ter; and the gentleman, recollecting himself, with some
confusion, and not without blushing, asked pardon, crying, "I protest
I dreamed that I was alive." "Perhaps, sir," said I, "you died of that
distemper, which therefore made so strong an impression on you." "No,
sir," answered he, "I never had it in my life; but the continual and
dreadful apprehension it kept me so long under cannot, I see, be so
immediately eradicated. You must know, sir, I avoided coming to London
for thirty years together, for fear of the small-pox, till the most
urgent business brought me thither about five days ago. I was so
dreadfully afraid of this disease that I refused the second night of
my arrival to sup with a friend whose wife had recovered of it several
months before, and the same evening got a surfeit by eating too many
muscles, which brought me into this good company."

"I will lay a wager," cried the spirit who sat next him, "there is not
one in the coach able to guess my distemper." I desired the favor of him
to acquaint us with it, if it was so uncommon. "Why, sir," said he, "I
died of honor."--"Of honor, sir!" repeated I, with some surprise. "Yes,
sir," answered the spirit, "of honor, for I was killed in a duel."

"For my part," said a fair spirit, "I was inoculated last summer, and
had the good fortune to escape with a very few marks on my face. I
esteemed myself now perfectly happy, as I imagined I had no restraint
to a full enjoyment of the diversions of the town; but within a few days
after my coming up I caught cold by overdancing myself at a ball, and
last night died of a violent fever."

After a short silence which now ensued, the fair spirit who spoke last,
it being now daylight, addressed herself to a female who sat next her,
and asked her to what chance they owed the happiness of her company. She
answered, she apprehended to a consumption, but the physicians were not
agreed concerning her distemper, for she left two of them in a very hot
dispute about it when she came out of her body. "And pray, madam," said
the same spirit to the sixth passenger, "How came you to leave the other
world?" But that female spirit, screwing up her mouth, answered, she
wondered at the curiosity of some people; that perhaps persons had
already heard some reports of her death, which were far from being true;
that, whatever was the occasion of it, she was glad at being delivered
from a world in which she had no pleasure, and where there was no