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flies. Active and masculine spirits in the vigour of youth neither can nor ought to remain at rest; if they debar themselves from aiming at a noble object, their desires will move downwards, and they will feel themselves actuated by some low and abject passion. Thus, if you cut off the top branches of a tree, and will not suffer it to grow any higher, it will not therefore cease to grow, but will quickly shoot out at the bottom. The man, indeed, who goes into the world only with the narrow views of self-interest, who catches at the applause of an idle multitude, as he can find no solid contentment at the end of his journey, so he deserves to meet with disappointments in his way; but he who is actuated by a nobler principle, whose mind is so far enlarged as to take in the prospect of his country's good, who is enamoured with that praise which is one of the fair attendants of virtue, and values not those acclamations which are not seconded by the impartial testimony of his own mind; who repines not at the low station which Providence has at present allotted him, but yet would willingly advance himself by justifiable means to a more rising and advantageous ground; such a man is warmed with a generous emulation; it is a virtuous movement in him to wish and to endeavour that his power of doing good may be equal to his will.

The man who is fitted out by nature, and sent into the world with great abilities, is capable of doing great good or mischief in it. It ought, therefore, to be the care of education to infuse into the untainted youth early notices of justice and honour, that so the possible advantages of good parts may not take an evil turn, nor be perverted to base and unworthy purposes. It is the business of religion and philosophy not so much to extinguish our passions, as to regulate and direct them to valuable well-chosen objects; when these have pointed out to us which course we may lawfully steer, it is no harm to set out all our sail; if the storms and tempests of adversity should rise upon us, and not suffer us to make the haven where we would be, it will, however, prove no small consolation to us in these circumstances, that we have neither mistaken our course, nor fallen into calamities of our own procuring.

Religion, therefore, were we to consider it no farther than as it interposes in the affairs of this life, is highly valuable, and worthy of great veneration; as it settles the various pretensions, and otherwise interfering interests of mortal men, and thereby consults the harmony and order of the great community; as it gives a man room to play his part and exert his abilities; as it animates to actions truly laudable in themselves, in their effects beneficial to society; as it inspires rational ambition, corrects love, and elevates desire.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

DANIEL DEFOE.

The political contests of this period engaged a host of miscellaneous writers. The most powerful and effective belonged to the Tory or Jacobite party; but the Whigs possessed one unflinching and prolific champion-DANIEL DEFOE-the father or founder of the English novel. This excellent writer was a native of London, the son of a St Giles butcher, and Dissenter. Daniel was born in 1661, and was intended to be a Presbyterian minister, but entered into trade. He joined the insurrection of the Duke of Monmouth, but escaped punishment; and when the Revolution came, was one of its steadiest friends and warmest admirers. He was successively a hosier, a tile-maker, and a woollen-merchant; but without success. As an author, he made, in 1699, a lucky venture. His True-born Englishman, a poetical satire

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in verse, and had an unlimited command of homely and forcible language. The opening lines of this satire have often been quoted

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,

The latter has the largest congregation. Various political tracts followed from the active pen of our author. In 1702 he wrote an ironical treatise against the High Church party, entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which was voted a libel by the House of Commons; and the author being apprehended, was fined, pilloried, and imprisoned. He wrote a hymn to the pillory, which he wittily styled

A hieroglyphic state-machine,
Condemned to punish fancy in ;

and Pope alluded to the circumstance with the spirit of a political partisan, not that of a friend to literature or liberty, in his 'Dunciad'

Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe. The political victim lay nearly two years in Newgate, during which he carried on a periodical work, The Review, published twice a week. The character of Defoe, notwithstanding his political persecution, must have stood high; for he was employed by the cabinet of Queen Anne on a mission to Scotland to advance the great measure of the Union, of which he afterwards wrote a history. He again tried his hand at political irony, and was again thrown into prison, and fined £800. Neither Whig nor Tory could understand Defoe's ironical writings. His confinement this time lasted, however, only a few months. Admonished by dear-bought experience, our author now abandoned politics, and in 1719 appeared his Robinson Crusoe. The extraordinary success of this work prompted him to write a variety of other fictitious narratives, as Moll Flanders, Captain Singleton, Duncan Campbell, Colonel Jack, The History of the Great Plague in London in 1665, &c. When he had exhausted this vein, he applied himself to a Political History of the Devil, A System of Magic, The Complete English Tradesman, A Tour Through Great Britain, and other works. The life of this active and voluminous writer was closed in

