a

drunk poison ; and others fall dead in the market, while they are buying necessaries for the support of life.”

We will add to this the history of one of his own days, in which he relates the manner in which he contrived to escape infection, though daily spending hours in air corrupted by the pestilential miasmata, and visiting and handling patients in the last extremity of their agonies.

“ As soon as I rose in the morning early, I took the quantity of a nutmeg of the anti-pestilential electuary; then after the despatch of private concerns in my family, I ventured into a large room, where crowds of citizens used to be in waiting for me; and there I commonly spent two or three hours, as in an hospital, examining the several conditions and circumstances of all who came thither; some of which had ulcers yet uncured, and others to be advised under the first symptoms of seizure ; all which I endeavoured to despatch, with all possible care to their various exigencies.

“ As soon as this crowd could be discharged, I judged it not proper to go abroad fasting, and therefore got my breakfast: after which, till dinner time, I visited the sick at their houses; whereupon, entering their houses, I immediately bad burnt some proper thing upon coals, and also kept in my mouth some lozenges all the while I was examining them. But they are in a mistake who report that physicians used, on such occasions, very hot things; as myrrh, zedoary, angelica, ginger, &c. for many, deceived thereby, raised inflammations upon their tonsils, and greatly endangered their lungs.

“I further took care not to go into the rooms of the sick when I sweated, or were short breathed with walking; and kept my mind as composed as possible, being sufficiently warned by such, who had grievously suffered by uneasiness in that respect. After some hours visiting in this manner, I returned home. Before dinner, I always drank a glass of sack, to warm the stomach, refresh the spirits, and dissipate any beginning lodgment of the infection. I chose meats for my table that yielded an easy and generous nourishment, roasted before boiled, and pickles not only suitable to the meats, but the nature of the distemper (and indeed in this melancholy time, the city greatly abounded with variety of all good things of that nature); I seldom likewise rose from dinner without drinking more wine.' After this, I had always many persons came for advice; and as soon as I could despatch them, I again visited till eight or nine at night, and then concluded the evening at home, by drinking to cheerfulness of my old favourite liquor, which encouraged sleep, and an easy breathing through the pores all night." But if in the day-time I found the least approaches of the infection upon me, as by giddi. ness, loathing at stomach, and faintness, I immediately had recourse to a glass of this wine, which easily drove these beginning disorders away by transpiration.

“Yet in the whole course of the infection, I found myself ill but twice; but was soon again cleared of its approaches by these means, and the help of such antidotes as I kept always by me.”

But to return to the novelist, from whom, after all, we can gather the best account of this remarkable visitation. For of all the pamphlets and publications which we have consulted on this occasion, Defoe's book is almost the only one which attempts to give any picture of London as it appeared at the time to a spectator. But from the various topics on which he dwells, the various incidents and familiar examples he invents or records, the various reflections which he makes, all of which arise from a very patient and intelligent study of the subject, we can make a few selections, which, while they will

e as good specimens of the author, will instruct the reader in the history of the plague, whether in our own capital, or in any other

f the world.

thus speaks generally of the sufferings of the infected: " But, this is but one; it is scarce creditable what dreadful cases happened in particular families every day ; people in the rage of the distemper, or in the tor

ment of their swellings, which was indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting themselves, &c. Mo. thers murdering their own children in their lunacy, some dying of mere grief, as a passion, some of mere fright and surprise, without any infection at all; others frighted into idiotism and foolish distractions, some into despair and lunacy; others into melancholy madness.

“The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures, even to death. The swellings in some grew hard, and they applied violent drawing plaisters, or poultices, to break them; and if these did not do, they cut and scarified them in a terrible manner: in some, those swellings were made hard, partly by the force of the distemper, and partly by their being too violently drawn, and were so hard that no instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment; and some in the very operation. In these distresses, some for want of help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid hands upon themselves, as above. Some broke out into the streets, perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river, if they were not stopt by the watchmen, or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water, wherever they found it.

