the Archbishop of Milan, distinguished himself by an unceasing zeal in
the cause of religion and charity. The ample revenues of his dignity,
at all times liberally dispersed among those who needed assistance,
were now devoted to the support of the lazarettos; and his private
resources were increased by the zeal of the rich, who placed large
sums of money at his disposal, confident that in his hands they
would be most beneficially and discreetly employed. One remarkable
instance of generosity is recorded. Two countrymen requested and
obtained admission to the cardinal. “We are two brothers,” they said,
“husbandmen, whom our father left in possession of a small farm: we
have brought here 2000 gold pieces, which hard labour and economy
have enabled us to accumulate, and now lay them at your feet, to be
disposed to such charitable uses as shall appear best to you.” No less
prodigal of his personal safety than of his wealth, this excellent
prelate declared that he would never quit the city so long as the
plague lasted; and he kept his word, notwithstanding the earnest and
importunate solicitations of many who set a higher value on his life
than he himself did. He visited the hospitals, the poor, gave free
access to every person, however humble, who wished to see him, and
directed his especial attention to requiring from the parochial clergy
a strict discharge of their duties in this trying season, when the
ministration of spiritual assistance to the sick and dying was esteemed
more hazardous than mounting a breach or storming a battery. And it is
just to observe that both the parochial and conventual clergy displayed
a noble zeal in encountering danger and labour, not only up to, but
beyond the strict letter of their duty. They regulated the lazarettos
and preserved such order as could be maintained in such establishments,
and attended to the bodily and mental wants of their patients, hopeless
of preserving their own life through the dangers to which they were
exposed, and therefore undeterred by danger when good was to be done.
On the contrary, none of the physicians would enter the hospitals. The
tribunal of health and the municipal authorities requested the college
of that faculty to depute some members of their body to perform that
duty: it was answered, that they would send members who should go as
far as the walls, keeping however outside the ditch surrounding the
establishment, and there do what they could to help the sick, but that
no one would consent to enter those roofs to his certain destruction.
They tried in vain to bribe men to this service, and were obliged to
seek physicians in France and Germany.
Ripamonte possessed a breviary which had been the cardinal’s, which
contained many manuscript observations made by him during the
progress of the plague. They contain among several curious anecdotes
the following observations on the reports prevalent concerning the
anointers: “Truth and falsehood are readily intermixed, and with
respect to this factitious plague many things are said of which you
may readily believe a part, and as readily disprove others: and thus
I admit some of those stories; others may, I think, be rejected. This
I do not hesitate to affirm, that many have thought they could acquit
themselves of negligence in exposing themselves to infection, by
asserting that the plague which they have themselves caught, has been
the work of anointers.”
The practices which, whether falsely or truly, were said to exist,
are these. Men begged through the city, offering poisoned papers under
the appearance of petitions. The earth and its productions, eatables,
money given in charity, were poisoned. The fastenings of doors, as
being necessarily handled, were special objects of attack; as were also
the basins of holy water placed in churches. Poles were used to anoint
what was out of reach, and bellows to scatter poisoned dust. “These and
other things which were loudly proclaimed, I neither believe entirely,”
says the cardinal, “nor yet think them reported entirely without
foundation.” On the whole, without believing that these crimes were
committed either at the instigation of foreign princes, or in virtue
of an express compact with the devil, the cardinal seems decidedly
to incline to the conclusion, that the pestilence was spread, if not
originated, by artificial means; and to refer the guilt to soldiers
(and the mercenaries of that day were men capable of any enormities),
and other men of broken fortunes, who hoped to enrich themselves by
plunder amid the general confusion, dismay, and death. Before we quit
this subject, it is due to his reputation to state that he, and he
alone, strongly disapproved of the procession with the body of St.
Charles Borromeo, as furnishing the best opportunity to anointers, if
such villains there were, and at all events of ensuring an increase of
the disorder; since among such a multitude many persons were sure to
bear about them the seeds of infection.
Towards the end of September the disease began to abate; and its
decline was signalized by as impudent a fraud as has ever been
practised, even in those earlier times when the power of the church
and the blindness of the people were most remarkable. Attached to the
Dominican convent there was a church of high reputation, dedicated
to the Virgin, in gratitude for her signal kindness towards the city
of Milan. On the night of September 22nd, the monks were collected,
waiting for the matin service, when suddenly their several occupations
of praying or sleeping were interrupted by the sound of the church
bells. It soon appeared that they were rung miraculously, without
touch of mortal fingers.[124] Some manifested wonder, others fear,
according to their different tempers, but all were at a loss to explain
the prodigy, until a voice too awful to be human was heard to say,
“Mother, I will take pity upon my people.” The interpretation of the
miracle then was evident: the Virgin had sought and obtained from her
Son the remission of the plague, and the next morning the oil which fed
the lamp suspended before her image was found to possess a miraculous
healing virtue, and was distributed drop by drop to all classes, who
crowded, high and low, to receive it; not, we may presume, without a
handsome tribute of gratitude to the protectress herself, and to her
servants the Dominicans. Ripamonte, cautious of expressing a doubt
concerning the anointers, breathes not a syllable from which a want
of faith in this miracle can even be inferred: the church was the
church of the Inquisition, and it was from the Dominican monks that
the officers of that institution were chosen. The number of deaths,
however, began to diminish about or somewhat earlier than this time,
and grew smaller and smaller as the autumn advanced; and by the close
of the year Milan was delivered from this dreadful scourge.
The number who died in these few months was registered at 140,000, but
this is supposed to have been below the mark, because many persons were
privately buried by their friends, to avoid introducing the Monatti
into their houses.
The extravagant credulity of the Milanese, and the fury and crimes
which sprung from that credulity, may be partially excused on the
ground that in that age even learned men believed in the possibility
of exciting pestilence by means half–medical, half–magical, and that
evil spirits exercised a malign influence over the air, and interfered
visibly in diffusing the evil. More than thirty years later, the
Jesuit Kircher, a man of various and extensive knowledge, but of a
mystic temper, and a firm believer in the power of magic and occult
influences, speaks of this plague as produced by the arts of evil men.
Nor does he want authorities to strengthen his belief, among whom we
may mention Theophrastus, who speaks of a terrible plague produced by
poisoners in his own time, and gives the receipt for the pestiferous
mixture, the ingredients of which are the putrid bodies of men deceased
of the plague, and the bones, marrow, and poison of angry toads,
approximating nearly to the receipt given by Ripamonte. To prove that
demons may act as the ministers of God’s wrath to scatter the seeds of
pestilence, he quotes Gregory of Nyssa, a father of the church in the
fourth century, who relates in his Life of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
(the wonder–worker), that in a city of Greece, the people being
collected in the theatre were much inconvenienced for want of room
and made loud complaints, on which the evil spirit was to reply that
there should soon be room enough in the city. And before the audience
dispersed, so fierce a pestilence broke out among them, that in brief
space a populous city was changed into a desert. Here the drift of the
story is evident—it was a warning against theatrical amusements, which
the Christians abhorred not only as profane, but as idolatrous, and a
proof of the power of the devil over those who frequented them. The
Pythagorean philosophers maintained similar doctrines as to the agency
of spirits. Apollonius of Tyana, being at Ephesus during a pestilence,
observed a demon under the habit of a fisherman busily employed in
spreading the infection. He commanded that the fisherman should be
stoned, and immediately the plague ceased. Similar stories are told
of Pythagoras by Iamblichus. And the monkish writers helped mainly to
encourage a belief of the interference of the devil in human affairs,
by the many legends in which the spiritual adversary was introduced, to
his own discomfiture and to the glory of some favourite saint.
