IN the Months of _August_ and _September_, the Contagion chang’d its former slow and languid Pace, and having as it were got Master of all, made a most terrible Slaughter, so that three, four, or five Thousand died in a Week, and once eight Thousand; who can express the Calamities of such Times? The whole _British_ Nation wept for the Miseries of her Metropolis. In some Houses Carcases lay waiting for Burial, and in others, Persons in their last Agonies; in one Room might be heard dying Groans, in another the Ravings of a Delirium, and not far off Relations and Friends bewailing both their Loss, and the dismal Prospect of their own sudden Departure: Death was the sure Midwife to all Children, and Infants passed immediately from the Womb to the Grave; who would not burst with Grief, to see the Stock for a future Generation hang upon the Breasts of a dead Mother? Or the Marriage-Bed changed the first Night into a Sepulchre, and the unhappy Pair meet with Death in their first Embraces? Some of the infected run about staggering like drunken Men, and fall and expire in the Streets; while others lie half-dead and comatous, but never to be waked but by the last Trumpet, some lie vomiting as if they had drunk Poison; and others fall dead in the Market, while they are buying Necessaries for the Support of Life. Not much unlike was it in the following Conflagration; where the Altars themselves became so many Victims, and the finest Churches in the whole World carried up to Heaven Supplications in Flames, while their Marble Pillars wet with Tears melted like Wax; nor were Monuments secure from the inexorable Flames, where many of their venerable Remains passed a second Martyrdom; the most august Palaces were soon laid Waste, and the Flames seemed to be in a fatal Engagement to destroy the great Ornament of Commerce; and the Burning of all the Commodities of the World together, seemed a proper Epitome of this Conflagration; neither confederate Crowns, nor the drawn Swords of Kings, could restrain its Phanatick and Rebellious Rage; large Halls, stately Houses, and the Sheds of the Poor, were together reduced to Ashes; the Sun blush’d to see himself set, and envied those Flames the Government of the Night, which had rivalled him so many Days; as the City, I say, was afterwards burnt without any Distinction, in like Manner did this Plague spare no Order, Age, or Sex; The Divine was taken in the very Exercise of his priestly Office, to be inrolled amongst the Saints Above; and some Physicians, as before intimated, could not find Assistance in their own Antidotes, but died in the Administration of them to others; and although the Soldiery retreated from the Field of Death, and encamped out of the City, the Contagion followed, and vanquish’d them; many in their old Age, others in their Prime, sunk under its Cruelties; of the Female Sex most died; and hardly any Children escaped; and it was not