Leibnitz, whose hobby was to investigate the theory of chances[1], first drew attention to this production; but though often alluded to, its very title was not correctly given, and we are indebted to the researches of Mr. Hendriks for its rescue from an unmerited oblivion, and for the able translation of an essay which, had it been published at the time it was written, would have exercised an important influence on its subject.[2] Up to the end of the 17th century, therefore, as there were no laws to calculate the chances of mortality, life annuities were granted according to the caprice of the usurer, or the ignorance of the annuitant; and there is no occasion to remind the reader that the barbaric splendour of the Tudors witnessed customs which, rendering the conditions of life terribly uncertain, had a depressive effect on the science of assurance. The smallpox, a frequent and fearful visitor, was only met by an attempt to stare it out of countenance; for to effect a cure the patient was clothed in scarlet, the bed was covered with scarlet, and the walls were hung with scarlet; so simple and so ignorant were the leeches of the early ages. Dysentery, then known by its Saxon synonyms of the “flux,” “scouring,” and “griping,” daily carried off the unwashed artificers of old London. Nor were dirty habits confined to the mere populace; the banquetting-halls of the palace were rarely or ever cleansed; the accumulations of months were left on the floors, which, to hide the dirt and preserve an appearance of decency, were periodically covered with rushes.[3] In such places disease was ever ready to spring into vigorous life. Every few years, fevers which had been lurking in alleys and ravaging obscure places, devastated the city under various names. At last, that awful sickness which, even at the present day, chills the blood but to think of it, seemed to be naturalised in this country, under the name of the plague; but to it we owe that the initiative step was taken in England, in founding the first principles which govern life assurance, for to it we owe our earliest Bills of Mortality.