The theory of advertising must about this time have been found considerably interesting to men who were unlikely to participate in its benefits unless it were through the increased prosperity of the newspapers to which they contributed, for essays and letters on the subject, some humorous and others serious, appear quite frequently. Most noticeable among the former is an article from the pen of Addison, which appears in No. 224 of the Tatler, date September 14, 1710. It will speak better for itself than we can speak for it:—
“Materiem superabat opus.—Ovid. Met. ii. 5.
“The matter equall’d not the artist’s skill.—R. Wynne.
“It is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those collections of advertisements that appear at the end of our public prints. These I consider as accounts of news from the little world, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the paper are from the great. If in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from his capital city, in the other we hear of a tradesman who has