business, where the coxcomb did give us his simple reasons for what he had
said, which the Doctor fully confuted, and left the fellow only saying
that he should cease to report any such thing, and that what he had said
was the best of his judgment from my brother's words and a ulcer, as he
supposed, in his mouth. I threatened him that I would have satisfaction
if I heard any more such discourse, and so good night to them two, giving
the Doctor a piece for his fee, but the other nothing. I to my brother
again, where Madam Turner and her company, and Mrs. Croxton, my wife, and
Mrs. Holding. About 8 o'clock my brother began to fetch his spittle with
more pain, and to speak as much but not so distinctly, till at last the
phlegm getting the mastery of him, and he beginning as we thought to
rattle, I had no mind to see him die, as we thought he presently would,
and so withdrew and led Mrs. Turner home, but before I came back, which
was in half a quarter of an hour, my brother was dead. I went up and
found the nurse holding his eyes shut, and he poor wretch lying with his
chops fallen, a most sad sight, and that which put me into a present very
great transport of grief and cries, and indeed it was a most sad sight to
see the poor wretch lie now still and dead, and pale like a stone. I
staid till he was almost cold, while Mrs. Croxton, Holden, and the rest
did strip and lay him out, they observing his corpse, as they told me
afterwards, to be as clear as any they ever saw, and so this was the end
of my poor brother, continuing talking idle and his lips working even to
his last that his phlegm hindered his breathing, and at last his breath
broke out bringing a flood of phlegm and stuff out with it, and so he
died. This evening he talked among other talk a great deal of French very
plain and good, as, among others: 'quand un homme boit quand il n'a poynt
d'inclination a boire il ne luy fait jamais de bien.' I once begun to
tell him something of his condition, and asked him whither he thought he
should go. He in distracted manner answered me--"Why, whither should I
go? there are but two ways: If I go, to the bad way I must give God thanks
for it, and if I go the other way I must give God the more thanks for it;
and I hope I have not been so undutifull and unthankfull in my life but I
hope I shall go that way." This was all the sense, good or bad, that I
could get of him this day. I left my wife to see him laid out, and I by