had no work and no wages; their insufficient nourishment no doubt assisted the disease, which raged with the greatest force among the poorer sort. Bartholomew Fair was forbidden. In September Pepys writes, "To Lambeth: but Lord! what a sad time it is, to see no boats upon the river, and grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, and nobody but wretches in the street." The people began to get back and to go about their usual business in December; the Court returned in February, and it was soon observed that the streets were as full of people as ever. From the painting by John Hayles in the National Portrait Gallery, London. This picture is referred to in Pepys' Diary. Yet nearly 70,000 had fallen, or perhaps one in three. If with the present population of 5,000,000 one in three were to die of Plague there would be a loss of 1,700,000. It seems as if about a third part of the population of London were cut off by this scourge. Happily it was the last of the great plagues. The history of London is no longer interrupted by the death of one-third of its people. The following notes are a brief diary of the Plague as it was observed by Pepys 1665 April 30th. "Two or three houses in the City already shut up." May 24th. "All the news . . . is of the plague growing upon us in this town." This day I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and 'Lord, have mercy upon us' writ there." "Hear that the Plague has come into the City." "The town grows very sickly and people to be afraid of it: there dying this last week of the plague 112 from 43 the week before." "There died four or five at Westminster of the plague." "I find all the town almost going out of town, the coaches and waggons being full of people going into the country." "The Mortality Bill is come to 267. June 7th. "The hottest day that ever I felt in my life. June 10th. June 15th. June 20th. June 21st. June 29th. July 3rd. July 12th. July 13th. July 20th. "There dying 1089 of the plague this week." July 21st. July 22nd. July 25th. July 27th. "To Westminster, where I hear the sickness increases greatly. Sad at the news that seven "The season growing so sickly, that it is much to be feared how a man can escape.” "Above 700 died of the plague this week." "The plague growing very raging and my apprehensions of it great." "To Foxhall, where to the Spring Garden, but I do not see one guest there, the town being so empty of any one to come thither." "Sad the story of the plague in the City, it growing mightily." "Sad news of the death of so many in the parish" (his City parish) "of the plague, forty "The weekly bill. . . about 1700 of the Plague." "In great trouble to see the Bill this week rise so high, to above 4000 in all, and of them above 3000 of the plague." "Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people and very few upon the 'Change. “To Mr. Colvill the goldsmith's, having not been for some days in the streets: but now how Oct. 16th. Oct. 31st. Nov. 5th. "Sent for the Weekly Bill, and find 8252 dead in all, and of them 6978 of the plague." "Decrease of 500 and more." "(Dead). . . of the plague, 7165." "Blessed be God! there is above 1800 decrease." Nov. 9th. Nov. 22nd. Dec. 13th. "Lord! how empty the streets are, and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores; and so many sad stories overheard as I walk." "Above 400 less . . . of the plague, 1031.” "The plague increases much at Lambeth, St. Martins, and Westminster." "The plague-Blessed be God!-is decreased 400, making the whole this week but 1300 and odd." "I was very glad . . . to hear that the plague is come very low; the whole under 1000, and the plague 600 and odd." "Our poor little parish is the greatest number in all the city, having six, from one last week." May 12th. June 6th. July 2nd. Aug. 6th. Aug. 9th. Aug. 10th. S "The plague increases in many places and is 53 this week with us.” "The plague is, as I hear, increased but two this week." "Greenwich worse than ever it was, and Deptford too." "Mrs. Rawlinson is dead of the sickness. the mayde also is dead." It will be observed that the Plague lingered until the Great Fire of September 2 drove it clean away. The best-that is, the most graphic-account of the Plague is that of Daniel Defoe. It is, perhaps, too long. The mind grows sick in the reading. He presents us, after his favourite method, with a series of pictures and portraits of individuals. When it is remembered that his book appeared in the year 1720, the year, that is, of the great Plague of Marseilles, and fifty-five years after the event, it is generally believed that his history is a work of pure fiction. I think it can be shown, however, that it was not a work of fiction at all, but simply a work of recollection. To the old man of sixty came back the memories and the tales that he had heard as a boy not yet in his teens. Defoe was born in the year 1661. His father lived in Cripplegate, where, as we know, he had a shop. The child, therefore, was four years of age in the Plague year. A child of four observes a great deal and may remember a great deal. Children vary very much in respect to observation and memory. For instance, a child would remember, perhaps, anything out of the common in the buying and selling of goods in his father's