We are all well acquainted with the ingenious artifices by which modern
advertisers thrust their wares upon the attention of newspaper readers. We
may, perhaps, have been betrayed into the expression of come rude Saxon
expletive, when, in the columns devoted to news and general information, we
have in our innocence been tempted with a paragraph that commenced with "a
clever saying of the illustrious Voltaire's," and dovetailed into a
panegyric of Messrs. Aaron and Son's Reversible Paletots; or we may have
applauded the clever logician who so clearly demonstrates, that as
Napoleon's bilious affection frequently clouded his judgment in times of
greatest need, the events of the present century, and the fate of nations,
would have been reversed, had that great man only been persuaded to take
two boxes of Snooks's Aperient Pill, price 1s. 1½d., with the Government
stamp on a red ground (see Advt.). All these things we know very well; but,
of the fugitive literature that does not find a place in the advertising
columns of _The Times_, but flashes into Fame only in the pages of some
local oracle, or in some obscurer broad-sheet, how often must it remain
unappreciated, and doomed to "waste its sweetness on the desert air." That
this may not be said of the following burst of advertising eloquence, I
trust it may be found worthy a niche in the temple of "N. & Q." In its
composition the author was probably inspired by the grand scenery of the
Cheviots, in a village near to which his shop was situate. It was one of
those "generally-useful" shops where the grocer and draper held equal
reign, and anything could be got, from silks and satins to butter and Bath
bricks. The composition was printed and distributed among the neighbouring
families; but shortly after, when the author heard that it had not produced
the exact effect he had wished, he, with the irritability that often
accompanies genius, resolved to get back and destroy every copy of his
production, and deny to the world that which it could not appreciate.
Fortunately for the world's welfare, I preserved a copy of his hand-bill,
of which this, in its turn, is a faithful transcript:
"_To the Inhabitants of G. and its neighbourhood._
"The present age is teeming with advantages which no preceding Era in
the history of mankind has afforded to the human family. New schemes
are projecting to enlighten and extend civilisation, Railways have been
projected and carried out by an enterprising and spirited nation, while
Science in its gigantic power (simple yet sublime) affords to the
humane mind so many facilities to explore its rich resources, the
Seasons roll on in their usual course producing light and heat, the
vivifying rays of the Sun, and the fructifying influences of nature
producing food and happiness to the Sons of Toil; while to the people
of G. and its neighbourhood a rich and extensive variety of Fashionable
Goods is to be found in my Warehouse, which have just been selected
with the greatest care. The earliest visit is requested to convey to
the mind an adequate idea of the great extent of his purchases,
comprising as it does all that is elegant and useful, cheap and
substantial, to the light-hearted votaries of Matrimony, the Matrons of
Reflection, the Man of Industry, and the disconsolate Victims of
Bereavement.