consider seriously with myself concerning my own case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbours did. After much anxious considering, sometimes resolving one way, sometimes another, I came to the conclusion that, upon the whole, it was my duty, and expedient for me in my trade and business, being that of a saddler, and though a single man, with a house and shop full of goods to take care of, to remain in town, casting myself entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Almighty. I had an elder brother, however, a married man, who with his wife and children went out of town. During the month of July, and while our part of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I went ordinarily about the streets as my business required, and generally went once in a day or in two days into the city to my brother's house, which he had given me charge of, and to see it was safe. But the city also began to be visited with the disease; and all this month of July people continued to flee. In August they fled in still greater numbers, so that I began to think there would be really none but magistrates and servants left in the city.

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even when the sickness was chiefly there; and as the thing was new to me, as well as to every body else, it was a most surprising thing to see those streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate. One day being at that part of the town on some special business, curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, and indeed I

walked a great way where I had no business; I went up Holborn, and there the street was full of people, but they walked in the middle of the great street, neither on one side nor other, because, as I suppose, they would not mingle with any body that came out of houses, or meet with smells and scents from houses that might be infected. The inns of court were all shut up, nor were very many of the lawyers in the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there. Whole rows of houses, in some places, were shut close up; the inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left.

It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were prodigiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the time that it began. The town was computed to have in it above 100,000 people more than ever it held before; the joy of the restoration having alone brought a vast number of families to London.

The apprehensions of the people were strangely increased by the error of the times, in which, I think, the people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophesies and astrological conjurations, dreams and old wifes' tales, than ever they were before or since. People took to reading Lily's Almanack, and other such exciting works, almost all of which foretold the ruin of the city. Many persons, frantic from these or other causes, ran about the streets predicting all sorts of horrors. The trade of fortune-telling became 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 astro

loger,' &c. 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-conjurors generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow him in crowds, and ask him questions as he went along.

Gay and luxurious as the court then was, it began to 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, merry-Andrew's, puppet-shows, ropedancers, and such like doings, which had bewitched the common people, shut 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 every body began to think of the grave, not of mirth and diversions.

On the other hand, it was incredible, and scarcely 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 people to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as these; namely, 'Infallible preventive pills against the plague: 'Never-failing preservatives against the infection:' 'Sovereign cordials against

the corruption of air:' 'Exact regulations for the conduct of the body in case of 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 direction and advice in the case of infection; these had specious titles, also, such as these: An eminent HighDutch 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 Indian 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.”

But there was another madness beyond all this. "This was in wearing charms, philters, exorcisms, amulets, and I know not what preparations, to fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit; and 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 that famous word ARRACADABRA, with the letters arranged in a triangle or pyramid." In short, all remedies were grasped at that quackery or ignorance could suggest; the plague, meanwhile, spreading far and wide.

66

THIS is a hard word; but if your father has a Walker's Dictionary," you will find, if you look for the word, that it means, "a magnificent high piece of marble, or stone, having usually four faces, and lessening upwards by degrees," just as you see the one which is represented in the picture.

Obelisks are usually erected to commemorate some great event, or in memory of some eminent individual, and some