THAT since his decease she hath followed the same business, and lives at the house of Mrs Mary Roundhall, in Bearlane, Christ Church Parish, Southwark. Such quality and gentry as are troubled with buggs, and are desirous to be kept free from those vermin, may know, on sending their commands to her lodgings aforesaid, when she will agree with them on easy terms, and at the first sight will justly tell them which of their beds are infested, &c., and which are free, and what is the expense of clearing the infested ones, never putting any one to more expense than necessary.
Persons who cannot afford to pay her price, and is willing to destroy them themselves, may by sending notice to her place of abode aforesaid, be furnish’d with the Non Pareil Liquor, &c. &c.
Bugs are said to have been very little if at all known in the days of our ancestors. It is indeed affirmed in that valuable addition to zoology, Southall’s “Treatise of Bugs” (London, 1730, 8vo), referred to in the advertisement just quoted, that this insect was scarcely known in England before the year 1670, when it was imported among the timber used in rebuilding the city of London after the fire of 1666. That it was, however, known much earlier is not to be doubted, though probably it was far less common than at present, since Dr Thomas Muffet, in the “Theatrum Insectorum,” informs us that Dr Penny, one of the early compilers of that history of insects, relates his having been sent for in great haste to Mortlake in Surrey, to visit two noble ladies who imagined themselves seized with symptoms of the plague; but on Penny’s demonstrating to them the true cause of their complaint—viz., having been bitten by those insects, and even detecting them in their presence—the whole affair was turned into a jest. This was in the year 1583. It is a somewhat remarkable fact, well known to those whose misfortunes subject them to contiguity with these highly-scented bloodsuckers, that within the past few years bugs have altered considerably. The old, nearly round-bellied, and possibly jovial fellow, has given way to a long dangerous creature who is known to experts as the “omnibus bug,” not so much on account of his impartiality as because of his shape. It is believed by some that this change is the result of bugs being discontented with their position, and their natural (and laudable) attempt to become something else in accordance with scientific theory; but we fancy that the true reason of this change is that foreign bugs have been imported in large numbers among cargoes, and not infrequently about passengers, and that the original settlers are being gradually exterminated in a manner similar to that which led to the extirpation of the black rat in this country. There is yet another theory with regard to the change which it would be unfair to pass over. It is that the bugs have altered—it is admitted on all sides that the alteration first exhibited itself at the East End of London—in consequence of feeding on mixed and barbarous races about Ratcliffe Highway and other dock purlieus. Any one who pays his money for this book is at liberty to take his choice of hypotheses, but we can assure him that the change is undoubtedly matter of fact.
The next specimen taken is of a literary turn, and appears in the Champion, or the Evening Advertiser, of January 2, 1741. From it we may judge of the number of burlesques and travesties which, some large, some small, were called into existence by the publication of what many consider to be Richardson’s masterpiece. Whatever rank “Pamela” may hold as compared with “Clarissa Harlowe,” “Sir Charles Grandison,” and other works by the same author, it is very little regarded now, while one of the books to which it gave rise is now a representative work of English literature. Here is the literary advertisement of the day:—
This Day is publish’d
(Price One Shilling and Sixpence),
AN APOLOGY for the LIFE of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, in which the many notorious Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of a book called Pamela are all expos’d and refuted; and the matchless Arts of that young Politician set in a true and just light. Together with a full Account of all that passed between her and Parson Arthur Williams, whose character is represented in a Manner somewhat different from what he bears in Pamela, the whole being exact Copies of authentick Papers deliver’d to the Editor. Necessary to be had in all Families. With a modern Dedication after the Manner of the Antients, especially Cicero. By Mr. Conny Keyber.
Printed for A. Dodd, at the Peacock without Temple Bar,
Where may be had, Price 1s.,
1. The Court Secret, a Melancholy Truth. Translated from the Original Arabic. By an Adept in the Oriental Tongues.
Remember that a Prince’s Secrets are Balm conceal’d;
But Poison if discover’d. —Massinger.
Also, Price 1s.,