If any Gentleman has a mind to oblige his country friend or correspondent with the Account of Public Affairs, he may have it for twopence of J. Salusbury at the Rising-Sun in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which being blank, he may thereon write his own private business or the material news of the day.
It does not say much for the energy with which the journals of that day were conducted, that the purchasers are invited to write therein “the material news of the day;” that, we should have thought, was the editor’s business to have supplied; but it was perhaps a contrivance by which the Jacobites might circulate information, by means of the post, without compromising the printer. We have seen many such papers, half print, half manuscript, in the British Museum, which had passed through the post, the manuscript portion of which, the Home Secretaries of our time would have thought sufficiently treasonable to justify them in having broken their seals.
As advertisements, from their earliest introduction, were used to make known the amusements of the day and the means of killing time at the disposal of persons of quality, it seems strange that it was not employed sooner than it was to draw a company to the theatres. We have looked in vain for the announcement of any theatrical entertainment before the year 1701, when the advertisement of the Lincoln’s Inn Theatre makes its appearance in the columns of the English Post. The lead of this little house was, however, speedily followed by the larger ones, and only a few years later we have regular lists of the performances at all the theatres in the daily papers. The first journal of this description was the Daily Courant, published in 1709. In this year also appeared the celebrated “Tatler,” to be speedily followed by the “Spectator” and “Guardian,” the social and literary journals of that Augustine age. The first edition of the “Tatler,” in the British Museum, contains advertisements like an ordinary paper, and they evidently reflect, more than those of its contemporaries, the flying fashions of the day and the follies of the “quality.” In them we notice the rage that existed for lotteries, or “sales,” as they were called. Every conceivable thing was put up to raffle. We see advertisements headed “A Sixpenny Sale of Lace,” “A Hundred Pounds for Half-a-crown,” “A Penny Adventure for a Great Pie,” “A Quarter’s Rent,” “A Freehold Estate,” “Threepenny Sales of Houses,” “A fashionable Coach.” Gloves, looking-glasses, chocolate, Hungary water, Indian goods, lacquered ware, fans, &c., were notified to be disposed of in this manner, and the fair mob was called together to draw their tickets by the same means. This fever, which produced ten years later the celebrated South Sea Bubble, was of slow growth. It had its root in the Restoration, its flower in the reign of Anne, and its fruit and dénouement in the reign of George I. Before passing on from the pages of the “Tatler,” we must stop for a moment to notice one or two of those playful advertisements which Sir Richard Steele delighted in, and which, under the disguise of fun, perhaps really afforded him excellent matter for his journal. Here is an irresistible invitation to his fair readers:—
Any Ladies who have any particular stories of their acquaintance which they are willing privately to make public, may send ’em by the penny post to Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., enclosed to Mr. John Morpheu, near Stationers’ Hall.—Tatler, May 8, 1709.
An excellent lion’s mouth this wherein to drop scandal. A still more amusing instance of the fun that pervaded Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., is to be found in the series of advertisements in which he ought to have convinced John Partridge, the astrologer, that he really had departed this life; an assertion which the latter persisted in denying with the most ludicrous earnestness. Of these we give one from the “Tatler” of August 24th 1710:—
Whereas an ignorant Upstart in Astrology has publicly endeavoured to persuade the world that he is the late John Partridge, who died the 28 of March 1718, these are to certify all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time, but continues so to the present day. Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad.
The pleasant malice of the above is patent enough, but we confess we are puzzled to know whether the following is genuine or not. We copied it from among a number of others, from which it was undistinguishable by any peculiarity of type:—
The Charitable Advice Office, where all persons may have the opinion of dignified Clergymen, learned Council, graduate Physicians, and experienced Surgeons, to any question in Divinity, Morality, Law, Physic, or Surgery, with proper Prescriptions within twelve hours after they have delivered in a state of their case. Those who can’t write may have their cases stated at the office. * * The fees are only 1s. delivery, or sending your case, and 1s. more on re-delivering that and the opinion upon it, being what is thought sufficient to defray the necessary expense of servants and office-rent.—Tatler, December 16, 1710.
To pass, however, from the keen weapons of the brain to those of the flesh, it is interesting to fix with some tolerable accuracy the change which took place in the early part of the eighteenth century in what might be called the amusements of the fancy. The “noble art of defence,” as it was termed, up to the time of the first George seems to have consisted in the broadsword exercise. Pepys describes in his “Diary” several bloody encounters of this kind which he himself witnessed; and the following advertisement, a half-century later, shows that the skilled weapon had not at that time been set aside for the more brutal fist:—
A Tryal of Skill to be performed at His Majesty’s Bear Garden in Hockley-in-the-Hole, on Thursday next, being the 9th instant, betwixt these following masters:—Edmund Button, master of the noble science of defence, who hath lately cut down Mr. Hasgit and the Champion of the West, and 4 besides, and James Harris, an Herefordshire man, master of the noble science of defence, who has fought 98 prizes and never was worsted, to exercise the usual weapons, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon precisely.—Postman, July 4, 1701.