the country (which they accepted at my hands joyfully), but now my children are cast out by those Swines like dung, rated like Beggars, served like swine in Hogsties, buried in the Highway like Malefactors.” With a great deal more, from which we perceive that the same things happened in 1625 as in 1603. Aldermen, Common Councilmen, Magistrates, Physicians, Lawyers, Clergymen, all ran away, and among the dying sat the children not yet infected, crying for bread. It would seem—a fact that I have not elsewhere observed—that they turned the rooms over the City gates into hospitals or receiving houses for the children, doubtless the orphaned children. Besides the two visitations of Plague already mentioned, there were in the seventeenth century two more, viz. in 1636 and 1665, the first of these occurring after an interval of no more than five years since the preceding one. The deaths from Plague for these four visitations were as follows; the numbers must be taken as approximate only:— In 1603 there died of Plague 30,561 persons. „ 1625 „ „ 35,417 „ „ 1636 „ „ 10,400 „ „ 1665 „ „ 68,596 „ That is to say, in sixty-three years there died 144,974 persons of Plague alone. There were, however, many more victims, because between 1603 and 1636 the Plague was hardly ever absent. The deaths from Plague every year ranged from 1000 to 4000, though in one or two years there were none. For the greatest and last visitation, that of 1665, we have, besides the graphic account of Defoe, also the more sober notices of Pepys and Evelyn. There were warnings of the approach of the Plague. In the autumn of 1663 it was reported to be raging in Amsterdam; ships from Holland were placed in quarantine; in December 1664 one person died of Plague in London; in February 1665 another death was reported; in April there were two; in May the number began to increase, running up to nine, fourteen, and forty-three. The summer of 1665 was extremely hot; an unclouded sky continued for weeks; there was no rain to wash the streets; there was no wind to refresh the air; if the people made bonfires to create a draught, it was observed that the flame and smoke mounted straight up. In June all those who could escape to the country left the town in whatsoever vehicles they could get—coaches, carriages, waggons, and carts. There was a general stampede, until the villagers stopped it, driving back the people with pitch-forks, and the Lord Mayor stopped it by refusing certificates of health. Then, the mortality rising daily by leaps and bounds, the people sat down in their houses to die, or wandered disconsolately about the desolate streets, marking the crosses on the doors with sinking hearts.