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CHAPTER X.

THE EDUCATION COMPLETED.

O far, as has been shown, advertisements have had to struggle against foreign war, internecine disorder, the poverty of the State, and many other drawbacks; but by the commencement of the seventh decade of the eighteenth century, these difficulties have all in turn been surmounted, and the most modern means of obtaining publicity, despite prejudice, and, still worse, taxation, is fixed firmly in the land, and doing much towards the management of its affairs. The country is at peace with the world, so far as Europe is concerned; and even the Canadian campaign is as good as over. Clive has made himself felt and the name of England feared throughout the length and breadth of India, and merchants are beginning to reap the advantages of conquest. George III. has ascended the throne, has been married and crowned, and looks forward to a long and prosperous reign. In fact, everything seems bright and smiling, for never, through many a long year, was the country so free from troubles and anxieties, or with so little to direct her attention from those two great essentials to English existence-profit and pleasure. And so, as marked in the preceding chapter, advertisements of all kinds progressed as the century became older; and when the ordinary style failed, dodges of all kinds were adopted to give a factitious importance to announcements, no matter whether of quacks, of publishers, or of the infinite variety of other trades and professions which just now began to be bitten by the fast-growing

mania. Some of the sly puffs were of a most specious order, and attention is called to one of them by the indignation it evoked in the Monthly Review (vol. xxvii. 1762). The object of the puff paragraph had been an insipid panegyric on Lord Halifax, called "The Minister of State," which sacrificed on the altar of Halifax the characters of all preceding premiers, from Burleigh to Bute, and the attempt to force its sale evoked the wrath of the Review, which commences as follows:"As the practice of puffing is now arrived at the utmost height of assurance, it will not be improper for the Reviewers occasionally to mark some of the grosser instances that may occur of this kind." Thereupon it notices the "lying paragraph," to which we have already referred, the words within brackets being the comments of the Reviewer:

A noble Peer has absolutely given directions to his Solicitor to commence a Prosecution against the Author of the Poem called, The Minister of State, a Satire, as a most licentious and libellous composition.—The writer, no doubt, merits a severer censure of the Law than any of his brethren, because instead of employing those great talents for poetry and satire for which he is so deservedly celebrated [what does he not deserve for his effrontery?] in the service of Virtue and his Country, he has basely [basely enough!] prostituted them to the unworthy purpose of defaming, lampooning and abusing some of the greatest characters in this Kingdom. [All a puff to excite curiosity.] We think this LITERARY LUMINARY of the age [this illiterate farthing candle !] should pay a greater deference to the words of his predecessor Mr Pope :

"Curs'd be the verse, how smooth soe'er it flow," etc.

[We doubt, however, if any of this honest gentleman's readers will think his verses worth a curse, whatever they may think he deserves for his impudence.]

This energetic effort on the part of the Review to prevent undue reputations being made by disguised advertisements, had little effect in checking an evil which flourishes unto this day-which will, in fact, flourish as long as a majority exist ready to believe anything they are told, and to be more than usually prompt with their credulity when what they are told is more than usually wrong. The next notification we select is from the British Chronicle of January 4-6, 1762,

and is of a literary character also, though, judging by the motto adopted, the work is more likely to produce melancholy than amusement:—

This day are published, Price Is.,

THE Songs of Selma, attempted in English verse, from the original of Ossian, the son of Fingal.

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Quis talia fando Tempenet a lacrymis? Printed for R. Griffiths, opposite Somerset House in the Strand; C. Henderson, at the Royal Exchange; and G. Woodfall, Charing Cross.

How many books of this kind have been published, thrown aside, and forgotten, or consigned to the pastrycook and trunkmaker, since the "Songs of Selma" saw the light, is a question easier to ask than to solve. One thing is, though, certain-the number of people who will write, whether they have anything to say or not, increases every year, and in due course we may expect an ingenious Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose a tax on authors; which, after all, will hardly, so far as brilliancy is concerned, be so destructive as the window-tax, or so uncalled for as Mr Robert Lowe's famous "ex luce lucellum" imposition. A couple of weeks later, in the same paper (January 18-20), is the following of a very different character from that which has been already selected :

READING MACHINE

IS removed from the Three Kings, Piccadilly, to the George Inn, Snow Hill, London; sets out from the Broad Face, Reading, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at seven o'clock in the morning, and from the George Inn, Snow Hill, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at seven o'clock in the morning; carries passengers to and from Reading at 6s. each, children in lap, and outside passengers at 3s. THOMAS MOORE and

Performed by RICHARD MAPLETON.

