had happened occasionally by the particular circumstances above-named. As this conflux of the people to a youthful and gay court made a great trade in the city, especially in everything that belonged to fashion and finery; so it drew by consequence a great number of workmen, manufacturers, and the like, being mostly poor people, who depended upon their labour; and I remember, in particular, that in a representation to my lord mayor of the condition of the poor, it was estimated that there were no less than a hundred thousand riband-weavers in and about the city; the chiefest number of whom lived then in the parishes of Shoreditch, Stepney, Whitechapel, and Bishopsgate; that, namely, about Spitalfields; that is to say, as Spitalfields was then, for it was not so large as now by one fith part.

By this, however, the number of people in the whole may be judged of; and, indeed, I often wondered, that after the prodigious numbers of people that went away at first, there was yet so great a multitude left as it appeared there was.

||

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time-while the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd accidents, which, put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by heaven for an Aceldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth; and that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards | and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague. as there did the year after another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked (especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over), that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses, that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; that the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow: but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, daming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment, slow, but severe, terrible, and frightful, as was the plague; but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as the conflagration; nay, so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they heard it; that it made a rushing mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable,

I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had so much of the common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments; and especially when after the plague

had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.

But I could not at the same time carry these things to the height that others did, knowing too, that natural causes are assigned by the astronomers for such things; and that their motions, and even their revolutions, are calculated or pretended to be calculated; so that they cannot be so perfectly called the forerunners or foretellers, much less the procurers, of such events as pestilence, war, fire, and the like.

But let my thoughts, and the thoughts of the philosophers, be or have been what they will, these things had a more than ordinary influence upon the minds of the common people, and they had almost universal melancholy apprehensions of some dreadful calamity and judgment coming upon the city: and this principally from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm that was given in December by two people dying at St Giles's, as above.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times; in which, I think, the people, from what principles I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since. Whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as Lilly's Almanack, Gadbury's Allogical Predictions, Poor Robin's Almanack, and the like; also several pretended religious books; one entitled,

Come out of her, my People, lest you be Partaker of her Plagues;'-another, calledFair Warning;'-another, Britain's Remembrancer;' and many such; all, or most part of which, foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city: nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who, like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets,-"Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be positive whether he said yet forty days, or yet a few days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city; so this poor naked creature cried, "O the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more, but repeated these words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least, that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he would not enter into speech with me, or any one else, but held on his dismal cries continually.

These things terrified the people to the last degree; and especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two in the bills dead of the plague at St Giles's.

Next to these public things were the dreams of old women, or, I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; and

predictions on these signs of the heavens, intimating that those conjunctions foretold drought, famine, and petilence; in the two first of them, however, they were entirely mistaken, for we had no droughty season, but in the beginning of the year a hard frost, which lasted from December almost to March; and after that, moderate weather, rather warm than hot, with refreshing winds, and, in short, very seasonable weather; and also several very great rains.

Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispensers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing was done in it, as I am informed, the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.

Neither can I acquit those ministers that, in their sermons, rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their hearers; many of them, no doubt, did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance; but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way; and indeed, as God himself, through the whole scriptures, rather draws to him by invitations, and calls to turn to him and live, than drives us by terror and amazement; so, I must confess, I thought the ministers should have done also, imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this, that his whole gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God's mercy, and his readiness to receive penitents, and forgive them; complaining, "Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life;" and that, therefore, his gospel is called the gospel of peace and the gospel of grace.

But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and opinions, whose discourses were full of terror; who spoke nothing but dismal things; and as they brought the people together with a kind of horror, sent them away in tears, prophesying nothing but evil things; terrifying the people with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, not guiding them, at least not enough, to cry to heaven for mercy.

It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us in matters of religion: innumerable sects, and divisions, and separate opinions prevailed among the people; the Church of England was retored, indeed, with the restoration of the monarchy, about four years before; but the ministers and preachers of the Presbyterians, and Independents, and of all the other sorts of professions, had begun to gather separate societies, and erect altar against altar, and all those had their meetings for worship apart, as they have now, but not so many then, the dissenters being not thoroughly formed into a body as they are since; and those congregations which were thus gathered together were yet but few; and even those that were, the government did not allow, but endeavoured to suppress them, and shut up their meetings.

