ell had been buried, and taken up again,
five years before I heard he was dead. This gave me first the reputation
of a conjurer, which has been of great disadvantage to me ever since,
and kept me out of all public employments. The greater part of my later
years has been divided between Dick's coffee-house, the Trumpet in Sheer
Lane, and my own lodgings.

*****

From my own Apartment, June 5.

There are those among mankind who can enjoy no relish of their being
except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and
think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid
delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such
a manner as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the
vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true
friendship or good-will, some sages have thought it pious to preserve
a certain reverence for the Manes of their deceased friends; and have
withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to
commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have
gone before them out of this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in
years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment than to recollect in
a gloomy moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and
agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those
with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth
and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet
yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which
occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all
the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now
as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart
swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could,
without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with
some, who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the
benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of
afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost
necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory; and ponder
step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of
thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without
being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper
and equ