It may reasonably be hoped, almost as much from the improved sanitary
regulations and increased cleanliness of our cities, as from the
progress of medical science, that no future pestilence will inflict
upon Europe sufferings equal to those which have been described, and
which are still to follow. To enable us, however, better to appreciate
the value of this hope, we may refer shortly to the condition of
that science about the period of which we have been speaking. The
structure of the body, and the properties of minerals, were for the
most part unknown even to the best Greek and Latin physicians; and
though anatomy had made considerable progress at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, pharmacy had made little or none. The regular
physicians were educated in the schools of universities, where they
imbibed that profound respect for the authority of the ancients which
characterized the universities of that day, and that love of exclusive
privilege which has been charged upon universities in general. Brought
up in the fear of Hippocrates and Galen, they received their sayings
as oracular, and would probably rather have let a patient die,
_secundum artem_, than have employed remedies unsanctioned by their
authority. Chemistry meanwhile had made some progress, and in seeking
the philosopher’s stone many valuable properties of minerals had been
discovered: but the discreditable character of the alchemists, and
professional jealousy and prejudice, combined to render those persons,
who from their knowledge and their reputation might best have availed
themselves of the remedies thus presented, unwilling to profit, or
to let others profit, by discoveries made in so irregular a manner.
The effect of this ill–judged adherence to the wisdom of antiquity
was not of course to stifle the powerful preparations employed by
Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and others, but to throw them exclusively
into the hands of another party. Hence arose the contending sects
of Galenists and chemists, the former employing none but vegetable
productions, the latter ridiculing the Galenical pharmacy as cumbrous
and ineffectual, and placing their dependance on the newly–discovered
properties of mercury, antimony, sulphur, and other metals and earths.
It was probably very much owing to this schism that the practice of
medicine was so much infested by quacks towards the close of the
sixteenth and early in the seventeenth century, more so perhaps than
at any other period. The real power of the remedies discarded by the
most influential professors of the healing art could not be hidden,
and might easily be exaggerated; and hence arose a vast multitude of
empirics, each with his elixir vitæ, or some infallible medicine or
other, which vended under a lofty name, and with the pretence of deep
science, gained ready hold upon the credulity of the ignorant and the
simple.
“He is a rare physician, do him right,
An excellent Paracelsian, and has done
Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all
With spirits—he. He will not hear a word
Of Galen, or his tedious recipes.”[125]
Such was the state of medicine in England at this period: of its
state in Italy we are not qualified to speak; but, from an instance
presently to be quoted, it would seem to have been no more advanced
than it was in England. And as there was no disease for which money
could not purchase some infallible remedy, so the plague, as the
object of most general apprehension, was best of all suited for the
impostures of those whose treasury was the credulity of other people.
A reference to any collection of tracts upon this subject, published
before or during the year 1665, will satisfy the reader on this
head: the examples which follow have occurred during a very cursory
examination of one or two volumes, from which they might easily have
been multiplied. We find in ‘A Ioyfull Iewell,.. first made and
published in the Italian tung, by the famous and learned Knight and
Doctor M. Leonardo Fioraventie,’ such receipts as this: “Of Elixir
Vitæ, and how to make it, and of his great Vertues.” It consists of
forty ingredients, such as ginger, juniper, sage, rose–leaves, aloes,
figs, raisins, honey, &c., an equal quantity of each. This, if it
did no good, could perhaps do little harm: but when it is professed
that if any use it in time of pestilence, it is impossible he should
be infected, the deceit becomes a source of serious evil. Another
is worse, and joins blasphemy to impudence. “A great and miraculous
secret to help the pestilence, with great ease and in a short time;
a remedy and secret revealed of God miraculously. When a man hath a
pestilent sore, let there be made a hole in the earth, and there let
him be buryed all saving the neck and head, and there let him stand
xii or xiiii houres and he shall be holpen, and then take him forth:
and merveyl not that I write this medicine, because the earth is our
mother, and that which purifieth all things, as we see by experience
that the earth taketh forth all spots in cloth, it susteineth and
maketh flesh tender if we bury it v or vi hours in the earth.” Or “the
water of the sea hath a marveylous remedy in it against the pestilence,
if they wash them therein iiii or v houres togither, or if need require
let him stand x or xii houres therein.” Truly a man would be well
“holpen” by such remedies: yet this Fioraventi, a Bolognese physician
and alchemist of the sixteenth century, enjoyed considerable reputation
among his contemporaries. The chemists of course were not sparing in
their censures of their adversaries the Galenists, and the ingenious
and industrious Iatrochemist, Dr. George Thomson, makes the following
observations, in which the reader may be inclined partly to join:
“These, especially if they can but surreptitiously get some chymical
medicines from us, will, at a hazard, try what a dry fume of gums will
do, a costly pomander, a composition of figs, rue, and walnuts (a
rueful medicine to trust to if all were known), Mathias’ plague water,
or aqua epidemica (I wonder they forgat St. Luke’s water for mere
credit’s sake), an electuary of London treacle and wood–sorrel (I am
persuaded a leg of veal and green–sauce is far better), bole–armeniac
(no whit better than tobacco–clay, except that ‘tis dearer and farther
fetched). If these avail not, if they light upon rich families (let the
poor shift for themselves), they will provide for them (taking a share
with them) pearls, hyacinth–stone prepared (after their gross way),
bezoar–stone of the east, unicorn’s horn (equivalent to harts–horn),
lignum aloes—strange they omitted gold, but that I believe they mean to
put into their own purse.”[126] The ridicule is not undeserved, when
we find such articles as crab’s eyes, julap of violets, oil of amber,
confection of hyacinth, and other preparations of precious stones
in the materia medica of the day. Dr. Thomson, however, has his own
‘Ternion of effectual Chymical Remedies,’ with which “noble chymical
preparations if any desire to be accommodated in this sad time of
contagion, let them repair to the place of his abode without Aldgate,
nigh the Blew–Boare Inn.” Spirit of salt and oil of sulphur appear to
have been favourite remedies with this class of practitioners.