But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a time, and many of the best and most valuable ministers and preachers of the dissenters were suffered to go into the churches where the incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand it; and the people flocked

without distinction to hear them preach, not much inquiring who, or what opinion they were of; but after the sickness was over, that spirit of charity abated, and every church being again supplied with their own ministers, or others presented, where the minister was dead, things returned to their old channel again.

One mischief always introduces another: these terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to; and this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning men, and astrologers, to know their fortune, or as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they call it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of; and this trade grew so open, and so generally practised, that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors;-'here lives a fortune-teller,'—' here lives an astrologer,'-'here you may have your nativity calculated,'-and the like; and Friar Bacon's brazen head, which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin's head, and the like.

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff, these oracles of the devil pleased and satisfied the people I really know not; but certain it is, that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day; and if but a grave fellow, in a velvet jacket, a band, and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack-conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them, in crowds, and ask them questions as they went along.

I need not mention what a horrid delusion this was, or what it tended to; but there was no remedy for it, till the plague itself put an end to it all, and I supposed cleared the town of most of those calculators themselves. One mischief was, that if the poor people asked these mock astrologers whether there would be a plague, or no? they all agreed in the general to answer, yes; for that kept up their trade: and had the people not been kept in a fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered useless, and their craft had been at an end; but they always talked to them of such and such influences of the stars, of the conjunctions of such and such planets, which must necessarily bring sickness and distempers, and consequently the plague; and some had the assurance to tell them the plague was begun already, which was too true, though they that said so knew nothing of the

matter.

The ministers, to do them justice, and preachers of most sorts, that were serious and understanding persons, thundered against these, and other wicked practices, and exposed the folly as well as the wickedness of them together; and the most sober and judicious people despised and abhorred them; but it was impossible to make any impression upon the middling people, and the working labouring poor; their fears were

predominant over all their passions, and they threw away their money in a most distracted manner upon those whimsies. Maid servants especially, and men servants, were the chief of their customers; and their question generally was, after the first demand of "Will there be a plague?" I say the next question was, "Oh, sir! for the Lord's sake, what will become of me? will my mistress keep me, or will she turn me off? will she stay here, or will she go into the country? and if she goes into the country, will she take me with her, or leave me here to be starved and undone?' and the like of men servants.

The truth is, the case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasion to mention again by-and-by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away, and it was so; and of them abundance perished; and particularly of those that these false prophets had flattered with hopes that they should be continued in their services, and carried with their masters and mistresses into the country; and had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, whose number was exceeding great, and in all cases of this nature must be so, they would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city.

These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out : but I must also not forget that the most serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner; the government encouraged their devotion, and appointed public prayers, and days of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin, and implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hung over their heads; and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occasion; how they flocked to the churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no coming near, no, not to the very doors of the largest churches; also, there were daily prayers appointed morning and evening at several churches, and days of private praying at other places; at all which the people attended, I say, with an uncommon devotion several private families, also, as well of one opinion as another, kept family fasts, to which they admitted their near relations only; so that, in a word, those people who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation, as a christian people ought to do.

Again, the public showed that they would bear their share in these things. The very court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the public danger. All the plays and interludes which, after the manner of the French court, had been set up, and began to increase among us, were forbid to act: the gaming tables, public dancing rooms, and music houses, which multiplied, and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut up and suppressed; and the jack-puddings, merryandrews, puppet-shows, rope-dancers, and such like doings, which had bewitched the poor common people, shut up their shops, finding, indeed,

no trade, for the minds of the people were agitated with other things; and a kind of sadness and horror at these things sat upon the countenances even of the common people; death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and diversions.

But even those wholesome reflections, which, rightly managed, would have most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of their sins, and look up to their merciful Saviour for pardon, imploring his compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by which we might have become as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections, as they were brutishly wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to extremes of folly; and, as I have said before, that they ran to conjurers, and witches, and all sorts of deceivers, to know what should become of them; who fed their fears, and kept them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude them, and pick their pockets: so they were as mad upon their running after quacks, and mountebanks, and every practising old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were called; that they not only spent their money, but even poisoned themselves before-hand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the other hand, it is incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors' bills and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic, and inviting the people to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as these, viz.-INFALLIBLE preventive pills against the plague,-NEVER-FAILING preservatives against the infection,-SOVEREIGN cordials against the corruption of the air,-EXACT regulations for the conduct of the body in case of an infection,-Anti-pestilential pills,-INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never found out before, An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague,-The ONLY TRUE plague water,-The ROYAL ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infection; and such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and if I could, would fill a book of themselves to set them down.

