[18] No savoury meat-pies, as some gastronomic reader might think, since they came from the county of sausage celebrity, but a collection of rules, as practised in the diocese of Salisbury, to show the priests how to deal, under every possible variation in Easter, with the concurrence of more than one office on the same day. These rules varied in the different dioceses.
[19] Small calveless legs are mentioned as characteristic of a gentleman in many of our old plays, and will be observed in most full-length portraits of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
[20] To “lie in lavender” was a cant term for being in pawn.
[21] Tricks performed with tobacco smoke were fashionable amongst the gallants of the period, and are recommended in Decker’s “Gull’s Horn-Book,” and commended in many old plays. Making rings of smoke was a favourite amusement in those days.
[22] See prints in “Archæologia,” xix. p. 383.
[23] Vide Decker’s “Belman of London: Bringing to Light the most notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome.” London, 1608.
CHAPTER V.
NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING FORESHADOWED—ITS EARLIEST USE—HOUGHTON’S LESSONS.
By this time, and in various ways, the first transitory glimpses of a system at present all-powerful and universal began to show themselves—vague and uncertain, and often unsatisfactory, it must be admitted, but still the first evidences of the growth of an unparalleled institution; in fact, the base upon which the institution eventually reared itself. With improvements in printing, and the invention of movable type, the supply of pamphlets on current topics—the first rude forerunners of the newspaper as we understand it—began to be enlarged, and this opportunity was not lost on the bold spirits who even in those days could understand the advantages bound to accrue from a system of intercommunication at once advantageous to buyer and seller, and calling for special attention from both. There is a wonderful amount of attraction about these discoloured and moth-eaten papers, with their rude types and quaint spelling, which breathe, as much as do the words themselves, the spirit of a bygone age, and those who are so fond of praising past times might receive a valuable lesson from the perusal of these occasional publications, which are full of the spirit of an age when comfort, as we understand the word, was unknown to even the wealthy; when travelling was a luxury—a woeful luxury, it must be admitted—known only to those possessed of ample means, or others called forth on special or desperate missions; when men lived long, and, as they thought, eventful lives, within a circle of half-a-dozen miles; and when the natural consequences of this isolation, ignorance and intolerance, held almost absolute sway over the length and breadth of the land. And in these old papers, as we get nearer and nearer to modern times, can be traced the gradual benefit which accrued from man’s intercourse with man, not only by the construction and improvement of roads, and the introduction of and competition among stage coaches, but by means of the subject of this work,—and very much by their means too,—advertisements.
As early as 1524, pamphlets or small books of news were printed in Vienna and other parts of Germany, but their publication was very irregular, and little or nothing is known of them beyond the fact of their being. It is not easy to determine which nation first found its way towards newspaper advertisements, but there is good reason to believe that France is entitled to the honour, so far as regular and consecutive business is concerned. The Journal Général d’Affiches, better known as the Petites Affiches, was first published on the 14th of October 1612. It obtained from Louis XIII. by letters-patent sundry privileges which were subsequently confirmed (1628 and 1635). Judging by the title of this publication, it would appear to have been an advertising medium, but this must be left to surmise, there being no opportunity, so far as we are aware, of inspecting the earliest numbers. Two centuries and a half have passed away since the first appearance of this periodical, and the Petites Affiches has neither changed its title, nor, it may be fairly presumed, the nature of its publicity. It is now the journal of the domestic wants of France; and servants seeking situations, or persons wanting servants, advertise in it in preference to all others. It is especially the medium for announcing any public or private sales of property, real or personal; and the publication of partnership deeds, articles of association of public companies, and other legal notices, are required to be inserted in the Journal des Petites Affiches, which is published in a small octavo form.