think themselves most safe, that can fly furthest off from the city.

In July the plague increaseth, and prevaileth exceedingly, the number of 470, which died in one week by the disease, ariseth to 725 the next week, to 1089 the next, to 1843 the next, to 2010 the next. Now the plague compasseth the walls of the city like a flood, and poureth in upon it. Now most parishes are infected both without and within; yet there are not so many houses shut up by the plague, as by the owners forsaking of them for fear of it; and though the inhabitants be so exceedingly decreased by the departure of so many thousands, the number of dying persons increaseth fearfully. Now the countries keep guards, lest infectious persons should from the city bring the disease unto them; most of the rich are now gone, and the middle sort will not stay behind: but the poor are forced (through poverty) to stay, and abide the storm. Now most faces gather paleness, and what dismal apprehensions do then fill their minds, what dreadful fears do there possess the spirits, especially of those whose consciences are full of guilt, and have not made their peace with God? The old drunkards, and swearers, and unclean persons are brought into great straits; they look on the right hand, and on the left, and death is marching towards them from every part, and they know not whither to fly that they may escape it. No and arrows begin to fly very thick about their ea eople they see many fellow sinners fall before their expecting every hour themselves to be sn ene

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and the very sinking fears they have had of the plague, hath brought the plague and death upon many; some by the sight of a coffin in the streets, have fallen into a shivering, and immediately the disease hath assaulted them, and serjeant Death hath arrested them, and clapt to the doors of their houses upon them, from whence they have come forth no more, till they have been brought forth to their graves. We may imagine the hideous thoughts, and horrid perplexity of mind, the tremblings, confusions, and anguish of spirit, which some awakened sinners have had, when the plague hath broke in upon their houses, and seized upon near relations, whose dying groans, sounding in their ears, have warned them to prepare; when their doors have been shut up and fastened on the outside with an inscription, "Lord have mercy upon us," and none suffered to come in but a nurse, whom they have been more afraid of than the plague itself; when lovers, and friends, and companions in sin have stood aloof, and not dared to come nigh the door of the house, lest death should issue forth from thence upon them; especially when the disease hath invaded themselves, and first began with a pain and dizziness in their head, then trembling in their other members; when they have felt boils to arise under their arms, and in their groins, and seen blains to come forth in other parts; when the disease hath wrought in them to that height, as to send forth those spots which (most think) are the certain tokens of near approaching death; and now they have received the sentence of death within themselves, and have certainly concluded, that within

a few hours they must go down into the dust, and their naked souls, without the case of their body, must make its passage into eternity, and appear before the highest Majesty, to render their accounts and receive their sentence. None can utter the horror which hath been upon the spirits of such, through the lashes and stings of their guilty consciences, when they have called to mind a life of sensuality and profaneness, their uncleanness, drunkenness, injustice, oaths, curses, derisions of saints and holiness, neglect of their own salvation; and when a thousand sins have been set in order before their eyes, with another aspect than when they looked upon them in the temptation; and they find God to be irreconcilably angry with them, and that the day of grace is over, the door of mercy is shut, and that pardon and salvation (which before they slighted) is now unattainable: that the grave is now opening its mouth to receive their bodies, and hell opening its mouth to receive their souls; and they apprehend that they are now just entering into a place of endless woe and torment, and they must now take up their lodgings in the inferior regions of utter darkness, with devils, and their fellowdamned sinners, and there abide for evermore in the extremity of misery, without any hopes or possibility of a release; and that they have foolishly brought themselves into this condition, and been the cause of their own ruin; we may guess that the despairful agonies and anguish of such awakened sinners, hath been of all things the most unsupportable; except the very future miseries themselves, which they have been afraid of.

In August how dreadful is the increase: from 2010, the number amounts up to 2817 in one week; and thence to 3880 the next; thence to 4237 the next; thence to 6102 the next; and all these of the plague, besides other diseases.

Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now Death rides triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets; and breaks into every house almost, where any inhabitants are to be found. Now people fall as thick as leaves from the trees in autumn, when they are shaken by a mighty wind. Now there is a dismal solitude in London's streets, every day looks with the face of a Sabbath day, observed with greater solemnity than it used to be in the city. Now shops are shut in, people rare and very few that walk about, insomuch that the grass begins to spring up in some places, and a deep silence almost in every place, especially within the walls; no rattling coaches, no prancing horses, no calling in customers, nor offering wares; no London Cries sounding in the ears: if any voice be heard, it is the groans of dying persons, breathing forth their last: and the funeral knells of them that are ready to be carried to their graves. Now shutting up of visited-houses (there being so many) is at an end, and most of the well are mingled among the sick, which other. wise would have got no help. Now in some places where the people did generally stay, not one house in a hundred but is infected; and in many houses half the family is swept away; in some the whole, from the eldest to the youngest; few escape with the death of but one or two; never

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did so many husbands and wives die together; never did so many parents carry their children with them to the grave, and go together into the same house under earth, who had lived together in the same house upon it. Now the nights are too short to bury the dead; the long summer days are spent from morning unto the twilight in conveying the vast number of dead bodies unto the bed of their graves.

Now we could hardly go forth, but we should meet many coffins, and see diseased persons with sores and limping in the streets; amongst other sad spectacles, methought two were very affecting: one of a woman coming alone, and weeping, by the door where I lived (which was in the midst of infection) with a little coffin under her arm, carrying it to the new church-yard: I did judge that it was the mother of the child, and that all the family besides was dead, and she was forced to coffin up, and bury with her own hands, this her last dead child. Another, was of a man at the corner of the Artillery wall, that, as I judge, through the dizziness of his head with the disease, which seized upon him there, had dashed his face against the wall, and when I came by, he lay hanging with his bloody face over the rails, and bleeding upon the ground; and as I came back, he was removed under a tree in Moorfields, and lay upon his back; I went and spake to him; he could make me no answer, but rattled in the throat, and, as I was informed, within half an hour died in the place.

It would be endless to speak what we have seen and heard of some in their phrenzy,