“It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of those who were thus tormented, but of the two, this was counted the most promising particular in the whole infection; for, if these swellings could be brought to a head, and to break and run, or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, the patient generally recovered, whereas those, who like the gentlewoman's daughter, were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come out upon them, often went about indifferent easy, till a little before they died, and some till the moment they dropped down, as in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case; such would be taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses, if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning, and as it were, go away in a dream; such as died thus, had very little notice of their being infected at all, till the gangrene was spread through their whole body; nor could physicians themselves know certainly how it was with them, till they opened their breasts or other parts of their body, and saw the tokens."

Among various other instances of the just horror in which every one held his neighbour, the following may be extracted :

“ Another infected person came, and knocked at the door of a citizen's house, where they knew him very well; the servant let him in, and being told the mas. ter of the house was above, he ran up, and came into the room to them as the whole family was at supper: they began to rise up a little surprised, not knowing what the matter was, but he bid them sit still, he only came to take his leave of them. They asked him,- Why Mr. --, where are you going? 'Going,' says he, 'I have got the sickness, and shall die to-morrow night.' It is easy to believe, though not to describe the consternation they were all in, the women and the man's daughters, which were but little girls, were frighted almost to death, and got up, one running out at one door, and one at another, some down stairs, and some up stairs, and getting together as well as they could, locked themselves into their chambers, and screamed out at the window for help, as if they had been frighted out of their wits: the master, more composed than they, though both frighted and provoked, was going to lay hands on him, and throw him down stairs, being in a passion, but then considering a little the condition of the man, and the danger of touching him, horror seized his mind, and he stood still like one astonished. The poor distempered man, all this while, being as well diseased in his brain as in his body, stood still like one amazed; at length he turns round. Ay,' says he, with all the seeming calmness imaginable, is it so with you all! are you all disturbed at me? why then, I'll e'en go home and die there.' And so he goes immediately down stairs: the servant that had let him in goes down after him with a candle, but was afraid to go past him and open the door, so he stood on the stairs to see what he would do; the man went and opened the door, and went out and fung the door after him: it was some while before the family recovered the fright,

but as no ill consequence attended, they have had occasion since to speak of it (you may be sure) with great satisfaction. Though the man was gone, it was some time, nay, as I heard, some days before they recovered themselves of the hurry they were in, nor did they go up and down the house with any assurance, till they had burnt a great variety of fumes and perfumes in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of pitch, of gunpowder, and of sulphur, all separately shifted; and washed their clothes, and the like: as to the poor man, whether he lived or died I do not remember."

This, however, is ludicrous, compared with the following example of malignity which not unfrequently characterized the delirium attending the malady, and rendered it doubly horrible:

“A poor unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's wife, was (if the story be true) murdered by one of these creatures in Aldersgate street, or that way : he was going along the street, raving mad to be sure, and singing: the people only said he was drunk, but he himself said he had the plague upon him, which, it seems, was true; and meeting this gentlewoman, he would kiss her; she was terribly frighted, as he was only a rude fellow, and she run from him, but the street being very thin of people, there was nobody near enough to help her: when she saw he would overtake her, she turned, and gave him a thrust so forcibly, he being but weak, and pushed him down backward; but very unhappily, she being so near, he caught hold of her, and pulled her down also ; and getting up first, mastered her, and kissed her; and which was worst of all, when he had done, told her he had the plague, and why should not she have it as well as he. She was frighted enough before, being also young with child ; but when she heard him say he had the plague, she screamed out, and fell down in a swoon, or in a fit, which, though she recovered a little, yet killed her in a very few days, and I never heard whether she had the plague or no.”

We have soon after this a striking description of the general state of the metropolis, when the disease was at its height.

