nco,' for so he called her,
'thou wilt bury me, but thou wilt much repent it.' 'Yea, but how long
first?' 'I shall die,' said he, 'ere Thursday night.' Monday came, all
was well. Tuesday came, he not sick. Wednesday came, and still he was
well; with which his impertinent wife did much twit him in his teeth.
Thursday came, and dinner was ended, he very well: he went down to the
water-side, and took a pair of oars to go to some buildings he was in
hand with in Puddle-dock. Being in the middle of the Thames, he
presently fell down, only saying, 'An impost, an impost,' and so died. A
most sad storm of wind immediately following. He died worth one thousand
two hundred pounds, and left only one son called Clement. All his
rarities, secret manuscripts, of what quality soever, Dr. Napper of
Lindford in Buckinghamshire had, who had been a long time his scholar;
and of whom Forman was used to say he would be a dunce: yet in
continuance of time he proved a singular astrologer and physician. Sir
Richard now living, I believe, has all those rarities in possession,
which were Forman's, being kinsman and heir unto Dr. Napper. (His son
Thomas Napper, Esq.; most generously gave most of these manuscripts to
Elias Ashmole, Esq.;) I hope you will pardon this digression.

After my mistress was dead, I lived most comfortably, my master having a
great affection for me.

The year 1625 now comes on, and the plague exceeding violent, I will
relate what I observed the spring before it broke forth. Against our
corner house every night there would come down, about five or six of the
clock, sometime one hundred or more boys, some playing, others as if in
serious discourse, and just as it grew dark would all be gone home; many
succeeding years there was no such, or any concourse, usually no more
than four or five in a company: In the spring of 1625, the boys and
youths of several parishes in like number appeared again, which I
beholding, called Thomas Sanders, my landlord, and told him, that the
youth and young boys of several parishes did in that nature assemble and
play, in the beginning of the year 1625. 'God bless us,' quoth I, 'from
a plague this year;' but then there succeeded one, and the greatest that
ever was in London. In 1625, the visitation encreasing, and my master
having a great charge of money and plate, some of his own, some other
men's, left me and a fellow-servant to keep the house, and himself in
June went into Leicestershire. He