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near the stately Pantheon, and found him not: and thus to me, who knew not his name (if indeed he had one) he seemed rather to have vanished from Oxford-street—than to have removed in any bodily fashion. The reader may choose to think of him as, possibly, no more than a sublunary druggist: itmay be so: but my faith is better: I believe him to have evanesced,[1] or evaporated. So unwillingly would 1 connect any mortal remembrances with that hour, and place, and creature, that, first brought me acquainted with the celestial drug.
Arrived at my lodgings, it may be sup-
- ↑ Evanesced:—this way of going off the stage of life appears to have been well known in the 17th century, but at that time to have been considered a peculiar privilege of blood-royal, and by no means to be allowed to druggists. For about the year 1686, a poet of rather ominous name (and who, by the by, did ample justice to his name), viz. Mr. Flat-man, in speaking of the death of Charles II. expresses his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying; because, says he,
Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.
They should abscond, that is, into the other world.