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings, for directions and advice in the case of infection: these had specious titles also, such as

these:

An eminent high Dutch Physician, newly come over from Holland, where he resided during all the time of the great Plague last year in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that actually had the Plague upon them. An Italian gentlewoman, just arrived from Naples, having a choice secret to prevent infection, which she found out by her great experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the late Plague there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day.

An ancient gentlewoman, having practised with great success in the late Plague in this city,

Anno. 1636, gives her advice only to the female sex. To be spoke with, &c. An experienced physician, who has so long studied the doctrine of antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has, after forty years' practice, arrived to such skill as may, with God's blessing, direct persons how to prevent their being touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis.

I take notice of these by way of specimen; I could give you two or three dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. It is sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humour of those times; and how a set of thieves and pick pockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to; and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infection followed.

I cannot omit a subtilty of one of those quack operators, with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills, which he gave about the street, this advertisement in capital letters, viz.-He gives advice to the poor for nothing.

Abundance of poor people came to him accordingly, to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their health, and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them many good things for them to do, which were of no great moment: but the issue and conclusion of all was, that he had a preparation which if they took such a quantity of every morning, he would pawn his life they never should have the plague,-no, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This made the people all resolve to have it; but then the price of that was so much, I think it was half-a-crown: "But, sir," says one poor woman, "I am a poor alms-woman, and am kept by the parish, and your bills say, you give the poor your help for nothing."-"Ay, good woman," says the doctor, "so I do, as I published there : I give my advice to the poor for nothing, but not my physic!"-" Alas! sir," says she, "that is a snare laid for the poor then; for you give them your advice for nothing, that is to say, you advise them gratis to buy your physic for their money; so does every shopkeeper with his wares." Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her up-stairs again, and give her his box of physic for nothing, which, perhaps too, was good for nothing when she had it.

But to return to the people, whose confusions fitted them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders, and by every mountebank. There is no doubt but these quacking sort of fellows raised great gains out of the miserable people; for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged than those of Dr Brooks, Dr Upton, Dr Hodges, Dr Berwick, or any, though the most famous men of the time; and I was told

that some of them got five pounds a day by their physic.

But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humour of the poor people at that time; and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of these; for these petty thieves only deluded them to pick their pockets and get their money, in which their wickedness, whatever it was, lay chiefly on the side of the deceiver's deceiving, not upon the deceived: but in this part I am going to mention, it lay chiefly in the people deceived, or equally in both; and this was in wearing charms, philters, exorcisms, amulets, and I know not what preparations, to fortify the body with them against the plague; as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit; and that it was to be kept off with crossings, signs of the zodiac, papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written on them, as particularly the word Abracadabra, formed in triangle or pyramid, thus:ABRACADABRA ABRACADABR. ABRACADAB ABRACADA ABRACAD

ABRACA

ABRAC

ABRA

ABR

AB A

Others had the Jesuits'
Mark in a Cross:
I H
S

I might spend a great deal of time in my exclamations against the follies, and indeed wickedness of those things, in a time of such danger, in a matter of such consequence as this, of a national infection. But my memorandums of these things relate rather to take notice only of the fact, and mention only that it was so; how the poor people found the insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead carts, and thrown into the common graves of every parish, with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks, remains to be spoken of as we go along.

All this was the effect of the hurry the people were in, after the first notion of the plague being at hand was among them, and which may be said to be from about Michaelmas 1664, but more particularly after the two men died in St Giles's, in the beginning of December; and again, after another alarm in February: for when the plague evidently spread itself, they soon began to sce the folly of trusting to those unperforming creatures, who had gulled them of their money; and then their fears worked another way, namely, to amazement and stupidity, not knowing what course to take, or what to do, either to help or relieve themselves: but they ran about from one neighbour's house to another, and even in the streets from one door to another, with repeated cries of, "Lord, have mercy upon us! what shall we do?"

Indeed, the poor people were to be pitied in one particular thing, in which they had little or no relief, and which I desire to mention with a serious awe and reflection, which, perhaps, every