eless wench spilt the salt upon the table?' 'Yes,'
says he, 'my dear, and the next post brought us an account of the battle
of Almanza.'

5. The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this
mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual
taciturnity; when, to my utter confusion, the lady seeing me quitting my
knife and fork, and laying across one another upon my plate, desired me
that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and
place them side by side.

6. What the absurdity was which I had committed I did not know, but I
suppose there was some traditionary superstition in it; and therefore,
in obedience to the lady of the house, I disposed of my knife and fork
in two parallel lines, which is a figure I shall always lay them in for
the future, though I do not know any reason for it.

7. It is not difficult to a man to see that a person has conceived an
aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks,
that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate
aspect; for which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and
withdrew to my own lodgings.

8. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the
evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind: how they
subject us to imaginary afflictions and additional sorrows that do not
properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were
not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into
misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents, as from real
evils.

9. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have
seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of
a merry-thought. A screech owl at midnight has alarmed a family more
than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more
terror than the roaring of a lion.

10. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to
an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail,
or crooked pin, shoot up into prodigies.

11. I remember I was once in a mixt assembly, that was full of noise and
mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were
thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into
several who were present, insomuch that one or two of the ladies were
going to leave the room; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of
our