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 rafflec 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 :—

MR

R Benjamin Ferrers, Face-painter, the gentleman that can't neither speak nor hear, is removed from the Crown and Dagger at Charing Cross into Chandois Street, next door to the sign of the Three Tuns in Covent Garden.

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

K

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 :

BY

Y John Yarwell and Ralph Sterrop, Right Spectacles, reading and other optic glasses, etc., were first brought to perfection by our own proper art, and needed not the boasted industry of our two apprentices to recommend them to the world; who by fraudently appropriating to themselves what they never did, and obstinately pretending to what they never can perform, can have no other end in view than to astonish the ignorant, impose on the credulous, and amuse the public. For which reason and at the request of several gentlemen already imposed on, as also to prevent such further abuses as may arise from the repeated advertisements of these two wonderful performers, we. John Yarwell and Ralph Sterrop do give public notice, that to any person who shall think it worth his while to make the experiment, we will demonstrate in a minute's time the insufficiency of the instrument and the vanity of the workmen by comparing their miraculous Two-Foot, with our Three and Four Foot Telescopes. And therefore, till such a telescope be made, as shall come up to the character of these unparalleled performers, we must declare it to be a very impossible thing.

Then the old-established and indignant masters proceed

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:

WHI

HEREAS Mr Yarwell, Mr Sterrop, and Mr Marshall, the 2 first were our Masters with whom we served our Apprenticeships, and since for several years we have made the best of work for them and Mr Marshall. And now they being envious at our prosperity have published several false, deceitful and malicious advertisements, wherein they assert that we cheat all that buy any of our goods, and that we pretend to many impossibilities, and impose on the public, they having wrested the words and sense of our advertisements, pretend that we affirm that a 2 Foot Telescope of our making will do as much as the best 4 Foot of another man's make, and they fraudulently show in their shops one of their best 4 Foots against our small one, and then cry out against the insufficiency of our instrument. Now we G. Willdey and Th. Brandreth being notoriously abused, declare that we never did assert any such thing, or ever did pretend to impossibilities, but will make good in every particular all those [note, these are their own words] (impossible, incredable, miraculous, wonderful, and astonishing) things mentioned in our advertisements; which things perhaps may be impossible, incredible, miraculous, wonderful, and astonishing to them, but we assure them they are not so to us: For we have small miraculous telescopes, as they are pleased to call them, that do such wonders that they say it is impossible to make such, by the assistance of which we will lay any person £10, that instead of 2 miles mentioned, we will tell them the hour of the day 3 if not 4 miles by such a dial as St James's or Bow.

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 :

ACONFIDENT Mountebank by the help of his bragging speech

passes upon the ignorant as a profound doctor, the commonest medicines and the easiest operations in such an one's hand, shall be cried up as miracles. But there are mountebanks in other arts as well as in physick: Glasgrinding it seems is not free from 'em, as it is seen in the vain boastings of Willdey and Brandrith. 'Tis well known to all gentlemen that have had occasion to use optic glasses that J. Yarwell was the true improver of that art, and has deservedly a name for it, in all parts abroad as well as at home. He and R. Sterrop, who lives in the old shop in Ludgate Street, have always and do now make as true and good works of all kinds in that art as any man can do. And we are so far from discouraging any improvement, that we gladly receive from any hand, and will be at any expence to put in practice an invention really advantageous in the art. But Willdey's performances are so far from improvements that we are ready to oppose any of our work to his and stake any wager upon the judgment of a skilful man. And because he talks so particularly of his two foot telescope, to let the world see that there is nothing in that vaunt, we will stake 10 Guineas upon a two-foot telescope of ours against the same of his. And further to take away all pretensions of our preparing one on purpose, if any gentleman that has a two-foot telescope bought of us within a year past, and not injured in the use, will produce it, we will lay 5 Guineas upon its performance against one of theirs of the same date. This is bringing the matter upon the square, and will, we hope, satisfy the world that we are not worse workmen than those we taught.

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 :

THE

'HE best method now used for Grinding Spectacles and other glasses, was by me at great charge and pains found out, which I shewed to the Royal Society in the year 1693, and by them approved; being gentlemen the best skilled in optics, for which they gave me their certificate to let the world know what I had done. Since which I have made spectacles, telescopes, and microscopes, for all the Kings and Prince's Courts in Europe. And as for the 2 new spectacle makers, that would insinuate to the world that they were my best workmen for several years: the one I never employed, the other I found as I doubt not but many gentlemen have and will find them both, to be only boasters and not performers of what they advertise, &c. &c.

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:

Mr Willdey and Brandreth have the folly to believe that abundance. of words is sufficient to gain applause, and therefore throw 'em out without regard to truth and reason, but as that is an affront to the understanding of gentlemen that use the goods they sell, they being persons of discerning judgment, there needs no other answer to what they have published than to compare one part with another. They set forth with a lying vaunt that their two-foot telescope would perform the same that a common four-foot one would do, and when 'twas replied that was false, and a four-foot one offered to try, they poorly shift off with crying "That's one of your best four-foot ones." Now we profess to make none but best, the glasses of every one being true ground and rightly adjusted, and the difference in price arrises only from the goodness, ornaments, and convenience of the case, neither can he produce a four-foot one of anybody's make, that does not far exceed his two-foot, nor does his two-foot one at all exceed ours, which they don't now pretend. And therefore the lie is all on his side, and the impossibility in his pretensions is as strong as ever, and what we have said is just truth, and his foul language no better than Billingsgate railing. But it seems because we do not treat him in his own way and decry his goods as much as he does other men's, he has the folly to construct it as an acknowledgement that his excel. But we are so far from allowing that, that we do aver they have nothing to brag of but what they learnt of us, and Brandreth was so indifferent a workman that Marshall, who had taken him for a journeyman, was fain to turn him off. The secrets they brag of is all a falsehood, and the micro