men's understandings proceeds only from the various dispositions of
their organs; so that he who dies at a month old is in the next life
as knowing, though more innocent, as they who live to fifty; and
after death they have as perfect a memory and judgment of all that
passed in their lifetime as I have of all the revolutions in that
uneasy, turbulent condition of yours; and you would say I had enough
of it in a month were I to tell you all my misfortunes." "A life of
a month cannot have, one would think, much variety. But pray," said
I, "let us have your story."

Then he proceeds in the following manner:--

"It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which
I was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so
happened, otherwise I had still, in all probability, been living;
but I shall recount to you all the occurrences of my short and
miserable existence, just as, by examining into the traces made in
my brain, they appeared to me at that time. The first thing that
ever struck my senses was a noise over my head of one shrieking;
after which, methought, I took a full jump, and found myself in the
hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking and
employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly frightened, and
cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical
operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant I
could not imagine; for there gathered a great crowd about me,
crying, 'An heir! an heir!' upon which I grew a little still, and
believed this was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and
such as made them, what they called Heirs. I lay very quiet; but
the witch, for no manner of reason or provocation in the world,
takes me, and binds my head as hard as possibly she could; then ties