A 1792 Lonely Heart?

 It often happens that I’m doing some research and stumble across something interesting that sadly has nothing whatsoever to do with my current book.

Here’s an intriguing advert I found in a 1792 edition of The Times. I’m sure there must be a perfectly innocent explanation, but as innocent explanations aren’t my forté, I’d be interested to hear any speculation on what this gentleman is up to, and why it requires secrecy:

 

TO THE LADIES

 

A Middle-aged Gentleman, with a Chearful disposition, wishes much to have the pleasure and happiness to make himself agreeable to conduct the business of a Lady, as he would make it his whole study to do everything in his power in order to benefit his employer, in whatever Business the Lady may trust to his care. He is of good Family and Connections; and can give security for any sum, having a small place under Government, but he wishes something to occupy his leisure hours.

Any Lady whom this may suit, will be waited on in a few days, by directing to Mr. Lucas, at the Rainbow Coffee-house, Covent Garden. Honour and Secrecy is requested.

 

If you think he is genuine, perhaps he would be the perfect person to fill in my tax return. I got a phone call the other day from the Inland Revenue politely reminding me that I haven’t done it yet, and then yesterday I got a letter – again politely reminding me that I haven’t done it yet, which I already know, because I haven’t done it yet.

This will be the first one I’ve ever done and, while it’s not all that confusing, it feels a bit pointless because most of last tax year I was on maternity leave from a proper job, so the company did all the tax stuff and I’ve already paid. So filling in a tax return is just boring, and I could do with someone of a Chearful disposition to spare me the effort. After that he could mow the lawn, sweep the chimney and put the binbag out as well. And make me a cup of tea. 

Behind The Times

I’m always behind the times, out of the loop, with no idea what’s going on… that’s probably why I write historical fiction, because if stuff has happened in the past, then I just about stand a chance of keeping up with it.

Contemporary fiction is too mind-boggling – I mean, all that research! I’d have to watch Big Brother. I’d have to go on foreign holidays; spend hours on the phone; wear make-up; know what it felt like to have a proper hairstyle. I’d have to make a special trip into London to go to… yikes!… shops and try on Jimmy Choos so that I could gauge how difficult it would be for my heroine to climb a tree in them. I’d have to eat a McDonald’s Chicken-Muck Sandwich before going home to agonise over my cellulite and assuage my guilt by swaying gently side to side on a Wii Fit.

 

I’d have to spend all my spare time mindlessly surfing the internets. Oh, wait…

 

Anyway, my absolute out-of-date-ness has manifested itself once again in the fact that I have only just discovered the Times Online Archive, which gives access to all issues of The Times from 1785 to 1985. I discovered it on Tuesday, when it was just coming to the end of a free trial period. Now it costs £14.95 per month. Dang.

 

I spent a frantic couple of days searching for things related to my work-in-progress, collecting quack advertisements (some of which I will transcribe and post up in due course) and getting sidetracked by peculiar news stories. I think I’ve managed to save everything I currently need, so I’m resisting the temptation to sign up for the fifteen-quid a month option. Interesting though the resource is, I know from experience with genealogy websites that the novelty quickly wears off and then you have to email and phone a million people to try to cancel the subscription.

 

There are fortunately a few other sources of old UK newspapers online, and I’ve made a list here in case they are useful to anyone else (and so I don’t forget about them).

• Nineteenth-century Serials Edition – currently six titles available in facsimile
• British Library Online Newspaper Archive – facsimiles of four titles covering a small selection of years in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. (The BL also has a huge newspaper archive accessible online at the library itself.)
• Richard Heaton’s Newspaper Collection – transcripts of lots of English and Irish regional newspaper articles, mainly from the Georgian and early Victorian periods
• Internet Library of Early Journals – discontinued Bodleian library project featuring six titles from the 18^th and 19^th centuries
• Penny Illustrated Paper – the complete run, 1861 – 1913, courtesy of the British Library
• Google News Archive – only just launched, and there don’t seem to be many British titles there yet, but this looks like it will be useful in the future.
• Google Book Search has some periodicals – ones I’ve used so far include the Gentleman’s Magazine, The Musical World and The Medical Times & Gazette.

