A.D. 1574, a remarkable aurora borealis was observed on the 14th of November. Pestilence, causing great mortality, prevailed in various parts of Spain and Italy; and during the months of September, October, and November of the same year, epidemic disease was rife in London: it continued during the following year, and prevailed in Verona, Venice, Africa, the Levant, and in Egypt: it persisted for three years, until 1577. In the latter year, pestilence occurred at Oxford, owing to some prisoners having been brought for trial in a filthy state, from the foul condition of the cells: a stench arose, which was supposed to have emanated from their persons. Some of the judges and justices, among whom was Robert Bell, Lord Chief Baron, and many of the jurors, with the high sheriff, died; and from the 6th to the 12th of July it is reported that 510 persons died from the infection: it was termed in consequence ‘the black assizes.’ The symptoms were described as consisting of a violent pain in the head, with delirium; distress in the abdomen, and general prostration of strength. Some were of opinion that this disease was generated by the confinement of the prisoners, and that although they themselves did not suffer from it, they communicated it to others by contagion: others were of opinion that the disease was not in any way contagious. The Court was held in a yard of the castle, a short distance from the river Isis, the banks of which are low. It is recorded that a great damp breath or fog existed at the time, the weather being excessively hot and sultry. The physicians could not give the disease a name: although it did not appear to them to be the true plague, it was as destructive as that pestilence generally is.