or concomitant fever. A woman, who was the only one left alive of a family, and in her own opinion in perfect health, perceived upon her breast the pestilential spots, which she looked upon to be the fatal _tokens_; and in a very short space died, without feeling any other disorder, or forerunner of death.... A youth of a good constitution, after he had found himself suddenly marked with the tokens, believed at first that they were not the genuine marks, because he found himself so well; yet he was dead in less than four hours, as his physician had prognosticated. A fever, however, did for the most part show itself, and was always of the worst kind. Sometimes it seemed to resemble a quoridian, sometimes a tertian; there never was a total cessation, but every exacerbation was worse than before.” In like manner the author of the Journal of the Plague Year informs us that many, supposing themselves, and supposed by others, to be in good health, would suddenly find themselves seized with great sickness, crawl to a bench, and instantly expire. “Many (says Dr. Hodges) in the middle of their employ, with their friends and other engagements, would suddenly fall into profound, and often deadly sleeps.” It is needless to multiply examples: the above are sufficient to show that the plague, when in its most violent state, kills suddenly and imperceptibly, and that like the bite of a vampire,[60] without producing any sensible disorder. In a state somewhat inferior, it excites the most malignant fevers; in one still inferior it produces fevers of a milder nature, and so on until we find it so mild, that those infected with it are not even confined to their bed. In all this inquiry, however, we find the secrecy and invisibility of the pestilence, so often mentioned in scripture, still confirmed. Other distempers may “waste openly at noon-day,” but this always “walks in darkness.”