One of the tribe, who, until lately, practised the art and mystery of his forefathers as a dealer in old clothes, suddenly changed his _profession_, and, calculating the chances to be two to one in his favour, ventured, neck or nothing, to blazon himself forth as an experienced, scientific, and practical optician. A book, bearing his name as its author, and sundry special appointments, obtained by dint of the most brazen assurance and persevering importunity, were ostentatiously paraded before the wondering eyes of her majesty’s liege subjects. The public are stultified, and the eminent individual himself, is almost astonished that the scheme should take, and like the “Fly preserved in amber, wonders how the d—— he came there.” There are artists in his locality who can give many _graphic_ illustrations of the disregard to truth, violation of friendship, and cunning perversion of facts, of which this individual has been guilty, and yet no one has a greater array of eminent names and testimonials to show—many signatures of really clever men having been obtained by some means or other. Surely there is much piquancy and truth in the Spanish proverb: “those who know most are oftenest cheated.” FOOTNOTES: [10] Pebbles, it is scarcely necessary to say, are colourless. [11] This gentleman stormed most lustily when made aware of the trick which had been practised upon him, and threatened legal exposure to the “professional optician.” But this course is seldom resorted to, the dupes recollecting that, while they publish the swindler’s villainy, they give us but an indifferent idea of their own discernment, beside the uncertainty and incongruity ever attendant upon Law, thus quaintly sketched by Bentham;—“If a man give you a black eye, you make him pay for it, but if he put your eye out, you get nothing; and whatever is taken from him goes nominally to the queen—really to John Stokes or Jack Nokes who have no concern at all in the matter. If a man kill your pig, you get the value of it, but if he kill your wife or your child, you get nothing—if any thing is got out of him it goes to a stranger, as before. A man sets your house on fire, if by misfortune, you receive amends, if through malice, you receive nothing.” CHAPTER VI. “See, arm’d with great authority, they come, And with great names and numbers strike us dumb; Reason and common sense to names must fall, And strength of argument’s no strength at all.”—DODSLEY. I will now produce a few specimens of Puffing Advertisements, which will show how sounding words are senselessly strung together to give an air of importance to their originators, and leave my readers to judge for themselves how far the public ought to be influenced by them. The orthography (?) of these puffs is, in every way worthy of the authors of them. They are given _pure_. PUFF, No. 1. Improved Eye Preservers, patronized by the Faculty of the Eye Infirmaries for Cataract, and other improved glasses.