A.D. 1593, the island of Malta was ravaged by plague: the year following, the city of Seville was visited by pestilence, which, according to the authority of Rosell and Bezon, lasted for the four consecutive years, 1594–97. Pestilence was also rife in many provinces of Spain, especially in the year 1596. A comet was observed. Malignant fevers prevailed in England about these periods, and London was devastated by pestilence in 1599, as was also Lichfield, Leicester, Kendal, Carlisle, Penrith, and Richmond. Pegu, in Asia, was nearly depopulated the same year by famine and disease. Constantinople suffered from pestilence: seventeen princesses, sisters of the Sultan Mahommed, were carried off, three dying in one day. A mortal pestilence destroyed much cattle in Italy, and plague carried off 70,000 of the inhabitants of Lisbon and Spain. A.D. 1600 and 1602, great numbers perished in Muscovy; it is recorded that 500,000 died of famine and plague, and in Livonia 30,000 are said to have been carried off. In the latter year, 1602, the summer and winter were cold and dry. Catarrh and acute fevers epidemically scourged the human race; great famine prevailed for a series of years, the crops having failed for several years successively. In Muscovy the plague raged for three years; parents devoured their children; and cats, rats, dogs, &c., were also used for food: all the ties of nature seem to have been forgotten during this dreadful suffering; the powerful overcame the weak, and human flesh was exposed for sale in the shambles in the markets. Multitudes were found dead with their mouths filled with straw and other filthy substances. Sacred history affords us similar examples of wretchedness,--parents devouring their children (2 Kings vi.); it occurred during the siege of Samaria by Ben-hadad, king of Syria, (verses 28, 29,) “And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son.” Similar disasters happened at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel v. 10). About this period, 1600, the city of Granada was visited by pestilential epidemics, which were very fatal; Fernando Bustos gives an account of them. Gallicia suffered from epidemic small-pox.--A.D. 1601, plague visited the city of Seville; it carried off many of the higher classes.--A.D. 1602, in the middle of March, pestilence broke out in the city of Jaen; the principal symptoms were those of the true plague, attended by buboes and glandular swellings: this pestilence soon extended to Seville, Madrid, Valladolid, Burgos, Saragossa, Toledo, Cordova, Malaga, Velez, Ecija, Antequera, Granada, Andujar, and to other places.