fruits to insinuate obsequious rivulets into
visionary groves-to teach courteous shrubs 120
to nod their approbation of the grateful soil;
or on emergencies to raise upstart oaks, where
there never had been an acorn; to create a
delightful vicinage without the assistance of a
neighbour; or fix the temple of Hygeia in
the fens of Lincolnshire!

Dang. I am sure you have done them infinite service;
for now, when a gentleman is ruined, he parts
with his house with some credit.

Sneer. Service! if they had any gratitude, they 130 would erect a statue to him; they would figure him as a presiding Mercury, the god of traffic and fiction, with a hammer in his hand instead of a caduceus.-But pray, Mr Puff, what first put you on exercising your talents in this way?

You

Puff. Egad, sir, sheer necessity!-the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention. must know, Mr Sneer, that from the first time I tried hand at an advertisement, my success 140 was such, that for some time after I led a most extraordinary life indeed!

my

Sneer. How, pray?

Puff. Sir, I supported myself two years entirely by my misfortunes.

Sneer. By your misfortunes!

Puff. Yes, sir, assisted by long sickness, and other occasional disorders; and a very comfortable living I had of it.

Sneer. From sickness and misfortunes! You practised 150 as a doctor and an attorney at once?

Puff. No, egad; both maladies and miseries were my own.

Sneer. Hey! what the plague!

Dang. 'Tis true, i' faith.

Puff. Hark'ee!-By advertisements-To the charitable and humane! and To those whom Providence bath blessed with affluence!

Sneer. Oh, I understand you.

Puff. And, in truth, I deserved what I got; for I 160 suppose never man went through such a series

of calamities in the same space of time.

Sir, I
was five times made a bankrupt, and reduced
from a state of affluence, by a train of unavoid-
able misfortunes: then, sir, though a very in-
dustrious tradesman, I was twice burned out,
and lost
my little all both times: I lived
upon
those fires a month. I soon after was confined

by a most excruciating disorder, and lost the
use of my
limbs that told very well; for I 170
had the case strongly attested, and went about

to collect the subscriptions myself.

Dang. Egad, I believe that was when you first called

on me.

Puff. In November last?-O no; I was at that time a close prisoner in the Marshalsea, for a debt benevolently contracted to serve a friend. I was afterwards twice tapped for a dropsy, which declined into a very profitable consumption. I was then reduced to-O no-then, I became a 180 widow with six helpless children, after having had eleven husbands pressed, and being left every time eight months gone with child, and without money to get me into an hospital! Sneer. And you bore all with patience, I make no doubt?

Puff. Why, yes; though I made some occasional

attempts at felo de se; but as I did not find
those rash actions answer, I left off killing my-
self very soon. Well, sir, at last, what with 190
bankruptcies, fires, gouts, dropsies, imprison-
ments, and other valuable calamities, having
got together a pretty handsome sum, I deter-

mined to quit a business which had always gone
rather against my conscience, and in a more
liberal way still to indulge my talents for fiction
and embellishments, through my favourite
channels of diurnal communication—and so, sir,
you have my history.

Sneer. Most obligingly communicative indeed! and 200
your confession, if published, might certainly
serve the cause of true charity, by rescuing the
most useful channels of appeal to benevolence
from the cant of imposition. But surely, Mr
Puff, there is no great mystery in your present
profession?

Puff. Mystery, sir! I will take upon me to say the matter was never scientifically treated nor reduced to rule before.

Sneer. Reduced to rule!

Puff. O lud, sir, you are very ignorant, I am afraid! -Yes, sir, puffing is of various sorts; the principal are, the puff direct, the puff preliminary, the puff collateral, and the puff collusive, and the puff oblique, or puff by implication. These all assume, as circumstances require, the various forms of Letter to the Editor, Occasional Anecdote, Impartial Critique, Observation from

210

Correspondent, or Advertisement from the

Party.

220

Sneer. The puff direct, I can conceivePuff. O yes, that's simple enough! For instance,a new comedy or farce is to be produced at one of the theatres (though by-the-by they don't bring out half what they ought to do)—the author, suppose Mr Smatter, or Mr Dapper, or any particular friend of mine-very well; the day before it is to be performed, I write an account of the manner in which it was received; I have the plot from the author, and only add 230 -"characters strongly drawn-highly coloured -hand of a master-fund of genuine humourmine of invention-neat dialogue-Attic salt." Then for the performance-"Mr Dodd was astonishingly great in the character of Sir Harry. That universal and judicious actor, Mr Palmer, perhaps never appeared to more advantage than in the colonel ;-but it is not in the power of language to do justice to Mr King: indeed he more than merited those re- 240 peated bursts of applause which he drew from a most brilliant and judicious audience. As to the scenery—the miraculous powers of Mr De