The greatest and last plague which has appeared in London first showed
itself in Westminster towards the end of the year 1664. In December a
three months’ frost set in, which stopped its progress, but with the
spring it returned, though doubtfully, and continued through May and
June with more or less severity. At the beginning of August it set in
with far greater violence, and was at its height about the beginning of
September, when more than twelve thousand persons died weekly. Having
reached this height, it began to decrease. By the beginning of November
the city began to wear a more healthy aspect, and in December people
were crowding back again as fast as they before had crowded out.[127]
The total number of deaths is thus given:—
Within the city of London 9,887
In Westminster 8,403
Parishes without the Walls 28,888
Neighbourhood, including Hackney, }
Islington, Lambeth, Rotherhithe,} 21,420
&c., in all 12 parishes }
———
68,598
Enough has been already said of the general appearance and course
of such disorders. Instead therefore of another connected narrative,
we shall only extract some of the most remarkable incidents and
reflections to be found in Defoe’s and Pepys’s journals.
“The face of London was now indeed strangely altered, I mean the whole
mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Southwark,
and altogether; for as to the particular part called the city, or
within the walls, that was not yet much infected; but in the whole,
the face of things, I say, was much altered: sorrow and sadness sat
upon every face, and though some part were not overwhelmed, yet all
looked deeply concerned; and as we saw it apparently coming on, so
every one looked on himself and his family as in the utmost danger:
were it possible to represent those times exactly to those that did not
see them, and give the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere
presented itself, it must make just impressions upon their minds, and
fill them with surprise. London might well be said to be all in tears;
the mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for nobody put on
black, or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends;
but the voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets; the shrieks
of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where
their nearest relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so
frequent to be heard as we passed the streets, that it was enough
to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them. Tears and
lamentations were seen almost in every house, especially in the first
part of the visitation, for towards the latter end, men’s hearts were
hardened, and death was always so much before their eyes, that they did
not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting
that they themselves should be summoned the next hour.”[128]
“At the beginning of this surprising time, while the fears of the
people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd
accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body
of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their dwellings,
leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for an
Akeldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that
all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but a
few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards
and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered there
was any (women especially) left behind.
“In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several
months before the plague, as there did the year after, another,
a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic
hypochondriacal part of the other sex, whom I could almost call old
women too, remarked, especially afterwards, though not till both
those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over
the city, and that so very near the houses, that it was plain they
imported something peculiar to the city alone; and the comet before
the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and its motion
very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the fire was
bright and sparkling; or as others said, flaming, and its motion swift
and furious, and that accordingly one foretold a heavy judgment, slow
but severe, terrible and frightful, as was the plague. But the other
foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration;
nay, so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that
comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass
swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion, with their eye,
but even they heard it, that it made a rushing mighty noise, fierce and
terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable.
“I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so much of the
common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look
upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God’s judgments, and
especially, when the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another
of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently
scourged the city.
[Illustration:
[Medal in commemoration of the plague and fire of London. It represents
the eye of God in the centre, and the two comets, one on each side; that
on the right showering down pestilence upon the city. On the other side
the city is represented on fire, while a violent east wind is urging the
flames. The foreground is full of images of distress: a ship tossed by
the waves; a man drowning; a withered tree: Death fighting with a man on
horseback. The reverse of this curious piece, the history of which, when
and by whom it was struck, is, we believe, unknown, is given in p. 230.
Legend: “So he punishes.”]
“The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased
by the error of the times, in which I think the people, from what
principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies and
astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales, than ever they
were before or since. Whether this unhappy temper was originally raised
by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by
printing predictions and prognostications, I know not: but certain it
is, books frightened them terribly, such as Lilly’s Almanac, Gadbury’s
Astrological Predictions, Poor Robin’s Almanac, and the like; also
several pretended religious books, one entitled, ‘Come out of her, my
people, lest ye be partaker of her Plagues;’ another called, ‘Fair
Warning;’ another, ‘Britain’s Remembrancer,’ and many such; all or most
part of which foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city.
Nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets
with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the
city; and one in particular, who, like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the
streets, ‘Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed.’ I will not be
positive whether he said ‘yet forty days,’ or ‘yet a few days.’[129]
Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist,
crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried,
‘Woe to Jerusalem!’ a little before the destruction of that city. So
this poor naked creature cried, ‘O! the great and the dreadful God!’
and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice
and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever
find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that I
could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets,
and would have spoken to him, but he would not enter into speech with
me, or any one else, but kept on his dismal cries continually. These
things terrified the people to the last degree; and especially when two
or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two in
the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles’s.”[130]
PEPYS. June 7.—“The hottest day that ever I felt in my life.
This day, much against my will, I did see in Drury–lane two or three
houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy
upon us’ writ there, which was a sad sight to me, being the first of
that kind that to my remembrance I ever saw.”
June 17.—“It struck me very deep this afternoon, going with a
hackney–coach down Holborn, from the Lord Treasurer’s: the coachman I
found to drive easily and easily, at last stood still, and came down
hardly able to stand, and told me he was suddenly struck very sick, and
almost blind, he could not see: so I light, and went into another coach
with a sad heart for the poor man, and for myself also, lest he should
have been struck with the plague.”
DEFOE. “I went all the first part of the time freely about the
streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger,
except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of
Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity
to go and see it; as near as I may judge, it was about forty feet in
length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad; and at the time I
first looked at it, about nine feet deep: but it was said they dug it
near twenty feet deep afterwards, in one part of it, till they could go
no deeper for the water; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits
before this; for though the plague was long a coming to our parish,
yet when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it
raged with such violence as in the parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel.
“It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or rather drove me
to go and see this pit again, when there had been near four hundred
people buried in it; and I was not content to see it in the day time,
as I had done before, for then there would have been nothing to have
seen but the loose earth; for all the bodies that were thrown in were
immediately covered with earth by those they called the buriers, which
at other times were called bearers; but I resolved to go in the night,
and see some of them thrown in. There was a strict order to prevent
people coming to those pits, and that was only to prevent infection;
but after some time that order was more necessary, for people that
were infected, and near their end, and delirious also, would run to
those pits wrapt in blankets, or rugs, and throw themselves in, and,
as they said, bury themselves. I got admittance into the churchyard by
being acquainted with the sexton who attended, who, though he did not
refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go; telling me very
seriously, for he was a good religious and sensible man, that it was
indeed their business and duty to venture and to run all hazards, and
that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no apparent
call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he believed I would
not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard. I told
him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might
be an instructing sight, and one that would not be without its uses.
‘Nay,’ said the good man, ‘if you will venture upon that score, in
name of God go in, for, depend upon it, it will be a sermon to you; it
may be the best you ever heard in your life. It is a speaking sight,’
said he, ‘and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to
repentance;’ and with that he opened the door, and said, ‘Go if you
will.’
“His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering
for a good while; but just at that interval I saw two links come over
from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared
a dead–cart, as they called it, coming over the streets, so I could
no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in.... It had in it
sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapt up in linen sheets, some
in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering
they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell
quite naked amongst the rest; but the matter was not much to them, nor
the indecency to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to
be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call
it, for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together;
there was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there
should, for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that
fell in such a calamity as this.
“It was reported, by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any
corpse was delivered to them, decently wound up, as we called it then,
in a winding sheet, tied over the head and feet, which some did, and
which was generally of good linen—I say it was reported that the
buriers were so wicked as to strip them in the cart, and carry them
quite naked to the ground; but as I cannot credit any thing so vile
among Christians, and at a time so filled with terrors as that was, I
can only relate it, and leave it undetermined.
“Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviour and
practice of nurses who attended the sick, and of their hastening on
the fate of those they attended in their sickness[131].... It is to
be observed, that the women were in all this calamity the most rash,
fearless, and desperate creatures; and as there were vast numbers that
went about as nurses to tend those that were sick, they committed a
great many petty thieveries in the houses where they were employed,
and some of them were publicly whipped for it, when perhaps they ought
rather to have been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were
robbed on these occasions; till at length the parish officers were sent
to recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account of who it
was they sent, so as that they might call them to account, if the house
had been abused where they were placed. But these robberies extended
chiefly to wearing clothes, linen, and what rings or money they could
come at, when the person died who was under their care, but not to a
general plunder of the houses; and I could give you an account of one
of these nurses, who, several years after, being on her death–bed,
confessed with the utmost horror the robberies she had committed at the
time of her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a
great degree; but as for murders, I do not find that there ever was any
proof of the facts, in the manner as it has been reported, except as
above. They did tell me indeed of a nurse in one place that laid a wet
cloth on the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so put an end
to his life, who was just expiring before; and another that smothered
a young woman she was looking to when she was in a fainting fit, and
would have come to herself; some that killed them by giving them one
thing, some another, and some starved them by giving them nothing at
all. But these stories had two marks of suspicion that always attended
them, which caused me always to slight them, and to look upon them as
mere stories that people continually frighted each other with. That,
wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at the
further end of the town opposite or most remote from where you were to
hear it. In the next place, of whatsoever part you heard the story,
the particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet
double clout on a dying man’s face, and that of smothering a young
gentlewoman, so that it was apparent, at least to my judgment, that
there was more of tale than of truth in those things.”[132]
“I had some little obligations upon me to go to my brother’s house,
which was in Coleman–street parish, and which he had left to my care,
and I went at first every day, but afterwards only once or twice a week.
“In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes; as
particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks
and screechings of women, who in their agonies would throw open their
chamber windows, and cry out in a dismal surprising manner. It is
impossible to describe the variety of postures in which the passions of
the poor people would express themselves.
“Passing through Tokenhouse–yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement
violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful
screeches, and then cried, ‘Oh! death, death, death!’ in a most
inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror and a chillness in my
very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither
did any other window open, for people had no curiosity now in any
case; nor could any body help one another; so I went on to pass into
Bell–alley.
Just in Bell–alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a
more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at the
window, but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I could
hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like distracted,
when a garret–window opened, and somebody from a window the other side
the alley called and asked, ‘What is the matter.’ Upon which, from
the first window it was answered, ‘O Lord! my old master has hanged
himself.’ The other asked again, ‘Is he quite dead?’ and the first
answered, ‘Ay, ay, dead and cold.’ This person was a merchant and a
deputy–alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention his name, though
I knew his name too, but that would be a hardship to the family, which
is now flourishing again.
“But this is but one. It is scarce credible what dreadful cases
happened in particular families every day: people in the rage of
the distemper, or in the torment 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.;
mothers 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 plasters 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 stopped by
the watchmen or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water,
wherever they found it.”[133]
“One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I thought, was in
the beginning of September, when indeed good people were beginning to
think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in this
miserable city. This was at that time when the plague was fully come
into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if I may give my
opinion, buried above 1000 a week for two weeks, though the bills did
not say so many; but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there
was not a house in twenty uninfected. In the Minories, in Houndsditch,
and in those parts of Aldgate parish about the Butcher–row, and the
alleys over against me, I say in those places death reigned in every
corner. Whitechapel parish was in same condition, and though much less
than the parish I lived in, yet buried near 600 a week, by the bills;
and in my opinion near twice as many. Whole families, and indeed whole
streets of families, were swept away together, insomuch as it was
frequent for neighbours to call to the bellman to go to such and such
houses and fetch out the people, for that they were all dead.
“And indeed the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was now
grown so very odious and dangerous, that it was complained of that
the bearers did not take care to clear such houses, where all the
inhabitants were dead, but that some of the bodies lay unburied,
till the neighbouring families were offended with the stench, and
consequently infected. And this neglect of the officers was such,
that the churchwardens and constables were summoned to look after it,
and even the justices of the Hamlets were obliged to venture their
lives among them to quicken and encourage them; for innumerable of the
bearers died of the distemper, infected by the bodies they were obliged
to come so near; and had it had not been that the number of people who
wanted employment, and wanted bread, as I have said before, was so
great that necessity drove them to undertake any thing, and venture any
thing, they would never have found people to be employed, and then the
bodies of the dead would have lain above ground, and have perished and
rotted in a dreadful manner.
“But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in this, that they kept
such good order for the burying of the dead, that as fast as any of
those they employed to carry off or bury the dead fell sick and died,
as was many times the case, they immediately supplied the places with
others, which, by reason of the great number of poor that was left out
of business, was not hard to do. This occasioned that notwithstanding
the infinite number of people which died, and were sick, almost all
together, yet they were always cleared away and carried off every
night, so that it was never to be said of London that the living were
not able to bury the dead.
“As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the
amazement of the people increased, and a thousand unaccountable things
they would do in the violence of their fright, as others did the same
in the agonies of their distemper, and this part was very affecting:
some went roaring and crying, and wringing of their hands along the
streets; some would go praying, and lifting up their hands to heaven,
calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say, indeed, whether this was
not in their distraction; but be it so, it was still an indication of
a more serious mind, when they had the use of their senses, and was
much better, even as it was, than the frightful yellings and cryings
that every day, and especially in the evenings, were heard in some
streets. I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an
enthusiast: he, though not infected at all but in his head, went about
denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner, sometimes
quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his head. What he
said, or pretended indeed, I could not learn.
[Illustration:
[Reverse of the medal given in p. 220. Here every thing is prosperous:
a corn–field on the one side, a vineyard on the other; in front are
ships riding in quiet, and the withered tree has put forth leaves. The
figure in front, by the serpent about his arm, seems meant for St. Paul.
Legend: ‘Mere goodness.’]
“I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or not, or
whether he did it out of pure zeal for the poor people, who went every
evening through the streets of Whitechapel, and with his hands lifted
up, repeated that part of the liturgy of the church continually,
‘Spare us, good Lord; spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with
thy most precious blood.’ I say I cannot speak positively of these
things, because these were only the dismal objects which represented
themselves to me as I looked through my chamber windows, for I seldom
opened the casements, while I confined myself within doors during that
most violent raging of the pestilence; when indeed many began to think,
and even to say, that there would none escape; and indeed I began to
think so too, and therefore kept within doors for about a fortnight,
and never stirred out. But I could not hold it. Besides there were some
people who, notwithstanding the danger, did not omit publicly to attend
the worship of God, even in the most dangerous times. And though it is
true that a great many of the clergy did shut up their churches and
fled, as other people did, for the safety of their lives, yet all did
not do so; some ventured to officiate, and to keep up the assemblies
of the people by constant prayers, and some times sermons, or brief
exhortations to repentance and reformation, and this as long as they
would hear them. And dissenters did the like also, and even in the very
churches, where the parish ministers were either dead or fled; nor
was there any room for making any difference at such a time as this
was.[134]
PEPYS, Sept. 3.—Lord’s day.—“Up and put on my silk coloured
suit, very fine, and my periwig, bought a good while since, but durst
not wear, because the plague was in Westminister when I bought it;
and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done
as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any hair for fear of the
infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the
plague.”
