4 
and exa^grerated strain three books of hexameter verse in honour 
of Stilicho. It is probable that before taking leave of Britain 
he may have repaired or strengthened the wall of the Lower 
Isthmus, which would he ground enough for a courtly poet to 
ascribe its construction to him ; hut such a work quite surpasses 
the power of the Roman Empire in that age of weakness and 
decay* 
April 1st. —R. Davies, Esq., F.S.A., read the following 
paper on The Plague at York in the Seventeenth Century.*’ 
The Plague was raging in London clurkig great part of the 
year 1603. The new monarch had scarcely taken possession of 
the throne he had so long coveted, when he and his Scottish 
courtiers were driven from the metropolis by this destructive 
visitation, t Commencing its ravages in the month of March, it 
attained its culminating point in September, gradually moderat¬ 
ed in the latter part of the autumn, and had almost disappeared 
before the end of the year. 
The citizens of York had enjoyed an immunity from the 
dreadful scourge of the pestilence for more than half a century. 
Some alarm was occasioned a few years before the death of 
Queen Elizabeth, by the appearance of infection in the North 
Riding. Thirsk and Richmond, and some neighbouring places 
were visited, but the disease did not extend to the capital of the 
county. 
* Since tlie above paper was written, Dr. Hiibner of Berlin, in the 7th volume 
of the “ Inscriptiones Latina?," has declared his opinion in favour of Hadrian’s 
claim. 
t King James I. entered London on the 7th of May, and on the 29th he issued 
a Proclamation commanding all gentlemen to depart from the court and city on 
account of the plague. (Cal. State papers, 1603—1610, p. 11.) Is it possible 
that the Scots had carried the infection from their own country ? Many places 
in Scotland had been visited long before the departure of the King. In a letter 
from the Lord Chancellor of Scotland to the Lord Chancellor of England, dated 
30th of October, 1606, Lord Dunfermelyne says, “The onlie truble we haiffe is 
“ this contagious sicknes of peste, whilk is spread marvelouslie in the best tovmes 
“ off this realme. In Edenburght it hes bene continual! this four yeares ; at the 
“ present not werie wehement, hot sik as stayes the cowmoun course of admin- 
“istration off justice, whilk cannot be weill exercised in nae other plaice.’’ 
(The Egerton papers, Camden Soc., p. 406.) Newcastle upon Tyne, where the 
disease soon afterwards broke out, was one of the tovms at which King James 
and his Scottish followers rested several days, in their progress through England. 
