osterity is the
death of the French king, Louis the Fourteenth, after a week's sickness
at Marli, which will happen on the 29th, about six o'clock in the
evening. It seems to be an effect of the gout in his stomach, followed
by a flux. And in three days after Monsieur Chamillard will follow his
master, dying suddenly of an apoplexy.

In this month likewise an ambassador will die in London, but I cannot
assign the day.

_August_. The affairs of France will seem to suffer no change for a
while under the Duke of Burgundy's administration; but the genius that
animated the whole machine being gone, will be the cause of mighty turns
and revolutions in the following year. The new king makes yet little
change either in the army or the Ministry, but the libels against his
grandfather, that fly about his very Court, give him uneasiness.

I see an express in mighty haste, with joy and wonder in his looks,
arriving by break of day on the 26th of this month, having travelled in
three days a prodigious journey by land and sea. In the evening I hear
bells and guns, and see the blazing of a thousand bonfires.

A young admiral of noble birth does likewise this month gain immortal
honour by a great achievement.

The affairs of Poland are this month entirely settled; Augustus resigns
his pretensions which he had again taken up for some time: Stanislaus is
peaceably possessed of the throne, and the King of Sweden declares for
the emperor.

I cannot omit one particular accident here at home: that near the end of
this month much mischief will be done at Bartholomew Fair by the fall of
a booth.

_September_. This month begins with a very surprising fit of frosty
weather, which will last near twelve days.

The Pope, having long languished last month, the swellings in his legs
breaking, and the flesh mortifying, will die on the 11th instant; and in
three weeks' time, after a mighty contest, be succeeded by a cardinal of
the Imperial faction, but native of Tuscany, who is now about sixty-one
years old.

The French army acts now wholly on the defensive, strongly fortified in
their trenches, and the young French king sends overtures for a treaty of
peace by the Duke of Mantua; which, because it is a matter of State that
concerns us here at home, I shall speak no farther of it.

I shall add but one prediction more, and that in mystical terms, which
shall be included in a verse out of Virgil--

_Alter erit jam Tethys_, _et alt