It would be a great shame to laugh at Mr. Pepys after he has done so
much to amuse the world: but these, and such as these, are the most
curious and important particulars concerning the pestilence recorded in
his minute and extensive diary.
END OF VOL. II.
London: WILLIAM CLOWES and SON, Stamford–street.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
John Sobieski, king of Poland, from a medal struck after the
deliverance of Vienna 5
Medal struck by the Dutch, after the defeat of the Spanish
Armada. Above is the name of Jehovah encompassed by a glory,
from which the Pope, Cardinals, and Monks are flying in grand
confusion. Motto, “Whom God will destroy with the breath of
his mouth.” 86
Another medal struck by the Dutch on the same occasion,
representing the Pope, Cardinals, and Catholic Princes, sitting
in conclave, blindfold, and trampling upon iron spikes. There
are two mottos, “It is hard to kick against the pricks.” “O the
blind minds, the blind hearts of men!” 126
Bust of Miltiades, from Visconté, Iconographie Grecque 127
Bust of Themistocles, from the same 140
Bust of Thucydides 141
Pericles. From a marble bust in the British Museum 161
Medal of Boccaccio 164
Medal of Cardinal Charles Borromeo, from a cast in the
British Museum 202
Medal struck to commemorate the Plague and Fire of London
Obverse 220
Reverse 230
The medals have been engraved from the originals in the British Museum.
INDEX
Aristides, 131, 132, 139, 140, 143.
Armada, Spanish, 112–126.
Athens, plague of, 166, 169–177.
Cid, Chronicle of, 25–28.
Cimon, policy of, 143–146.
Constantinople, plague of, 178–183.
Drageschan, battle of, 74.
Education, Athenians, 152–157.
Florence, plague of, 184–197.
Jaques, St., battle of, 64–69.
London, plague of, 218–23.
Marathon, battle of, 13–16.
Milan, plague of, 98–214.
Miltiades, 127–130.
Morgarten, battle of, 43–52.
Peloponnesian war, origin of, 158–163.
Pericles, policy of, 147–152.
Plague, historians who have described it, 164–166;
——principal recorded, 166–169;
——of Athens, 169–177;
——of Constantinople, 177–183;
——of Florence, 184–198;
——of Milan, 198–214;
——medical treatment and state of science, 214–218;
——of London, 218–231.
Reading, Aloys, 48.
Salamis, battle of, 86–103.
Siege of La Valette, 69–72;
——of Leyden, 103–112;
——methods of the ancients, their rudeness and little improvement,
until the use of gunpowder, 22–27, 29–32;
——Introduction of cannon, 38, 39;
——of Numantia, 19–22;
——of Tyre, 25–28;
——Syracuse, by Marcellus, 28–31;
——by Athenians, 177;
——of Jerusalem, 32–36;
——of La Réole, 37;
——of Ostend, 39–50;
——of Magdeburg, 50–62;
——of Zaragoza, 63–77.
Sempach, battle of, 49–54; Law of, 68.
Sobieski, John, King of Poland, 30–41.
Sophists, 153–157.
Themistocles, character and policy of, 133–140.
Thermopylæ, battle of, 55–64
Tours, battle of, 23–25.
Valette, La, siege of, 69–72.
Vienne, siege by Turks, and battle, 30–41.
Xerxes, invasion of Greece by, 5–22, 55–64.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This expression of Herodotus, that the Thracians themselves made
Miltiades tyrant (_κατεστήσαντο τύραννον_), illustrates the meaning
of the word: they invested him not with the power of oppressing them
at pleasure, but with a form of authority for which the Grecian
constitutions offered no precedent.
[2] Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid, Book I. iv.
[3] See Mitford, chap. vii. 4.
[4] The polemarch was the third in rank of the Archons, and was at the
head of the military administration.
[5] A feeling of democratical equality, and the fear of making an
individual too powerful, may probably have led to this division of
military command at Athens. The absolute equality of the two consuls at
Rome produced a similar effect when they both were present in the same
army. The battle of Cannæ furnished a memorable example of its danger:
after continual discord between Paulus Æmilius and Varro, the latter
took advantage of his day of command to give the signal for battle,
without even consulting his colleague, an old and experienced soldier:
and the result was the delivery of Hannibal from a very critical
position by the utter destruction of the Roman army.
[6] In earlier times this had been the post of the king (Eurip.,
Suppl., 657), and the polemarch, who succeeded in great measure to his
military station, retained it. In the same manner, the second archon,
who succeeded to the priestly functions of the king, retained the name
of king, _βασιλεὺς_; and a similar instance is found in Roman history,
where the title of king, _rex_, after it had become odious in political
matters, was retained by the priest appointed to perform those sacred
rites which the kings themselves had formerly performed.
[7] A Scythian tribe dwelling at the foot of Mount Imaus, on the
confines of Thibet.
[8] Ἄφλαστα, apparently the ornamental finishing of the stern.
[9] For the topography of Marathon, the reader may consult Dr.
Clarke’s Travels, and Colonel Leake’s paper on the Demi of Attica,
with advantage. The flying Persians appear to have been entangled and
stopped by a narrow pass, formed by a precipitous hill on one side, and
a deep morass on the other. Hence this disproportionate slaughter.
[10] Lib. i. 32. Herod. lib. vi. c. 105, 120.
[11] Thucyd., ii. 34.
[12] Eubœa is long and very narrow, especially in the southern part,
where Eretria was.
[13] Plato, Menexenus, § 8, 9, 10.
[14] This battle is usually so called, though it is said to have been
fought near Poitiers. The exact locality is by no means certain.
[15] Croniques de St. Denys, liv. v. 26.
[16] Preface to the Chronicle of the Cid.
[17] Introduction to Chronicle of the Cid.
[18] A much more spirited and somewhat different account of the close
of the battle is given from Salvandy, Histoire de Pologne, in the
Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 14. We quote from the Review, not having
been able to procure the original.
“Five o’clock P.M. had sounded, and Sobieski had given up for
the day all hope of the grand struggle, when the provoking composure
of Kara Mustapha, whom he espied in a splendid tent tranquilly taking
coffee with his two sons, roused him to such a pitch that he instantly
gave orders for a general assault. It was made simultaneously on the
wings and centre. He made towards the Pacha’s tent, bearing down all
opposition, and repeating with a loud voice, ‘Non nobis, non nobis,
Domine Exercitium, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!’ ‘Not unto us, Lord God
of Hosts, not unto us, but unto thy name give the praise!’ He was soon
recognised by Tartar and Cossack, who had so often beheld him blazing
in the view of the Polish chivalry; they drew back, while his name
rapidly passed from one extremity to the other of the Ottoman lines, to
the dismay of those who had refused to believe him present. ‘Allah!’
said the Tartar Khan, ‘but the wizard(a) is with them sure enough!’
