steam that way. It suppresseth fumes exceedingly, and therefore is good against the head-ache, and will very much stop any defluxion of rheums that distil from the head upon the stomach, and so prevent and help consumptions and the cough of the lungs.

It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout, and scurvy. It is known by experience to be better than any other drying drink for people in years, or children that have any running humours upon them, as the king's evil, &c. It is a most excellent remedy against the spleen, hypochondriac winds, and the like. It will prevent drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it after supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours.

It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the stone, gout, dropsy, or scurvy, and that their skins are exceeding clear and white. It is neither laxative nor restringent.

Made and Sold in St Michael's Alley, in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head.

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:

IN

N Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates.

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.

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:

AT

T the Coffeehouse in Exchange Alley, is sold by retail the right coffee powder, from 4s. to 6s. 8d. per pound, as in goodness; that pounded in a mortar at 2s. 6d. per pound, and that termed the East India berry at 18d. per pound. Also that termed the right Turkey berry, well garbled at 3s. per pound, the ungarbled for lesse, with directions gratis how to make and use the same. Likewise there you may have chocolatta, the ordinary pound boxes at 2s. 6d. per pound; the perfumed from 4s. to 10s. per pound. Also sherbets, made in Turkie, of lemons, roses, and violets perfumed, and Tea according to its goodFor all which, if any gentleman shall write or send, they shall be sure of the best, as they shall order, and, to avoid deceit, warranted under the house-seal-viz., Morat the Great. Further, all gentlemen that are customers and acquaintance, are (the next New Year's day), invited at the sign of the Great Turk, at the new coffee house, in Exchange Alley, where coffee will be on free cost.

ness.

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

the following from the Mercurius Politicus of April 1, 1658:

FR

ROM the 26th day of April 1658, there will continue to go Stage Coaches from the George Inn, without Aldersgate, London, unto the several Cities and Towns, for the Rates and at the times hereafter mentioned and declared.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

To Salisbury in two days for xxs. To Blandford and Dorchester in two days and half for xxxs. To Burport in three days for xxxs. Το Exmaster, Hunnington, and Exeter in four days for xls.

To Stamford in two days for xxs. To Newark in two days and a half for xxvs. To Bawtry in three days for xxxs.

Ferribridge for xxxvs. To York in four days for xls.

To Doncaster and

Mondays and Wednesdays to Ockinton and Plimouth for ls.

Every Monday to Helperby and Northallerton for xlvs. To Darneton and Ferryhil for ls. To Durham for lvs. To Newcastle for iii£. Once every fortnight to Edinburgh for iv£ a peece—Mondays. Every Friday, to Wakefield in four days, xls.

All persons who desire to travel unto the Cities, Towns, and Roads herein hereafter mentioned and expressed, namely-to Coventry, Litchfield, Stone, Namptwich, Chester, Warrington, Wiggan, Chorley, Preston, Gastang, Lancaster and Kendal; and also to Stamford, Grantham, Newark, Tuxford, Bawtrey, Doncaster, Ferriebridge, York, Helperby, Northallerton, Darneton, Ferryhill, Durham, and Newcastle, Wakefield, Leeds, and Halifax; and also to Salisbury, Blandford, Dorchester, Burput, Exmaster, Hunnington, and Exeter, Ockinton, Plimouth, and Cornwal; let them repair to the George Inn, at Holborn Bridge, London, and thence they shall be in good Coaches with good Horses, upon every Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, at and for reasonable

Rates.

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

"lost," like a dog, which is after all but natural, the boy being a chattel :—

A

Negro-boy, about nine years of age, in a gray Searge suit, his hair cut close to his head, was lost on Tuesday last, August 9, at night, in St Nicholas Lane, London. If any one can give notice of him to Mr Tho. Barker, at the Sugar Loaf, in that Lane, they shall be well rewarded for their pains.

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, with in 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," "pockholed," "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

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:

A Black-haired Maid, of a middle stature, thick set, with big breasts,

having her face full marked with the small-pox, calling herself by the name of Nan or Agnes Hobson, did, upon Monday, the 28 of May, about six o'clock in the morning, steal away from her Ladies house in the Pal-Mall, a mingle-coloured wrought Tabby gown of Deer colour and white; a black striped Sattin Gown with four broad bone-black silk Laces, and a plain black watered French Tabby Gown; Also one Scarlet-coloured and one other Pink-coloured Sarcenet Peticoat, and a white watered Tabby Wastcoat, plain; Several Sarcenet, Mode, and thin black Hoods and Scarfs, several fine Holland Shirts, a laced pair of Cuffs and Dressing, one pair of Pink-coloured Worsted Stockings, a Silver Spoon, a Leather bag, &c. She went away in greyish Cloth Wastcoat turned, and a Pink-coloured Paragon upper Peticoat, with a green Tammy under one. If any shall give notice of this person or things at one Hopkins, a Shoomaker's, next door to the Vine Tavern, near the Pal-mall end, near Charing Cross, or at Mr Ostler's, at the Bull Head in Cornhill, near the Old Exchange, they shall be rewarded for their pains.

In the same style was almost every other description; and