The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and other parts adjacent ... Continued to the present time / by Thomas Wright.
- Thomas Allen
- Date:
- 1839
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and other parts adjacent ... Continued to the present time / by Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
415/504 page 399
![particularly strong in expressing it. Nothing,” he says, but the immediate finger of God, nothing but omnipotent power could have put a stop to the infection. The contagion despised all me- dicine ; death raged in every corner; and had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared the town of all, and of every thing that had a soul. Man every where began to de- spair, every heart failed them for fear: people were made despe- rate through the anguish of their souls, and the terrors of death sat in every countenance.”* Whatever deference may be given to the idea of an immediate interposition of providence, the alteration of the weather in Sep- tember was doubtless a principal means by which the spreading of the pestilence was arrested. Echard, whose authority was Dr. Baynard, “ an ingenious and learned physician,” speaking of the state of the seasons whilst the infection raged, says, that ‘ there was such a general calm and serenity of weather, as if both wind and rain had been expelled the kingdom, and for many weeks to gether he could not discover the least breath of wind, not even so much as would move a fan.’ That ‘ the fires in the streets with great difficulty were made to burn;’ and that by the extreme rare- faction of the air, the birds did pant for breath, especially those of tiie larger soit, who were likewise observed to fly more heavily than usual.t 1 he stoppage of public business, in the height of the contagion, was so complete, that grass grew within the very area of the Ex- change, and even in the principal streets of the city. All the inns of court were shut up, and all law proceedings suspended. Nei- ther cart nor coach was to be seen from morning till night, except- ing those employed in the conveyance of provisions, in the carriage of the infected to the pest-houses, or other hospitals, and a few coaches used by the physicians.;;: The pest-hous.es, of which there were only two, were situated in Bunhill-fields, near Old-street, and in Tothill-fields, Westminster. These were found to be of the greatest utility, yet the hurry and multiplicity of cases which the rapid increase of the pestilence occasioned, prevented the establish, ing of any more. ] he apprehensions of the people during the early stages of the calamity were highly excited by the predictions of ‘ sooth-sayers and astrologers,’ and for a time they furnished a rich harvest to the multitude of fortune tellers, cunning men, and cheating quacks, that infested the town. Their voice was, however, silenced by the pro- gress of the pestilence ; and the expounders of oracles, and the pos- sessors of infallible recipes, were alike swept away with the mass of those upon whom they had imposed. With the ignorant, every](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29310775_0415.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
