25 mars 1728

An advertisement published in the March 25, 1728, issue of The Daily Journal exhibits the "formal realism" for which Richardson's novels were to be so celebrated. Positioned between a notice that "a large Brick House" is "To be Lett" and an announcement that "the Principal Part of the Collection of Pictures, of Mr. Nicholas Blick, deceased" is "to be sold on Wednesday the 20th Instant, at his Son's House," it reads:

Lost on Thursday last, between Grace-Church-street, and Long-Acre, by a Person that went Part of the Way in a Hackney-Coach, about five Yards of Cambrick and two of Muslin, three little square Boards and several small Bits of Linen of different Colours, all ty'd up together in a blue and white check'd silk Handkerchief, with a reddish Border round the Edges, and mark'd with a D at one of the Corners: If the Person who has found the abovesaid Things, will bring or send them to Mr. RICHARDSON'S, Printer, in Salisbury-Court; or to Mr. BENN'S Coffee-house, in New Bond-street, by Hanover-Square, they shall receive half a Guinea Reward, and Thanks.

The advertisement's detailed description of the contents of the lost bundle is reminiscent of famous passages in Pamela, such as Pamela's account of the contents of the third of the three bundles into which she divides her belongings

(Jill Campbell. "Domestic Intelligence: Newspaper Advertising and the Eighteenth-Century Novel". In The Yale Journal of Criticism. Volume 15, Number 2, Fall 2002, pp. 251-291.)