I OX IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 19 



death, with every accompaniment of pain and 

 terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old 

 London, and changing their busy hum into a silence 

 broken only by the wailing of the mourners of 

 fifty thousand dead ; by the woful denunciations 

 and mad prayers of fanatics ; and by the madder 

 yells of despairing profligates. 



But, about this time in 1666, the death-rate 

 had sunk to nearly its ordinary amount ; a case of 

 plague occurred only here and there, and the 

 richer citizens who had flown from the pest had 

 returned to their dwellings. The remnant of the 

 people began to toil at the accustomed round of 

 duty, or of pleasure ; and the stream of city life 

 bid fair to flow back along its old bed, with re- 

 newed and uninterrupted vigour. 



The neAvly-kindled hope was deceitful. The 

 great plague, indeed, returned no more ; but what 

 it had done for the Londoners, the great fire, 

 which broke out in the autumn of 1666, did for 

 London ; and, in September of that year, a heap 

 of ashes and the indestructible energy of the 

 people were all that remained of the glory of five- 

 sixths of the city within the walls. 



Our forefathers had their own ways of account- 

 ing for each of these calamities. They submitted 

 to the plague in humility and in penitence, for 

 they believed it to be the judgment of God. But, 

 towards the fire they were furiously indignant, 



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