shop, where he looked on at the customers. Defoe says: "When any one bought a joint of meat, he would not take it out of the butcher's hand, but took it off the hooks himself; on the other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but put it into a pot full of vinegar which he kept for that purpose. The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, so that he might take no change." This must surely have been seen by the child and remembered. It happened in his own father's shop before his eyes. Another thing. The Great Fire not only drove the lingering Plague out of the City, but actually drove away the memory of it. Who could talk or think about the Plague with this other awful affliction to consider? Now Cripplegate-where the child Defoe lived -was not touched by the Fire; it was very heavily afflicted by the Plague, but the Wonderful Yeare 1603. The writer has no intention of setting down a plain. unvarnished tale, as will be seen from the following extracts (Phanix Britannicus) :— "A stiffe and freezing horror sucks up the rivers of my blood; my haire stands on ende with the panting of my braines: mine eye balls are ready to start out, being beaten with the billowes of my teares : out of my weeping pen does the ink mournfully and more bitterly than gall drop on the pale-faced paper, even when I do but thinke how the bowels of my sicke country have been torne. Apollo, therefore, and you bewitching silver-tongued Muses, get you gone: I invocate none of your names. sit you on each side of me, whilst I am delivered of this deadly burden: prompt me that I may utter ruthfull and passionate condoiement: arme my trembiing hand, that I may boldly rip up and anatomize the ulcerous body of this Anthropophagized Plague: lend me art (without any counterfeit shadowing) to paint and delineate to the life the whole story of this mortall and pestiferous battaile. And you the ghosts of those more (by many) than 40,000, that with the virulent poison of infection have been driven out of your earthly dwellings: you desolate hand-wringing widowes, that beate your bosomes over your departing husbandes you wofully distracted mothers that with dishevelled hair fall into swounds, while you lie kissing the insensible cold lips of your breathless infants: you outcast and downtrodden orphans, that shall many a yeare hence remember more freshly to mourne, when your mourning garments shall look old and be forgotten: and you the Genii of all those emptyed families, whose habitations are now among the Antipodes joine all your hands together, and with your bodies cast a ring about me: let me behold your ghastly vizages, that my paper may receive their true pictures and eccho forth your grones through the hollow trunke of my pen, and rain down your gummy tears into mine incke, that even marble bosomes may be shaken with terrour, and hearts of adamant melt into compassion." He goes on to describe the many who ran away : "It was no boot to bid them take their heels, for away they trudge thick and threefold: some riding, some on foote, some without bootes, some in their slippers, by water, by land, swom they westward: many to Gravesend none went unless they were driven for whosoever landed there never came back again. Hacknies, water-men, and wagons were not so terribly employed many a year: so that within a short time there was not a good horse in Smithfield, nor a coach to be set eye on: for after the world had once run upon the wheeles of the pest cart, neither coach nor caroach durst appeare in his likenesse. Let us pursue these run-awayes no longer, but leave them in the unmercifull hands of the country-hardheaded Hobbinolls (who are ordained to be their tormentors), and return back to the siege of the citie. Every house lookte like St. Bartholomew's Hospitall, and every street like Bucklersbury, for poor Methridatum and Dragonwater (being both of them in all the world, scarce worth threepence) were boxt into every corner, and yet were both drunke every hour at other men's cost. Lazarus lay groaning at every man's door: marry no Dives was within to send him a crum (for all your Gold-finches were fled to the woods) nor a dogge left to licke his sores, for they (like Curres) were knockt downe like oxen, and fell thicker than acornes. I am amazed to remember what dead marches were made of three thousand trooping together: husbands, wives, and children being led as ordinarily to one grave as if they had gone to one bed. And those that could shift for a time, and shrink their heads out of the collar (as many did) yet went they most bitterly miching and muffled up and downe with rue and wormewood stoft into their eares and nostrils, looking like so many bores' heads stuck with branches of rosemary, to be served in for brawne at Christmas. This was a rare world for the Church, who had wont to complaine for want of living, and now had more living thrust upon her than she knew how to bestow: to have been clarke now to a parish clarke was better than to serve some foolish justice of peace, or than the yeare before to have been a benefice. Never let any man aske me what became of our Phisitions in this massacre; they hid their synodicall heads as well as the prowdest: and I cannot blame them: for their phlebotomes, losinges, |