The most fatal European plagues were probably those that desolated London in 1664, and Marseilles in 1720. The accounts of these fearful visitations are as curious as they are appalling. In London it broke out in the beginning of December, when two foreigners (Frenchmen it was reported) died of this disorder in Long-Acre, near Drury Lane. The cold weather and frost that followed, seemed to check its progress, until the month of April, when it appeared with intensity in the parishes of St. Andrew, Holborn, and St. Clement Danes. In May, the parish of St. Giles buried a great number. Wood Street, Fenchurch Street, and Crooked Lane, were soon visited, until terror was so general, that crowds of inhabitants panic-struck, on foot, on horse, in coaches, waggons, and carts, were thronging Broad Street and Whitechapel, fleeing from the calamity. To such an extent was migration carried, that not a horse could be bought or hired. Many fugitives, fearful of stopping at inns, carried tents to lie in the fields, and people moved in the centre of the streets, in dread of coming into contact with others sallying forth from their houses. During this state of universal panic, it may be easily imagined that hypocrisy and roguery were busily employed in increasing the evil, at the expense of the credulous. Pretended wizards and cunning people affirmed that a comet had appeared several months previous to the increase of the malady, as a similar meteor had visited London before the great fire; only the fire comet was bright and sparkling, and the plague comet was dull, and of a languid colour. Lilly's Almanac and Gadbury's Astrological Predictions were in general demand; while pamphlets, entitled "Come out of her, my people, lest you be partakers of her plagues," "Fair Warning," and "Britain's Remembrancer," were eagerly circulated, as they denounced the utter ruin of the city. One of these prophets ran about the streets, without the encumbrance of any garment, roaring out, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed;" while another, equally divested of raiment, bellowed out, "Oh! the great and the dreadful God!" Some asserted that they had seen a hand with a flaming sword coming out of the clouds, while others beheld hearses and coffins floating in the air.