210 BUG AND BUGBEAR. 



name bears the same alarming import, has never " in dead of 

 night " stalked up and down thy curtains, and with intent far 

 more bloody than ever midnight spectre was known or sup- 

 posed to entertain. Let us change the coiestion : Have you 

 ever been alarmed, or worse, by that familiar of London, 

 Paris, Madrid, or Lisbon, yclept, in English parlance, a lug ? 

 If so, you have been visited by goblin, for ghost or goblin 

 does luy, in Celtic, signify. Nor, till in times comparatively 

 recent, has that six-legged " terror," which creepeth by night, 

 been thus appellated. 



Of the common root of lug and luglear a curious proof 

 is noticed in the ' Insect Miscellanies/ namely, that in Mat- 

 thew's Bible, the fifth verse of the 91st Psalm is rendered 

 " Thou shalt not nede be afraide of any lugs by night ;" and 

 in this same sense the word must have been put by Shakespeare 

 into the mouth of the Prince of Denmark : 



" With ho ! such bugs and goblins in my life." 



Chinche, or wall-louse, was the name under which bugs were 

 known before the time of Ray. But what's in a name ? 

 Roses, we know, by any other "would smell as sweet," and, 

 reversing the objects and their equality, let's wash our hands of 

 them. But stop ! Before we leave their favourite locality, 

 the bed of down which they convert into a bed of nettles, let's 

 see what is this moving object* on the floor, by the bedside. 



* Reduvius ^rsonatus. 



