On comparing this pestilence with that of Athens, we cannot fail to observe their different effects upon the conduct and tempers of those who were exposed to their influence. In the one, party spirit (and the factions of Constantinople were pursued with a violence as desperate as their origin was trivial) was hushed, and the most profligate were awed into temporary decency; in the other, every chain of society was loosed, every duty toward God and man forgotten in the intoxication of danger, and the craving to drown thought in sensual pleasure. “Let us eat and drink, for to–morrow we die,” was truly the maxim of the Athenians. Surely this difference can only be ascribed to the powerful effects produced by the received belief of a future existence upon the minds even of those who, under common circumstances, seemed regardless of such considerations. Among the Athenians practically no such belief existed; it was the creed of their poets, it was inculcated at their mysteries, but it was devoid of all authority to serve as a rule of conduct. In no age or place in which the Christian religion has been professed, however corrupted in principle or depraved in practice, has that general depravity, which is described by Thucydides, ensued in consequence of a similar calamity. The nearest approach to it is to be found in the great plague of Florence, as related by Boccacio. His account indeed, as being the introduction to a work of fiction, might be suspected of exaggeration for purposes of effect. It is, however, completely confirmed by Matteo Villani, in his continuation of the history of Giovanni Villani, his brother, who himself died in this plague. His narration gives some striking particulars of the duration and extent of the calamity, and of the evil consequences which it left behind it; which will serve well to introduce and corroborate the more picturesque and highly–coloured narrative of Boccacio.