sand-an incident conceived in the spirit of poetry. The character of Friday, though his appearance on the scene breaks the solitary seal of the romance, is a highly interesting and pleasing delineation, that gives a charm to savage life. The great success of this novel induced the author to write a continuation to it, in which Crusoe is again brought among the busy haunts of men; the attempt was hazardous, and it proved a failure. The once solitary island, peopled by mariners and traders, is disenchanted, and becomes tame, vulgar, and commonplace. The relation of adventures, not the delineation of character and passion, was the forte of Defoe. His invention of common incidents and situations seems to have been unbounded; and those minute references and descriptions immediately lead us,' as has been remarked by Dunlop in his History of Fiction, 'to give credit to the whole narrative, since we think they would hardly have been mentioned unless they had been true. The same circumstantial detail of facts is remarkable in "Gulliver's Travels," and we are led on by them to a partial belief in the most improbable narrations.' Defoe, however, is more natural even than Swift; and his style, though inferior in directness and energy, is more copious. He was strictly an original writer, with strong clear conceptions ever rising up in his mind, which he was able to embody in language equally perspimuch, and treasured up an amount of knowledge and observation certainly not equalled by the store of any writer of that day. When we consider the misfortunes and sufferings of Defoe; that his spirit had been broken, and his means wasted, by persecution; that his health was struck down by apoplexy, and upwards of fifty-five years had passed over himhis composition of Robinson Crusoe,' and the long train of fictions which succeeded it, must appear a remarkable instance of native genius, self-reliance, and energy of character.

April 1731. It seems to have been one of continued struggle with want, dulness, and persecution. He died insolvent, author of two hundred and ten books and pamphlets. Posterity has separated the wheat from the chaff of Defoe's writings: his political tracts have sunk into oblivion; but his works of fiction still charm by their air of truth, and the simple natural beauty of their style. As a novelist, he was the father of Richardson, and partly of Fielding; as an essayist, he suggested the Tatler' and Spectator;' and in grave irony he may have given to Swift his first lessons. The intensity of feeling characteristic of the dean-his merciless scorn and invective, and fierce misanthropy-were unknown to Defoe, who must have been of a cheerful and sanguine temperament; but in identifying himself with his personages, whether on sea or land, and depicting their adventures, he was not inferior to Swift. His imagination had no visions of surpassing loveliness, nor any rich combinations of humour and eccentricity; yet he is equally at home in the plain scenes of English life, in the wars of the cavaliers, in the haunts of dissipation and infamy, in the roving adventures of the buccaneers, and in the appalling visitations of the Great Plague. The account of the plague has often been taken for a genuine and authentic history, and even Lord Chatham believed the Memoirs of a Cavalier to be A true narrative. In scenes of diablerie and witch-cuous and forcible. He had both read and seen craft, he preserves the same unmoved and truth-like demeanour. The apparition of Mrs Veal at Canterbury, the eighth of September 1705,' seems as true and indubitable a fact as any that ever passed before our eyes. Unfortunately, the taste or circumstances of Defoe led him mostly into low life, and his characters are generally such as we cannot sympathise with. The whole arcana of roguery and villany seem to have been open to him. His experiences of Newgate were not without their use to the novelist. It might be thought that the good taste which led Defoe to write in a style of such pure and unpretending English, instead of the inflated manner of vulgar writers, would have dictated a more careful selection of his subjects, and kept him from wandering so frequently into the low and disgusting purlieus of vice. But this moral and tasteful discrimination seems to have been wholly wanting. He was too good and religious a man to break down the distinctions between virtue and crime. He selected the adventures of pirates, pickpockets, courtesans, and other characters of the same stamp, because they were likely to sell best, and made the most attractive narrative; but he nowhere holds them up for imitation. He evidently felt most at home where he had to descend, not to rise, to his subject. The circumstances of Robinson Crusoe, his shipwreck and residence in the solitary island, invest that incomparable tale with more romance than any of his other works. Pathos,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'is not Defoe's general characteristic; he had too little delicacy of mind. When it comes, it comes uncalled, and is created by the circumstances, not sought for by the author. The excess, for instance, of the natural longing for human society which Crusoe manifests while on board of the stranded Spanish vessel, by falling into a sort of agony, as he repeated the words, "Oh, that but one man had been saved!-oh, that there had been but one!" is in the highest degree pathetic. The agonizing reflections of the solitary, when he is in danger of being driven to sea, in his rash attempt to circumnavigate his island, are also affecting.' To these striking passages may be added the description of Crusoe's sensations on finding the foot-print on the

The power of Defoe in feigning reality, or forging the handwriting of nature, as it has been forcibly termed, may be seen in the narrative of Mrs Veal's apparition; which, as complete in itself, and suited to our limits, we subjoin. It was prefixed to a religious book, Drelincourt on Death,' and had the effect of drawing attention to an otherwise unsaleable and neglected work. The imposition was a bold one-perhaps the least defensible of all Defoe's inventions; and there is, as Sir Walter Scott observes, a matter-of-fact business-like style in the whole account of the transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession.'

