The love of the people also for the strange and marvellous is shown by announcements of rare sights; for instance, we are told that,—
At the Mitre, near the west end of St. Paul’s, is to be seen a rare Collection of Curiosityes, much resorted to and admired by persons of great learning and quality, among which a choyce Egyptian Mummy, with hieroglyphicks; the Ant-Beare of Brasil; a Remora; a Torpedo; the Huge Thigh-bone of a Giant; a Moon Fish; a Tropic Bird, &c.—The News of June 2, 1664.
A rather scanty collection of articles, it is true, but eked out monstrously by the “huge thigh-bone of a giant,” which in all probability belonged to some huge quadruped. The ignorance of those times with respect to natural history must have been something astonishing, as about the same date we find the following print of what were evidently considered very curious animals advertised in the London Gazette:—
A True Representation of the Rhonoserous and Elephant, lately brought from the East Indies to London, drawn after the life, and curiously engraven in Mezzotinto, printed upon a large sheet of paper. Sold by Pierce Tempest, at the Eagle and Child in the Strand, over against Somerset House, Water Gate.—The London Gazette, Jan. 22, 1664.
In the succeeding year all advertisements of this kind stop; amusements, from some great disturbing cause, have ceased to attract; there is no more gambling under the name of lotteries at Whitehall; no more curiosities are exhibited to a pleasure loving crew; no more books of amorous songs are published; no more lockets or perfumed bags are dropped; all is stagnation and silence, if we may judge as much from the sudden cessation of advertisements with reference to them in the public papers. Death now comes upon the stage, and rudely shuts the box of Autolycus, crops the street with grass, and marks a red cross on every other door. It is the year of the Great Plague. Those who could, fled early from the pest-stricken city; those who remained until the malady had gained irresistible sway were not allowed to depart, for fear of carrying the contagion into the provinces, the Lord Mayor denying to such a clean bill of health, in consequence of which they were driven back by the rustics as soon as discovered. A singular instance also of the vigilance of the authorities in confining, as they imagined, the mischief within the limits of the metropolis is afforded by the succeeding advertisement:—
Nicholas Hurst, an Upholsterer, over against the Rose Tavern, in Russell-street, Covent-Garden, whose Maid Servant dyed lately of the Sickness, fled on Monday last out of his house, taking with him several Goods and Household Stuff, and was afterwards followed by one Doctor Cary and Richard Bayle, with his wife and family, who lodged in the same house; but Bayle having his usual dwelling-house in Waybridge, in Surrey. Whereof we are commanded to give this Public Notice, that diligent search may be made for them, and the houses in which any of their persons or goods shall be found may be shut up by the next Justice of the Peace, or other his Majesty’s Officers of Justice, and notice immediately given to some of his Majesty’s Privy Councill, or to one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State.—London Gazette, May 10, 1666.
Antidotes and remedies for the plague are also commonly advertised, just as the visitation of the cholera in 1854 filled the columns of the Times full of all sorts of specifics. Thus, for example, the Intelligencer of August the 28th, 1665, announces “an excellent electuary against the plague, to be drunk at the Green Dragon, Cheap-side, at sixpence a pint.” The great and only cure, however, for this fearful visitation, which carried off a hundred thousand persons in London alone, was at hand—the purgation of fire. The conflagration, which burst out on the 2nd of September, and destroyed thirteen thousand houses, gave the final blow to its declining attacks. Singularly enough, but faint traces of this overwhelming calamity, as it was considered at the time, can be gathered from the current advertisements. Although the entire population of the city was rendered houseless, and had to encamp in the surrounding fields, where they extemporized shops and streets, not one hint of such a circumstance can be found in the public announcements of the period. No circumstance could afford a greater proof of the little use made by the trading community of this means of publicity in the time of Charles II. If a fire only a hundredth-part so destructive were to occur in these days, the columns of the press would immediately be full of the new addresses of the burnt-out shopkeepers; and those who were not even damaged by it would take care to “improve the occasion” to their own advantage. We look in vain through the pages of the London Gazette of this and the following year for one such announcement: not even a tavern-keeper tells us the number of his booth in Goodman’s Fields, although quack medicine flourished away in its columns as usual. In 1667 we see a notification, now and then, of some change in the site of a government office, or of the intention to build by contract some public structure, such as the following notice relative to the erection of the old Royal Exchange:—
All Artificers of the several Trades that must be used in Rebuilding the Royal Exchange may take notice, that the Committee appointed for Management of that Work do sit at the end of the long gallery in Gresham Colledge every Monday in the forenoon, there and then to treat with such as are fit to undertake the same.
The remainder of the reign of Charles is unmarked by the appearance of any characteristic advertisements which give a clue to the peculiar complexion of the time. If we go back two or three years, however, we shall find one which bears upon the introduction of those monstrous flowing wigs which continued in fashion to the middle of the succeeding century:—
Whereas George Grey, a Barber and Perrywigge-maker, over against the Greyhound Tavern, in Black Fryers, London, stands obliged to serve some particular persons of eminent Condition and Quality in his way of Employment: It is therefore notifyed at his desire, that any one having long flaxen hayr to sell may repayr to him the said George Grey, and they shall have 10s. the ounce, and for any other long fine hayr after the Rate of 5s. or 7s. the ounce.—The Newes, February 4, 1663.