S6 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK II. of it, in and about tins great and populous city, accidentally obnoxioUa 

 to the effects of those nauseous vapours exhaling from those many 

 unclean places, and tainting that dismal cloud of sulphureous, if not 

 arsenical, smoke which we incessantly breathe in. I know the late 

 terrible conflagration, by the care and industry of the magistrates in 

 causing so many kennels, sinks, gutters, lay-stalls, and other nuisances 

 (receptacles of a stagnant filth,) to be removed, must needs have exceed- 

 ingly contributed to the purifying of the air, as I am persuaded would 

 appear upon a political observation of the bills of mortality. But what 

 I cannot yet but deplore, is, that when that spacious area was so long a 

 rasa tabula, the church-yards had not been banished to the north walls 

 of the city, where a grated inclosure of competent breadth, for a mile 

 in length, might have served for a universal cemetery to all parishes, 

 distinguished by the like separations, and with ample walks of trees ; 

 the walks adorned with monuments, inscriptions, and titles, apt for con- 

 templation and memory of the defunct ; and that wise and ancient law 

 of the Twelve Tables restored and revived. But concerning this and 

 hortulan buryings, see book iv. Happy, in the mean-time, had it been 

 for the further purgation of this august metropolis, had they then banished 

 and proscribed those hellish volcanos, disgorging from lime-kilns, forges, 

 glass-houses, brew-houses, soap and salt-boilers, chandlers, hat-makers, 

 and other trades, one of whose funnels vomits more smoke than all the 

 culinary and chamber-fires of a whole parish, perniciously infecting the 

 ambient air with a black melancholy canopy, to the detriment of the 

 most valuable moveables and furniture of the inhabitants, and the whole 

 country around. A bar of iron shall be more exeded and consumed 

 with rust in one year in this city, than in thrice seven in the country. — 

 Why might it not therefore be worth a severe and public edict to remove 

 these volcanos, and infernal houses of smoke, to a competent distance ; 

 some down the river; others, which require a conveniency of fresh water, 

 up the Thames, among the streams about Wandsworth, &;c. their com- 

 modities and manufactures brought up to capacious wharfs on the bank, 

 or London side, to the increase of a thousand watermen and other 

 labourers, of whom we cannot have too many ? 



Now to demonstrate that the amoval of these insufferable nuisances 

 would infinitely clarify the air, and render it more wholesome, I shall 



