far greater wretchedness than this; for these were generally kept to their houses either by hope or by poverty, and thus remaining in their neighbourhoods, they sickened by thousands in the day, and receiving no service or assistance, they almost all died without any thing to save them. Many were there who came to their end both by day and night in the public streets, and many others who died in their own houses, and their neighbours had no knowledge that they were dead, till they discovered it by the stench of the putrefying corpses: and the whole place was full of these and others who died on every side. In most neighbourhoods one practice was observed; namely, that the people of the vicinity, moved as much by the fear that the putrefying of the dead bodies might injure themselves, as by the affection which they had borne to the departed, with their own hands, and by the assistance of porters, when they could get them, brought down from their houses the corpses of those who were already gone, and set them before their doors; and there, especially in the morning, any one who had gone about might have seen them without number. Then biers were brought thither, and there were some who for want of regular biers laid the corpses on tables. Nor was it only once that one bier bore two or three corpses at the same time; but a long list might be made, where the same bier held the wife and the husband, or two or three brothers, or father and son, or some such load. And infinitely often did it happen, that when two priests were going with a crucifix for some corpse, three or four biers were carried after it; and the priests, when they thought they had one body to bury, had six, or eight, or sometimes more. Nevertheless, the dead were not honoured with any tears, or lights, or attendance; on the contrary, matters had come to that pass, that no more care was had of men who died, than now would be of goats: so that it very plainly appeared that the greatness of the calamity had taught even the simplest and most unthinking, the lesson which the natural course of events had not been able, by few and slight sufferings, to impress upon the wise, namely, the necessity of patience under suffering. So great was the number of the bodies which were every day, and almost every hour borne in concourse to every church, that the consecrated ground was not sufficient for the burials, especially if it were desired to give to every body a place of its own, according to the ancient practice. Great trenches therefore were dug in the burying–grounds of the churches, after every part was filled; into which the bodies which were brought afterwards were thrown by hundreds. There they were were stowed layer upon layer, like the merchandise in a ship, each layer covered with a little earth, till they reached the top of the trench. And not to go on any longer hunting out every particular of our past misery, which befel us in this city, I say that while the time was