as the French physician, Guy Patin, called it in his furious diatribes, has not only made its advent, but is fighting its way forward. Patin is not without followers even in the present day, many people who would be surprised if accused of wanting in sense believing all “slops” to be causes of degeneracy. It must be observed that this is not the first acquaintance of our countrymen with the Chinese leaf—the advertisement simply shows the progress it is making—as tea is said to have been occasionally sold in England as early as 1635, at the exorbitant price of from £6 to £10 per pound. Thomas Garway, a tobacconist and coffee-house keeper in Exchange Alley, the founder of Garraway’s Coffee-house, was the first who sold and retailed tea, recommending it, as always has been, and always will be the case with new articles of diet, as a panacea for all disorders flesh is heir to. The following shop-bill, being more curious than any historical account we have of the early use of “the cup that cheers but not inebriates,” will be found well worth reading:—

The opposition beverage, coffee—mention is made of the “cophee-house” in the “Tcha” advertisement—had been known in this country some years before, a Turkey merchant of London, of the name of Edwards, having brought the first bag of coffee to London, and his Greek servant, Pasqua Rosee, was the first to open a coffee-house in London. This was in 1652, the time of the Protectorate, and one Jacobs, a Jew, had opened a similar establishment in Oxford a year or two earlier. Pasqua Rosee’s coffee-house was in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill. One of his original handbills is preserved in the British Museum, and is a curious record of a remarkable social innovation. It is here reprinted:—

In addition to tea and coffee, the introduction and acceptance of which had certainly a most marked influence on the progress of civilisation, may be mentioned a third, which, though extensively used, never became quite so great a favourite as the others. Chocolate, the remaining member of the triad, was introduced into England much about the same period. It had been known in Germany as early as 1624, when Johan Frantz Rauch wrote a treatise against that beverage. In England, however, it seems to have been introduced much later, for in 1657 it was still advertised as a new drink. In the Publick Advertiser of Tuesday, June 16-22, 1657, we find the following:—

Chocolate never, except among exquisites and women of fashion, made anything of a race with its more sturdy opponents, in this country at all events, for while tea and coffee have become naturalised beverages, chocolate has always retained its foreign prejudices.

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In the Kingdom’s Intelligencer, a weekly paper published in 1662, are inserted several curious advertisements giving the prices of tea, coffee, chocolate, &c., one of which is as follows:—

Leaving the enticing subject of these new beverages, we find that in May 1657 there appeared a weekly paper which assumed the title of the Public Advertiser, the first number being dated 19th to 26th May. It was printed for Newcombe, in Thames Street, and consisted almost wholly of advertisements, including the arrivals and departures of ships, and books to be printed. Soon other papers also commenced to insert more and more advertisements, sometimes stuck in the middle of political items, and announcements of marine disasters, murders, marriages, births, and deaths. Most of the notices at this period related to runaway apprentices and black boys, fairs and cockfights, burglaries and highway robberies, stolen horses, lost dogs, swords, and scent-bottles, and the departure of coaches on long journeys into the provinces, and sometimes even as far as Edinburgh. These announcements are not devoid of interest and curiosity for us who live in the days of railways and fast steamers; and so we quote[71] the following from the Mercurius Politicus of April 1, 1658:—

Among the advertisements which prevailed most extensively in those early times, may, as has been remarked, be ranked those of runaway servants, apprentices, and black boys. England at that time swarmed with negro or mulatto boys, which the wealthy used as pages, in imitation of the Italian nobility. They were either imported from the West Indies, or brought from the Peninsula. The first advertisement of a runaway black page we meet with is dated August 11, 1659, but in this instance the article is advertised as[72] “lost,” like a dog, which is after all but natural, the boy being a chattel:—

It is amusing to see, from this advertisement, that the wool of the negro found no grace in the eye of his Puritan master, who cropped the boy’s head as close as his own. Black boys continued in fashion for more than a century after, and were frequently offered for sale, by means of advertisements, in the same manner as slaves used to be, within recent years, in the Southern States of America. Even as late as 1769 sales of human flesh went on in this country. The Gazetteer, April 18, of that year, classes together “for sale at the Bull and Gate, Holborn: a chestnut gelding, a trim-whiskey, and a well-made, good-tempered black boy;” whilst a Liverpool paper of ten years later, October 15, 1779, announces as to be sold by auction, “at George Dunbar’s offices, on Thursday next, 21st inst., at one o’clock, a black boy about fourteen years old, and a large mountain tiger-cat.” This will be news to many blind worshippers of the ideal creature known as “a man and a brother.”

Another curiosity of the advertisement literature of the seventeenth century is the number of servants and apprentices absconding with their masters’ property. Nearly all those dishonest servants must have had appearances such as in these days might lead to conviction first and trial afterwards. First of all, there is scarcely one of them but is “pock-marked,” “pock-pitted,” “pock-fretted,” “pock-holed,” “pit-marked,” or “full of pock-holes,” a fact which furnishes a significant index of the ravages this terrible sickness must have made amongst our ancestors, and offers a conclusive argument—though argument is unfortunately inadmissible among them—to those blatant and illogical[73] people, the opponents of vaccination. Besides the myriads who annually died of small-pox, it would, perhaps, not be an exaggeration to assume that one-fourth of mankind at that time was pock-marked, and not pock-marked as we understand the term. Whole features were destroyed, and a great percentage of blindness was attributable to this cause. Indeed, so accustomed were the people of those times to pock-marked faces, that these familiar inequalities of the facial surface do not appear to have been considered an absolute drawback even upon the charms of a beauty or a beau. Louis XIV. in his younger days was considered one of the handsomest men of France, notwithstanding that he was pock-marked, and La Vallière and some other famous beauties of that period are known to have laboured under the same disadvantage. This is a hard fact which should destroy many of the ideas raised by fiction. The following is a fair specimen of the descriptions of the dangerous classes given in the early part of the latter half of the seventeenth century, and is taken from the Mercurius Politicus of May 1658:—

In the same style was almost every other description; and[74] though embarrassed by the quantity as well as quality we have to choose from, we cannot pass over this bit of word-painting, which is rich in description. It is from the Mercurius Politicus of July 1658:—

But besides the ravages of small-pox, the hue and cry raised after felons exhibits an endless catalogue of deformities. Hardly a rogue is described but he is “ugly as sin.” In turning over these musty piles of small quarto newspapers which were read by the men of the seventeenth century, a most ill-favoured crowd of evil-doers springs up around us. The rogues cannot avoid detection, if they venture out among good citizens, for they are branded with marks by which all men may know them. Take the following specimens of “men of the time.” The first is from the London Gazette of January 24-28, 1677:—

This portrait was evidently drawn by an admirer; and[75] it is with evident pleasure that the artist, after describing the “lank, dark, red hair,” and the suit like it, returns to the charge, and gives the finishing touches to the comely features. Here is another pair of beauties, whose descriptions appear in the Currant Intelligence, March 6-9, 1682:—

For powers of description this next is worthy of study. It is contemporary with the other:—

And so on, as per example; the runaways and missing folk—for all that are advertised are not offenders against the law—seem to have exhausted the whole catalogue of human and inhuman ugliness. By turns the attention of the public is directed to a brown fellow with a long nose, or with full staring grey eyes, countenance very ill-favoured, having lost his right eye, voice loud and shrill, teeth black and rotten, with a wide mouth and a hang-dog look, smutty complexion, a dimple in the top of his nose, or a flat wry nose with a star in it, voice low and disturbed, long visage, down look, and almost every other objectionable peculiarity imaginable. What a milk-and-water being our modern rough is, after all!

Dr Johnson, in a bantering paper on the art of advertising, published in the Idler, No. 40, observes: “The man who first took advantage of the general curiosity that was excited[76] by a siege or battle to betray the readers of news into the knowledge of the shop where the best puffs and powder were to be sold, was undoubtedly a man of great sagacity, and profound skill in the nature of man. But when he had once shown the way, it was easy to follow him.” Yet it took a considerable time before the mass of traders could be brought to understand the real use of advertising, even as the great Doctor understood it. Even he could hardly have comprehended advertising as it is now. The first man who endeavoured to systematically convince the world of the vast uses which might be made of this medium was Sir Roger L’Estrange. That intelligent speculator, in 1663, obtained an appointment to the new office of “Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses,” by which was granted to him the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, &c. &c., besides all briefs for collections, playbills, quack-salvers’ bills, tickets, &c. &c. On the 1st of August 1663 appeared a paper published by him, under the name of the Intelligencer, and on the 24th of the same month the public were warned against the “petty cozenage” of some of the booksellers, who had persuaded their customers that they could not sell the paper under twopence a sheet, though it was sold to them at about a fourth part of that price. The first number of the Newes (which was also promoted by Sir Roger L’Estrange) appeared September 3, 1663, and, as we are told by Nicholls in his “Literary Anecdotes,” “contained more advertisements of importance than any previous paper.” Still, the benefit of the publicity which might be derived from advertising was so little understood by the trading community of the period, that after the Plague and the Great Fire this really valuable means of acquainting the public with new places of abode, the resumption of business, and the thousand and one changes incidental on such calamities, were almost entirely neglected. Though nearly the entire city had been burnt out, and the citizens must[77] necessarily have entered new premises or erected extempore shops, yet hardly any announcements appear in the papers to acquaint the public of the new addresses. The London Gazette, October 11-15, 1666, offered its services, but hardly to any effect; little regard being paid to the following invitation:—

Among the very few advertisements relating to those great calamities is the following, produced by the Plague, which is inserted in the Intelligencer, June 22-30, 1665:—

Relating to the Fire, the following from the London Gazette, March 12, 1672-73, was the notification:—

There is not, however, a single advertisement relating to any of those temporary conveniences of every kind which invariably arise, as by magic, on any great and unusual emergency. Indeed, about this period, and for a long time after, the London Gazette, which was the official organ of the day, appeared frequently without a single advertisement; and till the end of the reign of Charles II., it was only very rarely that that paper contained more than four advertisements of a general kind, very frequently the number[78] being less. The subjects of these were almost exclusively thefts, losses, and runaways. Booksellers’ and quacks’ advertisements were, however, even then frequent in this paper; their announcements always preceded the others, and were printed in a different type.

In 1668 Mr (afterwards Sir) Roger L’Estrange commenced the Mercury, or Advertisements concerning Trade, which does not seem to have answered, for it soon became extinct. Some years after, the now well-known scheme of issuing sheets of advertisements gratuitously, trusting for profit to the number of advertisers, was for the first time attempted. The paper started on this principle was called the City Mercury, and appears to have had a hard struggle for existence, since the publishers thought it necessary to insert in No. 52 (March 30, 1673) a notice of this tenor:—

This paper lived but a short time; though the fact that[79] the proprietor undertook to furnish above a thousand copies per week to booksellers, shops, inns, and coffee-houses in London, and that it was sent to “most of the cities and principal towns in England,” clearly indicates that the trade began to be aware of the advantages to be derived from publicity. Soon afterwards a paper of the same denomination, but published by another speculator, was commenced. Its appearance and purposes were told to the public in the autumn of 1675 by circulars or handbills, one of which has fortunately been stored up in the British Museum. As this curious document gives a comprehensive outline of the system of newspaper advertising, as it appeared to the most advanced thinkers in the reign of Charles II., we reprint it here in extenso:—

In accordance with this prospectus, the first number of the City Mercury appeared November 4, 1675.

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We, who are familiar with the thousand and one tricks resorted to by traders in order to attract attention to their advertisements, may be apt to ridicule the artless manner in which these notices were brought before the public of the seventeenth century. Different types, dividing lines, woodcuts, and other contrivances to catch the wandering eye, were still unknown; and frequently all the advertisements were set forth in one string, without a single break, or even full stop, as in the subjoined specimen from the Loyal Impartial Mercury, November 14-17, 1681:—

Conciseness was of course necessary when it is recollected that the paper was only a folio half-sheet, though the news was so scanty that the few advertisements were a boon to the reader, and were sure to be read. This was an advantage peculiar to the early advertisers. So long as the papers were small, and the advertisements few in number, the trade announcements were almost more interesting than the news. But when the papers increased in bulk, and advertisements became common, it behoved those who wished to attract special attention to resort to contrivances which would distinguish them from the surrounding crowd of competitors.

The editor of the London Mercury, in 1681, evidently with an eye to making his paper a property on the best of[82] all principles, requests all those who have houses for sale to advertise in his columns, “where,” says he, “farther care will be taken for their disposal than the bare publishing them, by persons who make it their business.” Consequently we frequently meet in this paper with notices of “A delicate House to lett,” agreeably varied with advertisements concerning spruce beer, scurvy grass, Daffy’s elixir, and other specifics. Notwithstanding that the utility of advertising as a means of obtaining publicity was as yet hardly understood, the form of an advertisement, according to modern plans, was, it is curious to observe, frequently adopted at this period to expose sentiments in a veiled manner, or to call attention to public grievances. Thus, for instance, the first numbers of the Heraclitus Ridens, published in 1681, during the effervescence of the Popish plots, contained almost daily one or more of these political satires, of which the following may serve as examples. The first appears February 4.

The edition of February 15 contains the following:—

And on March 1 there was given to the world:—

This was a species of wit similar to that associated with the imaginary signs adopted in books with secret imprints, in order to express certain political notions, the sentiments of which were embodied in the work; for instance, a pamphlet just before the outbreak of the Civil War is called, “Vox Borealis, or a Northerne Discoverie, etc. Printed by Margery Marprelate, amidst the Babylonians, in Thwack Coat Lane, at the sign of the Crab Tree Cudgell, without any privilege of the Catercaps.”