A true Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal, the
next day after her Death, to one Mrs Bargrave, at
Canterbury, the Eighth of September, 1705, which
Apparition recommends the perusal of Drelincourt's
Book of Consolations against the Fears of Death.

This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation has not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation for these last fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some people that are friends to the brother of Mrs Veal who appeared, who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavour what they can to blast Mrs Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh the story out of countenance.

But by the circumstance thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill usage of a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity, which I have been a witness to, and several other persons of undoubted reputation.

Now, you must know Mrs Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years last past had been troubled with fits, which were perceived coming on her by her going off from her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null and quash the story. Mrs Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs Veal's circumstances were then mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hardships. And Mrs Bargrave in those days had as unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing; while Mrs Veal wanted for both, insomuch that she would often say, 'Mrs Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world; and no circumstance of life shall ever dissolve my friendship.' They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two Christian friends, they comforted each other under their

sorrow.

Some time after, Mr Veal's friends got him a place in the customhouse at Dover, which occasioned Mrs Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy with Mrs Bargrave, though there was never any such thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last Mrs Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half, though above a twelvemonth of the time Mrs Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and this last half year, has been in Canterbury about two months of the time, dwelling in a house of her

own.

In this house, on the eighth of September, one thousand seven hundred and five, she was sitting alone in the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself into a due resignation to Providence, though her condition seemed hard: 'And,' said she, I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I shall be still, and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when it is most fit for me.' And then took up her sewing work, which she had no sooner done but she hears a knocking at the door; she went to see who was there, and this proved to be Mrs Veal, her old friend, who was in a riding habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at noon.

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'Madam,' says Mrs Bargrave, I am surprised to see you, you have been so long a stranger;' but told her she was glad to see her, and offered to salute her, which Mrs Veal complied with, till their lips almost touched, and then Mrs Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said, I am not very well,' and so waived it. She told Mrs Bargrave she was going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. But,' says Mrs Bargrave, how can you take a journey alone? I am amazed at it, because I know you have a fond brother.' 'Oh,' says Mrs Veal, I gave my brother the slip, and came away, because I had so great a desire to see you before I took my journey.' So Mrs Bargrave went in with her into another room within the first, and Mrs Veal sat her down in an elbow-chair, in which Mrs Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs Veal knock. Then,' says Mrs Veal, 'my dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you can forgive me, you are the best

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of women.' 'Oh,' says Mrs Bargrave, do not mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it; I can easily forgive it.' 'What did you think of me?' said Mrs Veal. Says Mrs Bargrave, I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me.' Then Mrs Veal reminded Mrs Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days, and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort in particular they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she said, on the subject ever wrote. She also mentioned Dr Sherlock, and two Dutch books, which were translated, wrote upon death, and several others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death, and of the future state, of any who had handled that subject. Then she asked Mrs Bargrave whether she had Drelincourt? She said, 'Yes.' Says Mrs Veal, Fetch it.' And so Mrs Bargrave goes up stairs, and brings it down. Says Mrs Veal, Dear Mrs Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard. The notions we have of Heaven now are nothing like what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to you, and that your afflictions are marks of God's favour; and when they have done the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from you. And believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your sufferings. For I can never believe (and claps her hand upon her knee with great earnestness, which, indeed, ran through most of her discourse) that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted state. But be assured that your afflictions shall leave you, or you them, in a short time.' She spake in that pathetical and heavenly manner, that Mrs Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply affected with it.