At that moment the hussars, raising their national cry of ‘God for
Poland!’ cleared a ditch which would long have arrested the infantry,
and dashed into the deep ranks of the enemy. They were a gallant band;
their appearance almost justified the saying of one of their kings,
‘that if the sky itself were to fall, they would bear it up on the
points of their lances.’ The shock was rude, and for some minutes
dreadful; but the valour of the Poles, still more the reputation of
their leader, and more than all, the finger of God, routed these
immense hosts; they gave way on every side, the Khan was borne along
with the stream to the tent of the now despairing Vizir. ‘Canst not
thou help me?’ said Kara Mustapha to the brave Tartar, ‘then I am lost
indeed!’ ‘The Polish king is there!’ replied the other, ‘I know him
well. Did I not tell thee that all we had to do was to get away as
quick as possible?’”—_Foreign Quarterly Review_, No. xiv. p. 511.
(a) The name given him by the Tartars, after a series of
extraordinary victories had fully impressed them with a
belief in his supernatural powers.
[19] Histoire de Jean Sobieski, par l’Abbé Coyer, liv. vi.
[20] Foreign Quarterly Review, No. xiv. Lettres du Roi de Pologne, Jean
Sobieski, à la Reine Marie Casimire, pendant la Campagne de Vienne; par
N. A. de Salvandy.
[21] “Mon frère, je suis bien aise de vous avoir rendu ce petit
service.”
[22] Histoire de Jean Sobieski, par l’Abbé Coyer, liv. vi.
[23] Foreign Quarterly, No. xiv. p. 517.
[24] This observation does not apply to Britain. The English archery
were celebrated long before this period: they however were merely
auxiliary, and were always supported by a strong body of men–at–arms.
The strength of a Scottish army consisted of pikemen, who, when formed
in close order, generally circular, often resisted the utmost efforts
of the English cavalry. The cause of this deviation from the general
usage was probably the poverty of the nation; the nobility could not
afford to maintain large bodies of horsemen. We may observe that
though Wallace was a knight, he appears always to have fought on foot;
at least we have met with no passage, either in the Chronicles or in
Blind Harry, which represents him mounted. Bruce, on the other hand,
was an adept in the arms and exercises of chivalry, and ranked, by the
confession of the English, as the third best knight in Europe, though
far inferior to Wallace in personal strength.
[25] The same sort of instruments are still worn, especially in
traversing the glaciers, and called crampons.
[26] Vitodurani Chronicon.
[27] Cimon, son of Miltiades, after having long conducted the policy of
Athens, was banished owing to the jealousy of his countrymen, it being
supposed that he was unduly attached to the Spartan interest. Previous
to the battle of Tanagra, fought in Bœotia, between the Lacedæmonians
and Athenians, he came to the camp of the latter, and requested
permission to serve with the men of his tribe. This was refused, his
enemies asserting that he wished to sow discord in the army, and he was
ordered to quit the camp. Before his departure he requested Euthippus
and others, his friends, who had shared with him the odium of being
too well inclined to the cause of Sparta, to signalize their zeal
and courage in the ensuing battle, and refute, by their actions, the
stigma cast upon them. These men, to the number of a hundred, ranged
themselves round Cimon’s armour, which they erected as their standard,
and fell valiantly to a man by each other’s side, leaving to the
Athenians much regret and repentance that they had wrongfully accused
them.—_Plut._, _Vit. Cimon._
[28] Simond’s Switzerland, vol. ii. chap, xxxix.
[29] Wordsworth.
[30] Planta, History of the Helvetic Confederacy. We have taken the
liberty of making a few alterations in the text, to bring it nearer to
the great work of Müller, of which this passage is a direct, but rather
a free translation.
[31] Those who have travelled from Conway to Bangor since the new road
was cut, will recollect a spot closely resembling Thermopylæ. The
grandeur of the pass, however, is much injured by the change, and we
strongly recommend all who are not particular about their horses’ knees
or their own necks to take the old road.
[32] The whole force of Platæa served on board the Athenian fleet.
[33] Lib. x. 20.
[34] Plutarch, himself a Bœotian, is highly indignant at this
statement, and also at the former, that the Thebans were detained
as hostages. It must be owned that there is something wanting in
explanation, since it is not clear how they could have been made to
fight, if disinclined; but it seems equally clear that they were very
deficient in that ardour which animated the Spartans and Thespians, and
therefore cannot be supposed to have remained quite voluntarily.
[35] This speech is given by Herodotus to another Spartan, Dieneces,
whom he mentions as famous for his smart sayings. The second is
spurious, if we reject Plutarch’s assertion that the battle was fought
by night.
[36] The epitaph is simple, and therefore in good taste; but we are
bound to expose the braggart spirit which takes no notice of the
Thespians and Locrians, who joined the Peloponnesians, not with a
paltry quota, but with their whole force. We may also observe that
national vanity has been further tampering with the numbers. Herodotus
reckons Xerxes’ land force to consist of 2,100,000 men, and adds
541,610 for the fleet, making a total of 2,641,610 combatants. The
camp–followers of various sorts he supposes may have amounted to an
equal number. Incredible as it appears, his account is so particular
that it has evidently been founded upon numerical data of some sort:
it is hardly possible to estimate the amount of exaggeration and
misstatement.
[37] Planta, Helv. Confed., book ii. cap. 2.
[38] Planta, Hist. Helvetic Confederacy.
[39] Vertot.
[40] In ancient Greece the shield served as a bier, to convey home
the corpse of its slain owner. To return without it was universally
considered disgraceful. “I have frequently seen these inscriptions on
Greek standards, particularly the last: the direction was literally
followed, for the body of the standard–bearer, who died defending it,
was wrapped in it as a shroud, and so borne to the grave, and buried in
it.”—_Walsh’s Journey over–land from Constantinople_, p. 218.
[41] Walsh, Journey over–land from Constantinople, p. 222; Hist. des
Evénemens de la Grèce, par M. Raffenel.
[42] Trick.
[43] Twenty thousand, according to the Cronique de St. Denys.
[44] June 16
[45] Mitford, chap. viii., sect. 4.
[46] All Grecian colonies held the metropolis, or mother city, whence
they were derived, in deep veneration. The Ionian states were founded
by a great migration from Attica, and therefore looked up to the
Athenians as the head of their tribe.
[47] A similar event is related to have occurred at Thebes, before the
battle of Leuctra.
[48] Herod. viii. 37 and 38.
[49] History of Greece, p. 166.
[50] Herod. viii. 60, 62.
[51] Æacus, son of Jupiter and Ægina, was king of the island to which
he gave his mother’s name. From him sprung Peleus and Telamon, with
their descendants Achilles, Pyrrhus, Ajax, &c.