One John Houghton, F.R.S., who combined the business of apothecary with that of dealer in tea, coffee, and chocolate, in Bartholomew Lane, commenced a paper in 1682, entitled A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade,[25] which continued to be issued weekly for some time; and though it failed, it was revived again on March 30, 1692. It was modelled on the same plan as the City Mercury of 1675, and was rather ambitious in its views. It consisted of one folio half-sheet, and was intended to “lay out for a large[84] correspondence, and for the advantage of tenant, landlord, corn merchant, mealman, baker, brewer, feeder of cattle, farmer, maltster, buyer and seller of coals, hop merchant, soap merchant, tallow chandler, wood merchant, their customers,” &c. But no advertisements proper were mentioned at first; it was a mere bulletin or price-current of the above-named trades and of auctions, besides shipping news and the bills of mortality. The first advertisement appeared in the third number, it was a “book-ad,” and figured there all by itself; and it was not till the 8th of June that the second advertisement appeared, which assumed the following shape:—

Under the fostering influence of Houghton, who appears to have been keenly aware of the advantage to be derived from this manner of obtaining publicity, advertisements of every kind began gradually to appear, and ere long the booksellers, who for some time had monopolised this paper, were pushed aside by the other trades; and so the attention of the public is by turns directed to blacking balls, tapestry hangings, spectacles, writing ink, coffins, copper and brass work, &c. &c.; and these notices increased so rapidly that, added to No. 52, which appeared on July 28, 1693, there is a half-sheet of advertisements, which is introduced to the public with the following curious notice:—

This first sheet consists solely of advertisements about newly published books, but it concludes:—

The advertisements in Houghton’s Collection may appear strange to the reader accustomed to rounded sentences and glowing periods, but in the reign of William III. the general absence of education rendered the social element more unsophisticated in character. In those old days the advertiser and editor of the paper frequently speak in the first person singular; also the advertiser often speaks through the editor. A few specimens taken at random will give the reader a tolerably good idea of the style then prevalent:—

This continual demand for musical servants arose from the fashion of making them take part in musical performances, of which custom we find frequent traces in Pepys. Altogether the most varied accomplishments appear to have been expected from servants; as, for instance,—

The editor frequently gives special testimony as to the respectability of the advertiser:—

At other times Houghton recommends “a tidy footman,” a “quick, well-looking fellow,” or “an extraordinary cook-maid;” and observes of a certain ladysmaid, who offered her services through his Collection, “and truly she looks and discourses passing well.” Occasionally he also guarantees the situation; thus, applying for “a suitable man that can read and write, and will wear a livery,” he adds for the information of flunkeys in general: “I believe that ’twill be a very good place, for ’tis to serve a fine gentleman whom I well know, and he will give £5 the year besides a livery.” Imagine Jeames of Belgravia being told he should have £5 for his important annual services! Another time “’tis to wait on a very valuable old batchelor gentleman in the City.” Again, he recommends a Protestant French gentleman, who is willing to wait on some person of quality, and Houghton adds, “from a valuable divine, my good friend, I have a very good character of him.” Of a certain surgeon, whom he advertises, he says, “I have known him, I believe, this twenty years.” All these recommendations bear an unmistakable character of truth and honesty on their face, and are[88] very different from the commendatory paragraphs which nowadays appear in the body of a paper because of long advertisements which are to be found in the outer sheet. Nor is the worthy man ever willing to engage his word further than where he can speak by experience; in other cases, an “I believe,” or some such cautious expression, invariably appears. Recommending a hairdresser, he says—

And once, when a number of quack advertisements had found their way into the paper, old Houghton, with a sly nod and a merry twinkle in his eye, almost apparent as one reads, drily puts his “index” above them, with the following caution:—

A tolerably broad hint of his disbelief in the said nostrums and elixirs. Even booksellers had to undergo the test of his ordeal, and having discovered some of their shortcomings, he warned them—

When a book of the right reverend father in God John Wilkins, late Bishop of Chester, was published, Houghton recommended it in patronising terms—

Of another work he says—

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Thus, notwithstanding the primitive form of the advertisements, the benefit to be derived from this mode of publicity began to be more and more understood. It was not without great trouble, however; and it was necessary that Houghton should constantly direct the attention of the trading community to the resources and advantages of advertising, which he did in the most candid manner. He simply and abruptly puts the question and leaves those interested to solve it. Thus:—

And the answer came; for a few days after the public were informed that

Freedom from noise and a pretty garden in a street leading from Eastcheap to Fish Street Hill! Shortly after Houghton calmly observes:—

He then starts other subjects:—

The barber’s shop was then the headquarters of gossip, as it took a long time to shave the whole of a man’s beard and curl a sufficient quantum of hair or wig, as worn in those old days, and so the man of suds was expected to entertain his customers or find them entertainment. Next turning his attention to the clergy, Houghton offers that body a helping hand also:—

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How he understood this friendly help soon appeared:—

The use of second-hand sermons was not unknown in those days, and detection was of course much less imminent than now. Then—

Possibly the “many more” was a heavy attempt at humour; but anyhow the sermon article was in great demand, and his kindly services did not rest there:—

And so on, proving that the clergy had not refused the friendly offer, and were fully as ready as the tradesman to avail themselves of this means of giving vent to their wants and requirements.

Houghton would occasionally do a little business to oblige a friend, though it is fair to assume that he participated in the profits:—

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Besides the above particular advertisements, the paper frequently contained another kind, which to us may appear singularly vague and unbusinesslike, but which no doubt perfectly answered their purpose among a comparatively minute metropolitan population, the subjects of William III. We allude to general advertisements such as these:—

In similar style a most extraordinary variety of other things imported are advertised in subsequent numbers, including crystal stones, hops, oxguts, incle, juniper, old pictures, onions, pantiles, quick eels, rushes, spruce beer, sturgeon, trees, brandy, chimney backs, caviar, tobacco-pipes, whale-fins, bugle, canes, sheep’s-guts, washballs and snuff, a globe, aqua fortis, shruffe, quills, waxworks, ostrich feathers, scamony, clagiary paste, Scotch coals, sweet soap, onion seed, gherkins, mum, painted sticks, soap-berries, mask-leather, and so on, for a long time, only giving the names of the importers, without ever mentioning their addresses, until at last a bright idea struck this gentleman, who seems to have been one of those vulgarly said to be before their time, but who are in fact the pioneers who pave the way for all improvements; and so the Collection was enriched with the following notice:—

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Houghton was indeed so well aware of the utility of giving the addresses, that in order to render his paper more permanently useful, he published, apparently on his own account, not only the addresses of some of the principal shops, but also a list of the residences of the leading doctors. From this we gather that in June 1694 there were 93 doctors in and about London, also that Dr (afterwards Sir) Hans Sloane lived at Montague House (now the British Museum), Dr Radcliffe in Bow Street, and Dr Garth, by Duke Street. At the conclusion of this list the publisher says:—

Thus by untiring perseverance, and no small amount of thought and study, Houghton trained his contemporaries in the art of advertising, and made them acquainted with the valuable assistance to be derived from a medium which, as Alexis de Tocqueville remarks, drops the same thought into a thousand minds at almost the same period. Apart from the interest which his papers have on the subject we have been considering, they are full of graphic details which throw a clear and effective light on these old and bygone times. What can give a more vivid picture of the state of the roads in this country in winter-time, nearly two centuries ago, than the following notice extracted from the Collection for Husbandry and Trade, March 10, 1693:—

At this picture of those good old times for which people who know nothing about them now weep, we will stop. The rest of the story, so far as the development of advertisements is concerned, will be told in strict chronological order.

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We have now arrived at a period when the value of advertising was beginning to make itself felt among even the most conservative, and when it at last began to dawn upon the minds so unaccustomed to change or improvement, that a new era in the history of trade was about to commence, even if it had not commenced already. So the newspapers of the latter half of the seventeenth century begin to offer fresh inducements to the reader, no matter whether to the antiquarian or simply curious. And he must be a flippant reader indeed who is not impressed by these files of musty and bygone journals, pervaded by the spirit of a former age, and redolent of the busy doings of men who generations ago were not only dead but forgotten. Few things could be more suggestive of the steady progress of Time, and the quite as steady progress of his congeners, Death and Forgetfulness, than these papers. Novelists and essayists have described in most eloquent words the feelings which are aroused by the perusal of suddenly-discovered and long-forgotten letters; and similar feelings, though of a much more extended description, are evoked by a glance through any volume of these moth-eaten journals. A writer of a few years back, speaking of the advertisements, says, “As we read in the old musty files of newspapers those naïve announcements, the very hum of bygone generations seems to rise to the ear. The chapman exhibits his quaint wares, the mountebank capers again upon his stage, we[95] have the living portrait of the highwayman flying from justice, we see the old-china auctions thronged with ladies of quality with their attendant negro-boys, or those by ‘inch of candle-light,’ forming many a Schalken-like picture of light and shade; or later still we have Hogarthian sketches of the young bloods who swelled of old along the Pall-Mall. We trace the moving panorama of men and manners up to our own less demonstrative, but more earnest times; and all these cabinet pictures are the very daguerreotypes cast by the age which they exhibit, not done for effect, but faithful reflections of those insignificant items of life and things, too small, it would seem, for the generalising eye of the historian, however necessary to clothe and fill in the dry bones of his history.” Indeed, turning over these musty volumes of newspapers is for the imaginative mind a pleasure equal to reading the Tatler or Spectator, or the plays of the period. By their means Cowper’s idea of seeing life “through the loopholes of retreat” is realised, and characteristic facts and landmarks of progress in the history of civilisation are brought under our notice, as the busy life of bygone generations bursts full upon us. We see the merchant at his door, and inside the dimly-lit shops observe the fine ladies of the time deep in the mysteries of brocades and other articles of the feminine toilet, whose very names are now lost to even the mercers themselves. And not alone intent on flowered mantuas and paduasoys are they, for we can in fancy see them, keen ever to a fancied bargain, pricing Chinese teapots or Japanese cabinets, and again watch them as, with fluttering hearts, they assist at lotteries for valuables of the quality familiar to “knockouts” of our own time. We hear the lament of the beau who has lost his clouded amber-headed cane or his heart at the playhouse, and listen to the noisy quacks vending their nostrums, each praising his own wares or depreciating those of his rivals. We see the dishonest serving-man rush past us on the road carrying the heterogeneous treasures which have tempted his cupidity. Soon the “Hue[96] and Cry” brings the same ill-favoured malefactor before us in an improved character as horse-stealer and highwayman; and ere long we hear of the conclusion of his short drama at Tyburn. Thus the various advertisements portray, with more or less vividness, lineaments of the times and the characters of the people.

That the newspapers were early used for the purpose of giving contradictions by means of advertisement, or effecting sly puffs, is shown by the following, which was doubtless intended to call attention to the work, and which was published in the form of an ordinary paragraph in the Modern Intelligence, April 15-22, 1647:—

There is a logical deduction about the conclusion of this which it is to be hoped forced itself upon the minds of those who were ready to believe not only in the existence but in the visibility of spirits; and if the paragraph was but a lift for the book after all, it surely deserved success, if only for the quaint way in which it admits to the dog and the boy and the musical instrument, a combination equal upon an emergency to the simulation of a very powerful devil. In the very next edition of the same paper we come upon a paragraph which is even more direct in its advertising properties, which, in fact, might have been dictated by editorial “friendship” in these days, instead of in the first half of the seventeenth century. It runs thus:—

Facsimile of newspaper page

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What is considered by many to be the first bonâ fide and open advertisement ever published appears in a paper entitled Several Proceedings in Parliament, and is found under the date November 28-December 5, 1650. It runs thus:—

The following number of the same paper, that for December 5-12, 1650, contains this:—

In 1655, Lilly the astrologer availed himself of what was then considered the new plan for ventilating a grievance, and accordingly, in the Perfect Diurnal of April 9-16, he published the following full-fledged advertisement, one of the earliest extant:—

This, if noticed and recollected, must have destroyed, or at least damaged, Lilly’s fame, when the great fire really did take place; but then eleven years is a long time, long enough indeed to have included many and various prophecies. Certainly modern astrologers would have turned to account the mere fact of having been accused of prophesying such a fire or any portion of it. In a previous chapter we have given a specimen of the earliest advertisements with regard to the coaching arrangements of this time, and now append the following, which would seem to show, singular as it may appear, that the simpler form, in fact the first principle, of travelling by means of saddle-horses, was not arranged until after coaches had been regularly appointed. It appears in the Mercurius Politicus toward the end of the year 1658:—

It is hard to understand how, even if he received notice beforehand, the first postmaster was enabled to guarantee the readiness of the remaining officials, unless indeed messengers were constantly passing backwards and forwards on each route. The intimation that the threepence per mile does not include a guide does something to clear up the mystery, and at the same time gives an idea as to the state of the roads at that time. One would imagine from the existence of such a being that the track was across a morass, or by the side of a precipice, and not along a highroad of “merrie England,” in those good old times for which so many sigh now. Who, although the necessity for the highway is far less than it was two hundred years ago, can imagine a guide being required nowadays for no other purpose than that of preventing the wayfarer from straying off the beaten track, and losing his horse, and probably himself, in some gigantic slough or quagmire! It is with difficulty one can now realise to himself the fact, that as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, the interior of the country was little better than a wilderness; but that it was so may be easily gathered by a reference to Pepys, who, in the diary of his journey to Bristol and back, makes frequent mention of guides, and finds them far from unnecessary or inexpensive.

The servants of the olden time do not improve upon[100] acquaintance, as the following specimen advertisement from the Mercurius Politicus of July 1658 will show:—

This gay and dashing youth, whose pock-holes were possibly in those days regarded as but beauty-spots, with the additional recommendation of showing that their wearer had passed through the then dreaded and terrible ordeal, was doubtless an idle apprentice travelling in the direction since made famous by one who served his full indentures. Ugly as the young gentleman just described may seem to the hypercritical tastes of the nineteenth century, he, as we will presently show, is a perfect beauty compared with any individual specimen picked out at random from the long lists of criminals published in old newspapers. From these lists some conception may be formed of the ravages of the small-pox, and its effect upon the appearance of the great bulk of the population. Every man and woman seems to have been more or less marked—some slightly, some frightfully pitted or fretted, as the term then was; yet even now we have every day instances of violent and ignorant opposition to vaccination, an opposition which is loud-mouthed and possessed of considerable influence over the lower orders, who are led to believe that vaccination is the primary cause of all epidemic disease, including that which it most professes to prevent.