“It is here, however, to be observed, that after the funerals became so many, that people could not toll the bell, mourn, or weep, or wear black for one another, as they did before; no, nor so much as make coffins for those that died; so after a while the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased, that, in short, they shut up no houses at all; it seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible fury; so that, as the fire, the succeeding year, spread itself, and burnt with such violence, that the citizens, in despair, gave over their endeavours to extinguish it, so in the plague, it came at last to such violence, that the people sat still looking at one another, and seemed quite abandoned to despair : whole streets seemed to be desolated, and not to be shut up only, but to be emptied of their inhabitants ; doors were left open, windows stood shattering with the wind in empty houses, for want of people to shut them : in a word, people be. gan to give up themselves to their fears, and to think that all regulations and methods were in vain, and that there was nothing to be hoped for but an universal desolation; and it was even in the height of this general despair, that it pleased God to stay his hand, and to slacken the fury of the contagion, in such a manner, as was even surprising, like its beginning, and demonstrated it to be his own particular hand, and that above if not without the agency of means, as I shall take notice of in its proper place.

“But I must still speak of the plague, as in its height, raging even to desolation, and the people under the most dreadful consternation, even, as I have said, to des. pair. It is hardly credible to what excess the passions of men carried them in this extremity of the distemper; and this part, I think, was as moving as the rest What could affect a man in his full power of reflection; and what could make deeper impressions on the soul than to see a man, almost naked, and got out of his house, rhaps out of his bed into the street, come out of Harrow-Alley, a populous

', or collection of alleys, courts, and passages in the Butcher-row, in !! I say, what could be more affecting, than to see this poor man come I en street, run dancing and singing, and making a thousand antic

ve or six women and children running after him, crying and call. ing upon him, for the Lord's sake to come back, and entreating the help of others to bring him back, but all in vain, nobody daring to lay a hand upon him, or to come near him.

“This was a most grievous and afflicting thing to me, who saw it all from my own windows; for all this while the poor afflicted man was, as I observed it, even then in the utmost agony of pain, having, as they said, two swellings upon him, which could not be brought to break, or to suppurate; but by laying strong causticks on them, the surgeons had, it seems, hopes to break them, which causticks were then upon him, burning his flesh as with a hot iron. I cannot say what became of this poor man, but I think he continued roving about in that manner till he fell down and died.”

He goes on to mention a very remarkable trait, which, whether true or not, is founded upon a deep knowledge of human nature under the effects of calamity and despair.

“As I have mentioned how the people were brought into a condition to despair of life, and abandon themselves, so this very thing had a strange effect among us for three or four weeks, that is, it made them bold and venturous, they were no more shy of one another, or restrained within doors, but went any where, and every where, and began to converse; one would say to another, I do not ask you how you are, or say how I am, it is certain we shall all go, so 'tis no matter who is sick or who is sound;' and so they run desperately into any place or any company.

“ As it brought the people into public company, so it was surprising how it brought them to crowd into the churches; they inquired no more into who they sat near to, or far from, what offensive smells they met with, or what condition the people seemed to be in, but looking upon themselves all as so many dead corpses, they came to the churches without the least caution, and crowded together as if their lives were of no consequence, compared to the work which they came about there: indeed, the zeal which they shewed in coming, and the earnestness and affection they shewed in their attention to what they heard, made it manifest what a value people would all put upon the worship of God, if they thought every day they attended at the church that it would be their last.”

The supposed historian frequently retires to his house, and shuts himself up from all intercourse, when alarmed or depressed by the objects he meets with in his walks in the city. His curiosity, however, still alive, leads him to spend much of his time at his window, where he continues his observation. One particular alley, within his view, attracts his attention.

“Sometimes heaps and throngs of people would burst out of the alley, most of them women, making a dreadful clamour, mixed or compounded of screeches, cry. ings, and calling one another, that we could not conceive what to make of it; al. most all the dead part of the night the dead-cart stood at the end of that alley, for if it went in, it could not well turn again, and could go in but a little way. There, I say, it stood to receive dead bodies, and as the church-yard was but a little way off, if it went away full it would soon be back again : it is impossible to describe the most horrible cries and noise the poor people would make at their bringing the dead bodies of their children and friends out to the cart, and by the number one would have thought there had been none left behind, or that there were peo. ple enough for a small city living in those places: several times they cried murder, sometimes fire; but it was easy to perceive that it was all distraction, and the complaints of distressed and distempered people.”

