I began then to take into thought, what might be the meaning of this oglio of people of several conditions and humours met together; but I was quickly diverted from that consideration by the apparition of a creature which looked as if ’twere of the feminine gender. It was a person, of a thin and slender make, laden with crowns, garlands, sceptres, scythes, sheep-hooks, pattens, hobnailed shoes, tiaras, straw hats, mitres, Monmouth caps, embroideries, skins, silk, wool, gold, lead, diamonds, shells, pearl, and pebbles. She was dressed up in all the colours of the rainbow; she had one eye shut, the other open; young on the one side, and old o’ the other. I thought at first, she had been a great way off, when indeed she was very near me, and when I took her to be at my chamber door, she was at my bed’s head. How to unriddle this mystery I knew not; nor was it possible for me to make out the meaning of an equipage so extravagant, and so fantastically put together. It gave me no affright, however, but on the contrary I could not forbear laughing, for it came just then into my mind that I had formerly seen in Italy a farce, where the mimic, pretending to come from the other world, was just thus accoutred, and never was anything more nonsensically pleasant. I held as long as I could, and at last, I asked what she was. She answered me, “I am Death.” Death! (the very word brought my heart into my mouth) “and I beseech you, madam,” quoth I (with great humility and respect) “whither is your honour a going?” “No further,” said she, “for now I have found you, I am at my journey’s end.” “Alas, alas! and must I die then,” said I. “No, no,” quoth Death, “but I’ll take thee quick along with me; for since so many of the dead have been to visit the living, it is but equal for once, that one of the living should return a visit to the dead. Get up then and come along; and never hang an arse for the matter; for what you will not do willingly, you shall do in spite of your teeth.” This put me in a cold fit; but without more delay up I started, and desired leave only to put on my breeches. “No, no,” said she, “no matter for clothes, nobody wears them upon this road; wherefore come away, naked as you are, and you’ll travel the better.” So up I got, without a word more and followed her, in such a terror, and amazement, that I was but in an ill condition to take a strict account of my passage; yet I remember, that upon the way, I told her: “Madam, under correction, you are no more like the Deaths that I have seen, than an apple’s like an oyster. Our Death is pictured with a scythe in her hand; and a carcass of bones, as clean as if the crows had picked it.” “Yes, yes,” said she, turning short upon me, “I know that very well; but in the meantime your designers and painters are but a company of buzzards. The bones you talk of are the dead, or otherwise the miserable remainders of the living; but let me