3. That this way of publishing is much more advantageous than giving

away _Bills_ in the street, is certain, for where there is one of them read, there’s twenty is not; and a thousand of these cannot be supposed to be read by less than twenty times the number of persons; and done for at least the twentieth part of the charge, and with much less trouble and greater success; as has been experienced by many persons that have things inserted in it. This paper lived but a short time; though the fact that 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_:-- ADVERTISEMENT. _WHEREAS 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 Boarding-schools, 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. * * * * * _AT 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 Master-Carriers, 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 accommodated 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 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:-- IF 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:-- A 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_,[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 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:-- ☞ FOR the further and better Improvement of Husbandry and Trade and for the Encouragement thereof, especially in Middlesex and the bordering counties, a Person, now at my house in Bartholomew Lane, does undertake to make or procure made, as good malt of the barley of these counties, and of that Malt as good Ale as is made at Derby, Nottingham, or any other place now famous for that liquor, and that upon such reasonable terms as shall be to general satisfaction, the extraordinary charge not amounting to above one penny per bushel more than that is now; only thus much I must advise, if provision be not made speedily, the opportunity will be lost for the next malting time. 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:-- My Collection I shall carry on as usual. This part is to give away, and those who like it not, may omit the reading. I believe it will help on Trade, particularly encourage the advertisers to increase the vent of my papers. I shall receive all sorts of advertisements, but shall answer for the reasonableness of none, unless I give thereof a particular character on which (as I shall give it) may be _dependance_, but no argument that others deserve not as well. I am informed that seven or eight thousand gazettes are each time printed, which makes them the most universal Intelligencers; but I’ll suppose mine their first handmaid, because it goes (though not so thick yet) to _most_ parts: It’s also lasting to be put into Volumes with indexes, and particularly there shall be an index of all the advertisements, whereby, for ages to come, they may be useful. This first sheet consists solely of advertisements about newly published books, but it concludes:-- ☞ Whither ’tis worth while to give an account of ships sent in for lading or ships arrived, with the like for coaches and carriers; or to give notice of approaching fairs, and what commodities are chiefly sold there, I must submit to the judgment of those concerned. 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:-- ----A very eminent brewer, and one I know to be a very honest gentleman, wants an apprentice; I can give an account of him. ----I want a house keeper rarely well accomplished for that purpose. ’Tis for a suitable gentleman. ----I know of valuable estates to be sold. ----I want several apprentices for a valuable tradesman. ----I can help to ready money for any library great or small or parcels of pictures or household goods. ----I want a negro man that is a good house carpenter and a good shoemaker. ⁂ I want a young man about 14 or 15 years old that can trim and look after a peruke. ’Tis to wait on a merchant. ----I want a pritty boy to wait on a gentleman who will take care of him and put him out an apprentice. ----If any gentleman wants a housekeeper, I believe I can help to the best in England. ----Many masters want apprentices and many youths want masters. If they apply themselves to me, I’ll strive to help them. Also for variety of valuable services. By reason of my great corresponding, I may help masters to apprentices and Apprentices to Masters. And now is wanting Three Boys, one with £70, one with £30, and a Scholar with £60. ----I know of several curious women that would wait on ladies to be housekeepers. ----Now I want a good usher’s place in a Grammar school. ----I want a young man that can write and read, mow and roll a garden, use a gun at a deer, and understand country sports, and to wait at table, and such like. ----If any young man that plays well on the violin and writes a good hand desires a clerkship, I can help him to £20 a year. ----I want a complete young man, that will wear livery, to wait on a very valuable gentleman, but he must know how to play on a violin or a flute. ----I want a genteel footman that can play on the violin to wait on a person of honour. ----If I can meet with a sober man that has a counter tenor voice, I can help him to a place worth £30 the year or more. 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,-- ----If any Justice of the Peace wants a clerk, I can help to one that has been so seven years; understands accounts, to be butler, also to receive money. He also can shave and buckle wigs. The editor frequently gives special testimony as to the respectability of the advertiser:-- ----If any one wants a wet nurse, I can help them, as I am informed, to a very good one. ----I know a gentlewoman whose family is only her husband, herself and maid, and would to keep her company take care of a child, two or three, of three years old or upwards. She is my good friend, and such a one that whoever put their children to her, I am sure will give me thanks, and think themselves happy, let them be what rank they will. ----I have been to Mr Firmin’s work house in Little Britain, and seen a great many pieces of what seems to me excellent linen, made by the poor in and about London. He will sell it at reasonable rates, and I believe whatever house keepers go there to buy will not repent, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the forenoon he is always there himself. ----I have met with a curious gardener that will furnish any body that sends to me for fruit trees, and floreal shrubs, and garden seeds. I have made him promise with all solemnity that whatever he sends shall be purely good, and I verily believe he may be depended on. ----One that has waited on a lady divers years, and understands all affairs in housekeeping and the needle, desires some such place. She seems a discreet, staid body. 