About this time highwaymen, who during the wars were almost unknown, began to exhibit a strong interest in the portable property of travellers; and as they took horses whenever they could find them, notices of lost, stolen, or strayed animals became frequent. It is much to be feared that the dashing knight of the road, who robbed the rich to give to[101] the poor, is a complete myth, and that the thieves who infested the highway were neither brave nor handsome, and not above picking up, and keeping, the most trifling things that came in their way. The quality of these riders may be guessed by means of the following, from the Mercurius Politicus of February 1659, the subject of which, singularly different from the “prancing prads” of which enthusiasts have written, seems to have been borrowed by one of them:—

It is supposed by some that the great amount of horse-stealing which prevailed during the Commonwealth, and for the next fifty years, was caused by an inordinate scarcity of animals consequent upon casualties in the battle-field. This can hardly be correct, unless, indeed, the object of the foe was always to kill horses and capture men, a state of things hardly possible enough for the most determined theorist. One fact is noticeable, and seems to have been quite in the interest of the thieves—namely, that when at grass most horses were kept ready saddled. This practice may have arisen during the Civil Wars from frequent emergency, a ready-saddled horse being of even greater comparative value than the traditional bird in the hand; and we all know how hard it is to depart from custom which has been once established. That the good man was merciful to his beast in those days hardly appears probable, if we are to take the small black nag as evidence. His furniture, too,[102] seems much more adapted for service than show, despite its variety of colours; and perhaps the animal may have been seized, as was not uncommon, by some messenger of State making the best of his way from one part of the kingdom to another. Before the year 1636 there was no such thing as a postal service for the use of the people. The Court had, it is true, an establishment for the forwarding of despatches, and in Cromwell’s time much attention was paid to it; but it was, after all, often in not much better form than when Bryan Tuke wrote as follows during the sixteenth century: “The Kinges Grace hath no mor ordinary postes, ne of many days hathe had, but betweene London and Calais.... For, sir, ye knowe well that, except the hackney-horses betweene Gravesende and Dovour, there is no suche usual conveyance in post for men in this realme, as in the accustomed places of France and other partes; ne men can keepe horses in redynes withoute som way to bere the charges; but when placardes be sent for suche cause [to order the immediate forwarding of some State packet], the constables many tymes be fayne to take horses out of ploues and cartes, wherein can be no extreme diligence.” In Elizabeth’s reign a horse-post was established on each of the great roads for the transmission of the letters for the Court; but the Civil Wars considerably interfered with this, and though in the time of Cromwell public posts and conveyances were arranged, matters were in a generally loose state after his death, and during the reign of his sovereign majesty Charles II. Truly travelling was then a venturesome matter.

In 1659, also, we come upon an advertisement having reference to a work of the great blind bard John Milton. It appears in the Mercurius Politicus of September, and is as follows:—

Here we are, then, brought as it were face to face with one of the brightest names in the brightest list of England’s poets. This work is almost swamped amid a host of quaintly and sometimes fiercely titled controversial works, with which the press at that time teemed. The poet seems to have known what was impending, and to have conscientiously put forth his protest. We can guess what weight it had with the hungering crowds anxiously awaiting the coming change, and ready to be or do anything so long as place was provided for them. In something like contrast with the foregoing is this we now select from a number of the same paper in December of the same year:—

This speaks volumes for the peculiarities of the times. Nowadays, in the event of war, anxious relatives are soon put out of their suspense by means of careful bulletins and regular returns of killed and wounded; but who can tell the amount of heart-sickness and hope deferred engendered by the “troubles” of the seventeenth century, or of anxious thought turned towards corpses mouldering far away, among whom was most likely George Weale, perhaps the only one of the obscure men slain in “some of those fights,” whose name has been rescued from oblivion.

In 1660 we find Milton again in the hands of his publisher, just at the time when the Restoration was considered complete, alone amid the pack that were ready to fall down[104] before the young King, who was to do so much to prove the value of monarchy as compared with the Commonwealth. “The advertisements,” says a writer, referring to this period, “which appeared during the time that Monk was temporising and sounding his way to the Restoration, form a capital barometer of the state of feeling among political men at that critical juncture. We see no more of the old Fifth-Monarchy spirit abroad. Ministers of the steeple-houses evidently see the storm coming, and cease their long-winded warnings to a backsliding generation. Every one is either panting to take advantage of the first sunshine of royal favour, or to deprecate its wrath, the coming shadow of which is clearly seen. Meetings are advertised of those persons who have purchased sequestered estates, in order that they may address the King to secure them in possession; Parliamentary aldermen repudiate by the same means charges in the papers that their names are to be found in the list of those persons who ‘sat upon the tryal of the late King;’ the works of ‘late’ bishops begin again to air themselves in the Episcopal wind that is clearly setting in; and ‘The Tears, Sighs, Complaints, and Prayers of the Church of England’ appear in the advertising columns, in place of the sonorous titles of sturdy old Baxter’s works. It is clear there is a great commotion at hand; the leaves are rustling, and the dust is moving.” In the midst of this, however, there was one still faithful to the “old cause,” as Commonwealth matters had got to be called by the Puritans; and on the 8th of March, just when the shadow of the sceptre was once again thrown upon Great Britain, we find the following in the Mercurius Politicus:—

Facsimile of newspaper page

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Who would think, while reading these calm corrections, that the poet knew he was in imminent danger, and that in a couple of months he was to be a proscribed fugitive, hiding in the purlieus of Westminster from Royalty’s myrmidons? Yet it was so, and the degradation to which literature may be submitted is proved by the fact that within the same space of time his works were, in accordance with an order of the House of Commons, burned by the hangman.

The excessive loyalty exhibited about this time by the lawyers, who were then, as now, quite able to look after their own interests, shows in rather a ludicrous light, viewed through the zealous officiousness of Mr Nicholas Bacon, who must have been the fountspring of the following effusion, which appears in a June, 1660, number of the Mercurius Politicus:—

The King does not seem to have enjoyed his own very long before he was subjected to loss by the dog-stealers, who, less ready to revere royalty than the lawyers, led to the publication of the following in the Mercurius Publicus of June 28, 1660:—

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And one who could very probably afford to be despoiled still less—one of the poor Cavaliers who expected so much from the representative of Divine right, and who were to be so terribly disappointed—is also victimised, his whole stock of bag and baggage being annexed by some of those vagabonds who only see in any public excitement a means to their own enrichment at the expense of others. Fancy the state of mind of the elderly gentleman who is so anxious to present himself at Court, while waiting the return of the articles thus advertised in the Mercurius Publicus of July 5, 1660:—

This Mercurius Publicus from which we have just quoted is said to be the Politicus we have mentioned in reference to earlier advertisements, which turned courtier in imitation of the general example, and changed its name also in emulation of popular practice. All England seemed then to have gone mad with excessive loyalty, and it is no wonder that Charles was surprised that he could have been persuaded to stop away so long. The columns of the Mercurius Publicus were placed entirely under the direction of the King, and instead of the slashing articles against malignants,[107] which were wont to appear before its change of title, it contains, under Restoration dates, virulent attacks upon the Puritans, and inquiries after his Majesty’s favourite dogs, which had a curious knack of becoming stolen or lost. In addition to the canine advertisement already given, we take the following, which appears during July, and which would seem to have been dictated, if not actually written, by Charles:—

This is evidently the dog advertised before, and seems to have been an especial favourite with the merry monarch, who, one might think, would have had so many dogs that he could not possibly have missed an individual from their number. Pepys about this time describes the King, with a train of spaniels and other dogs at his heels, lounging along and feeding the water-fowl in the Park; and on later occasions he was often seen talking to his favourite Nell Gwyn as she leaned from her garden wall in Pall Mall, whilst his four-footed favourites were grouped about. It was possibly on these occasions that the gentlemen who have such an extraordinary faculty for “finding” dogs, even unto this day, saw their opportunities, and marched off with the choicest specimens. Certainly the dogs were being constantly lost, and just as constantly advertised. In turn we find him inquiring after “a little brindled grey-hound bitch, having her two hinder feet white;” for a “white-haired spaniel, smooth-coated, with large red or yellowish spots;” and for a “black mastiff dog, with cropped[108] ears and cut tail.” So it would seem that, fond as his Majesty was of dogs, he was not above their being cropped and trimmed in the manner which has of late years caused all the forces of a well-known society to be arrayed against the “fancy” and the “finders.” And not alone did the King advertise his lost favourites. As the fashion was set, so it was followed, and the dogmen’s lives must then have been cast in pleasant places indeed, for Prince Rupert, “my lord Albemarle,” the Duke of Buckingham, and many other potent seigniors, are constantly inquiring after strayed or stolen animals. The change in the general habits of the time is very clearly shown by these advertisements. The Puritans did not like sporting animals of any kind, and it has been said that no dog would have followed a Fifth-Monarchy man. Perhaps this dislike accounts for the total absence of all advertisements having reference to field-sports, or to animals connected therewith, until the return of the Court to England. With its return came in once more an aristocratic amusement which had faded out during the stern days of the Commonwealth, hawking, and we are reminded of this by the following advertisement for a lost lanner, which appears in the Mercurius Publicus of September 6, 1660:—

If it be true that the Mercurius changed its name from Politicus to Publicus out of compliment to the new King and his Court, second thoughts seem to have been taken, and the original name resumed, for there is a Mercurius Politicus in November 1660, from which is the following:—

It will be seen from this that quack medicines are by no means modern inventions—in fact, the wonder is, if our ancestors took a tithe of the articles advertised, that there is any present generation at all; so numerous and, even according to their own showing, powerful were the specifics advertised on every possible opportunity and in connection with every possible disease. As, however, we shall devote special space to charlatans further on, we will here simply pass to the following, which promises rather too much for the price. This is also in the Mercurius Politicus, and appears in December 1660:—

We can now mark the advent of those monstrous flowing wigs which were in fashion for nearly a century, and may be fairly assumed to have made their appearance about[110] the date of this advertisement, which was published in the Newes of February 4, 1663:—

Pepys, in his quaint and humorous manner, describes how Chapman, a periwig-dresser, cut off his hair to make up one of these immense coverings for him, much to the trouble of his servants, Jane and Bessy. He also states that “two perriwiggs, one whereof cost me £3 and the other 40s.,” have something to do with the depletion of his ready money on the 30th of October 1663. On November 2nd, he says, “I heard the Duke [Buckingham] say that he was going to wear a perriwigg; and they say the King also will. I never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” And then on Lord’s day, November 8th, he says, with infinite quaintness, “To church, where I found that my coming in a perriwigg did not prove so strange as I was afraid it would, for I thought that all the church would presently have cast their eyes all upon me.” Pepys was, it seems, possessed of that rather unpleasant consciousness which prompts a man who wears anything new or strange for the first time to believe that all the world, even that portion of it which has never seen him before, knows he feels anxious and uncomfortable because he has got new clothes on. The price, ten shillings the ounce, shows that there must have been an exceptionally heavy demand for flaxen colour by the wearers of the new-fashioned wigs. Judging by the advertisements just quoted, as well as by those which follow, there can be no controverting the statement that the reign of Charles II. “was characterised by frivolous amusements and by a love of dress and vicious[111] excitement, in the midst of which pestilence stalked like a mocking fiend, and the great conflagration lit up the masquerade with its lurid and angry glare. Together with the emasculate tone of manners, a disposition to personal violence stained the latter part of this and the succeeding reign. The audacious seizure of the crown jewels by Blood; the attack upon the Duke of Ormond by the same desperado, that nobleman having actually been dragged from his coach in St James’s Street in the evening, and carried, bound upon the saddle-bow of Blood’s horse, as far as Hyde Park Corner, before he could be rescued; the slitting of Sir John Coventry’s nose in the Haymarket by the King’s guard; and the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey on Primrose Hill, are familiar instances of the prevalence of this lawless spirit.” There is still one other memorable and dastardly assault to note, that on “Glorious John,” and we shall do so in due course.

The London Gazette now appears upon the scene, and this is noticeable, because of all the papers started before, or for a very considerable time after, this is the only one which has still an existence. It has been stated by some writers to have first appeared at Oxford during the time the Court took up its abode there, while the Great Plague was raging, but that this was not so is shown by the following, which is extracted from the London Gazette of January 22, 1664, nearly twelve months before the outbreak of the Plague. The fact is that during the residence of the King and Court at Oxford, the official organ changed its title, and was called the Oxford Gazette, to resume its original name as soon as it resumed its original publishing office.[26]

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The ignorance of natural history at this time seems to have been somewhat marvellous, and anything in the way of a collection of curiosities was sure to attract a credulous multitude, as is shown by another notice, published in the News of a date close to that of the foregoing. The articles are rather scanty, to be sure, but probably the “huge thighbone of a giant,” whatever it was in reality, was in itself sufficient to attract, to say nothing of the mummy and torpedo.

Evidently something must have been known of mummies, or how could the exhibitor tell that his was a choice one? Our next item introduces us to one of those old beliefs which are still to be found in remote parts of the country. The King, like any mountebank or charlatan, advertises the time when he will receive, for the purpose of giving the royal touch, supposed to be sufficient to cure the horrible distemper. Surely he of all people must have known how futile was the experiment; and it is passing strange that a people who had tried, condemned, and executed one king like any common man, should have put faith in such an announcement as that published in the Public Intelligencer of May 1664, which runs as follows:—

Surely such men as Sedley, Rochester, Buckingham, and even Charles himself, must have laughed at the infatuation of the multitude; for if ever there was a king whose touch was less likely than another’s to cure the evil, that king was, in our humble opinion, “his Sacred Majesty” Charles II. But then people were prepared to go any lengths to make up for their shortcomings in the previous reign. There was possibly a political significance about these manifestations of royal ability and clemency, and some enthusiasts, who believe devoutly in the triumph of mind over matter, think there is reason to believe in the efficacy of the touch in scrofulous affections, and even believe that people did really recover after undergoing the process. Dr Tyler Smith, who has written on the subject, boldly states his belief that the emotion felt by these poor stricken people who came within the influence of the King’s “Sacred Majesty” acted upon them as a powerful tonic; though, as the King always bestowed a gold piece upon the patient, we think that if good was derived, it was derived from the comfort procured by that—for those who suffered and believed were generally in the lowest and poorest rank of life—and perhaps travelling and change of air had something to do with it as well. If the arguments of those who believe in the emotional effect are to be admitted, it must be allowed by parity of reasoning that where the touch failed, its failure would be likely to cause the sufferers to become rabid republicans, the Divine right having refused to exhibit itself. Maybe these latter symptoms, like the symptoms of other diseases, did not develop in the individual, but came out in course of generations, which may perhaps account for the large amount of democracy which has exhibited itself during the present century. There is certainly something rather ludicrous in the fact that the practice of touching[114] for the evil ceased with the death of Anne; not because the people had become more enlightened, but because the sovereigns who followed her were supposed to have lost the medicinal virtue through being kings merely by Act of Parliament, and not by Divine right.