[52] Eleusis was famed for the celebration of mysteries, as they
were called; which consisted in leading the aspirant through various
terrific scenes and representations; after which, if his courage
remained unshaken, he was instructed in a purer and more exalted
system of religion than was openly taught in Greece. Secrecy on the
part of the initiated was most strictly enforced. The immortality of
the soul appears to have been the leading doctrine inculcated in these
ceremonies; which seem traceable to the earliest periods of Grecian
history, and were probably derived from Egypt. The initiated went
yearly in solemn procession from Athens to Eleusis, and chaunted on
these occasions the hymns alluded to.
[53] The correspondence between the above story and the following
Spanish legend is singularly close.—“The night before the battle was
fought at the Navas de Tolosa, in the dead of the night a mighty sound
was heard in the whole city of Leon, as if it had been the tramp of a
whole army passing through: and it went on to the royal monastery of
St. Isidro, and there was great knocking at the gate thereof; and they
called to a priest who was keeping vigil in the church, and told him
that the captains of the army which he heard were the Cid Ruy Diaz, and
Count Ferran Gonzalez; and that they came to call up King Don Fernando
the Great, who lay buried in that church, that he might go with them
to deliver Spain. And on the morrow that great battle of the Navas
de Tolosa was fought, wherein 60,000 of the unbelievers were slain,
which was one of the greatest and noblest battles ever won over the
Moors.”—Chronicle of Cid, xi. 21. It occurred A.D. 1212.
[54] See Col. Leake on the Attic Demi.
[55] In the Persæ, a tragedy written to celebrate the overthrow of
Xerxes, and containing a magnificent description of the battle of
Salamis, of which the poet was an eye–witness, having served in all
the brilliant actions of the Persian war, from Marathon to Platæa. The
passage is too long for the whole to be inserted, but the description
of the first onset of the Greeks may furnish a specimen of its
character.
“But when the white–horsed morn o’er all the earth
Shed her fair splendour, from the Grecian fleet
A mighty sound rose tuneably, to wake
The sleeping Echo, which returned a loud
Heart–cheering answer from the island rock.
Confused the Persians stood; for not for flight
The Greeks rang forth that lofty battle–shout,
But hurrying on rejoicing to the fight
With high–souled valour. Then the trumpet’s clang
Kindled the battle; then the word was given,
And the quick oars with one united stroke
Dashed into spray the salt resounding surge,
And all bore down in sight. The right wing led
First, in fair order; the main armament
Pressed close behind, and all at once sent forth
A mighty shout; ‘On, children of the Greeks,
Set free your country, free your sons, your wives,
The temples of your country’s gods, the tombs
Of your forefathers—this day fights for all.’”
[56] Frontinus, Strategematicon, lib. I. ii. 10. Frontinus wrote
towards the end of the first century of the Christian era, and the
story, as far as we know, is not noticed earlier. It may therefore very
probably be false.
[57] Vasæus, Hispaniæ Chronicon.
[58] Herod., viii. c. 140–144.
[59] The citizens replied to a summons to surrender, that they would
not lack food, while their left arms remained, but feed on them, and
fight for liberty with their right. Strada, de Bello Belgico, lib.
viii. Vaunts of this kind are dangerous: the Leydenists, however, did
no discredit to theirs. It was a maxim of the Maréchal de Grammout,
that a governor who began by making a great to–do, and burnt his
suburbs to make a brilliant defence, generally ended by making a very
bad one. See the Mémoires de Grammont, chap, viii., where there is a
capital story of the gallant defence of Lerida, by Don Gregorio Brice,
bearing upon this point.
[60] Strada says, with an expression of incredulity however, that
by means of this inundation vessels came over–land to Leyden from a
distance of forty miles.
[61] The Dutch annoyed the Spaniards much with sharp hooks fastened
to poles or ropes, by which they drew up the Spaniards into their
shipping. One Peter Borgia was caught up with four hooks into a
vessel holding six or seven men, and supposed to be mortally hurt:
but presently, while they were deeply engaged in fishing for more
men, he caught up a battle–axe, and set on them from behind with
such fury, that he killed three, and frightened the rest overboard,
and thus carried off to the Spanish camp a vessel laden with
provisions.—_Strada_, BELL. BELG. lib. viii.
[62] Bentivoglio, Hist. of Wars in Flanders, Englished by
Henry Earl of Monmouth, 1698.
[63] Watson’s Hist. of Philip II.
[64] Corunna.
[65] This is the classification of the provinces as given by Charnock.
[66] This fleet of Semiramis is probably about as real as Shakspere’s
seacoast of Bohemia. What the amount of Cleopatra’s fleet might be we
do not know; but at Actium she had only 60 ships. In the last example
Stow is within bounds. Froissart says that 1287 ships were prepared on
this occasion. What sort of cock–boats they were is another question.
[67] Draws up for battle.
[68] Robert Bruce was deceived by a similar accident. Having taken
possession of Arran during his long struggle against the power of
England, he meditated a descent upon the opposite country of Carrick,
in Ayrshire, his own inheritance. Being ignorant of the strength and
situation of the English, he despatched a trusty emissary, with orders
to kindle a beacon fire, if he found that a descent was practicable.
A brilliant light was seen on the appointed eve, but on Bruce’s
landing, his emissary met him in much alarm, with news that the English
were quartered in great strength at Turnberry Castle, his maternal
inheritance; and that he knew not how, or by whom, the beacon fire had
been lighted. Bruce however persevered in his enterprise and took the
castle. It was long believed, and perhaps is so still, that the signal
was supernatural, and that it regularly appeared on the anniversary of
the Bruce’s landing on his native shore. The spot on which it was seen
has been called the Bogle’s Brae, beyond the memory of man.
[69] We may repeat what has been before said, that these computations
are merely approximations to expressing the value of the ancient money
in modern denominations, without reference to the intrinsic value of
the precious metals in Greece.
[70] Mitford, chap. vii. 5
[71] Herod. ix. 27.—He says “the Athenians answered.” Plutarch ascribes
all the merit of it to Aristides, which is suitable both to his
character and the rank he held.
[72] Plut., Themist.
[73] Mitford, chap. xi. 1.
[74] This fixes the date of these events to 460. Clinton.
[75] Thucyd. i. 137, 38.
[76] Library of Useful Knowledge: Greece, p. 46.
[77] We cannot with propriety use either of the terms judges or
jurymen; the dicasts were both judge and jury.
[78] Plutarch, Pericles.
[79] Plutarch, North.
[80] Plutarch, Pericles: North.
[81] Library of Useful Knowledge: Hist. of Greece, p. 50.
[82] See the Preliminary Discourse to Mitchell’s Aristophanes, note, p.
liv. xv.
[83] Mitchell, p. lviii.
[84] Mitchell, p. lxxv.
[85] Mitchell, p. lxxvii. lxxxi.
[86] Thucyd. i. 143.
[87] Thucyd. i. 22.
[88] Thucyd. ii. 14.
[89] See Dr. Arnold’s note, Thucyd. ii. 17.
[90] Thucyd. ii. 17.
[91] _κτῆμα ἐς ἀεὶ_, i. 22.