If you know of any other free digitised/transcribed old newspapers, whether regional or national, I would be interested to hear about them. Though online research is not always the most reliable way of finding out about the past, digitised original sources like these are invaluable for those of us who would rather not contemplate turning up at the British Library with a toddler in tow.

Kill-Grief Cover Design

Here it is. I love it! I had no idea what to expect, so I was a bit nervous when I opened the email… but it was love at first sight. Now I just can’t stop looking at it. I’m going to print it out so I can carry it with me everywhere I go, and show it to random people in the street. 

Dr Rock’s Restorative Viper Drops

Are your spirits hurried and your brain in need of comforting? Are you suffering from the effects of hard drinking? Do your parts need warming and invigorating? Look no further. Here’s an 18th-century panacea to combat all your woes.

The advert below is from an August 1754 edition of Adams’s Weekly Courant – the main newspaper in Chester during the time Kill-Grief is set. (Interestingly, the paper was run by a woman, Elizabeth Adams, who took over her husband’s printing business after his death.) Like many of the quack nostrums of the day, Rock’s Viper Drops claim to cure anything whatsoever that is wrong with you – it’s a wonder we don’t have loads of 250-year-old people still wandering around in perfect health.

Restorative VIPER DROPS

 

THESE Drops have for these twenty Years past, in the Proprietor’s private Practice, proved themselves upon some hundred patients, to be an excellent Medicine, beyond any other Chymical Preparation offered to the Publick within the Compass of his Knowledge.

 

They restore greatly in weak Habits; strengthen weak Backs, warm and invigorate Parts that are languid and weaken’d by Gleets, or other Injuries; they help Digestion; comfort a cold Stomach, and expel Wind both from thence and the Bowels; they remedy the effects of hard Drinking; cleanse the Ureters from slimy and sabulous matter, thereby taking away Gravel pains in the back; compose hurry’d spirits, and take off Flutterings and Lowness, comforting the Brain and causing Chearfulness; they are a noble Balsamick also for all outward Bruises and Wounds, consolidating the Part injured, almost instantly; cure Burns or Scaldings, if immediately applied, in a surprising Manner, and without leaving disagreeable Marks or Eschars.

 

Any Persons by applying to the Proprietor, at his Shop, will be directed to People of undoubted Credit, who will satisfy them of the great good Effects of these Drops, in the above Cases, for which they are recommended, and in some very dangerous and complicated Disorders, not here inferred, for the sake of brevity.

 

They are pleasant to take, not giving the least Nausea or Offence to the tenderest stomach.

 

They are sold in bottles of Three Shillings, with the Cypher and Inscription, as here in the Margin, and in Eighteen-penny Bottles, at the Chymist’s Shop, the Golden Head and Key, at the corner of Bell Savage Gateway, Ludgate-Hill; at Mr Jefferys’s Bookseller, in Pope’s-Head Alley, Cornhill; and also at the Printer’s of this paper.

 

And for the real Excellence of this Medicine, and its absolute Difference from some Things called VIPER DROPS, any Persons may satisfy themselves, by coming to his Shop, with a Lump of Sugar at any Time, and have a proper Dose of them gratis, for their Satisfaction and Benefit.

 

At the above Places may be had, The PATENT ANTIVENEREAL ELECTUARY, Price Six Shillings in the Pot, with Directions.

 

 

Well, I should blooming well hope directions would be included, at that price.

 

“Dr” Richard Rock was a high-profile quack whose usual stomping-ground was Covent Garden – as shown in Hogarth’s The Four Times of the Day (Morning) where his products are being advertised on a billboard (difficult to see in the picture here, but it’s just above the page’s head). It must have been a bit much to expect anyone from Chester – especially someone ill – to tote a sugar lump down to the capital for the sake of a free dose, so he presumably used the printers of the Weekly Courant and other provincial newspapers as distributors.

 

If only the Viper Drops had lived up to all their claims… Then there would have been no need for Chester Infirmary to be set up a year later, and I would have had to find something else to write a book about.