civilisation are brought under our notice, as the busy life of bygone generations bursts full upon us. We see the merchant at his door, and inside the dimly-lit shops observe the fine ladies of the time deep in the mysteries of brocades and other articles of the feminine toilet, whose very names are now lost to even the mercers themselves. And not alone intent on flowered mantuas and paduasoys are they, for we can in fancy see them, keen ever to a fancied bargain, pricing Chinese teapots or Japanese cabinets, and again watch them as, with fluttering hearts, they assist at lotteries for valuables of the quality familiar to “knockouts” of our own time. We hear the lament of the beau who has lost his clouded amber-headed cane or his heart at the playhouse, and listen to the noisy quacks vending their nostrums, each praising his own wares or depreciating those of his rivals. We see the dishonest serving-man rush past us on the road carrying the heterogeneous treasures which have tempted his cupidity. Soon the “Hue and Cry” brings the same ill-favoured malefactor before us in an improved character as horse-stealer and highwayman; and ere long we hear of the conclusion of his short drama at Tyburn. Thus the various advertisements portray, with more or less vividness, lineaments of the times and the characters of the people. That the newspapers were early used for the purpose of giving contradictions by means of advertisement, or effecting sly puffs, is shown by the following, which was doubtless intended to call attention to the work, and which was published in the form of an ordinary paragraph in the _Modern Intelligence_, April 15-22, 1647:-- There came forth a book this day relating how a divil did appear in the house or yard of Mr Young, mercer in Lombard St., with a great many particulars there related; It is desired by the gentleman of that house, and those of his family, that all that are credulous of those things (which few wise are), may be assured that its all fabulous, and that there was never any such thing. It is true there is a dog, and that dog hath a chain, and the gentleman’s son played upon an instrument of music for his recreation,--but these are to be seen, which a spirit sure never was.