Indulging in these grave meditations, I threw myself upon my bed, and slept. My spirit was free from external impressions. I thought there came into the places where my fancy had transported me, a great multitude of physicians, mounted upon mules, the housings of which, were clothes of the dead. In the suit of these physicians, who had an air of sourness and chagrin, followed a crowd of apothecaries, surgeons, and young barbers, who carried the drugs or instruments pertaining to their professions. When the physicians had descended from their mules, they began to dance a ballet, to the sound of the mortars and sieves the apothecaries and their adjuncts played upon. This ballet was interspersed with songs, in which the physicians took the upper part; the words of one of them were as follows:— “Catholicum, rhubarbarae, opiata, theriaca, Opoponach, O opium, O laudanum anodinum, Polychrestum diureticum, senne anisatum.” Two young physicians performed the air in these words:— “Recipe, recipe, recipe, recipe senne, Dragmas duas, dragmas duas, dragmas duas, Semi-dragmum rhei electac, Scrupulum unum polychresti, Infundantur, percolentur, hauriantur, Horâ sextâ matutinâ, Recipe, recipe, recipe, etc.” Two surgeons answered to that, _seca_; _ure_; that is to say, _cut_, _burn_; and directly both joined in chorus—these repeating _recipe_, the others _ure_, and the last dancing. This troop having sat, there entered another composed of newsmongers, and people who followed them to learn what was transacted abroad in England, France, Holland, Italy, and other places. After these entered solicitors, stewards of noble estates, soldiers, priests, and other persons whom I did not know. This cavalcade was terminated by a woman of monstrous stature, meagre, pale, and having a very extraordinary equipage. Her head dress consisted of crowns, tiaras, electoral bonnets, mitres, red and black hats, hats of straw, turbans, and bonnets of wool and silk: upon one side of the head, she had her hair curled and powdered; upon the other, shaven after the fashion of monks. Her robe was tissue of thread, wool, and silk, ornamented with trimmings of gold and silver, chaplets, precious stones, and pearls: she had upon her feet and legs, shoes of iron, wood, and leather: she bore upon a sceptre, a shepherd’s crook, a scythe, and a great club: she had one eye open, and the other shut; and carried, pendant from her neck, a sand box, with crosses of the order of Saint James, of the Holy Ghost, and the medals of other military orders: her gait was alternately slow, then quick and precipitate. She approached my bed, and said, “Arise, Chevalier, follow me!” “But, before I follow thee,” replied I, “inform me who you are.” “I am _Death_,” answered she; “follow me!” “Is it your pleasure, then, that I should die?”