fully promulgated by the velites of the Esculapian band, ought to reclaim the most hardened sinner. Matrimonial advertisements afford striking proofs of modesty, the absence of pretence, and the bonhommie of the age, no less than of the prevalent contempt for pecuniary motives. He who doubts the advantages of education, may be convinced of his error by studying the promises of dancing-masters; while the advertisements of insurance-offices are lessons of prudence, and those of the lottery-office keepers are direct incitements to that enterprise which is the life and soul of a commercial people.

Then it is impossible to look over the "Sales of Estates" without a crowd of moral reflections rushing upon the imagination. The uncertainty of human affairs, the instability of fortune, the "quantum in rebus inane," are felt at a first glance; while a more steady and protracted scrutiny points the close connexion of cause and effect, which regulates the transfer of property-connecting extravagance with ruin, and vice with

beggary.

On the other hand, it must be owned that incentives to vicious excesses are to be found in the multifarious reading of the advertising columns: that wives are tempted to extravagance at "Le Magazin des Modes;" that "the curious in fish-sauce" are seduced into gourmandise by Mr. Burgess; and that "real old port at forty-two shillings per dozen," lays the foundation of many an head-ache and bilious fever. But this is in the nature of things. Corruptio optimi pessima; and use and abuse, by the fatality of man's disposition, go hand in hand. However, like the viper, the newspaper carries with it the remedy for its own poison. The eau medicinale is found in juxta-position with "fresh turtle every day; and "the new invented essence of shrimps" serves but as an index-to" Barclay's antibilious pills."

い

To the philanthropist, the first and last pages of a newspaper are a perpetual feast. How must the humane and generous heart glow with delight at each fresh proof of the enterprise and ingenuity of the species; and at each new triumph over nature and time. What food for self-congratulation at being born in an' age and nation, to which no obstacle is invincible, and each new want becomes the source of abundant gratification. On one side we have a pomade to make the hair grow; and on the other an ointment to check its exuberance, when we have the misfortune to apply the pomade in a wrong place. In the same page we find washes to preserve the gums, and in the next indestructible teeth to fit into them. The successes of our tradesmen in this department are most consoling; and I cannot conceal my hopes, that those who sweeten the breath and check the progress of decay in our teeth, may produce a reform in

parliament; that the "most sweet voices" of senators may become as wholesome as their kisses; that the incorruptibility of their grinders may pass to their votes; that journalists may cease to be foul-mouthed, and that the spirit of purity may pass from the persons to the minds of our representatives.

What a pleasing reflection it must afford too, in reading the journals, to pass from disease to disease, from deformity to deformity, and behold science and ingenuity triumphing over all; our medical writers, like so many St. Georges, with each a dragon prostrate at his feet, restoring their fellow-creatures from conditions "too loathsome to behold," and from maladies "universally deemed incurable," to the plenitude of youthful vigour and soundness of constitution. Then how delightful to know that stays may be had which remedy the worst deformity, and that when the "Macassar oil" has lost its power, wigs are made that put nature to the blush; that whiskers are manufactured that would deceive the lynx-like glance of a drill sergeant, and that eyes are fabricated so very cleverly that they do every thing but see.

On the other hand, the wealth and abundance of the nation, as evinced in the frequency of feasts and public dinners, must give cause of general exultation; while those connected with charitable collections prove, that our own days can boast their Quintus Curtius's as well as antiquity: the sole difference is, that while the hero of Rome leaped into a gulf for the good of his country, Englishmen make a gulf of themselves, and swallow to suffocation in the service of their fellow-citizens. Then the number of these subscriptions and the vast sums raised, which whether they be for clothing and feeding the indigent at home, or making good Jews into bad Christians abroad, are filled with equal alacrity, prove the unbounded prodigality of the national benevolence. There is indeed only one drawback in this reflection, and that is, that the number of such institutions shews the great extent of the public necessities. But then, per contra, if the good things of this world were more equally distributed, we should be positive losers by all the good deeds, which would then want the occasions of their existence.

There is one other moral advantage derivable from reading advertisements, and which I would advise every man, whose fortune is not unbounded, to look to-I mean the exercise of self-control. The first page of a newspaper is like a spacious and splendid bazaar, in which the eyes, at every step, make the most furious demands on the purse. Here a play seduces; there a concert invites; further on, a smart curricle and grays may be had for an old song. To me (I must honestly declare it) every thing "patent" has charms almost irresistible; and from a mangle to a cork-screw, I have been the dupe of so many inven

tions, that the only empty space in my house is my pocket. The saving, I am fully aware, would be considerable from all these various œconomies of time and strength; but, somehow or other, the first cost runs away with a deal of money. If the great step to sound morality of conduct is the investigation of our nature, and the enlightening of our will, advertisements are by no means indifferent to public happiness. One discovers at the perusal of every paper an entire new series of wants, of which we were never before aware; all urgent, and all capable of becoming motives of action. Now as long as these lie perdus in the human breast, they are so many traps likely to catch the soul unawares, and upset the wisest train of resolute intentions: but by reading the journals, we probe and lay bare our inmost nature; and amidst the variety of their solicitations, we learn how much there is for a wise man to combat; and how necessary it is (to use a vulgar adage) to cut one's. coat according to one's cloth.

