l who are interested in literature
will be glad to see. Here it is:--

WANTED, A POET.--A tradesman who wishes to advertise his wares
extensively, wants a Gentleman who can Write Advertising Poetical
Effusions with facility.--Apply by letter, containing specimens of
poetry, to A S, at the Printer's.

Though poor JOHNSON or GOLDSMITH would have been glad of such an offer,
some conceited brethren of the goose-quill may look with contempt at the
idea of the application of poetry to the advertisement of wares. Why not
apply poetry to the advertisement of wares as well as apply Art to their
construction? is not Art-crockery considered a great thing?--and what is
your School of Design for, but to supply us with Art-clothes and
Art-furniture; so that in good time we shall have Art-velvets,
Art-cottons, Art-muslins, Art-silks, and Art-satins, for Art-waistcoats,
Art-shirt-fronts, Art-frocks, Art-slips, Art-gowns; likewise Art-chairs
and Art-tables, Art-fenders, Art-fire-irons, Art-pots and Art-kettles,
Art-coalscuttles, Art-paper for walls, Art-bell-pulls, Art-pump-handles,
Art bedsteads, and Art-washhand basins? The spirit of the age requires
that Art shall be turned to practical account. He that would prosper by
the poetical Art must utilise it. One way to do so, as good as any
other, would be to sing the praises of candlesticks, for instance, or
knives and forks, or haberdashery, or any other description of goods;
what not? Poets have quite exhausted their old stock of subjects; they
want a new stock, and that of a linendraper would be as good as any. The
lines--

O heavenly Muse! the vast assortment sing,
Of JACKSON, JOHNSON, WILKINSON and KING,

for example, might serve for the commencement, and indicate the argument
of a modern Epic of the Manchester School. The place of the hero in the
poem would of course be supplied by a power-loom. But the "poetical
effusions" required as per advertisement would necessarily be lyrical.
Here an abundance of themes opens up to the bard. Suppose that the wares
which the poet is engaged to advertise are stuffs. It will not follow
that his verses should be stuff too. Leaving doggrel to the minstrel of
MOSES, he might aim at a really sentimental treatment of his subject. He
might, with the view of calling public attention to a silk, write
something of this sort:--

LINES TO ISABEL.

I saw thee dancing in the hall;
The beauteous robe that draped thy form