Historical fiction; London (England) -- History -- 17th century -- Fiction; Plague -- Fiction
One thing I cannot omit here, and indeed I thought it was extraordinary,
at least it seemed a remarkable hand of divine justice; viz., that all
the predictors, astrologers, fortune tellers, and what they called
cunning men, conjurers, and the like, calculators of nativities, and
dreamers of dreams, and such people, were gone and vanished; not one of
them was to be found. I am verily persuaded that a great number of them
fell in the heat of the calamity, having ventured to stay upon the
prospect of getting great estates; and indeed their gain was but too
great for a time, through the madness and folly of the people: but now
they were silent; many of them went to their long home, not able to
foretell their own fate, or to calculate their own nativities. Some have
been critical enough to say[251] that every one of them died. I dare not
affirm that; but this I must own, that I never heard of one of them that
ever appeared after the calamity was over.
But to return to my particular observations during this dreadful part
of the visitation. I am now come, as I have said, to the month of
September, which was the most dreadful of its kind, I believe, that ever
London saw; for, by all the accounts which I have seen of the preceding
visitations which have been in London, nothing has been like it, the
number in the weekly bill amounting to almost forty thousands from the
22d of August to the 26th of September, being but five weeks. The
particulars of the bills are as follows: viz.,--
Aug. 22 to Aug. 29 7,496
Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 8,252
Sept. 5 to Sept. 12 7,690
Sept. 12 to Sept. 19 8,297
Sept. 19 to Sept. 26 6,460
------
38,195
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account