nor egress.

inquiries, that the alderman, after having supplied himself with provisions, had locked up the doors several weeks ago, since which he held communication with no one, and suffered neither ingress This precaution, as Jocelyn subsequently found, had been practised by several other families, and in most cases proved effectual. He desired that his name might be conveyed to the alderman; but being assured it would be utterly unavailing in inducing him to grant him an interview, he inquired which was the nearest place where he could find a lodging, at least for a night or two. "There is the Moses and Aaron publichouse, at the corner of Jewin Street," replied the man," and there is a lodging-house only two doors off; but whether they will take you in at present I cannot say."

To the latter our hero betook himself in preference; and, ringing at the bell, was answered by a woman from the window, who asked him what he wanted. He answered that he had just arrived from abroad, in total ignorance of the contagion; and, being disappointed of a residence in the house of his friend, Alderman Staunton, was in want of a lodging. "Have you a pass from Sir John Lawrence, the lord mayor, or a certificate of health?" inquired the woman. "I have nothing," he replied, "but a receipt for my luggage and effects, which were only landed this morning at Stepney, as you may see by the date

of the paper:" and he held it up in confirmation of his statement. "Your ruddy face is the best certificate of health," said the woman; "and I were base and ungrateful indeed, to shut my door against any friend of the worthy alderman, to whose bounty I am indebted even for the house in which I live. Come in." The door was presently open

ed; and, as he entered, the woman ejaculated, "May God spare this house, and all that are in it!" to which Jocelyn replied, " Amen !" and with this solemn welcome he was ushered into the parlour.

At that period of general mortality and depopulation, persons were not easily found to perform the menial offices of life, and even where they could be had, many preferred executing the most servile duties themselves, to the risk consequent upon the employment of a stranger. Participating in this feeling, Jocelyn set off the next morning for Stepney, in order to make arrangements for getting his effects conveyed to his present lodgings, as he intended to quit London, without delay, as soon as he could learn tidings of Tracy, or ascertain where the Court were fixed. Court had, in the first instance, removed to Hampton, for the purpose of avoiding the infection; but deeming its vicinity to the metropolis objectionable, they had subsequently withdrawn to Salisbury; and it was now rumoured that they were about to fly from that city, and establish themselves at Ox

The

ford. At Brambletye he was loth to present himself, until he could appease the irritated Sir John with some prospect of his restoration to favour ; and he had, moreover, a vehement objection against again encountering the welcome of such a step-mother as the Juffrouw. Warned by the wo

man of the house where he lodged, against entering any of the hackney-coaches, many of which had been employed in conveying infected persons, he set out for Stepney on foot, meeting the same desolating sights as had appalled him on the day before. Some were weeping, sobbing, and wringing their hands; some shrieked aloud in an uncontrollable agony; others were walking forwards with uplifted hands, praying and calling upon God for mercy; and in Leadenhall Street he met the enthusiast Solomon Eagle, naked from the waist upwards, like the poor wretch of the day before, bearing a pan of burning charcoal on his head, and crying aloud, as Jonah did to Nineveh, "Yet a few days, and London shall be destroyed!"

All those who heard him seemed to be astounded by his awful manner and terrible denunciations. Whenever he stopped he pointed to the sky; and the poor panic-stricken creatures that followed him, fell into ecstasies of terror as they looked upwards, crying out that they saw hearses and coffins in the air, and heaps of dead bodies lying unburied, and a naked sword with the point downwards ready to fall upon their heads,

and the bare arm of the Lord stretched forth from the heavens and pouring out the phial of his wrath over the devoted city. Indeed it appeared to Jocelyn that the plague had extended itself to the faculties of the people, the contagion having often completely disordered the minds of those who had hitherto preserved their bodies from infection.

Upon her return
The neighbour-

In the melancholy frame of mind which such scenes might be naturally supposed to inspire, he found his way to Stepney, where he was obliged to wait for several hours; the woman to whom he had entrusted his effects having gone to Deptford with her brother the fisherman. a fresh difficulty presented itself. hood of Aldersgate Street was represented to him as being more dreadfully visited by the pestilence than any other quarter, and few even of the common people cared to expose themselves to the jeopardy of approaching it. A handsome reward, which completely exhausted his attenuated purse, at last induced a sailor to procure a barrow, and offer to wheel home his effects; but so much time had been lost in this negociation, that the evening was already closing in when they started.

The public fires which had been ordered to be lighted in different quarters of the city, under the notion of their purifying the atmosphere, now cast a ghastly glare upon the sickly wretches that occasionally gathered about them. The rakers were going their rounds, blowing a horn, to give notice

to the inhabitants that they should bring out the sweepings and filth of their houses, which these men were appointed to collect every evening, lest new infection should be generated and as the darkness increased he began to encounter a still more revolting spectacle, the earts that went the nightly round of every parish, the driver sounding a large bell, and his comrades, in the intervals of its noise, uttering the doleful cry of "Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!” The continual stoppages of the vehicle, the sickening sight of the corpses, brought down in the habiliments in which the parties had died, and tossed promiscuously in, one upon another, by wretches whom custom had rendered callous, the general wailings, lamentations, and shrieks of the surviving relatives, as the bell again sounded and the cart drove off, would have been sufficiently harrowing to his feelings, without the examples of individual agony from which he was unable at times to withdraw his eyes, although they were almost withered at the sight.

In one place a mother, wildly following the cart that contained her only son, disregarded all the solicitations and even menaces of the drivers, and with distracted cries ordered them to give her back her child; in another, a man had rushed from his bed half naked, and run into the streets in a state of delirium, dancing and singing, and making a thousand antic gestures, followed by