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Then Mrs Veal mentioned Dr Kenrick's Ascetic, at the end of which he gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, Their conversation was not like this of our age. For now,' says she, there is nothing but vain frothy discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, and to build one another up in faith, so that they were not as we are, nor are we as they were. But,' said she, we ought to do as they did; there was a hearty friendship among them; but where is it now to be found?' Says Mrs Bargrave, It is hard indeed to find a true friend in these days.' Says Mrs Veal, Mr Norris has a fine copy of verses, called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you seen the book?' says Mrs Veal. No,' says Mrs Bargrave, but I have the verses of my own writing out." 'Have you?' says Mrs Vcal; then fetch them;' which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs Veal to read, who refused, and waived the thing, saying, holding down her head would make it ache; and then desiring Mrs Bargrave to read them to her, which she did. As they were admiring Friendship, Mrs Veal said, 'Dear Mrs Bargrave, I shall love you for ever.' In these verses there is twice used the word 'Elysian.' Ah!' says Mrs Veal, these poets have such names for Heaven.' She would often draw her hand across her own eyes, and say, 'Mrs Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits? No,' says Mrs Bargrave, I think you look as well as ever I knew you.'

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After this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than Mrs Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can remember (for it cannot be thought that an hour and three

quarters' conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she does), she said to Mrs Bargrave she would have her write a letter to her brother, and tell him she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson.

Talking at this rate, Mrs Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon her, and so placed herself on a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it; for the elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side. And to divert Mrs Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs Veal told her it was a scoured silk, and newly made up. But for all this, Mrs Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs Bargrave she must not deny her. And she would have her tell her brother all their conversation when she had opportunity. Dear Mrs Veal,' says Mrs Bargrave, this seems so impertinent, that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman. Why,' says Mrs Bargrave, it is much better, methinks, to do it yourself.' 'No,' says Mrs Veal, though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see more reasons for it hereafter.' Mrs Bargrave, then, to satisfy her importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink, but Mrs Veal said, 'Let it alone now, but do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it; which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting, and so she promised her.

the whole story to Captain Watson's family; and what gown she had on, and how striped; and that Mrs Veal told her that it was scoured. Then Mrs Watson cried out, You have seen her indeed, for none knew, but Mrs Veal and myself, that the gown was scoured.' And Mrs Watson owned that she described the gown exactly; 'for,' said she, 'I helped her to make it up.' This Mrs Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the demonstration of the truth of Mrs Bargrave's seeing Mrs Veal's apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs Bargrave's house, to hear the relation from her own mouth. And when it spread so fast, that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and sceptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such a task, that she was forced to go out of the way; for they were in general extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw that Mrs Bargrave was no hypochondriac, for she always appears with such a cheerful air and pleasing mien, that she has gained the favour and esteem of all the gentry; and it is thought a great favour if they can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you before, that Mrs Veal told Mrs Bargrave that her sister and brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs Bargrave, How came you to order matters so strangely?' 'It could not be helped,' said Mrs Veal. And her brother and sister did come to see her, and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs Veal was expiring. Mrs Bargrave asked her whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs Veal, I do not care if I do; but I'll warrant you this mad fellow (meaning Then Mrs Veal asked for Mrs Bargrave's daughter; Mrs Bargrave's husband) has broke all your trinkets. she said she was not at home. But if you have a But,' says Mrs Bargrave, I'll get something to drink mind to see her,' says Mrs Bargrave, I'll send for in for all that;' but Mrs Veal waived it, and said, her.' 'Do,' says Mrs Veal; on which she left her,It is no matter; let it alone;' and so it passed. and went to a neighbour's to see her; and by the time Mrs Bargrave was returning, Mrs Veal was got without the door, in the street, in the face of the beastmarket, on a Saturday (which is market-day), and stood ready to part as soon as Mrs Bargrave came to her. She asked her why she was in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs Bargrave she hoped she should see her again at her cousin Watson's, before she went whither she was going. Then she said she would take her leave of her, and walked from Mrs Bargrave, in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her, which was three quarters after one in the afternoon.

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Mrs Veal died the 7th of September, at twelve o'clock at noon, of her fits, and had not above four hours' senses before her death, in which time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs Veal's appearance, being Sunday, Mrs Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a cold and a sore throat, that she could not go out that day; but on Monday morning she sends a person to Captain Watson's, to know if Mrs Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs Bargrave's inquiry, and sent her word she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer, Mrs Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or made some blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood, and went herself to Captain Watson's, though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs Veal was there or not. They said they wondered at her asking, for that she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have been there. Says Mrs Bargrave, I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours.' They said it was impossible, for they must have seen her if she had. In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, and said that Mrs Veal was certainly dead, and the escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised Mrs Bargrave, when she sent to the person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she related

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All the time I sat with Mrs Bargrave, which was some hours, she recollected fresh sayings of Mrs Veal. And one material thing more she told Mrs Bargrave, that old Mr Bretton allowed Mrs Veal ten pounds a-year, which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs Bargrave till Mrs Veal told her.

