“At the same time that I recommend the several flowers in which this spirit of lavender is wrapped up, if the expression may be used, I cannot excuse my fellow-labourers for admitting into their papers several uncleanly advertisements, not at all proper to appear in the works of polite writers. Among them I must reckon the ‘Carminative Wind-Expelling Pills.’ If the Doctor had called them ‘Carminative Pills,’ he had been as cleanly as any one could have wished; but the second word entirely destroys the decency of the first. There are other absurdities of this nature so very gross, that I dare not mention them; and shall therefore dismiss this subject with an admonition to Michael Parrot, that he do not presume any more to mention a certain worm he knows of, which, by the way, has grown seven foot in my memory; for, if I am not much mistaken, it is the same that was but nine feet long about six months ago. “By the remarks I have here made, it plainly appears, that a collection of advertisements is a kind of miscellany; the writers of which, contrary to all authors, except men of quality, give money to the booksellers who publish their copies. The genius of the bookseller is chiefly shown in his method of ranging and digesting these little tracts. The last paper I took up in my hands places them in the following order:-- “The true Spanish blacking for shoes, etc. “The beautifying cream for the face, etc. “Pease and Plasters, etc. “Nectar and Ambrosia, etc. “Four freehold tenements of fifteen pounds per annum, etc. “The present state of England, etc. “Annotations upon the _Tatler_, etc. “A commission of Bankrupt being awarded against R. L., bookseller, etc.” This essay probably aroused a good deal of attention, and among the letters of correspondents is one from a “Self-interested Solicitor,” which appears in No. 228, and runs thus:-- “_Mr Bickerstaff._ “I am going to set up for a scrivener, and have thought of a project which may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head upon reading that learned and useful paper of yours concerning advertisements. You must understand I have made myself Master in the whole art of advertising, both as to the style and the letter. Now if you and I could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides myself, or print them anywhere but in your paper, we might both of us get estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose that you should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends, and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman who would willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor Whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a contrary party, who is willing to get into one.