Isaac Bickerstaff, physician and astrologer
downright starved me; insomuch that I daily pined away, and should never have been relieved had it not been that, on the thirtieth day of my life, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who had writ upon Cold Baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested I was utterly lost for want of that method; upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned; and so escaped being lashed into a linguist till sixteen, and being married to an ill-natured wife till sixty, which had certainly been my fate had not the enchantment between body and soul been broken by this philosopher. Thus, till the age I should have otherwise lived, I am obliged to watch the steps of men; and, if you please, shall accompany you in your present walk, and get you intelligence from the aerial lackey, who is in waiting, what are the thoughts and purposes of any whom you inquire for."

   I accepted his kind offer, and immediately took him with me in a hack to White's.

   White's Chocolate-house, May 13.

   We got in hither, and my companion threw a powder round us, that made me as invisible as himself; so that we could see and hear all others, ourselves unseen and unheard.

   The first thing we took notice of was a nobleman of a goodly and frank aspect, with his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage, and falsehood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My Lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ, "Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour, and Posterity!" The spectre over-against him had on his counters the inscriptions of "Dishonour, Impudence, Poverty, Ignorance, and Want of Shame." "Bless me!", said I; "sure, my Lord does not see what he plays for?" "As well as I do," says Pacolet. "He despises that fellow he plays with, and scorns himself for making him his companion." At the very instant he was speaking, I saw the fellow who played with my Lord hide two cards in the roll of his stocking. Pacolet immediately stole them from thence; upon which the nobleman soon after won the game. The little triumph he appeared in, when he got such a trifling stock of ready money, though he had ventured so great sums with indifference, increased my admiration. But Pacolet began to talk to me. "Mr. Isaac, this to you looks wonderful, but not at all to us higher beings: that nobleman has as many good qualities as any man of his order, and seems to have no 
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