In turning over the musty little quarto newspapers which mirror with such vividness the characteristic lineaments of the Commonwealth period, not yet left behind us, we chanced upon an advertisement which tells perhaps more than any other of the dangerous complexion of those times. It is an advertisement for some runaway young "sawbones," whose love of desperate adventure appears to have led him to prefer the tossing of a pike to pounding with a pestle:-- _George Weale_, a Cornish youth, about 18 or 19 years of age, serving as an Apprentice at _Kingston_ with one Mr. _Weale_, an Apothecary, and his Uncle, about the time of the rising of the Counties _Kent_ and _Surrey_, went secretly from his said Uncle, and is conceived to have engaged in the same, and to be either dead, or slain in some of those fights, having never since been heard of, either by his said Uncle, or any of his Friends. If any person can give notice of the certainty of the death of the said _George Weale_, let him repair to the said Mr. _Graunt_ his House in Drum-alley in Drury Lane, _London_; he shall have twenty shillings for his pains.--_Mercurius Politicus_, Dec. 8, 1659. Here at least we have probably preserved the name of one of the fameless men who were "slain in some of those fights," a phrase which in these days opens to us a chapter in romance. With the exception of book advertisements and quack medicines, we have not up to this date met with a single instance of a tradesman turning the newspaper to account in making known his goods to the public. The very first announcement of this nature, independently of its being in itself a curiosity, possesses a very strong interest, from the fact that it marks the introduction of an article of food which perhaps more than all others has served to wean the nation from one of its besetting sins of old--drunkenness. Common report, Mr. Disraeli informs us, attributes the introduction of "the cup which cheers but not inebriates," to Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory, who are said to have brought over a small quantity from Holland in 1666. The author of the "Curiosities of Literature" does not think this statement satisfactory, and tells us that he has heard of Oliver Cromwell's teapot being in the possession of a collector. We never knew before of these teetotal habits of the Protector, but we can so far back the story as to find chronologically correct bohea to put into his pot; for though it is true that the date of the following advertisement is three weeks after the death of his highness, it refers to the article as a known and, by physicians, an approved drink, and therefore must have been some time previously on sale:--