We can only make one more extract, which, while it conveys a vivid impression of the insecurity of life at this time, is exceedingly characteristic of the writer.

“A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched, till the month of September, when the weight of the distemper lay more in the city than it had done before, was mighty cheerful, and something too bold, as I think it was, in his talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and how he had never come near any sick body: says another citizen (a neighbour of his) to him, one day, 'Do not Vol. I. No. 4.-Museum.

2U

be too confident, Mr.—————, it is hard to say who is sick and who is well; for we see men alive and well, to outward appearance, one hour, and dead the next.' 'That is true,' says the first man, for he was not a man presumptuously secure, but had escaped a long while, and men, as I said above, especially in the city, began to be over easy upon that score. That is true,' says he, "I do not think myself secure, but I hope I have not been in company with any person that there has been any danger in.' No!' says his neighbour, was not you at the Bull-tavern, in Gracechurchstreet, with Mr.- the night before last?" "Yes,' says the first, I was, but there was nobody there that we had any reason to think dangerous.' Upon which his neighbour said no more, being unwilling to surprise him; but this made him more inquisitive, and as his neighbour appeared backward, he was the more impatient, and in a kind of warmth, says he aloud, 'why, he is not dead, is he? Upon which his neighbour still was silent, but cast up his eyes, and said something to himself; at which the first citizen turned pale, and said no more but this, then I am a dead man too,' and went home immediately, and sent for a neighbouring apothecary to give him something preventive, for he had not yet found himself ill; but the apothecary opening his breast, fetched a sigh, and said no more but this, 'look up to God;' and the man died in a few hours."

Although we allow, that there is a great air of truth and reality in the work of Defoe, and though we feel considerably indebted to the writings of the excellent Dr. Hodges, we cannot cease to regret the absence of a striking, picturesque, and faithful description of the plague by an eye-witness, like that we find in the pages of Thucydides, which is perhaps the most perfect piece of composition that ever came from the pen of man. Nothing there is wanting to satisfy the physician, the historian, the poet, or the moralist; for that inimitable writer has selected his details with such judgment, has narrated them with such spirit, has supplied such genuine touches of truth and pathos, as to give, in a few chapters, such pictures to the imagination, such information to the understanding, as the elaborate volumes of others are unable to convey; and perhaps it is owing to the interest which he has given to the plague of Athens, as well as to the inherent interest in the subject, that the plague has become so favourite a theme to both poets and historians. That it has been so is a fact, and we propose, in our next number, to present our readers with a general review, as well of this extraordinary disease in its various localities, as of the very interesting series of works and single passages, of various countries and various ages, which have been written upon it.

With respect to the plague of London, however, we can collect from Dr. Hodges the symptoms and phenomena of the disorder, though we cannot describe them with the wonderful accuracy and in the spirited manner of Thucydides. Most persons, upon their first invasion by the sickness, perceived a creeping chillness gradually spreading itself over the body, which produced a shivering not unlike the cold fit of an ague-succeeded by convulsive motions of the limbs and frame. Soon after this horror and shaking followed a nauseousness, and strong inclinations to vomit, with a great oppression and seeming fulness of the stomach; a violent and intolerable headache next succeeded, when some fell into violent fits of phrenzy, and others became soporose and stupid. Afterwards, a fever discovered itself, and as soon as it began to appear, a strange faintness seized the patient, which was seconded by violent palpitations of the heart, so powerful as to be heard even at a considerable distance. In some instances, perspirations ensued, which would break out in such profusion, as if the whole constitution were dissolved. These sweats were sometimes of a citron colour; sometime black, fetid, and often like blood;