About eight months ago I was returning to my hotel in a melancholy humour, having passed the evening at the playhouse. The night was dark, and I was unaccompanied. Plunged in reflections which were far from being agreeable, I perceived not that three men had followed me from the theatre; till, on turning into an unfrequented street, they all attacked me at the same time with the utmost fury. I sprang back a few paces, drew my sword, and threw my cloak over my left arm. The obscurity of the night was in my favour. For the most part the blows of the assassins, being aimed at random, failed to touch me. I at length was fortunate enough to lay one of my adversaries at my feet; but before this I had already received so many wounds, and was so warmly pressed, that my destruction would have been inevitable, had not the clashing of swords called a cavalier to my assistance. He ran towards me with his sword drawn: several domestics followed him with torches. His arrival made the combat equal: yet would not the bravoes abandon their design till the servants were on the point of joining us. They then fled away, and we lost them in the obscurity.