The reaction which set in from the strait-laced rule of the Puritans at the time of the Restoration, must have reached its height about 1664, if we may judge by the advertisements then constantly inserted, which reflect the love of pleasure and folly exhibited by all classes, as if they were anxious to make up for previous restrictions. In fact, the chief inquiries are after lacework, or valuables lost at masquerade or water party, announcements of lotteries at Whitehall, of jewels and tapestry, and other things to be sold. The following is a fair specimen of the advertisements of the time, and appears in the News of August 4, 1664:—

There are also about this time all sorts of quack and nostrum advertisements, an “antimonial cup,” by means of which every kind of disease was to be cured, being apparently very popular. Sir Kenelm Digby, a learned knight, who is said to have feasted his wife with capons fattened upon serpents for the purpose of making her fair, advertises a book in which is shown a method of curing the severest wounds by a sympathetic powder. But even the knight’s efforts pall before the following, which will go far to show the superstitious leaven which still hung about the populace:—

We see in the papers of 1665 an increased number of advertisements for lost and stolen animals, mostly those used in connection with sport; but this does not go to prove that more dogs, hawks, &c., were missing, so much as that the advantages of advertising were being discovered throughout the country; and as London was the only place in which at that time a newspaper was published, the cry after stray favourites always came up to town. Strange, indeed, are many of the advertisements about sports long since passed from amongst us, and the very phrases of which have died out of the language. It seems hard to imagine that hawks in all the glory of scarlet hoods were carried upon fair ladies’ wrists, or poised themselves when uncovered to view their prey, so late as the time of Charles II., but that it was so, an advertisement already quoted, as well as the following, shows. It is taken from the Intelligencer of November 6, 1665:—

Inquiries for hawks and goshawks are by no means scarce, and so we may imagine that these implements of hunting were hardly so much to be depended upon as those from the workshop of art and not of nature, which are in use in the present day. Indeed, the falcon seemed to care much less, when once set free, for his keeper, than writers of books are prone to imagine. The King was apparently[116] no more fortunate than the rest of those who indulged in falconry, for in a copy of the London Gazette, late in 1667, the following is seen:—

Sir Allan Apsley was the brother-in-law of the celebrated Colonel Hutchinson, and brother of the devoted wife whose story everybody has read. The next advertisement we shall select is published in the London Gazette of May 10, 1666, and has reference to the precautions taken to prevent the spread of the Plague. Long before this all public notices of an idle and frivolous nature have ceased, amusements seem to have lost their charm, and it is evident from a study of the advertisements alone, that some great disturbing cause is at work among the good citizens. No longer does the authorised gambling under the roof of Whitehall go on; no more are books of Anacreontics published; stopped are all the assignations but a short time back so frequent; and no longer are inquiries made after lockets and perfumed bags, dropped during amorous dalliance, or in other pursuit of pleasure. Death, it is evident, is busy at work. The quacks, and the writers of semi-blasphemous pamphlets, have it all to themselves, and doubtless batten well in this time of trouble. The Plague is busy doing its deadly work, and already the city has been deserted by all who can fly thence, and only those who are detained by duty, sickness, poverty, or the want of a clean bill of health, remain. These bills or licences to depart were only granted by the Lord Mayor, and the greatest influence often failed to obtain them, as after the Plague once showed strength it was deemed necessary to prevent by all and every means the[117] spread of the contagion throughout the country. The advertisement chosen gives a singular instance of the manner in which those who had neglected to depart early were penned within the walls:—

A great demand seems at this time to have been made for an electuary much advertised as a certain preventive of the Plague, which was to be drunk at the Green Dragon, Cheapside, at sixpence a pint. This is, however, only one among hundreds of specifics which continued to be thrust upon the public in the columns of the papers, until the real deliverer of the plague-stricken people appeared—a dreadful deliverer, it is true, but the only one. The Great Fire, which commenced on the 2nd of September 1666, and destroyed thirteen thousand houses, rendering myriads of people homeless, penniless, and forlorn, had its good side, inasmuch as by it the Plague was utterly driven out of its stronghold, but not until nearly a hundred thousand persons had perished. Imagine two such calamities coming almost together; but the purgation by fire was the only one which could fairly be expected to prove effectual, as it destroyed the loathsome charnel-houses which would long have held the taint, and removed a great part of the cause which led to the power of the fell epidemic. We have in the preceding[118] chapter referred to the paucity of advertisements which appeared in reference to the new addresses of those who had been burnt out, and a writer a few years back makes the following remark upon the same subject: “Singularly enough, but faint traces of this overwhelming calamity, as it was considered at the time, can be gathered from the current advertisements. Although the entire population of the city was rendered houseless, and had to encamp in the surrounding fields, where they extemporised shops and streets, not one hint of such a circumstance can be found in the public announcements of the period. No circumstance could afford a greater proof of the little use made by the trading community of this means of publicity in the time of Charles II. If a fire only a hundredth part so destructive were to occur in these days, the columns of the press would immediately be full of the new addresses of the burnt-out shopkeepers; and those who were not even damaged by it would take care to ‘improve the occasion’ to their own advantage. We look in vain through the pages of the London Gazette of this and the following year for one such announcement: not even the tavern-keeper tells us the number of his booth in Goodman’s-fields, although quack medicine flourished away in its columns as usual.” We have already shown that one advertisement at least was published in reference to removal caused by the fire, but as it did not appear till six or seven years afterwards, it is a solitary exception to the rule, indeed. In 1667, notifications occurred now and then of some change in the site of a Government office, caused by the disturbances incident on the fire, or of the intention to rebuild by contract some public structure. Of these the following, which appears in the London Gazette, is a good specimen:—

As nothing occurs in the way of advertisements worthy of remark or collection for the next few years, we will take this convenient opportunity of obtaining a brief breathing space.

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Let us commence here with the year 1674, a period when the rages and fashions, the plague and fire, and the many things treated of by means of advertisements in the preceding chapter, had plunged England into a most unhappy condition. The reaction from Puritanism was great, but the reaction from royalty and extravagance threatened to be still greater. Speaking of the state of affairs about this time, a famous historian, who has paid particular attention to the latter part of the seventeenth century, says: “A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent, came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had commenced his administration, had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind had now measured back again the space over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met. The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected that she would[121] have been, at least, as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate king, strong in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low, that any German or Italian principality which brought five thousand men into the field, was a more important member of the commonwealth of nations. With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the Court a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It had even been whispered that this design was to be carried into effect by the intervention of foreign arms. The thought of such intervention made the blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always professed the doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent, were now heard to mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would not answer for their own patience. But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction. The cruelties of Mary’s reign—cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular martyrologies—the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all, the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter feeling, which was kept up by annual commemorations, prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for[122] regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices, the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puritanism; but during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased.... The King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir-presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession of princes hostile to the established faith might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had during many years been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the Reformed Churches. Under such circumstances, it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary.” Such was the unhappy state of affairs at this period, and though its effect is soon shown in the advertisement columns of the papers, one would think times were piping and peaceful indeed to read the following, extracted from the London Gazette of October 15-19, 1674:—

Doubtless this Chiffinch, the degraded being who lived[123] but to pander to the debauched tastes of his royal and profligate employer, thought nothing of politics or of the signs of the times, and contented himself with the affairs of the Backstairs, caring little for Titus Oates, and less for his victims. Some short time after the foregoing was published (March 20-23, 1675), Chiffinch published another loss in the Gazette. This is it:—

Whether the prince of pimps ever had to give the reward, we are not in a position to state; we should, however, think that his advertisement attracted little attention, for we are now in the midst of the excitement which led to the pretended plots and troubles that made every man suspect his neighbour, and when the cry of Recusant or Papist was almost fatal to him against whom it was directed. That this feeling once roused was not to be subdued even in death, is shown by a notice in the Domestick Intelligence of July 22, 1679:—

Here is intolerance with a vengeance, but in the year 1679 reverence for persons or things was conspicuously absent, and this is best shown by the advertisement which was issued for the purpose of discovering the ruffians, or[124] their patron, who committed the brutal assault upon John Dryden. It appears in the London Gazette of December 22, 1679:—

Notwithstanding the offer of this money, it was never discovered who were the perpetrators, or who was the instigator of this cudgelling. Some fancy its promoter was Rochester, who was offended at some allusions to him in an “Essay on Satire,” written jointly by Dryden and Lord Mulgrove; while others declare that the vanity of the Duchess of Portsmouth, one of the King’s many mistresses, having been offended by a jeu d’esprit of the poet’s, she procured him a rough specimen of her favours. Others, again, have suspected Buckingham, who was never on the best of terms with Dryden, and who sat for the portrait drawn in Zimri (“Absalom and Achitophel”); but profligate and heartless libertine as Villiers was, he was above such a ruffianly reprisal. In the Domestick Intelligence of December 23, 1679, the assault is thus described: “Upon the 17th instant in the evening Mr Dryden the great poet, was set upon in Rose Street in Covent Garden, by three persons, who, calling him rogue, and son of a whore, knockt him down and dangerously wounded him, but upon his crying out murther, they made their escape; it is conceived that they had their pay beforehand, and designed not to rob him but to execute on him some Feminine, if not Popish, vengeance.” In a subsequent number of the same paper there is the following advertisement:—

[125]

As a seasonable illustration we present an exact facsimile of a newspaper containing reference to the attack. It is complete as it appears, being simply a single leaf printed back and front, and so the stories of men repeating a whole newspaper from memory are not so wonderful after all. This year (1679) is memorable among journalists as being the first which saw a rising press emancipated, a fact which is sufficiently interesting to be chronicled here, although our subject is not newspapers, but only the advertisements contained in them.[27]

During all this time it must not be supposed that the vendors of quack medicines were at all idle. No political or religious disturbance was ever allowed to interfere with them, and their notices appeared as regularly as, or if possible more regularly than, ever. In a paper we have not before met, the Mercurius Anglicus, date March 6-10, 1679-80, we are introduced for the first time to the cordial which was destined to become so popular among nurses with whom neither the natural milk nor that of human kindness was plentiful, viz., Daffy’s Elixir:—

It is noticeable that about this time people were never sure what year they were in until March, and often during that month; and this is not only so in the dates on newspapers, but is found in Pepys and other writers of the period. Some journals do not give the double date as above, for we have before us as we write two copies of the Domestick Intelligence; or, News both from City and Country, “Published to prevent false Reports,” No. 49 being dated “Tuesday, Decemb. 23, 1679;” and No. 52, “Friday, January 2, 1679.” This has not, as many people have imagined, anything to do with the difference between the New Calendar and the Old, as our alteration of style did not take place till the middle of the next century. It must have been a relic of the old Ecclesiastical year which still affects the financial budget.

That the “agony column” of the present day is the result of slow and laborious growth is shown by an advertisement, cut from a Domestick Intelligence of March 1681, which contains an urgent appeal to one who has in umbrage departed from home:—

An advertisement of this kind, without name or initials, might now, like the celebrated appeal to John Smith, apply[127] itself to the minds of so many who had left their families “on some discontent,” that there would be quite a stampede for home among the married men making a temporary sojourn away from the domestic hearth and its attendant difficulties. Many of them would perhaps find themselves as unwelcome as unexpected.

Our next selection will be interesting to those who are curious on the subject of insurance, which must have been decidedly in its infancy on July 6, 1685, the day on which the following appeared in the London Gazette:—

Advertisements are so far anything but plentiful, there being rarely more than two or three at most beyond the booksellers’ and quack notices; and although nowadays the columns of a newspaper are supposed to be unequalled for affording opportunities for letting houses and apartments, the hereunder notice was, at the time of its publication in the London Gazette, August 17, 1685, perfectly unique:—

Any one who passes through St John’s Lane now, with its squalid tenements, dirty shops, and half-starved population, will have to be possessed of a powerful imagination indeed to picture an earl’s residence as ever standing in the dingy thoroughfare, notwithstanding the neighbourhood has the advantage of a beautiful brand-new meat-market, in place of the old cattle-pens which formerly stood on the open space in front of Bartholomew’s Hospital. Yet as[128] proof of the aristocratic meetings which used to be held in St John’s Lane, the Hospitallers’ Gate still crosses it—the gate which even after the days of chivalry had departed had still a history to make, not of bloodshed and warfare certainly, but of a connection with the highest and finest description of literature.

