“Tell Lady Besborough that my eyes will look up to the coffin-lid as brightly as ever.”
“Wednesday, 27th March.
ROYAL BUN HOUSE, CHELSEA,
GOOD FRIDAY.
No Cross Buns.
“Mrs. Hand respectfully informs her friends, and the public, that in consequence of the great concourse of people which assembled before her house at a very early hour, on the morning of Good Friday; by which her neighbours (with whom she has always lived in friendship and repute) have been much alarmed and annoyed; it having also been intimated, that to encourage or countenance a tumultuous assembly at this particular period, might be attended with consequences more serious than have hitherto been apprehended; desirous, therefore, of testifying her regard and obedience to those laws by which she is happily protected, she is determined, though much to her loss, not to sell Cross Buns on that day, to any person whatever;—but Chelsea Buns as usual.
“Mrs. Hand would be wanting in gratitude to a generous public, who, for more than fifty years past, have so warmly patronised and encouraged her shop, to omit so favourable an opportunity of offering her sincere acknowledgments for their kind favours; at the same time, to assure them she will, to the utmost of her power, endeavour to merit a continuance of them.”[258]
1794.
The origin of wooden tessellated floors having been a subject of much inquiry among many of my friends, I here insert a copy of an advertisement introduced in a catalogue of books, published 1676, under the licence of Roger L’Estrange.[259]