[The following paper I conjecture to be my father's, from finding various notes and copies of advertisements which bear on the subject among his papers.] THE ADVERTISEMENT LITERATURE OF THE AGE. THE advertisement has long since become an independent department of literature, subject to its own canons of criticism, having its own laws of composition, and conducted by a class of writers, who though they may (we do not assert they do) acknowledge their inferiority to the great historians, poets, or novelists of the day, would nevertheless consider themselves deeply injured were we to hesitate to admit them into the corporation of the "gens de lettres." A needy varlet, with his coat out of the elbows, accosted Garrick once upon a time, and to enforce his suit for relief, reminded the great player that they had formerly acted together on the boards of old Drury. Garrick's memory was at fault, and he begged to know upon what occasion he had had that honour. "Don't you recollect," answered the poor devil, "when you played Hamlet, I used to play the cock!" VOL. IX. 1 In the same manner one of our professional advertisement writers may be supposed to address such an author as Sir Edward Bulwer, "When you wrote the 'Last Days of Pompeii,' it was I that puffed it in the journal." The advertisement writer, however, claims kindred with genius of all sorts, and considers himself entitled to a share in the glory of all undertakings under the sun, from the Thames Tunnel to the manufacture of a razor-strop. In fact, he is to the artist, or the shopkeeper, what Homer was to Achilles, Tasso to Godfrey, Camoens to Gama, or Milton to Cromwell; without him, what would his shops avail a Mechi, his XX a Guinness, his pills a Cockle, his Chesterfields a Doudney, his locks a Chubb, or his envelope a Stocken? "He knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can waft their name o'er lands and seas, The advertisement literature of the day is therefore always worthy of some notice and record. Once a year at least, it is well to glance at it-remark such changes as it may have undergone, and illustrate its actual state by a few random examples. Looking back over the registers of the past year, we observe, in the first place, a decline of poetry in the announcements of our merchants and traders. Few London shops appear at present to keep poets. Warren himself rarely treats us to an ode, and this scarcity of verse is the more surprising when we consider the enormous quantity of the commodity produced by the booksellers, the authors of most of which could not more appropriately employ their poetic powers than in singing the praises of spermaceticandles, or jet-blacking. Over-production is indeed nowhere more conspicuous than |