N.B.-Takes no charge of Writings, Money, Watches, or Jewels, unless entered and paid for as such.

This machine was evidently a nondescript, partly slow coach, partly waggon, and was extremely reasonable in its rates if it journeyed at any pace, seeing that outside passengers paid no more than present Parliamentary rates,

while the insides had no occasion to complain of excessive expenditure. But fancy the journey at seven o'clock on a January morning, with the knowledge that no brisk motion would keep the blood in circulation, that the roads were heavy, the weather indifferent, the society worse, the conversation, if any, very heavy, and the purse proportionally light! Such a company as Roderick Random and Strap fell in with in the waggon, must often have been seen on the outside of the Reading Machine. In the same paper of January 20-22, we find the advertisement of a pamphlet issued for the gratification of a morbid taste which has its representative nowadays though, by the way, there is more excuse for a little excitement over murder and execution now than there was in the days when every week saw its batch of criminals led forth to take their final dance upon nothing:

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This day was published, price Is.,

IE authentic particulars of the life of John Macnaghton, Esq., of Ben who was executed in Ireland, on tuesday the 25th day of December, for the Murder of Miss Mary Anne Knox, the only daughter of Andrew Knox, Esq., of Prehen, representative in the late and present Parliament for the county of Donegal. With a full account of his pretended Connexion with the young Lady; of the measures he took to seize her person previous to the Murder; the circumstances of that fact; the manner of his being apprehended; and his conduct and behaviour from that time till his Death. Compiled from papers communicated by a gentleman in Ireland, to a person of distinction of that Kingdom now residing here.

Printed for H. Payne & W. Croply, at Dryden's Head in Paternoster Row.

John Macnaghton, Esq., was a real gentleman criminal, and though food for the halter was plenty in 1762 and thereabouts, gentlemen were "tucked up" still more rarely than within ordinary recollections; for stern as was the law a hundred years ago, it had very merciful consideration for persons of quality, and the hanging of a landed proprietor for a mere paltry murder was a very noticeable event. In the London Gazette of February 23-27, we find a record

of the coronation of their illustrious and sacred Majesties, George and Charlotte, which runs thus :—

ALBEMARLE ST., Feby. 26, 1762.

THE Gold Medals intended for the Peers and Peeresses who in their

robes attended at the Coronation of their Majesties (according to a list obtained from the proper officers) will be delivered at the Earl of Powis's house in Albemarle Street, on Wednesday and Thursday next, from ten to twelve o'clock each day.

It is therefore desired that the Peers and Peeresses, as above mentioned, will send for their Medals; and that the persons who shall be sent for them shall bring Cards, signed by such Peers or Peeresses, as the Medals shall be required for, and sealed with their Arms.

In the same paper we come upon the advertisement of a book which is even now read with interest, though the price at which a modern issue of it is offered is ludicrously small compared with that of the original edition :

THIS

HIS day is published, in small quarto, Price Thirty Shillings, Printed at Strawberry Hill, Anecdotes of Painting in England, with incidental Notes on other Arts. Collected by the late Mr George Vertue, and now first digested and published from his original Manuscripts. By Mr Horace Walpole. Vol. I. and II. With above forty Copper plates, four of which are taken from antient Paintings; the rest, heads of Artists, engraved by Grignion, Muller, Chambers, and Bannerman.

To be had of W. Bathoe, Bookseller, in the Strand, near Exeter Exchange.

As we have no wish whatever to paint the lily, we will, although the subject is a kindred one, leave Horace Walpole's book without a fresh criticism to add to the thousand and odd already passed upon it, and will pass on to the land "where the men are all brave and the women all beautiful," and where, in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, also of February 1762, we come upon the cry of a young man for his mother. In the advertisement is the nucleus of a story quite equal to "Tom Jones," provided, of course, that its author possessed the fancy of a Fielding. We are not aware of any literary gentleman who would succeed, though we are acquainted with plenty who would most confidently make the attempt;

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