396 ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



wretched habitations in which they dwelt. Long afterwards 

 the Spanish envoys of Philip the Second commented on the 

 abundance of food which our forefathers enjoyed, and the dirty 

 habits of their daily life. cc These peasants/' they said, cc live 

 like hogs, but they fare as well as the king." 



From the picture which Boccacio gives of the Plague we see 

 that in Italy it affected all classes equally, for the gentlemen and 

 ladies who retire to tell each other stories had all lost kinsfolk 

 in the calamity. The authorities at Florence took, it seems, 

 some precautions of what we should call a sanitary character, 

 as opposed to mere quarantine regulations. He adds, indeed, 

 that these precautions were nugatory, as they generally are 

 in the early days of an epidemic, and when the disease has 

 fairly set in. Villani the historian perished of the disease 

 in Florence. 



Apart from its immediate moral effects, commented on by 

 Boccacio in his introduction to the Decameron, and recapitu- 

 lated by Sismondi, it left permanent traces on the national 

 memory. It formed an era, and for years afterwards facts were 

 computed according to their proximity to the first great pesti- 

 lence. Sir Harris Nicolas quotes from a computation made 

 by the Clarenceux King at Arms, in the time of Charles the 

 First, as to the Plague of 1349, of 1361, and of 1369, stating 

 that the first lasted from May 31 to September 29, 1349; the 

 second from August 15, 1361, to May 3, 1362 and the third 

 from July 2 to September 29, 1369. It is clear that these dates 

 cannot be wholly depended on, and that on the various visita- 

 tions the beginning and ending could not be defined precisely, 

 to say nothing of the statement that on two occasions the 

 Plague ceased on the same day k . These dates are collected, 

 according to this authority, from charters. I have been struck 

 with the impression which this calamity made on the minds of 



k I have always spoken of the Plague of 1348. It began, as I have said, in August of 

 that year. But it is probable that the severity of the disease was not felt in England till 

 the following year, that the virus was to some extent dormant during the first winter, and 

 that it broke out fully in the summer of 1349. 