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 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-- ----I know a peruke maker that _pretends_ to make perukes extraordinary fashionable, and will sell good pennyworths; I can direct to him. 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:-- ☞ Pray, mind the preface to this half sheet. Like lawyers, I take all causes. I may fairly; who likes not may stop here. 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-- ⁂ I desire all booksellers to send me no new titles to old books, for they will be rejected. When a book of the right reverend father in God John Wilkins, late Bishop of Chester, was published, Houghton recommended it in patronising terms-- ----I have read this book, and do think it a piece of great ingenuity, becoming the Bishop of Chester, and is useful for a great many purposes, both profit and pleasure. Of another work he says-- ----With delight have I read over this book, and think it a very good one. 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:-- ----Whether advertisements of schools, or houses and lodgings about London may be useful, I submit to those concerned. And the answer came; for a few days after the public were informed that ----At one Mr Packer’s, in Crooked Lane, next the Dolphin, are very good Lodgings to be let, where there is freedom from noise, and a pretty garden. Freedom from noise and a pretty garden in a street leading from Eastcheap to Fish Street Hill! Shortly after Houghton calmly observes:-- ----I now find advertisements of schools, houses and lodgings in and about London are thought useful. He then starts other subjects:-- ----I believe some advertisements about bark and timber might be of use both to buyer and seller. ⁂ I find several barbers think it their interest to take in these papers, and I believe the rest will when they understand them. 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:-- ⁂ I would gladly serve the clergy in all their wants. How he understood this friendly help soon appeared:-- ----If any divine or their relicts have complete sets of manuscript sermons upon the Epistles and the Gospels, the Catechism or Festivals, I can help them to a customer. The use of second-hand sermons was not unknown in those days, and detection was of course much less imminent than now. Then-- ----I have sold all the manuscript sermons I had and many more, and if any has any more to dispose of that are good and legibly writ, I believe I can help them to customers. 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:-- ----If any incumbent within 20 miles of London will dispose of his living, I can help him to a chapman. ----A rectory of £100 per annum in as good an air as any in England, 60 miles off, and an easy cure is to be commuted. ----A vicaridge and another cure which requires service but once a month, value £86. ’Tis in Kent about 60 miles from London. 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:-- ⁂For a friend, I can sell very good flower of brimstone, etc., as cheap or cheaper than any in town does; and I’ll sell any good commodity for any man of repute if desired. ----I find publishing for others does them kindness, therefore note: I sell lozenges for 8d. the ounce which good drinkers commend against heartburn, and are excellent for women with child, to prevent miscarriages; also the true _lapis nephriticus_ which is esteemed excellent for the stone by wearing it on the wrist. ----I would gladly buy for a friend the historical part of Cornelius a Lapide upon the Bible. 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:-- Last week was imported Bacon by _Mr Edwards_. Cheese by _Mr Francia_. Corral Beads by _Mr Paggen_. Crabs Eyes by _Mr Harvey_. Horse Hair by _Mr Becens_. Joynted Babies by _Mr Harrison_. Mapps by _Mr Thompson_. Orange Flower Water by _Mr Bellamy_. Prospective Glasses by _Mr Mason_. Saffron by _Mr Western_. Sturgeon by _Mr Kett_. If any desire it other things may be inserted. 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:-- ----If desired I’ll set down the places of abode, and I am sure ’twill be of good use: for I am often asked it. 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:-- ----I shall also go the round, I. of Counsellors and Attorneys; II. of Surgeons and Gardiners; III. of Lawyers and Attorneys; IV. Schools and Woodmongers; V. Brokers, coaches and carriers, and such like, and then round again, beginning with Physitians. 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:-- ----Roads are filled with snow, we are forced to ride with the paquet over hedges and ditches. This day seven-night my boy with the paquet and two gentlemen were seven hours riding from Dunstable to Hockley, but three miles, hardly escaping with their lives, being often in holes and forced to be drawn out with ropes. A man and a woman were found dead within a mile hence. I fear I have lost my letter-carrier, who has not been heard of since Thursday last. Six horses lie dead on the road between Hockley and Brickhill, smothered. I was told last night that lately was found dead near Beaumarais three men and three horses. 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. [24] Broer Jansz styles himself “Couranteer in the Army of his Princely Excellence,” _i.e._, Prince Frederic Henry, the Stadtholder. Subsequently, in 1630, Jansz commenced a new series, which he entitled “Tidings from Various Quarters.” [25] 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 II., and says that J. Knighton was the editor in 1692. This last name may be a clerical error for Houghton.