Here am I,
able to eat, to drink, to sleep, and do all acts of nature, except
begetting my like; and yet by an unintelligible force of spleen and
fancy, I every moment imagine I am dying. It is utter madness in thee to
provide for supper; for I'll bet you ten to one, you don't live till
half an hour after four; and yet I am so distracted as to be in fear
every moment, though I'll lay ten to three, I drink three pints of burnt
claret at your funeral three nights hence. After all, I envy thee; thou
who dying hast no sense of death, art happier than one in health
that[369] always fears it." The knight had gone on, but that a third man
ended the scene by applauding the knight's eloquence and philosophy, in
a laughter too violent for his own constitution, as much as he mocked
that of Africanus and Monoculus.
St. James's Coffee-house, July 1.
This day arrived three mails from Holland, with advices relating to the
posture of affairs in the Low Countries, which say, that the Confederate
army extends from Luchin, on the causeway between Tournay and Lisle, to
Epain near Mortagne on the Scheldt.
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