The advertisement has long since become an independent department of literature, subject to its own canons of criticism, having its own laws of composition, and conducted by a class of writers, who though they may (we do not assert they do) acknowledge their inferiority to the great historians, poets, or novelists of the day, would nevertheless consider themselves greatly injured were we to hesitate to admit them into the corporation of the ‘gens de lettres’ … The advertisement writer … claims kindred with genius of all sorts, and considers himself entitled to a share of the glory of all undertakings under the sun, from the Thames Tunnel to the manufacture of a razor-strop. In fact, he is to the … shopkeeper what Homer was to Achilles, Tasso to Godfrey, Camoens to Gama, or Milton to Cromwell: without him, what would his shops avail a Mechi, his XX a Guinness, his pills a Cockle, his Chesterfields a Doudney, his locks a Chubb, or his envelope a Stocken?

‘To let’ – ‘To let’, – ‘Lost’, – and ‘Wanted’. How very edifying these advertisements are! ‘Strayed!’ – ‘Rowland's Macassar’, – Ditto ‘Kalydor’, – and a ‘Fine bear to be shot!’ … Capital! capital! how I doat on advertisements.