Mrs Bargrave never varies in her story, which puzzles those who doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the neighbour's yard adjoining to Mrs Bargrave's house, heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs Veal was with her. Mrs Bargrave went out to her next neighbour's the very moment she parted with Mrs Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs Bargrave has undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered her daughter to take anything of any body, and therefore can have no interest in telling the story.

But Mr Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said he would see Mrs Bargrave: but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has been at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never went near Mrs Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar, and that she knew of Mr Bretton's ten pounds a-year. But the person who pretends to say so, has the reputation to be a notorious liar among persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now, Mr Veal is more of a gentleman than to say she lies, but says a bad husband has crazed her; but she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that pretence. Mr Veal says he asked his sister on her death-bed whether she had a mind to dispose of anything? And she said no. Now, the things which Mrs Veal's apparition would have disposed of, were so trifling, and nothing of justice aimed at in the disposal, that the design of it appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs Bargrave 80

to demonstrate the truth of her appearance, as to satisfy the world of the reality thereof, as to what she had seen and heard; and to secure her reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And then, again, Mr Veal owns that there was a purse of gold; but it was not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for that Mrs Watson owned that Mrs Veal was so very careful of the key of her cabinet, that she would trust nobody with it; and if so, no doubt she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs Veal's often drawing her hands over her eyes, and asking Mrs Bargrave whether her fits had not impaired her, looks to me, as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she should put her upon writing to her brother, to dispose of rings and gold, which looked so much like a dying person's request; and it took accordingly with Mrs Bargrave as the effect of her fits coming upon her, and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her and care of her, that she should not be affrighted, which, indeed, appears in her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the day-time, waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her.

how things were managed in the river, and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection, to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking water.

my poor wife and two children live, said he, if they may be said to live; for my wife and one of the children are visited, but I do not come at them. And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man. First I asked him how people did thereabouts? Alas! sir, says he, almost desolate; all dead or sick : Here are very few families in this part, or in that village, pointing at Poplar, where half of them are not dead already, and the rest sick. Then he, pointing to one house, There they are all dead, said he, and the house stands open; nobody dares go into it. A poor thief, says he, ventured in to steal something, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too, last night. Then he pointed to several other houses. There, says he, they are all dead, the man and his wife and five children. There, says he, they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door; and so of other houses. Why, says I, Now, why Mr Veal should think this relation a what do you here all alone? Why, says he, I am a reflection (as it is plain he does, by his endeavouring poor desolate man; it hath pleased God I am not to stifle it), I cannot imagine; because the generality yet visited, though my family is, and one of my believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse was so children dead. How do you mean then, said I, that heavenly. Her two great errands were, to comfort you are not visited? Why, says he, that is my house, Mrs Bargrave in her affliction, and to ask her forgive-pointing to a very little low boarded house, and there ness for her breach of friendship, and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to suppose that Mrs Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon (supposing that she knew of Mrs Veal's death the very first moment), without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest too, she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked, too, than any indifferent person, I daresay, will allow. I asked Mrs Bargrave several times if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered modestly, If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it.' I asked her if she heard a sound when she clapped her hands upon her knee? She said she did not remember she did, but said she appeared to be as much a substance as I did who talked with her. And I may,' said she, be as soon persuaded that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not really see her; for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a friend, and parted with her as such. I would not,' says she, give one farthing to make any one believe it; I have no interest in it; nothing but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made public.' But now she says she will make her own private use of it, and keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done since. She says she had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room-fetch it. ful of people at the time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs Bargrave's own mouth.

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This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied as I am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me; Mrs Bargrave's authority and sincerity alone would have been undoubted in any other case.

[The Great Plague in London.]

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see

But, said I, why do you not come at them? How can you abandon your own flesh and blood? Oh, sir, says he, the Lord forbid; I do not abandon them; work for them as much as I am able; and, blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want. And with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want. Well, says I, honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all? Why, sir, says he, I am a waterman, and there is my boat, says he, and the boat serves me for a house; I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night, and what I get I lay it down upon that stone, says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; and then, says he, I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and

Well, friend, says I, but how can you get money as a waterman? Does anybody go by water these times? Yes, sir, says he, in the way I am employed there does. Do you see there, says he, five ships lie at anchor? pointing down the river a good way below the town; and do you see, says he, eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder? pointing above the town. All those ships have families on board, of their merchants and owners, and such like, who have locked themselves up, and live on board, close shut in, for fear of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ship's boats, and there I

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