XIV. ALWAYS SEEN, NEVER MINDED.

IN the most healthful times, two hundred and upwards was the constant weekly tribute paid to mortality in London. A large bill, but it must be discharged. Can one city spend according to this weekly rate, and not be bankrupt of people? At leastwise, must not my shot be called for to make up the reckoning?

When only seven young men, and those chosen by lot, were but yearly taken out of Athens to be devoured by the monster Minotaur,¹⁹¹⁹Plutarch’s Lives, in Theseo. the whole city was in a constant fright, children for themselves, and parents for their children. Yea, their escaping of the first was but an introduction to the next year’s lottery.

Were the dwellers and lodgers in London 98weekly to cast lots who should make up this two hundred, how would every one be affrighted? Now none regard it. My security concludes the aforesaid number will amount of infants and old folk. Few men of middle ago, and amongst them surely not myself. But oh! is not this putting the evil day far from me the ready way to bring it the nearest to me? The lot is weekly drawn (though not by me) for me, I am therefore concerned seriously to provide, lest that death’s prize prove my blank.