St Giles's), I think it was in March, seeing a crowd of people in the
street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all
staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain
to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his
hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every
part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form,
and the poor people came into it so eagerly, and with so much readiness;
'Yes, I see it all plainly,' says one; 'there's the sword as plain as
can be.' Another saw the angel. One saw his very face, and cried out
what a glorious creature he was! One saw one thing, and one another.
I looked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much
willingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see
nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side by the shining of the sun
upon the other part. The woman endeavoured to show it me, but could not
make me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had I must have
lied. But the woman, turning upon me, looked in my face, and fancied I
laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did
not laugh, but was very seriously reflecting how the poor people were
terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned
from me, called me profane fellow, and a scoffer; told me that it was a
time of God's anger, and dreadful judgements were approaching, and that
despisers such as I should wander and perish.

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she; and I found there
was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should
be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them;
and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in going
through a narrow passage from Petty France into Bishopsgate Churchyard,