We now come to the year 1688, when advertising was more common than before, and when Charles having passed away, James held temporary possession of the throne. One, published in the Gazette of March 8, is suggestive of the religious tumult which would shortly end in his downfall:—

Just about this period dreadful outrages were of common occurrence; men were knocked down in the street in open daylight, robbed, and murdered, and not a few deaths were the outcome of private and party hatred. Municipal law was set at defiance, and any small body of desperadoes could do as they liked unchecked, unless they happened to be providentially opposed by equal or superior force, when they generally turned tail, for their practice was not to fight so much as to beat and plunder the defenceless. Here is a notice which speaks volumes for the state of affairs. It is published in the London Gazette, and bears date March 29, 1688:—

[129]

About this time some show is made on behalf of those credulous folk who believe that all highwaymen in the good old times were brave, dashing, highly educated, and extremely handsome; for we find several inquiries after robbers who, before troubles came upon them, held superior positions in society. Here is one of the year 1688:—

Mr Jones, culpable as he undoubtedly was, seems to have possessed a sense of honour, and probably he served his friends as well as himself by taking the writs from the mail. The reward offered for his apprehension is so paltry in proportion to the outcry raised, that a disinterested reader, i.e., one who has never felt the smart of highway robbery, cannot help hoping that he got clear off, or that at all events he cheated the gallows by earning a soldier’s death “in some of the new-raised troops.” Although Mr Jones was a gentleman thief, and had gentlemanly associates, he and his friends are the exceptions to the rule; for robbers generally are described as a very sad as well as a very ugly lot of reprobates. Also in the same eventful year of delivery we find the following, which appears in the London Gazette, the subject of it having evidently thought to avail himself of the disturbances of the time, but whether successfully or the reverse, does not appear:—

This advertisement is suggestive of the taste in blackamoors, which began to manifest itself about this time, and which had a long run—the coloured creature who was in later times a negro, but in these a Moor, being often regarded as a mere soulless toy, a companion of the pug-dog, or an ornament to be classified with the vases and other china monstrosities which were just then the vogue. The next advertisement we have is of a very different character, and has a distinct bearing upon the political question of the times; it also seems to show that the value of advertising was beginning to be still more understood, and that with the advent of a new sovereign the attention of the commercial classes was once more directed so much to business that even party feeling was to be made a source of profit. The extract is from the New Observator of July 17, 1689:—

This was a popular and rather practical method of celebrating the triumph of the Whigs, and as Bishop Burnet was the[131] editor of the New Observator, and these cards were sold by his publisher, he is very likely to have had a hand in their promotion. About now the traffic in African slaves commenced, and these full-blooded blacks gradually displaced the Moors and Arabs, who had formerly been the prevalent coloured “fancy.” It is supposed that the taste for these dark-skinned servants was derived from the Venetians, whose intercourse with the traders of India and Africa naturally led to their introduction. Moors are constantly being associated with the sea-girt Republic, both in literature and art, Shakespeare’s “Moor of Venice” being somewhat of an instance in point; while Titian and other painters of his school were extremely fond of portraying coloured men of all descriptions. By 1693, however, the negro had not altogether pushed out the Moor, if we may judge by an advertisement dated January 9-12, 1692-93, and appearing in the London Gazette:—

Another advertisement, which appears in the same paper a couple of years later, shows that the owners of these chattels considered their rights of property complete, as they put collars round their necks with names and addresses, just the same as they would have placed on a dog, or similar to that worn by “Gurth the thrall of Cedric.” This individual seems to have been different from any of the others we have met, as he is evidently a dusky Asiatic who has been purchased from his parents by some adventurous trader, and whose thraldom sits heavily upon him. This is his description:—

It seems hardly possible that a poor little wretch like this would have run away—for whither could he run with any hope of securing his freedom?—unless he had been unkindly treated. There is little doubt—though we are, through the medium of the pictures of this and a later time, in the habit of regarding the dark-faced, white-turbaned, and white-toothed slaves as personifications of that happiness which is denied to higher intellects and fairer fortunes—that often they were the victims of intense cruelty, and now and then of that worst of all despotisms, the tyranny of an ill-natured and peevish woman.

We now come upon an advertisement, which shows something of the desire that was always felt by residents in the country for the least scintillations of news; and the concoctor of the notice seems fully aware of this desire, as well as possessed of a plan by means of which he may make it a source of profit to himself. It occurs in a copy of the Flying Post of the year 1694:—

By this means the newspaper and the private letter were combined, and it is easy to understand the delight with which a gossiping and scandalising effusion, possessed of the additional advantage of being written on this kind of paper, was received at a lonely country house, by people pining after the gaieties of metropolitan life. The newsletter proper was a very ancient article of intercommunication, and it seems strange that it should have flourished long after the introduction of newspapers, which it certainly did. This may be accounted for by the fact, that during the time of the Rebellion it was much safer to write than to[133] print any news which was intended to be read at a distance, or which had any political significance. It has been remarked that many of these newsletters “were written by strong partisans, and contained information which it was neither desirable nor safe that their opponents should see. They were passed on from hand to hand in secret, and often indorsed by each successive reader. We are told that the Cavaliers, when taken prisoners, have been known to eat their newsletters; and some of Prince Rupert’s, which had been intercepted, are still in existence, and bear dark red stains which testify to the desperate manner in which they were defended. It is pretty certain, however, that as a profession newsletter writing began to decline after the Revolution, though we find the editor of the Evening Post, as late as the year 1709, reminding its readers that ‘there must be three or four pounds a year paid for written news.’ At the same time, the public journals, it is clear, had not performed that part of their office which was really more acceptable to the country reader than any other—the retailing the political and social chit-chat of the day. We have only to look into the public papers to convince ourselves how woefully they fell short in a department which must have been the staple of the newswriter.” It would seem, therefore, that this effort of Mr Salusbury was to combine the old letter with the modern paper, and thus at once oblige his customers and save a time-honoured institution from passing away. It would seem as if he succeeded, for there are in the British Museum many specimens of papers, half print half manuscript; and as most of the written portions are of an extremely treasonable nature, possibly the opportunity to send the kind of news which suited them best, and thus combine friendship and duty, was eagerly seized by the Jacobites. But how singular after all it seems for an editor to invite his subscribers to write their own news upon their own newspapers!

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We are now getting very near the end of the seventeenth century, and among the curious and quaint advertisements which attract attention, as we pore over the old chronicles which mark the close of the eventful cycle which has seen so much of revolution and disaster, and of the worst forms of religious and political fanaticisms carried to their most dreadful extremes, is the following. It appears in Salusbury’s Flying Post of October 27, 1696, and gives a good idea of manners and customs, which do not so far appear to have altered for the better:—

And just about this time we come upon some more applications from our old friend Houghton, who seems to be doing a thriving business, and is as full of wants as even he could almost desire. In a number of his Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade he expresses a wish as follows:—

And again, his wishes being evidently for the perfection of servants, even to—which is rather an anomaly in domestic servitude—getting security. Many servants must in[135] those days have wished to get security for the honesty of their masters:—

Houghton was noticeable for expressing a decided opinion with regard to the quality of whatever he recommends, and, as we have shown, was not at all modest in his own desires. Even he, however, could rarely have designed such a bargain as this:—

This is the last we shall see of old Houghton, who did much good in his time, not only for other people but for himself as well, and who may be fairly regarded as, if not the father, certainly one of the chief promoters of early advertising.

The next public notice we find upon our list is one which directs itself to all who may wish to be cured of madness, though why people who are really and comfortably mad should wish to have the trouble of being sane, we do not profess to understand. However, it is not likely that this gentleman helped them, for he overdoes it, and offers rather too much. The notice appears in the Post Boy of January 6-9, 1699:—

Notwithstanding the writer’s proficiency in the cure of lunatics, he seems to have been sorely exercised with regard to the spelling of the word, and he is ingenious enough in other respects. The remark about no cure no pay, it is noticeable, refers only to the cases of lunacy, and not to those of dropsy, for the evident reason that it is quite possible to make a madman believe he is sane, while it would be rather hard to lead a dropsical person into the impression that he is healthy. Quacks swarm about this period, but as we shall devote special attention to them anon, we will now step into the year 1700, beginning with the Flying Post for January 6-9, which contains this, a notice of a regular physician of the time:—

This is cheap enough, in all conscience, and yet there is little doubt that the afflicted infinitely preferred the nostrums so speciously advertised by empirics to treatment according to the pharmacopœia. We have good authority for the statement that faith will move mountains, and it[137] seems, if we are to judge by the testimonials published from time immemorial by vendors of ointment and pills, to have moved mountainous tumours, wens, and carbuncles, for without it soft soap, bread, and bacon fat would be of little use indeed. Glorious John Dryden died early in this year, and a hoaxing advertisement appeared in the Post Boy of May 4-7, which called for elegies, &c.:—

Other advertisements followed this, and from them it appears that the shop of Henry Playford was inundated with manuscripts of all lengths and kinds, and in many languages. What became of them does not make itself known, which is a pity, as many must have been equal to any specimen which occurs in the “Rejected Addresses,” with the advantage and recommendation of being genuine.

It is strange that so far we have met with no theatrical or musical advertisement or public notice of any forthcoming amusement, for it appeared most probable that as soon as ever advertising became at all popular it would have been devoted to the interest of all pursuits of pleasure. In 1700, however, we come upon what must be considered the really first advertisement issued from a playhouse, and, as a curiosity, reproduce it from the columns of the Flying Post of July 4:—

[138]

This lead was soon followed by more important houses, and in a very few years we have lists regularly published of the amusements at all theatres. Theatrical managers have in all times been blessed with a strong faculty of imitation, and though it seems immensely developed just now, the lessees of a hundred and seventy years ago were just as keen to follow the scent of anything which had proved fortunate on the venture of any one possessed of pluck or originality.

We have reserved for the end of this chapter two advertisements of an individual who, according to his own showing, would have been invaluable to some of the members of the various school boards of the present, and have enabled them to keep pace with the pupils under their supervision, a consummation devoutly to be wished. However, if we cannot have Mr Switterda, some other deus ex machinâ may yet arise. The first is from the Postman of July 6-9, and runs thus:—

It is evident that Mr Switterda was of an accommodating disposition, and doubtless did well not only out of those who agreed by the great—a species of scholastic slang we are unable to understand positively, however much we may surmise—but out of those who were content, or were perforce compelled to put up, with the small. Here is another “high-falutin’” notice which appears in the same paper about a month later, and which shows that the advertiser is also possessed of a power of puffing his own goods which must have aroused the envy and admiration of other quacks, in an age when they were not only numerous but singularly fertile in expedient:—

How different from the puffing and pretentious announcements just given is the one of the same time which follows, as we read which we can hear the hum of the little country schoolroom, and see the master with his wig all awry, deep in snuff and study, the mistress keenly alive to the disposition of her girls, and the pupils of both sexes, as pupils are often even nowadays, intent upon anything but their lessons or work. London is forty miles away, and the coach is an object of wonder and admiration to the villagers, who look upon the pupils who have come from the great city with awe and reverence, while the master is supposed to diffuse learning from every pore in his body, and to scatter knowledge with every wave of his hand. The mistress is also an object of veneration, but her accomplishments are more within the ken of rustic folk, and she, good simple dame, who imagines her husband to be the most learned man in all the King, God bless him’s, dominions, delights to talk about the clergymen they have educated, and has been the principal cause of his inditing and publishing this notice:—

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And with these proofs that the schoolmaster was very much abroad at the time, we will take leave of the seventeenth century.

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It is now apparent that advertising has become recognised as a means of communication not only for the conveniencies of trade, but for political, lovemaking, fortune-hunting, swindling, and the thousand and one other purposes which are always ready to assert themselves in a large community. It is also evident that as years have progressed, advertising has become more and more necessary to certain trades, the principals in which a comparatively short time before would have scorned the idea of ventilating their wares through the columns of the public press. So it is therefore as well to notice the rates which were charged by some of the papers. This was before the duty was placed upon advertisements, when the arrangement was simply between one who wished a notice inserted in a paper, and another who possessed the power of making such insertion. It is of course impossible to tell what the rates were on all papers, but as some had notices of price per advertisement stated at foot, a fair estimate may be made. The first advertisements were so few that no notice was called for, and it was not until every newspaper looked forward to the possession of more or less that the plan of stating charges became common. About the period of which we are now writing, long advertisements were unknown; they generally averaged about eight lines of narrow measure, and were paid for at about a shilling each, with fluctuations similar in degree to those of the leading papers[143] of the present day. Various rules obtained upon various papers. One journal, the “Jockey’s Intelligencer, or Weekly Advertisements for Horses and Second-Hand Coaches to be Bought and Sold,” which appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century, charged “a shilling for a horse or coach for notification, and sixpence for renewing.” Still later, the County Gentleman’s Courant seems to have been the first paper to charge by the line, and in one of its numbers appears the following rather non-sequitous statement: “Seeing promotion of trade is a matter which ought to be encouraged, the price of advertisements is advanced to twopence per line.” Very likely many agreed with the writer, who seems to have had a follower several years afterwards—a corn dealer, who during a great dearth stuck up the following notification: “On account of the great distress in this town, the price of flour will be raised one shilling per peck.” But neither of these men meant what he said, though doubtless he thought he did.

The first advertisement with which we open the century is of a semi-religious character, and betrays a very inquiring disposition on the part of the writer. Facts of the kind required are, however, too stubborn to meet with publication at the request of everybody, and if Mr Keith and other controversialists had been trammelled by them, there is every probability that the inquiry we now republish would never have seen the light:—

The foregoing is from the Postman of March 1701, and in July the same paper contains a very different notice, which will give an idea of the amusements then in vogue,[144] and rescue from oblivion men whose names, great as they are in the advertisement, seem to have been passed over unduly by writers on ancient sports and pastimes, who seem to regard Figg and Broughton as the fathers of the backsword and the boxing match:—

Exhibitions of swordsmanship and cudgel-play were very frequent in the early part of the eighteenth century, but ultimately pugilism, which at first was merely an auxiliary of the other sports, took the lead, most probably through the invention of mufflers or gloves, first brought into notice by Broughton, who was the most skilful boxer of his time. This was, however, many years subsequent to the date of the foregoing.

