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:—

WHE

ADVERTISEMENT.

HEREAS divers people are at great expense in printing, publishing, and dispersing of Bills of Advertisements: Observing how practical and Advantagious to Trade and Business, &c. this Method is in parts beyond the Seas.

These are to give notice, That all Persons in such cases concerned henceforth may have published in Print in the Mercury or Bills of Advertisements, which shall come out every week on Thursday morning, and be delivered and dispersed in every house where the Bills of Mortallity are received, and elsewhere, the Publications and Advertisements of all the matters following, or any other matter or thing not herein mentioned, that shall relate to the Advancement of Trade, or any lawful business not granted in propriety to any other.

Notice of all Goods, Merchandizes, and Ships to be sold, the place where to be seen, and day and hour.

Any ships to be let to Freight, and the time of their departure, the place of the Master's habitation, and where to be spoken with before and after Exchange time.

All Ships, their Names, and Burthens, and capacities, and where their Inventaries are to be seen.

All other Parcels and Materials or Furniture for shipping in like

manner.

Any Houses to be Let or Sold, or Mortgaged, with Notes of their Contents.

Any Lands or Houses in City or Country, to be Sold or Mortgaged.

The Erection, Alteration, or Removal of any Stage-coach, or any common Carrier.

Advertisements of any considerable Bargains that are offered.

Any curious Invention or Experiment that is to be exposed to the Public view or Sale, may be hereby notified when and where.

Hereby Commissioners upon Commissions against Bankrupts may give large notice.

In like manner any man may give notice as he pleaseth to his Creditors.

Hereby the Settlement or Removal of any Publick Office may be notified.

Hereby all School-masters, and School-mistresses, and Boardingschools, and Riding-schools or Academies, may publish the place where their Schools are kept.

And in like manner, where any Bathes or Hot-houses are kept.

And the Place or Key at the Waterside, whereto any Hoy or Vessel doth constantly come to bring or carry Goods; as those of Lee, Faversham, and Maidstone, &c.

A

T the Office, which is to be kept for the Advertisements, any Person shall be informed (without any Fee) where any Stage-coach stands, where any common Carrier lies, that comes to any Inn within the Bills of Mortallity, and their daies of coming in and going out.

In like manner all the accustomed Hoys or Vessels that come to the several Keys from the several Ports of England.

All Masters and Owners of the several Stage-coaches, and the MasterCarriers, and the Masters of all the Hoys and Vessels above mentioned, are desired to repair between this and Christmas day next, to the Office kept for the receipt of the Advertisements, to see if no mistakes be in their several daies and rates, that the said Books may be declared perfect, which shall be no charge to the Persons concerned.

The Office or Place where any Person may have his desires answered in anything hereby advertised, is kept in St Michael's Alley in Cornhil, London, right against Williams Coffee-house, where constant attendance every day in the Week shall be given, from Nine in the Morning, to Five in the Evening, to receive the desires of all Persons in matters of this nature, carefully to answer them in the same.

With Allowance.

LONDON:

Printed by Andrew Clark, in Aldersgate Street, 1675.

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

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 :—

THE House in the Strand wherein the Morocco Embassador lately resided is to be let, furnished or unfurnished, intirely or in several parts; a house in Marklane fit for a marchant; also very good lodgings not far from the Royal Exchange, fit for any marchant or gentleman to be let, inquire at the North West corner of the Royal Exchange, and there you may know further; inquiry is made at the said office for places to be Stewards of courts, liberties or franchises, or any office at law, or places to be auditor, or receiver, or steward of the household, or gentleman of horse to any nobleman or gentleman; or places to be clarks to brew-houses, or wharfs, or suchlike; also any person that is willing to buy or sell any estates, annuities, or mortgages, or let, or take any house, or borrow money upon the bottom of ships, may be accomodated at the said office.

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

F

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.

IF any person out of natural curiosity desire to be furnished with

ships or castles in the air, or any sorts of prodigies, apparitions, or strange sights, the better to fright people out of their senses, and by persuading them there are strange judgments, changes, and revolutions hanging over their heads, thereby to persuade them to pull them down by discontents, fears, jealousies, and seditions; let them repair to Ben Harris, at his shop near the Royal Exchange, where they may be furnished with all sorts and sizes of them, at very cheap and easy rates.

There is also to be seen the strange egg with the comet in it which was laid at Rome, but sent from his Holiness to the said Ben, to make reparations for his damages sustained, and as a mark of esteem for his zeal and sufferings in promoting discord among the English hereticks, and sowing the seeds of sedition among the citizens of London.

The edition of February 15 contains the following:

TF any protestant dissenter desire this spring time to be furnished with sedition seeds, or the true protestant rue, which they call "herb of grace," or any other hopeful plants of rebellion, let them repair to the famous French gardeners Monsieur F. Smith, Msr. L. Curtis, and Msr. B. Harris; where they may have not only of all the kinds which grew

in the garden of the late keepers of the liberty of England; but much new variety raised by the art and industry of the said gardeners, with directions in print when to sow them, and how to cultivate them when they are raised.

You may also have there either green or pickled sallads of rumours and reports, far more grateful to the palate, or over a glass of wine, than your French Champignons or mushrooms, Popish Olives, or Eastland Gherkins.

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

AM

MOST ingenious monkey, who can both write, read, and speak as good sense as his master, nursed in the kitchen of the late Commonwealth, and when they broke up housekeeping entertained by Nol Protector, may be seen do all his old tricks over again, for pence apiece, every Wednesday, at his new master's, Ben. Harris, in Cornhill.

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,* 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

John Nicholl, in his "Literary Anecdotes,” vol. iv. p. 71, calls the editor of this paper Benjamin Harris, a well-known publisher of pamphlets in the reign of Charles 11., and says that J. Knighton was the editor in 1692. This last name may be a clerical error for Houghton.