I was originally led to this train of thought (and I doubt not that the circumstance will form an epoch in ethical science) while waiting for my friend Heedless in a coffee-house. Heedless, who has nothing to do with his time, never keeps an appointment. I thought I had nicked my gentleman, by coming myself a full hour too late; but I was mistaken,-so down I sat, called for a dish of coffee and the newspaper; and having read all the debates, political and fashionable intelligence, thrice over, I was fairly beat into the advertisements. Here a new field suddenly burst upon the imagination. The gay confusion; the rerum concordia discors of so many heterogeneous subjects jumbled together in so small a space, amused, and for a time distracted me. But by degrees the mind became used to the hodge-podge, and the system of which I have endeavoured to give you a sketch, arranged itself in my head. Hour passed after hour unperceived; and when Heedless arrived, too late for the business which brought us together, I thought his presence an intrusion. I hurried, however, home to a cold dinner, and disregarding my wife's vituperative looks for spoiling the fish, and doing the mutton to a stick, I retired to my study; and I have made such progress in this new train of investigation, that I hope, before the season is over, to be able to give a course of extempore lectures at the Freemasons' Tavern upon the advertisements of the day; which will embrace the "quicquid agunt homines," and lay open the most hidden recesses of human volition; while, by the clearness of the principles they will lay down, I shall supersede the necessity for the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for Penitentiaries, and for Evening Lectures, throughout the metropolis; by which, if the minister does not put a tax on my tickets of admission, I calculate that I shall be the instrument of an œconomical reform of great

value, which (as it will not interfere with the gains of any person who is of any consideration) is not likely to meet with a formidable resistance. In the mean time, Sir, if you have a mind to write any thing in favour of my system in your future numbers, I will give you a few private lectures before the great course commences; and in that hope I remain

Your obedient servant,

X.

TITLE-PAGES.

A TITLE-PAGE has been aptly said to resemble the entrance of a building, the fashion and workmanship of which are the indexes to the style of the interior, and upon whose goodly or ungracious aspect, accordingly, depends whether or not the stranger will incline to busy himself with an enquiry into what may be seen within. To all those authors, therefore, who are solicitous that the wisdom of their books shall not lie hidden for the want of a comely and self-recommending admittance-way (comprehending, I verily think, as many as there are members of the ancient and respectable calling of authorship), it is of the highest concern how they resolve upon a title-page; for as it is not by a mean, ill-proportioned vestibule that a spectator can be invited to survey the chambers and fixtures within a house, so it is by an engaging and promising title-page-ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores-that the attentive perusal of his work may be compassed by an author. The days have been, indeed, when the knowledge that was to be found betwixt the two covers of a book, required not that it should be preceded by a fair titlepage into the world, ere it found favour in men's sight-but when every man and woman skilled in the mysteries of clerkship, did boldly adventure upon the reading of a tome, however homely and austere was its front.

In the simple and primitive days of the great typographical patriarch, Will. Caxton, that sort of card of invitation to the "gentle reader," which in later times passed under the denomination of a title-page, was not known. The world had been but lately stunned by the prodigies of the typographical art: the novelty of books, and the notion of a miraculous agency in their production, secured to the illustrious speculators in printing an ample share of patronage. It has been my fortune to witness, in the sanctuary of a worthy bibliopolist, the greedy search of a hot adventurer just entered upon the cure of books, after the titlepage to some genuine folio of the manufacture of Will. Caxton, and to mark the significant nod with which he resigned the illfated volume convicted of the deficiency of a title-page! The

essay

state of such a man is only to be paralleled by that of the poor catechumen in bibliography, bearing away, upon some fortunate morning, as the identical workmanship of the illustrious father just mentioned, an ingenious resemblance to one of his scarcest productions, with a title-page, like a mark of reprobation on its forehead! How admirably contrived, meanwhile, are all the symptoms of decay-how judiciously its various infirmities are forced-the per-centage to Time how carefully discharged the encroachments of the envious moths, how skillfully imitated!--altogether it is such a perfect specimen of artificial wasting away, that, to a lay-spectator, it has the appearance of dying of old age in the very prime of life. When titlepages were first introduced, they were characterized by simplicity and plainness. They did not exceed a line and a half; and the name of the author or printer, or date, seldom appeared there. But the ambition of possessing books now began to diminish notwithstanding the encouragements held out to the cultivation of learning; and it became necessary to stimulate the decayed appetite which threatened the illustrious labourers at the press. Accordingly the use of ornamental title-pages was introduced. For the invention of this ingenious remedy we are indebted to the great successor of Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde. The first of Wynkyn towards ornamental typography is to be met with in the title-page to his edition of Bartholomæus de proprietatibus Rerum. The title itself, in large Gothic letters, makes two lines across the page. The letters were deeply cut into a large wooden block, leaving the surface with many slight incisions to form a dark back-ground. A good idea of the manner in which the title is executed, may be had from the small black space on a Bank note, in which the amount of the note is stated in white letters. This specimen of early typographical workmanship is highly esteemed for the neatness of the execution and the proportions. It would appear, however, that the merits of this plan of a title-page-which truly was but a small improvement on the fashion of title-pages already in use, and to which men seemed so indifferent--were not appreciated to the whole extent of Wynkyn's estimate; and we find him accordingly introducing into the plan of his title-pages various ornamental figures and devices. The earliest instance of an ornamental titlepage occurs in his venerable edition of the work entitled Crafte to lyve well and to dye well," which is a translation from the French, and a reprint of an edition already published by Caxton. The title to this work in Wynkyn's edition fills a line and a half of large Gothic letters, surrounded by a plain border: beneath it is a hearse drawn by a pair of horses richly caparisoned. Through the arches in the back-ground is a distant view of a castle and some houses. The border is composed of two pillars

The