The year 1702 is noticeable from the fact that in it was produced the first daily paper with which we have any acquaintance, and, unless the doctrine that nothing is new under the sun holds good in this case, the first daily paper ever published. From it we take the following, which appears on December 1, and which seems—as no name or address is given, and as the advertiser does not even know the name of the gentleman, or anything about him beyond what is told in the advertisement—to have emanated from one of the stews which were even then pretty numerous in London:—

[145]

We should imagine that, unless both coats and gentlemen were more plentiful, in proportion to the population, in those days than they are now, the rightful owner, who had probably also been a visitor at the establishment, went without a garment which, judging by the date, must have been peculiarly liable to excite cupidity. Nothing noticeable occurs for a long time, except the growth of raffle advertisements, and notices of lotteries. These arrangements were called sales, though the only things sold were most likely the confiding speculators. Everything possible was during this age put up to be raffled, though, with the exception of the variety of the items, which included eatables, wearing apparel, houses, carriages and horses, &c. &c., there is nothing calling for comment about the style of the notices. In the Postman of July 19-22, 1707, we at last come upon this, which is certainly peculiar from more than one point of view:—

This must have been one of the few cases in which physical disability becomes a recommendation. Yet the process of whitening sepulchres must after a time have become monotonous to even a deaf and dumb man. We suppose the highest compliment that could have been paid to his work was, that the ladies who were subjected to it looked “perfect pictures.” Just about this time the use of advertisements for the purposes of deliberate puffery began to be discovered by the general trader, and in the Daily Courant of March 24, 1707, occurs a notice couched in the style of pure hyperbole, and emanating from the establishment of G. Willdey and T. Brandreth, at the sign of the Archimedes and Globe, on Ludgate Hill, who advertised a microscope which magnified objects more than two million[146] times, and a concave metal that united the sunbeams so vigorously that in a minute’s time it melted steel and vitrified the hardest substance. “Also,” the notice went on to say, “we do protest we pretend to no impossibilities, and that we scorn to impose on any gentleman or others, but what we make and sell shall be really good, and answer the end we propose in our advertisements.” Spectacles by which objects might be discovered at twenty or thirty miles’ distance, “modestly speaking,” are also mentioned; “and,” the ingenious opticians finish off with, “we are now writing a small treatise with the aid of the learned that gives the reasons why they do so, which will be given gratis to our customers.” This is an effort which would not have disgraced the more mature puffers of following ages. But it aroused the anger and indignation of the former employers of Willdey and Brandreth, who having duly considered the matter, on April 16 put forth, also in the Daily Courant, an opposition statement, which ultimately led to a regular newspaper warfare:—

Then the old-established and indignant masters proceed[147] to recommend their own spectacles, perspectives, &c., in more moderate terms than were employed by their late apprentices, but still in an extremely confident manner. This appeared for several days, and at last, on April 25, elicited the following reply:—

After this the recalcitrant apprentices repeat all their former boasts, and conclude: “All these things are as they say impossible to them, but are and will be made by G. Willdey and T. Brandreth.... Let ingenuity thrive.” Willdey and Brandreth now, no doubt, thought that they had turned the tables upon their former masters, and had all the best of the battle; but the duel was not yet over, as the second time this advertisement appeared (Daily Courant, April 26), the following was immediately under it:—

[148]

Again the young men ventured into print (May 1, 1707), to reply, and to defend what they were pleased to call the naked truth, “against the apparent malicious lies and abuse” of their former employers, in whose last advertisement they pointed out some inconsistencies, claimed the invention of the perfected spectacles as theirs, and ended in offering to bet “20 guineas to their 10, that neither they nor Mr Marshall can make a better telescope than we can.” This, though rather a descent from the high horse previously occupied by them, was sufficient to rouse the anger of an interested yet hitherto passive spectator, and Mr Marshall presently (May 8) indignantly growled forth:—

[149]

After pursuing this strain till he had run down, Mr Marshall concludes by saying, “What I have inserted is nothing but truth.” At the same time Yarwell and Sterrop overwhelmed the raisers of this hornets’ nest with a new attention, in which among other things was the following:—

Finally, in the Daily Courant for May 12, 1707, Willdey and Brandreth once again insert their vaunt, and then proceed to demolish their late employers thus:—

Whether the game was too expensive, or whether the old[151] firm was shut up by this, we know not, but anyhow they retired from the contest, and it is to be hoped found that rivalry fosters rather than injures business. We have given particular attention to this conflict of statements, as it shows how soon advertisements, after they had become general, were used for aggressional and objectionable trade purposes. Passing on for a little space, until 1709, the Tatler appears on the scene, and commences with a full share of advertisements, and very soon one is found worthy of quotation. This appears on March 21, and is a form of application which soon found favour with the gallants and ladies of pleasure of the day:—

There are about this time many instances appearing in the notice columns of what has been called love at first sight, though from the fact that advertisements had to bring their influence to bear on the passion, it looks as though the impression took some time to fix itself. Otherwise the declaration might have been made at once, unless, indeed, timidity prevented it. Perhaps, too, the occasional presence of a gentleman companion might have deterred these inflammable youths from prosecuting their suits and persecuting the objects of their temporary adoration. Just after the foregoing we come upon a slave advertisement couched in the following terms:—

There is no mincing the matter about this, and as, at the same time, a very extensive traffic was carried on in “white flesh” for the plantations, the advertiser would doubtless[152] have regarded sympathy with his property as not only idiotic but offensive. And then we light on what must be regarded as an advertisement, though it emanates from the editorial sanctum, and is redolent of that humour which, first identified with the Tatler, has never yet been surpassed, and, as many still say, never equalled:—

What a chance for the lovers of scandal, and doubtless they readily availed themselves of it. Many a hearty laugh must Steele have had over the communications received, and many of them must have afforded him the groundwork for satires, which at the time must have struck home indeed. In the following year “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire,” seems to have taken it into his head that John Partridge, the astrologer, ought to be dead, if he really was not, and so inserted a series of advertisements to the effect that that worthy had really departed this life, which, however amusing to the Tatler folk and the public, seem to have nearly driven the stargazer wild.[28] One of the best of this series, which appears on August 10, 1710, runs thus:—

[153]

The quiet yet pungent drollery of this is almost irresistible, but it has the effect of making us rather chary of accepting any of the remaining advertisements which look at all like emanations from the quaint fancy of the editor. Take the following, for instance, which is found among a number of others of an ordinary character, undistinguished from them by any peculiarity of type or position. It seems, however, to betray its origin:—

The theory of advertising must about this time have been found considerably interesting to men who were unlikely to participate in its benefits unless it were through the increased prosperity of the newspapers to which they contributed, for essays and letters on the subject, some humorous and others serious, appear quite frequently. Most noticeable among the former is an article from the pen of Addison, which appears in No. 224 of the Tatler, date September 14, 1710. It will speak better for itself than we can speak for it:—

“Materiem superabat opus.—Ovid. Met. ii. 5.
“The matter equall’d not the artist’s skill.—R. Wynne.

“It is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those collections of advertisements that appear[154] at the end of our public prints. These I consider as accounts of news from the little world, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are from the great. If in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from his capital city, in the other we hear of a tradesman who has shut up his shop and run away. If in one we find the victory of a general, in the other we see the desertion of a private soldier. I must confess I have a certain weakness in my temper that is often very much affected by these little domestic occurrences, and have frequently been caught with tears in my eyes over a melancholy advertisement.

“But to consider this subject in its most ridiculous lights, advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador. An advertisement from Piccadilly goes down to posterity with an article from Madrid, and John Bartlett[29] of Goodman’s Fields is celebrated in the same paper with the Emperor of Germany. Thus the fable tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his back.

“A second use which this sort of writings have been turned to of late years has been the management of controversy, insomuch that above half the advertisements one meets with nowadays are purely polemical. The inventors of ‘Strops for Razors’ have written against one another this way for several years, and that with great bitterness;[30] as[155] the whole argument pro and con in the case of the ‘Morning Gown’ is still carried on after the same manner. I need not mention the several proprietors of Dr Anderson’s pills; nor take notice of the many satirical works of this nature so frequently published by Dr Clark, who has had the confidence to advertise upon that learned knight, my very worthy friend, Sir William Read:[31] but I shall not interpose in their quarrel: Sir William can give him his own in advertisements, that, in the judgment of the impartial, are as well penned as the Doctor’s.

“The third and last use of these writings is to inform the world where they may be furnished with almost every thing that is necessary for life. If a man has pains in his head, colics in his bowels, or spots in his clothes, he may here meet with proper cures and remedies. If a man would recover a wife or a horse that is stolen or strayed; if he wants new sermons, electuaries, asses’ milk, or anything else,[156] either for his body or mind, this is the place to look for them in.

“The great art in writing advertisements, is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader’s eye, without which a good thing may pass unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt. Asterisks and hands were formerly of great use for this purpose. Of late years the N.B. has been much in fashion, as also little cuts and figures, the invention of which we must ascribe to the author of spring-trusses. I must not here omit the blind Italian character, which being scarce legible, always fixes and detains the eye, and gives the curious reader something like the satisfaction of prying into a secret.

“But the great skill in an advertiser is chiefly seen in the style which he makes use of. He is to mention the ‘universal esteem,’ or ‘general reputation’ of things that were never heard of. If he is a physician or astrologer, he must change his lodgings frequently; and though he never saw anybody in them besides his own family, give public notice of it, ‘for the information of the nobility and gentry.’ Since I am thus usefully employed in writing criticisms on the works of these diminutive authors, I must not pass over in silence an advertisement, which has lately made its appearance and is written altogether in a Ciceronian manner. It was sent to me with five shillings, to be inserted among my advertisements; but as it is a pattern of good writing in this way, I shall give it a place in the body of my paper.

“At the same time that I recommend the several flowers[157] in which this spirit of lavender is wrapped up, if the expression may be used, I cannot excuse my fellow-labourers for admitting into their papers several uncleanly advertisements, not at all proper to appear in the works of polite writers. Among them I must reckon the ‘Carminative Wind-Expelling Pills.’ If the Doctor had called them ‘Carminative Pills,’ he had been as cleanly as any one could have wished; but the second word entirely destroys the decency of the first. There are other absurdities of this nature so very gross, that I dare not mention them; and shall therefore dismiss this subject with an admonition to Michael Parrot, that he do not presume any more to mention a certain worm he knows of, which, by the way, has grown seven foot in my memory; for, if I am not much mistaken, it is the same that was but nine feet long about six months ago.

“By the remarks I have here made, it plainly appears, that a collection of advertisements is a kind of miscellany; the writers of which, contrary to all authors, except men of quality, give money to the booksellers who publish their copies. The genius of the bookseller is chiefly shown in his method of ranging and digesting these little tracts. The last paper I took up in my hands places them in the following order:—

“The true Spanish blacking for shoes, etc.

“The beautifying cream for the face, etc.

“Pease and Plasters, etc.

“Nectar and Ambrosia, etc.

“Four freehold tenements of fifteen pounds per annum, etc.

“The present state of England, etc.

“Annotations upon the Tatler, etc.

“A commission of Bankrupt being awarded against R. L., bookseller, etc.”

This essay probably aroused a good deal of attention, and among the letters of correspondents is one from a[158] “Self-interested Solicitor,” which appears in No. 228, and runs thus:—

“Mr Bickerstaff.

“I am going to set up for a scrivener, and have thought of a project which may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head upon reading that learned and useful paper of yours concerning advertisements. You must understand I have made myself Master in the whole art of advertising, both as to the style and the letter. Now if you and I could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides myself, or print them anywhere but in your paper, we might both of us get estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose that you should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends, and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman who would willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor Whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a contrary party, who is willing to get into one.

“Whereas A. B. next door to the Pestle and Mortar, being about thirty years old, of a spare make, with dark-coloured hair, bright eye, and a long nose, has occasion for a good-humoured, tall, fair, young woman, of about £3000 fortune; these are to give notice That if any such young woman has a mind to dispose of herself in marriage to such a person as the above mentioned, she may be provided with a husband, a coach and horses and a proportionable settlement.

“C. D. designing to quit his place, has great quantities of paper, parchment, ink, wax, and wafers to dispose of, which will be sold at very reasonable rates.

“E. F. a person of good behaviour, six foot high, of a black complexion and sound principles, wants an employ. He is an excellent penman and accomptant, and speaks French.”

[159]

And so on, advertisements being then considered proper sport for wits of all sizes and every peculiarity. In 1711 we come upon the first edition of the Spectator, which certainly did not disdain to become a medium for most barefaced quacks, if we may judge by this:—

This is a truly marvellous plan for greasing the tongue. The only wonder is that the advertiser did not recommend it as invaluable to public speakers for increasing the fluency to such an extent that the orator had but to open his mouth and let his tongue do as it willed. And certainly the most rebellious and self-willed tongue could hardly give utterance to more remarkable statements, if left entirely to itself, than appears in the following, which is also from the original edition of the Spectator:—

[160]

It is sometimes possible to remember too much; and if the specific sold by Mr Payne had but a homœopathic tendency, and caused those who recollected things which never happened to become cured of their propensities, it is a pity its recipe has to be numbered among the lost things of this world. In the beginning of 1712, one Ephraim How seems to have been possessed of a fear that evil folks had been trying to injure him or his business, or else he felt it incumbent on himself to take the hint thrown out in the Tatler essay. Accordingly he published in the Daily Courant the following:—

About this period shopkeepers were or pretended to be particularly loyal, for a very large percentage of their signs contained the emblem of royalty, coupled with various other figures. Though the Methuen treaty, which favoured the importation of Portuguese wines, and discouraged the use of claret, was signed in 1703, it does not appear to have made much difference in this country for some years, as the first mention we find of the new wine is in a Postboy of January 1712, and is caused by the rivalry which sprang up among those who first began to sell it:—

Brook & Hellier, whose wine is spoken of so slightingly, kept the Bumper Tavern in Covent Garden, which had formerly belonged to Dick Estcourt. They seem quite able to bear what has been said of them, for they have the Spectator, who has evidently tasted, and quite as evidently liked their wines, at their back, one of the numbers of this disinterested periodical being devoted almost entirely to their praise. The Spectator was by no means averse to a bit of good genuine puffery, and Peter Motteux, formerly an author who had dedicated a poem or two to Steele, and who at that time kept one of the Indian warehouses so much in fashion, received kindnesses in its columns more than once. So did Renatus Harris the organ-builder, who competed with Smith for the Temple organ, and many others. So it is not extraordinary that their advertisement is found in the Spectator very shortly after that just quoted. They seem, however, to have been disinclined to quarrel, as their notice makes no mention of their rivals:—

From this and kindred advertisements it looks as though gentlemen were not at the time in the habit of keeping large quantities of wine in the house, but rather of having it in fresh and fresh as required from the tavern, or of going round themselves, and taking it home under their belts. Also the servants of the time do not appear to be possessed of much more honesty than falls to the lot of the domestics of even these degenerate days. The effect of the rage for port as soon as it was once tried, is shown by the following, which also appeared in the January of 1712, in the Daily Courant:—

But this appeal to the lovers of bargains, as well as of claret, was evidently a failure; for three or four days afterwards, and also in the same paper, another, and quite different attempt, is made to draw the unwilling drinkers to the Angel and Crown:—

[163]

The fight between port and claret was very fierce this year, but the new drink had almost from the first the best of the battle, if we may judge from the strenuous appeals put forth by those who have much claret to sell, and who evidently find it very like a drug upon their hands. One individual seems at last to arrive at the conclusion that he may as well ask a high price as a low one for his claret, seeing that people are unwilling to buy in either case. The advertisement occurs in the Daily Courant for December 29, 1712. The wily concocter of the plan also thinks that by making three bottles the smallest limit of his sale, the unwary may fancy a favour is being conferred upon them, and buy accordingly:—

