"1802.] 
ing an article, would prefer buying at 
the firft hand to dealing with a middle- 
man. The buyer knows that the miadle- 
man is more likely than Iam, from his 
habits of dealing in the article, to afk a 
proper price for the calf; that is to fay, 
the highet price that the buyer would be 
willing to give. But do the believers in 
the wickedne(s of foreftalling with to make 
calves cheap by want of information in 
the owner? The price at which you 
ought to fell, (for I {peak not now of 
charity ; and it is to be lamented that fel- 
ling and giving are ever mixed together, ) 
is the higheft that the buyer will give; 
the price at which you ought to buy, is 
From the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
233. 
the loweft that the feller will take, al/ cir- 
cumfiances being known. To endeavour, 
by penal laws, or by any other methed, 
to prevent him with whom you deal from 
ftanding on even ground with yourfelf in 
point of information, is to fell a lottery 
ticket, when you know, by means of a 
carrier-pidgeon, that it has been drawn a 
blank; or to buy acargo fhipped fora 
foreign port, becaufe you have been told, 
before the owner has been told, of the fign- 
ing of preliminaries of peace. “Thefe are 
real crimes, which are fuffered to efcape, 
while juftice is engaged in the purfuit of 
offences that are purely ideal. 
MisORHETOR, 
Exiraéis from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
an eee 
COPIES Of fome ADVERTISEMENTS pub- 
lifhed in the LONDON GAZETTE, iz 
1665. NG 
T may be remarked, that, in. the pub- 
lic papers publifhed about the time 
of the Reftoration, the advertifements re- 
late almoft entirely to quack-medicines, 
books, and accidental loffes of different 
kinds. If we compare the ftate of trade 
at that period with its prefent greaineis, 
it will appear very low ; but ‘the trades- 
men of London were a numerous body, 
and the general abfence of advertifements 
on commercial fubjeéts can only be attri- 
buted to their not having yet experianced 
the advantages to be derived from infert-- 
ing an account of their commodities in a 
work of general circuiation. Even fales, 
of which a public notice is neceffary to 
their very exiftence, were feldom adver- 
tifed. - A féw inftances occur, in which a 
notice is given of the fale of prizes and 
ftores in the poffeffion of government. 
The Quacks feem to have been as nume- 
rous as their fucceffors of the prefént day, 
and the manner in which they addreffed 
the public differs not much from that 
which is ftill adopted. No alteration or 
improvement of a material fort could in- 
deed be expected, as the ftyle natural to 
the profeffion had been hit on,—of pro- 
mifing to the fatisfaction of the moft exor- 
bitant expeGtant. It is worthy of obfer- 
vation, that, during the great plague, 
there was not the inundation of their me- 
dicines which fome might expect. Times~ 
of dangerous ficknefs are not the moft 
favourable to quacks, they live more on 
the fancied than the real fufferings of 
‘mankind, The medicine which feems to 
have been moft popular during this cala- 
mity, was called the Couzte/s of Kent’s 
Powder, the confumption of which was fo 
sreat, that the vender was enabled to fell it 
at a third part of the ordinary price. It 
appears, from the above collection, that 
the College of Phyficians fanétioned three 
preparations with their recommendation— 
thofe who are converfant with the hiftory 
of phyfic, will be informed whether. any 
knowledge of them beyond that of their 
names {till furvives. During the greateft 
height of the plague, very few advertife - 
ments were publifhed not in fome degree 
relating to it—the dreadful havock which 
it made abforbing the attention of every 
one, and putting a ftep to all common 
bulinefs. The advertifements of books 
were fele€ted from a confiderable number, 
fome for the manner in which they are ° 
exprefied, and fome for the celebrity of 
the books themfelves: the Burlefque of 
Virgil is Cotton's Trave/fiie, well-known 
to the lovers of -humour; and Tho. 
Sprat, mentioned as a writer of an Ac- 
count of the Plague of Athens, is a name 
of great literary eminence.’ It may be 
obferved, that the bookfeller does not 
{cruple to introduce an eulogium on the 
author of the work, a liberty which, pro- 
ceeding froma perfon fo interefted, would 
not, be tolerated by the delicacy of the 
prefent age. The firt advertifernent by 
the mayor is on a very curious and intereft- 
ing fubject, and the fecond is no lefs wor- 
thy of attention. ‘The admirable, and 
feemingly obvious, convenience of num- 
bering the houfes had not yet come into 
ufe in London ; hence the neceffity of that 
particularity with which fome of the ad- 
Gg 2 vertifers 
