ble security. Hither we may
with safety retire and defy our enemies; and he that sees not this
advantage must be extremely ignorant, and he that forgets it unhappy.

38. Do not disturb yourself about the faults of other people, but let
everybody's crimes be at their own door. Have always this great maxim in
your remembrance, that to play the knave is to rebel against religion;
all sorts of injustice being no less than high treason against Heaven
itself.

39. Do not contemn death, but meet it with a decent and religious
fortitude, and look upon it as one of those things which Providence has
ordered. If you want a cordial to make the apprehensions of dying go
down a little the more easily, consider what sort of world and what sort
of company you will part with. To conclude, do but look seriously into
the world, and there you will see multitudes of people preparing for
funerals, and mourning for their friends and acquaintances; and look out
again a little afterwards, and you will see others doing the very same
thing for them.

40. In short, men are but poor transitory things. To-day they are busy
and harassed with the affairs of human life; and to-morrow life itself is
taken from them, and they are returned to their original dust and ashes.

PART III

Containing prophetic observations relating to the affairs of Europe and
of Great Britain, more particularly from 1720 to 1729.

1. In the latter end of 1720, an eminent old lady shall bring forth five
sons at a birth; the youngest shall live and grow up to maturity, but the
four eldest shall either die in the nursery, or be all carried off by one
sudden and unexpected accident.

2. About this time a man with a double head shall arrive in Britain from
the south. One of these heads shall deliver messages of great importance
to the governing party, and the other to the party that is opposite to
them. The first shall believe the monster, but the last shall discover
the impostor, and so happily disengage themselves from a snare that was
laid to destroy them and their posterity. After this the two heads shall
unite, and the monster shall appear in his proper shape.

3. In the year 1721, a philosopher from Lower Germany shall come, first
to Amsterdam in Holland, and afterwards to London. He will bring with
him a world of curiosities, and among them a pretended secret for the
transmutation of metals. Under the umbrage of this mighty secret he
shall pa