SAMOl l.l.l K S 



chief, at least it we may judge from the change of 

 name which took place upon their becoming com- 

 mon. Their original English name was Chinche or 

 Wall-louse \ and the term Bug, which is a Celtic 

 word, signifying a ghost or goblin, (and for the in- 

 formation we are indebted to that learned antiquary, 

 F. Douce, Esq. in his Illustrations of Shakspeare) was 

 applied to them after Kay's time, most prohahly he- 

 cause they were considered as ' terrors by night.' But 

 however horrihle bugs may have been in the estima- 

 tion of some, or nauseating in that of others, many of 

 the good people of London seem to regard them with 

 tin- greatest apathy, and take very little pains to get 

 rid of them ; not generally, however, it is to he 

 hoped, to such an extent as the predecessor to a cor- 

 respondent in Nicholson's Journal, who found his 

 house so dreadfully infested by them, that it resembled 

 the Banian hospital at Surat, all his endeavours to 

 destroy them being at first in vain. And no wonder; 

 for, as he learned from a neighbour, his predecessor 

 would never suffer them to he disturbed or his bed- 

 steads to be removed, till, in the end, they swarmed 

 to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of 

 his drawing-room ; and after his death millions were 

 found in his bed and chamber furniture." 