There is good reason to believe that the claret which had been so popular up till this period, was a very different wine from that which is now known by the same name. It was, most probably, a strong well-sweetened drink; for, as it has ever been necessary to make port thick and sweet for the public taste, it is most likely this was at first done for the purpose of rivalling the claret, and folk would hardly have turned suddenly from one wine to another of a decidedly opposite character. The amount of advertising, probably fostered by the wine rivalry, grew so much this year, that the Ministry were struck with the happy idea of putting a tax upon every notice, and accordingly there is a sudden fall off in the number of advertisements in and[164] after August, the month in which the change took place. In fact, the Daily Courant appears several times with only one advertisement, that of Drury Lane Theatre, the average number being hitherto about nine or ten. However, the imposers of the tax were quite right in their estimate of the value of advertisements; as, though checked for a time, they ultimately grew again, though their progress was comparatively slow compared with previous days. We find a characteristic announcement just at the close of the year, one not to be checked by the duty-charge, and so we append it:—

Unnatural and unfeminine exhibitions, in accordance with this advertisement, of pugilism, foot-racing, cudgel-playing, &c., were at this time not unfrequent, and the spectacle of two women stripped to the waist, and doing their best to injure or wear down each other, was often enjoyed by the bloods of the early eighteenth century. At the same time that the tax was placed on advertisements, the stamp-duty on newspapers became an accomplished fact, and Swift in his journal to Stella of July 9, 1712, says, “Grub Street has but ten days to live, then an Act of Parliament takes place that ruins it by taxing every half-sheet a halfpenny.” And just about a month after, he chronicles the effect of this cruelty: “Do you know that Grub Street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money. I plied it close the last fortnight and published at least seven papers of my own, besides some of other people’s; but now every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the Queen. The Observator is fallen; the Medleys have jumbled together with the Flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick; the Spectator keeps up and[165] doubles its price. I know not how long it will hold. Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with? Methinks the stamping is worth a halfpenny.” Thieves about this time seem to have had delicate susceptibilities, for it was the custom to advertise goods which were undoubtedly stolen as lost. Thus we see constantly in the reign of Queen Anne such notices as this: “Lost out of a room in Russell Street a number of valuable objects.... Whoever brings them back shall have ten guineas reward, or in proportion for any part, and no questions asked.” This style of advertising grew so that just about the middle of the century it was found necessary to put a stop to it by Act of Parliament, which took effect on the 21st of June 1752, the penalty being £50 for any one who advertised “no questions asked,” and £50 for the publisher who inserted any such notice in his paper. Haydn gives this date as 1754, but a reference to the General Advertiser of February 21, 1752, in which the notice of the date on which the law is to come into effect appears, shows that it was two years earlier. Also a reference to any Parliamentary record of forty years before that will show that not in 1713, as Haydn has it, but on the 22nd April 1712, Mr Conyers reported from Committee of the whole House, who were considering further ways and means for raising the supply granted to her Majesty; when among other measures it was resolved that a duty of 12d. be charged for every advertisement in any printed paper, besides the stamp-duty which was at the same time imposed on the newspapers. This and other extra taxes were levied, because France having refused to acknowledge the title of Queen Anne till the peace should be signed, it was resolved to continue the war “till a safe and honourable peace could be obtained.” For this purpose money was of course required; and if they never did good any other way, or at any other time, quacks and impostors, libertines and drunkards, did it now, as they mainly contributed all that[166] was gathered for some years by means of the advertisement tax. There seems to have been a good deal of drunkenness going on in the time of Queen Anne, and the tavern keepers contributed in many ways to swell the revenue. But even their advertisements drop off after the imposition of the tax, as do those of promoters of nostrums and lotteries, and the managers of theatres. These public benefactors are, however, not so blind to their own interests, but that they soon return.

Notwithstanding the many important events of the next few years, nothing worthy of chronicling in the way of advertisements is to be found till 1720, when we come upon the following, which is peculiar as being one of the earliest specimens of the ventilation of private quarrels by means of advertisements. It occurs in the Daily Post of January 16th:—

Certainly time enough seems to have elapsed between the dialogue and the publication of this advertisement to allow of all angry passions to have subsided; but Robert Curtis, whose name is thus preserved till now, would seem to have been a careful youth, picking his way clear of pitfalls, and with shrewdness sufficient to discover that anonymity but too often disguises foul intent. In that particular matters have not considerably improved even up to the present time.

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The year 1720 is memorable in the history of England, as seeing the abnormal growth and consequent explosion of the greatest swindle of comparatively modern times, and one of the most colossal frauds of any time, the South Sea Scheme, which has been best known since as the South Sea Bubble. Its story has been told so often, and in so many ways, that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it here; but as, though nearly every one has heard of the scheme, there are but few who know anything about it, we may as well give once again a short résumé of its business operations. It was started by Harley in 1711, with the view of paying off the floating national debt, which at that time amounted to about £10,000,000. A contemporary writer says: “This debt was taken up by a number of eminent merchants, to whom the Government agreed to guarantee for a certain period the annual payment of £600,000 (being six per cent. interest), a sum which was to be obtained by rendering permanent a number of import duties. The monopoly of the trade to the South Seas was also secured to these merchants, who were accordingly incorporated as the ‘South Sea Company,’ and at once rose to a high position in the mercantile world. The wondrously extravagant ideas then current respecting the riches of the South American continent were carefully fostered and encouraged by the Company, who also took care to spread the belief that Spain was prepared, on certain liberal conditions, to admit them to a considerable share of its South American trade; and as a necessary consequence, a general avidity to partake in the profits of this most lucrative speculation sprang up in the public mind. It may be well to remark in this place, that the Company’s trading projects had no other result than a single voyage of one ship in 1717, and that its prominence in British history is due entirely to its existence as a purely monetary corporation. Notwithstanding the absence of any symptoms of its carrying out its great trading scheme,[168] the Company had obtained a firm hold on popular favour, and its shares rose day by day; and even when the outbreak of war with Spain in 1718 deprived the most sanguine of the slightest hope of sharing in the treasures of the South Seas, the Company continued to flourish. Far from being alarmed at the expected and impending failure of a similar project—the Mississippi Scheme—the South Sea Company believed sincerely in the feasibility of Law’s Scheme, and resolved to avoid what they considered as his errors. Trusting to the possibility of pushing credit to its utmost extent without danger, they proposed, in the spring of 1720, to take upon themselves the whole national debt (at that time £30,981,712) on being guaranteed 5 per cent. per annum for seven and a half years, at the end of which time the debt might be redeemed if the Government chose, and the interest reduced to 4 per cent. The directors of the Bank of England, jealous of the prospective benefit and influence which would thus accrue to the South Sea Company, submitted to Government a counter-proposal; but the more dazzling nature of their rival’s offer secured its acceptance by Parliament—in the Commons by 172 to 55, and (April 7) in the Lords by 83 to 17; Sir Robert Walpole in the former, and Lords North and Grey, the Duke of Wharton and Earl Cowper in the latter, in vain protesting against it as involving inevitable ruin. During the passing of their bill, the Company’s stock rose steadily to 330 on April 7,[32] falling to 290 on the following day.[169] Up till this date the scheme had been honestly promoted; but now, seeing before them the prospect of speedily amassing abundant wealth, the directors threw aside all scruples, and made use of every effective means at their command, honest or dishonest, to keep up the factitious value of the stock. Their zealous endeavours were crowned with success; the shares were quoted at 550 on May 28, and 890 on June 1. A general impression having by this time gained ground that the stock had reached its maximum, so many holders rushed to realise that the price fell to 630 on June 3. As this decline did not suit the personal interests of the directors, they sent agents to buy up eagerly; and on the evening of June 3, 750 was the quoted price. This and similar artifices were employed as required, and had the effect of ultimately raising the shares to 1000 in the beginning of August, when the chairman of the Company and some of the principal directors sold out. On this becoming known, a widespread uneasiness seized the holders of stock; every one was eager to part with his shares, and on September 12 they fell to 400, in spite of all the attempts of the directors to bolster up the Company’s credit. The consternation of those who had been either unable or unwilling to part with their scrip was now extreme; many capitalists absconded, either to avoid[170] ruinous bankruptcy, or to secure their ill-gotten gains, and the Government became seriously alarmed at the excited state of public feeling. Attempts were made to prevail on the Bank to come to the rescue by circulating some millions of Company’s bonds; but as the shares still declined, and the Company’s chief cashiers, the Sword Blade Company, now stopped payment, the Bank refused to entertain the proposal. The country was now wound up to a most alarming pitch of excitement; the punishment of the fraudulent directors was clamorously demanded, and Parliament was hastily summoned (December 8) to deliberate on the best means of mitigating this great calamity. Both Houses proved, however, to be in as impetuous a mood as the public; and in spite of the moderate counsels of Walpole, it was resolved (December 9) to punish the authors of the national distresses, though hitherto no fraudulent acts had been proved against them. An examination of the proceedings of the Company was at once commenced; and on Walpole’s proposal nine millions of South Sea bonds were taken up by the Bank, and a similar amount by the East India Company. The officials of the Company were forbidden to leave the kingdom for twelve months, or to dispose of any of their property or effects. Ultimately various schemes, involving the deepest fraud and villany, were discovered to have been secretly concocted and carried out by the directors; and it was proved that the Earl of Sunderland, the Duchess of Kendal, the Countess Platen and her two nieces, Mr Craggs, M.P., the Company’s secretary, Mr Charles Stanhope, a secretary of the Treasury, and the Sword Blade Company, had been bribed to promote the Company’s bill in Parliament by a present of £170,000 of South Sea stock. The total amount of fictitious stock created for this and similar purposes was £1,260,000, nearly one-half of which had been disposed of. Equally flagrant iniquity in the allocation of shares was discovered, in which, among others, Mr Aislabie, the Chancellor of the[171] Exchequer, was implicated. Of these offenders, Mr Stanhope and the Earl of Sunderland were acquitted through the unworthy partiality of the Parliament; but Mr Aislabie, and the other directors who were members of the House of Commons, were expelled; most of the directors were discovered, and all of them suffered confiscation of their possessions. The chairman was allowed to retain only £5000 out of £183,000, and others in proportion to their share in the fraudulent transactions of the Company. At the end of 1720, it being found that £13,300,000 of real stock belonged to the Company, £8,000,000 of this was taken and divided among the losers, giving them a dividend of 33¹⁄₃ per cent.; and by other schemes of adjustment the pressure was so fairly and wisely distributed, that the excitement gradually subsided.” It will thus be seen that the South Sea Bubble was, after all, not more disastrous in its effects than many modern and comparatively unknown speculations.

It is singular that the South Sea Bubble led to little—almost nothing—in the way of advertisements. When we think of the columns which now herald the advent of any new company, or for the matter of that, any new idea of an old company, or any fresh specific or article of clothing, it seems strange that at a time when the art of advertising was fast becoming fashionable, no invitations to subscribe were published in any of the daily or weekly papers that then existed. Just before the consent of Parliament was obtained we find one or two stray advertisements certainly, but they have no official status, as may be judged by this, which is from the Post Boy, April 2-5, 1720:—

In the Daily Courant of April 4 is also the following, which shows the immense amount of the stock possessed by private individuals. The reward offered for the recovery of the warrant seems ridiculously small, let its value be what it might to the finder:—

The only official notification in reference to the Bubble is found in the London Gazette, “published by authority,” of April 5-9, 1720. It is the commencement of a list of Acts passed by the King, and runs thus:—

The advertisement then goes on to state what other Acts received the royal assent, but with none of them have we anything to do. In the Post Boy of June 25-28 there is a notice of a contract being lost, which runs thus:—

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And in the issue of the same paper for June 30-July 1 we find this, which refers to the Company on which all the South Sea directors’ orders were made payable:—

These are, however, only incidental advertisements, which might have occurred had the Company been anything but that which it was; and so we have only to remark on the peculiar quietness with which all rigging operations were managed in those days. One of the paragraphs quoted in a note a short distance back will, however, account for the fact that advertisements were not found in the usual places.

The growth of the disgusting system which permitted of public combats between women is exhibited in several advertisements of 1722, the most noticeable among them being one in which a challenge and reply are published as inducements to the public to disburse their cash and witness a spectacle which must have made many a strong man sick:—

[174]

The precaution taken with the half-crowns to keep the hands clenched and so prevent scratching, shows that even these degraded creatures had not quite forgotten the peculiarities of the sex. And that there is piety in pugilism—even of this kind—is proved by the admittance that the Deity had to give his consent to “the ladies’ battle.” But Mesdames Wilkinson and Hyfield sink into insignificance when compared with the heroines of the following, which is cut from the Daily Post of July 17, 1728:—

Pugilism was evidently a much valued accomplishment among the lower-class ladies in 1728, and there is no doubt that Mrs Stokes and Mrs Field were considered very estimable persons as well as great athletes in their respective circles. There is, moreover, a suspicion of humour about the reference to the asses in the reply of Mrs Stokes. In the happily-named Rugged and Tuff we see the forerunner[175] of that line of champions of the ring which, commencing with Figg and Broughton, ran unbroken up to comparatively modern days. Other advertisements about this period relate to cock-matches and mains, sometimes specified to “last the week,” to bull-baiting in its ordinary and sometimes in its more cruel form of dressing up the beasts with fireworks, so as to excite both them and the savage dogs to their utmost. Perhaps brutality was never so rampant, or affected so many phases of society as it did in the first half of the eighteenth century. Slavery was considered a heaven-born institution, not alone as regards coloured races, for expeditions to the Plantations went on merrily and afforded excellent opportunities for the disposal of any one who happened to make himself objectionable by word or deed, or even by his very existence. The wicked uncle with an eye on the family property had a very good time then, and the rightful heir was often doomed to a slavery almost worse than death. Apropos of slavery, we may as well quote a very short advertisement which shows how the home trade flourished in 1728. It is from the Daily Journal of September 28:—

Negroes had in 1728 become quite common here, and had pushed out their predecessors, the Moors and Asiatics, who formerly held submissive servitude. This was probably owing to the nefarious traffic commenced in 1680 by Hawkins, which in little more than a hundred years caused the departure from their African homes and the transplanting in Jamaica alone of 910,000 negroes, to say nothing of those who died on the voyage, or who found their way to England and other countries.

