The Doctor is very full on this first Head of Caution, and bestows no fewer than nine Pages about _Quarantines_, and _Lazarettoes_; but as there is nothing newer said of them than what has been known, these two hundred Years; I leave that Affair to the Civil Magistrate, whose Care can never exceed, when it’s employed for the Good of the People. But as far as we may depend upon the first, and Philosophical Part of this Discourse, there is no great Occasion for either of them: We live a great way from the South of _France_, and the Doctor has assured us, that the Plague cannot reach us, by some hundreds of Miles. For, to our Satisfaction be it remember’d, that Air it self is very pure and harmless; nor can it otherwise be infected, than by pestilential Steams issuing out of Bodies, at the end of the Disease; as also, that they cannot travel any length, if there is not a Disposition in the Air, which it only has when supposed. And therefore, we are very little obnoxious to a Plague, and consequently have no great Occasion for _Lazarettoes_ or _Quarantines_. I cannot omit, without incurring Displeasure, the pretty Expedient the Doctor recommends, for discovering when the Plague has forsaken a Parcel of Goods; and that because he might foresee a Question might arise, about the Time they should serve their _Quarantine_; and whether forty Days were sufficient. His Answer is fine! why; _we must set little Birds upon the exposed Goods_. But, may not the Attempt prove dangerous, and as dangerous as to set a lighted Match to a good large Barrel of Gun-powder. The Reason for this Experiment, is, because it has been observed in times of the Plague, that that Country is forsaken by the Birds; and for this he quotes _Diemerbroeck_. How beautifully are such Presages related by _Lucretius_, _Virgil_, _Ovid_, and other Poets; but how insipidly are they misapplied on this Occasion. Physicians have carefully observed and recorded, every thing considerable and extraordinary that preceded the Pestilence; and that in order to provide themselves against it, and to give the Alarm of its first Approaches, that People may provide for their Safety in time. Some of these Presages are taken from the _Heavens_; some from the _Air_; others from the _Earth_; and many from the _Waters_. ——_Sæpe exiguus Mus Augurium tibi triste dabit._ But as the Consideration of those Presages do not fall properly in my way at this time; we proceed next to consider, how a stop is put to the Plague, in _Case, through a Miscarriage in the Publick Care, by the Neglect of Officers, or otherwise, such a Calamity should be suffered to befal us_.