[92] Lib. vi.
[93] Persic. lib. ii.
[94] Kircher, Scrutinium de Peste. He quotes Diodorus (without
reference), and Orosius, book v., as his authorities: the passage in
Diodorus we have not been able to find.
[95] “_Λοιμογραφία_, or an experimental relation of what hath happened
remarkqueable in the last Plague in the city of London, &c. by W.
Boghurst, apothecary in St. Giles’ in ye Feilds: London, 1666: MS.
Sloane, 349.” Our attention was directed to this book as being likely
to contain some curious details of the plague of 1665, but with the
exception of this prefatory matter it is too exclusively medical to
suit our purpose.
[96] “Oecumenical (_ὀικουμενικὸς_, from _ὀικουμένη_), relating to the
whole habitable world.”—_Johnson._
[97] Of Persia.
[98] A pile of wood, which, when they laid the corpse on it they fired,
and afterwards buried the bones.
[99] Apollo, to whom the heathens attributed the immission of all
epidemic or ordinary diseases.
[100] Thucyd. ii. 47, 54. Hobbes’s Translation has been used throughout
the volume; it has been compared with the original, and corrected where
necessary.
[101] It was in name a state democratical, but in fact a government of
the principal man.—Thucyd. ii. 65.
[102] See the analysis of the Knights in chap. iv.
[103] See Thucyd. iii. 87. The Athenian army at the commencement of the
war consisted of 13,000 heavy armed soldiers of the former class, and
1200 horsemen, including the horse archers, who were not citizens. Such
being the mortality of the upper classes, we may safely suppose that a
quarter of the whole population perished.—Thucyd. ii. 13.
[104] See Mitchell’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 74, 84, and the Platonic
Dialogues there quoted. See also the Clouds, especially the concluding
part, and the dialogue between the Logos Dikaios and Logos Adikos.
[105] Evagrius adds to this a greater marvel; that the citizens of
infected places, who were absent from home, sickened and died, even
where no other trace of the plague appeared.
[106] _φάσματα δαιμόνων_
[107] This curious passage may be illustrated from a pamphlet entitled
‘Medela Pestilentiæ, wherein is contained several Theological Queries
concerning the Plague,’ &c., by Richard Kephale. “Some I have talked
with, who have ingenuously confest they, at their first infection, have
felt themselves manifestly stricken, being sensible of a blow suddenly
given them, some on the head and neck, others on the back and side,
&c.; sometimes so violently that they have been as it were knockt down
to the ground, remaining so for a time senseless; whereof some have
died instantly, others in a short time after.”—p. 49. This statement,
however, is not entitled to implicit credit; for it is the writer’s
object to prove the plague a direct infliction from God, without the
intervention of secondary causes. “There are two sorts of plague, the
one simple, the other putrid. The simple plague is the very influence
of the striking angel executing the vengeance of God on the bodies
of men. This kind of plague ariseth from no distemperature of blood,
putrefaction of humours, or influence of stars, but falleth merely from
the stroke of God’s punishing angel.” (Such were the plagues of old, as
you may read in Exod. xii. and Numb. xi. 16, 25; also 2 Sam. xxiv. and
2 Kings xix.)—_Ibid._
[108] This passage is remarkable as being probably the earliest
assertion extant, of any disease known by the name of _plague_ being
uncommunicable by contact. Of all the following accounts of similar
pestilences, the dread of contagion will be found to form one of the
most striking features.
[109] More probably from that burning heat which Thucydides tells us
produced the same effect at Athens.
[110] _ὃυτως αἱτία τις ἦν ὀυδεμία ἐν ταυτῇ τῇ ν̓ σῳ ἐς ἀνθρώπου
λογισμὸν φέρουσα_.
[111] The fig–trees: it included the modern suburbs of Pera and Galata.
[112] For some notice of these singular and virulent factions, see
chap. xiv.
[113] Procopius de Bello Persico, lib. ii, cap. 22, 23.
[114] The geography of this passage is not quite clear. Mare Maggiore
appears to be the Mediterranean, which still retains that name: see the
Vocab. della Crusca. In French, Mer Majeure is the Black Sea, according
to Cotgrave and the Encyclopédie. If we adopt this interpretation,
the author states that the plague spread from Asia to the Black Sea
and the Mare Tirreno, probably the Tyrrhene or Adriatic Sea, and then
returns to trace its progress in the Mediterranean. On the whole, the
former interpretation seems the more probable, though it involves some
repetition. The first gives a general statement of the course which the
disease took from Asia to the coasts of the Mediterranean and Adriatic
seas, and then proceeds to particularise. It seems to have spread
from India through Persia to Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor (called in
the text Turkey towards Egypt), and from China, or the upper part of
India, through the north of Asia to Russia and Greece. The Levant trade
introduced it into Sicily, Italy, and the west of Africa, whence it
seems to have spread backwards towards Egypt. From Italy it crossed the
mountains, and spread northward, even to Denmark, &c., which indeed
may have received the infection either from their northern or southern
neighbours.
[115] A small town in the province of Languedoc, in the department of
Gard. It was formerly a seaport, and Louis IX. of France twice embarked
from it for the Holy Land, in 1248, 1269. By the gradual accretion of
land at the mouth of the Rhone it is now three leagues from the sea,
in a sandy plain, with unwholesome air, from the quantity of stagnant
water about it.
[116] In France this pestilence is said to have lasted about eight
months in each place which it attacked.—Sismondi, Hist. des Français.
[117] Matteo Villani, lib. i. cap. 1.
[118] Continuatio Nangii, ap: Sismondi.
[119] Sismondi, Histoire des Français.
[120] Ripamonte, De Peste Mediolani, p. 17. From this interesting work
the whole of the following account of the plague of Milan is taken.
[121] The ‘Promessi Sposi’ of Manzoni contains a most vivid and
interesting picture of this portion of the history of Milan.
[122] Ripamonte, book i. If the reader can consult the original, he
will see that the description is not overcharged. The Monatti, he
continued, practised all sorts of insult towards living and dead, and
dragged bodies along as rudely as a butcher drives his calves to the
shambles.
[123] Origine e Giornale successi della Gran Peste. Milan, 1648.
[124] Ripamonte does not tell us whether any body went up into the
belfry to ascertain this.
[125] Alchemist, act ii. scene 3.
[126] Loimologia: a consolatory advice and some brief observations
concerning the present art. By George Thomson, Dr. of Physick, 1665.
[127] Loimologia, or an Historical Account of the Plague in London. By
Nath. Hodges, M.D.
[128] Defoe, pp. 24, 25.
[129] This is a remarkable instance of that air of minute attention to
fidelity which gives such a remarkable air of reality even to those
works of Defoe which are altogether fictitious. Though aware that the
history of the plague is not to be taken as the record of his own
adventures during it, it is hardly possible not to believe that he had
been a hearer of the denunciation, which he is so careful not to report
inaccurately.
[130] Defoe, pp. 28–32.
[131] Pp. 78, 85.
[132] Pp. 110, 112.
[133] Pp. 105, 108.
[134] Pp. 131, 135.