Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris directly," with several other deep reflections of the same nature.

I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing Cross and Covent Garden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince and so eminent a patron of learning.

At a coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as advocate for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his Imperial Majesty. They were both for regulating the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England; but finding them going out of my depth, I passed forward to St. Paul's Churchyard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased king.

I then turned, on my right hand, into Fish Street, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time),—" If," says he, “the King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be dis

turbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past." He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into the whole audience.

I afterwards entered a by coffee-house that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a non-juror, engaged very warmly with a laceman, who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was whether the late French king was most like Augustus Cæsar or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the French king; but upon his explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the bank about three days before he heard the news of it; upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion above a week before that the French king was certainly dead, to which he added, that considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be

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otherwise. As he was laying these together and dictating to his hearers with great authority, there came in a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were several letters from France just come in with advice that the king was in good health, and was gone out a-hunting the very morning the post came away. Upon which the haberdasher stole off his hat, that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion.

This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with much satisfaction, not being a little pleased to hear so many different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally upon such a piece of news every one is apt to consider it with a regard to his own particular interest and advantage.

Each talked aloud, or in some secret place,
And wild impatience stared in every face,
The flying rumours gathered as they rolled,—
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who heard it made enlargements too;
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.
Thus flying east and west, and north and south,
News travelled with increase from mouth to mouth;
So from a spark, that kindled first by chance,
With gathering force the quickening flames advance,
Till to the clouds their curling heads aspire,
And towers and temples sink in floods of fire.

Pope.

50. DEATH THE LEVELLER.

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings—
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield-
They tame but one another still;
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds:
Your heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

J. SHIRLEY.

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in a chimney are no epitaph of that, to tell me how high or how large that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell.-Donne.