CHAPTER XI. CURIOUS AND ECCENTRIC ADVERTISEMENTS.

common origin, and then the claims of each version are as near as possible equal. There is, however, a way out of all difficulties, and the way in this is to verify the advertisements themselves, and pay no attention to the apocrypha to which they give rise; and though it is a tedious proceeding, and one which shows little in return for the pains taken, it may be something to our readers to know, that curious as many of the specimens given are, they are real and original, and that in the course of our researches we have unearthed many impostures in the way of quotations from advertisements which have never yet appeared, unless private views of still more private copies of papers have been allowed their promulgators. There is, after all, little reason for a display of inventive power, for the real material is so good, and withal so natural, as to completely put the finest fancy to a disadvantage. It has