[176]

The further we advance into the years which mark the Hanoverian succession, the more profligate, reckless, and cruel do the people seem to become. Public exhibitions of the most disgusting character are every day advertised; ruffians and swashbucklers abound, and are ready to do anything for a consideration; animals are tortured at set periods for the delectation of the multitude; and we see verified, by means of the notices in the papers, the peculiarities which Hogarth seized and made immortal, and which so many squeamish people consider to be overdrawn nowadays. Assignations of the most immoral character are openly advertised, and men of the time may well have attempted to ignore the existence of female virtue. A recent writer, commenting on this state of affairs, says, in reference to the latter class of shameless advertisements: “We are far from saying that such matters are not managed now through the medium of advertisements, for they are, but in how much more carefully concealed a manner? The perfect contempt of public opinion, or rather the public acquiescence in such infringements of the moral law which it exhibits, proves the general state of morality more than the infringements themselves, which obtain more or less at all times. Two of the causes which led to this low tone of manners with respect to women were doubtless the detestable profligacy of the courts of the two first Georges, and the very defective condition of the existing marriage law.[177] William and Mary, and Anne, had, by their decorous, not to say frigid lives, redeemed the crown, and in some measure the aristocracy, from the vices of the Restoration. Crown, court, and quality, however, fell into a still worse slough on the accession of the Hanoverian king, who soiled afresh the rising tone of public life by his scandalous connection with the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Darlington; whilst his son and successor was absolutely abetted in his vicious courses by his own queen, who promoted his commerce with his two mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. The degrading influence of the royal manners was well seconded by the condition of the law. Keith’s Chapel in Mayfair, and that at the Fleet, were the Gretna Greens of the age, where children could get married at any time of the day or night for a couple of crowns. It was said at the time that at the former chapel six thousand persons were annually married in this offhand way; the youngest of the beautiful Miss Gunnings was wedded to the Duke of Hamilton at twelve o’clock at night, with a ring off the bed-curtain, at this very ‘marriage-shop.’ The fruits of such unions may be imagined. The easy way in which the marriage bond was worn and broken through, is clearly indicated by the advertisements which absolutely crowd the public journals, from the accession of the house of Brunswick up to the time of the third George, of husbands warning the public not to trust their runaway wives.” It must not be imagined, though, that wives were the only sinners, or that vice was confined to any particular and exclusive class. It was the luxury of all, and according to their opportunities all enjoyed it.

About this time Fleet marriages, and the scandals consequent upon them, were in full swing. In a number of the Weekly Journal this statement is made: “From an inspection into the several registers for marriages kept at the several alehouses, brandy-shops, &c., within the Rules of the Fleet Prison, we find no less than thirty-two couples[178] joined together from Monday to Thursday last without licences, contrary to an express Act of Parliament against clandestine marriages, that lays a severe fine of £200 on the minister so offending, and £100 each on the persons so married in contradiction to the said statute. Several of the above-named brandy-men and victuallers keep clergymen in their houses at 20s. per week, hit or miss; but it is reported that one there will stoop to no such low conditions, but makes at least £500 per annum of Divinity jobs after that manner.” A fair specimen of the kind of advertisement published by these gentlemen is this:—

A curious phase of the dangers of the streets is found in a narrative published in the Grub Street Journal of 1735, which is well worth reproducing: “Since midsummer last a young lady of birth and fortune was deluded and forced from her friends, and by the assistance of a wrynecked swearing parson, married to an atheistical wretch, whose life is a continued practice of all manner of vice and debauchery. And since the ruin of my relative, another lady of my acquaintance had like to have been trepanned in the following manner: This lady had appointed to meet a gentlewoman at the Old Playhouse in Drury Lane, but extraordinary business prevented her coming. Being alone when the play was done, she bade a boy call a coach for the city. One dressed like a gentleman helps her into it, and jumps in after her. ‘Madam,’ says he, ‘this coach was called for me, and since the weather is so bad, and there is no other, I beg leave to bear you company; I am going into the City, and will set you down wherever you please.[179]’ The lady begged to be excused, but he bade the coachman drive on. Being come to Ludgate Hill, he told her his sister, who waited his coming but five doors up the court, would go with her in two minutes. He went, and returned with his pretended sister, who asked her to step in one minute, and she would wait upon her in the coach. The poor lady foolishly followed her into the house, when instantly the sister vanished, and a tawny fellow in a black coat and a black wig appeared. ‘Madam, you are come in good time, the doctor was just agoing!’ ‘The doctor!’ says she, terribly frighted, fearing it was a madhouse; ‘what has the doctor to do with me?’ ‘To marry you to that gentleman. The doctor has waited for you these three hours, and will be paid by you or that gentleman before you go!’ ‘That gentleman,’ says she, recovering herself, ‘is worthy a better fortune than mine;’ and begged hard to be gone. But Doctor Wryneck swore she should be married; or if she would not he would still have his fee, and register the marriage for that night. The lady finding she could not escape without money or a pledge, told them she liked the gentleman so well she would certainly meet him to-morrow night, and gave them a ring as a pledge, ‘which,’ says she, ‘was my mother’s gift on her deathbed, enjoining that, if ever I married, it should be my wedding ring;’ by which cunning contrivance she was delivered from the black doctor and his tawny crew.” Pennant, in his “Some Account of London,” says: “In walking along the street in my youth, on the side next the prison, I have often been tempted by the question, ‘Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married?’ Along this most lawless space was hung up the frequent sign of a male and female hand enjoined, with ‘Marriages performed within’ written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or a roll of tobacco.” Some[180] of the notes found in the registers purchased by Government in 1821, and deposited with the Registrar of the Consistory Court of London, are very amusing. Here are one or two extracts: “June 10, 1729. John Nelson, of ye parish of St George, Hanover, batchelor and gardener, and Mary Barnes, of ye same, sp. married. Cer. dated 5 November 1727, to please their parents.” “1742, May 24.—A soldier brought a barber to the Cock, who I think said his name was James, barber by trade, was in part married to Elizabeth: they said they were married enough.” “A coachman came, and was half married, and would give but 3s. 6d., and went off.” “Edward —— and Elizabeth —— were married, and would not let me know their names.” A popular error was current at this time, that if a newly-married woman ran across the street with nothing on but her shift, she would free her husband from all liability as to her debts. More than once the following, or words akin to it, is found: “The woman ran across Ludgate Hill in her shift.” Riotous persons often terrified these parsons, such memoranda as the following occurring now and again: “Had a noise for four hours about the money.” “Married at a barber’s shop one Kerrils, for half a guinea, after which it was extorted out of my pocket, and for fear of my life delivered.” “Harrowson swore most bitterly, and was pleased to say that he was fully determined to kill the minister that married him. He came from Gravesend, and was sober.” And so on through infinite variety. But to return to our advertisements.

Though advertisements were by no means scarce about this time, the imposition of the duty still told heavily with regard to the regular business community, for in regular trade few things were advertised with the exception of books and quack medicines, all other commercial matters being disposed of by means of agents who advertised in a general manner, of which the following, from the London Journal of February 7, 1730, is a fair specimen:—

[181]

The next advertisement which offers itself for special notice is of a somewhat ludicrous character, and shows into what straits a man may get by means of a highly-developed imagination and an indiscreet tongue. It runs thus:—

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To this curious confession, which was evidently extorted from the imaginative but timid Joseph, four witnesses appended their names. The next gentleman to whom our attention is directed was still more unfortunate than Mr Robins, for he received punishment without having committed any particular offence. He, however, seems to have been made of very different mettle from the Bristol man, for he is anxious to try his chances on better terms with those who assaulted him. The advertisement is from the Daily Post of January 22, 1739-40:—

A. Z. must have been possessed of a considerable amount of faith if he believed that the rufflers who set upon him unawares would consent either to expose themselves, or to give what he and others called, in a thoughtless manner, “the satisfaction[183] of a gentleman.” It must have been rare satisfaction at any time to be run through the body or shot through the head, after having been insulted or injured. In the London Daily Post and General Advertiser, shortly after this (February 5, 1739-40), is an advertisement which looks suspiciously like a hoax, unless, indeed, it was believed at the time that one swallow would make a summer. As the advertiser was probably devoted to the agricultural interest, this is a not unlikely solution of the problem, more especially as a caged bird would naturally not be expected to possess the desired power:—

There must have been much capturing of small birds, and many may have been roasted alive in attempts to preserve them for the benefit of Thomas Meysey. It certainly does appear as if about this time humour was so rife that it had to find vent in all sorts of strange advertisements, and the quacks were not slow to follow the lead thus set, as is shown by the exercising swindle which follows, and which certainly must have exercised the minds of many who read it at the time. It appears in the same paper as the foregoing, on March 7, 1739-40. (It is almost time by March to know what year one is in.)

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Mr Marsh may have been clever at making horses for chamber use, but he doesn’t seem to have understood argument much; for whatever pleasure there may be in bolting oneself on to a board, and then standing on one’s head, it isn’t much in the way of exercise, even though Fuller may have been at the bottom of it. We beg his pardon on it. Still, the idea is ingenious, and in a population, the majority of which, we are informed, consists mainly of fools, would succeed now. From this same London Daily Post and General Advertiser, which is full of strange and startling announcements, we take another advertisement, that is likely to arouse the attention and excite the envy of all who nowadays suffer from those dwellers in tents and other forms of bedsteads, the “mahogany flats” or Norfolk Howards, who are particularly rapacious in lodgings which are let after a long term of vacancy. This knowledge is the result of actual experience. The date is March 15, 1740:—

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Bugs are said to have been very little if at all known in the days of our ancestors. It is indeed affirmed in that valuable addition to zoology, Southall’s “Treatise of Bugs” (London, 1730, 8vo), referred to in the advertisement just quoted, that this insect was scarcely known in England before the year 1670, when it was imported among the timber used in rebuilding the city of London after the fire of 1666. That it was, however, known much earlier is not to be doubted, though probably it was far less common than at present, since Dr Thomas Muffet, in the “Theatrum Insectorum,” informs us that Dr Penny, one of the early compilers of that history of insects, relates his having been sent for in great haste to Mortlake in Surrey, to visit two noble ladies who imagined themselves seized with symptoms of the plague; but on Penny’s demonstrating to them the true cause of their complaint—viz., having been bitten by those insects, and even detecting them in their presence—the whole affair was turned into a jest. This was in the year 1583. It[186] is a somewhat remarkable fact, well known to those whose misfortunes subject them to contiguity with these highly-scented bloodsuckers, that within the past few years bugs have altered considerably. The old, nearly round-bellied, and possibly jovial fellow, has given way to a long dangerous creature who is known to experts as the “omnibus bug,” not so much on account of his impartiality as because of his shape. It is believed by some that this change is the result of bugs being discontented with their position, and their natural (and laudable) attempt to become something else in accordance with scientific theory; but we fancy that the true reason of this change is that foreign bugs have been imported in large numbers among cargoes, and not infrequently about passengers, and that the original settlers are being gradually exterminated in a manner similar to that which led to the extirpation of the black rat in this country. There is yet another theory with regard to the change which it would be unfair to pass over. It is that the bugs have altered—it is admitted on all sides that the alteration first exhibited itself at the East End of London—in consequence of feeding on mixed and barbarous races about Ratcliffe Highway and other dock purlieus. Any one who pays his money for this book is at liberty to take his choice of hypotheses, but we can assure him that the change is undoubtedly matter of fact.

The next specimen taken is of a literary turn, and appears in the Champion, or the Evening Advertiser, of January 2, 1741. From it we may judge of the number of burlesques and travesties which, some large, some small, were called into existence by the publication of what many consider to be Richardson’s masterpiece. Whatever rank “Pamela” may hold as compared with “Clarissa Harlowe,” “Sir Charles Grandison,” and other works by the same author, it is very little regarded now, while one of the books to which it gave rise is now a representative work of English literature. Here is the literary advertisement of the day:—

[187]

The “Court Secret” is possibly a satire on the evil doings which were notorious in connection with high places at that time, but which happily died out with their primary causes; and the other book is doubtless one of those quaint stories of slavery and adventure which form interesting reading even to this day. Next we come upon an advertisement which offers special temptation to the female mind, as it combines the gratification of more than one ruling passion of the time. It is from the General Advertiser of April 27, 1745:—

This Mr Burchell of the Anodyne Necklace was a notorious quack of the time, to whom reference is made further on. It is patent to the most casual observer that he is able to dispose his wares in the most tempting manner, and the book, as well as the tickets, must have had a very good sale indeed. Also portraying the tastes and peculiarities of this portion of the eighteenth century is an invitation taken from the General Advertiser in October 1745, which displays inordinate vanity on the part of the writer, or, to put it in the mildest form, peculiarity of behaviour on that of the lady to whom he addresses himself:—

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Notices of this kind—many of the most barefaced, and not a few of a decidedly indelicate description—must have been a fruitful source of income to the proprietors of newspapers; and that professions of adoration for unknown women—most of whom were presumably married, else why all the concealment and strategy?—did not fall off as years progressed is shown by the following, taken from a wealth of the same kind in the commencement of 1748. It is also from the General Advertiser:—

This man, though somewhat rude in his style, and, judging from the description of his adventure at the playhouse, rather coarse in his manners, is noticeable for stipulating that his charmer shall be single. Let us hope that, if his intentions were honourable, he prospered in his suit. If he didn’t, then perhaps he felt consoled by the knowledge that virtue is its own reward.

The advertisement just given, which appears in the General Advertiser for January 13, 1748, is one of the rare instances of anything relating to politics in advertisements. The only time when political significance is given to an advertisement is when party dinners, of which the foregoing seems to be one, are advertised. The Sir Hugh Middleton is still in existence, and a few years back, when Sadle[190]r’s Wells was the only home for legitimacy in London, was much frequented by theatrical stars and the lesser lights of the drama. Comparatively recently a music-hall has been added to the establishment, which, however profitable in a pecuniary sense, hardly adds to the reputation of this well-known and once suburban tavern. In another preliminary notice, which appears early in April, attention is directed to another part of the town, and probably to another phase of political and party existence. It is, like the others, from the General Advertiser, which at the time was a great medium. The two which follow it are also from the same paper:—

It is not hard to determine the sentiments of those who then called Culloden a glorious battle, though we should think there are few nowadays who, whatever their tastes and sympathies, would affix the adjective to a victory which, however decisive, was marred by one of the most disgraceful and cowardly massacres of any time. But the shame still rests on the memory of that man who was truly a butcher—a butcher of the defenceless, but an impotent officer and arrant coward in the presence of armed equality; and so, as his name leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, we will pass on to a contemporary card put forth by an enterprising tradesman:—