shut up his shop and run away. If in one we find the victory of a general, in the other we see the desertion of a private soldier. I must confess I have a certain weakness in my temper that is often very much affected by these little domestic occurrences, and have frequently been caught with tears in my eyes over a melancholy advertisement.
“But to consider this subject in its most ridiculous lights, advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador. An advertisement from Piccadilly goes down to posterity with an article from Madrid, and John Bartlett2 of Goodman’s Fields is celebrated in the same paper with the Emperor of Germany. Thus the fable tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his back.