s; and during September, twenty-six thousand two hundred and thirty
persons perished in the city.

The whole British nation was stricken with consternation at the fate of
the capital. "In some houses," says Dr. Hodges, speaking from personal
experience, "carcases lay waiting for burial, and in others were persons
in their last agonies. In one room might be heard dying groans, in an
other the ravings of delirium, and not far off relations and friends
bewailing both their loss and the dismal prospect of their own sudden
departure. Death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants
passed immediately from the womb to the grave. Some of the infected run
about staggering like drunken men, and fall and expire in the streets;
whilst others lie half dead and comatose, but never to be waked but by
the last trumpet." The plague had indeed encompassed the walls of the
city, and poured in upon it without mercy. A heavy stifling atmosphere,
vapours by day and blotting out all traces of stars and sky by night,
hovered like a palpable shape of dire vengeance above the doomed city.
During many weeks "there was a general calm and serenity, as if both
wind and rain had been expelled the kingdom, so that there was not so
much as to move a flame." The oppressive silence of brooding death,
unbroken now even by the passing bell, weighed stupor-like upon the
wretched survivors. The thoroughfares were deserted, grass sprang
green upon side-paths and steps of dwellings; and the broad street in
Whitechapel became like unto a field. Most houses bore upon their doors
the dread sign of the red cross, with the supplication for mercy written
above. Some of the streets were barricaded at both ends, the inhabitants
either having fled into the country or been carried to their graves;
and it was estimated in all that over seven thousand dwellings were
deserted. All commerce, save that dealing with the necessaries of life,
was abandoned; the parks forsaken and locked, the Inns of Court closed,
and the public marts abandoned. A few of the church doors were opened,
and some gathered within that they might humbly beseech pardon for the
past, and ask mercy in the present. But as the violence of the distemper
increased, even the houses of God were forsaken; and those who
ventured abroad walked in the centre of the street, avoiding contact or
conversation with friend or neighbour; each man dreading and avoiding
his fellow, lest he should be to him the harbi