d to Paul's Churchyard, where I listened with great
attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the
deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased
king.

I then turned on my right hand into Fish-street, where the chief
politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having
taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time) "If," says
he, "the King of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of
mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by
privateers, as it has been for these ten years past." He afterwards
considered how the death of this great man would affect our
pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into
his whole audience.

I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house that stood at the upper end
of a narrow lane, where I met with a Nonjuror engaged very warmly
with a laceman who was the great support of a neighboring
conventicle. The matter in debate was whether the late French King
was most like Augustus Caesar, or Nero. The controversy was carried
on with great heat on both sides, and as each of them looked upon
me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under
some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid
down my penny at the bar and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my
purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who
expressed a great grief for the death of the French King; but upon
his explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the
loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the Bank about
three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which a
haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee-house, and had his
circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had
declared his opinion, above a week before, that the French King was
certainly dead; to which he added, that considering the late
advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it
could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and debating
to his hearers with great authority, there came a gentlemen from
Garraway's, who told us that there were several letters from France
just come in, with advice that the King was in