object of the following curious advertisement, dated 9th April 1772:-- "This day was published, price one shilling the pack, and sold by Peter Williamson, printer, in the head of Forester's Wynd, Edinburgh, the IMPENETRABLE SECRETS which is called PROVERB-CARDS, containing excellent sentiment, and are so composed, that they discover the thoughts of one's mind in a very curious and extraordinary manner. The explanation of the secret is given gratis with the pack; each set consists of twenty cards, and ten lines upon each card."[23] [22] A representation of it will be found in the _Scots Magazine_ for 1762, p. 404. [23] This advertisement, with other curious newspaper-scraps regarding Williamson, is preserved in the biographical notices of Kay's Portraits, i. 137. We may here, perhaps, have traced to its invention the well-known toy called "Conversation-Cards," which has enlivened many a little Christmas party. If this be so, the debt of youth in general, to the poor kidnapped boy, is not small. In 1776 he started a weekly periodical called "The Scot's Spy, or Critical Observer," which appears to have been continued through the following year with the title of "The New Scot's Spy." In the mean time, he kept a tavern, over the door of which he advertised himself as "from the other world." It appears to have been for some time in the Parliament Square, and subsequently in the interior of the Parliament House itself, part of the wide area of which was partitioned into booths. Every now and then he was dropping before the public some invention great or small. Now it was a "new invented portable printing-press;" next, marking-ink for linen, "which stands washing, boiling, and bleaching, and is more regular and beautiful than any needle." But the chief monument of his energy was the establishment of a penny post-office for the city of Edinburgh, which he supported as a private speculation. It appears to have been soon after the year 1780 that he commenced this undertaking, and contemporaneously with it he published a Street Directory. One might suppose that the post-office, the directory, and the tavern, with an occasional invention or pamphlet, would form sufficient occupation, not only for one head, but one family. Williamson, however, must have _all_ his fires full of irons; and so we find that his wife and daughter had to appear before the public as busy as himself in their own department. On the cover of his directory it is intimated, that "Mantua-making is carried on in all its branches as formerly," by "Mrs Williamson and daughter;" who, lest any means of exercising their craft should pass them, by reason either of its insignificance or its gravity, are made to state, that they "engraft silk, cotton, thread, and worsted stockings; make silk gloves, and every article in the engrafting branch, in the neatest manner, and on the most reasonable