stinguished
Florentine, John Villani, who was himself carried off by the Black
Plague, scarcely a third part of the population remained alive; and it is
related of the Venetians, that they engaged ships at a high rate to
retreat to the islands; so that after the plague had carried off three-
fourths of her inhabitants, that proud city was left forlorn and
desolate. In Padua, after the cessation of the plague, two-thirds of the
inhabitants were wanting; and in Florence it was prohibited to publish
the numbers of dead, and to toll the bells at their funerals, in order
that the living might not abandon themselves to despair.

We have more exact accounts of England; most of the great cities suffered
incredible losses; above all, Yarmouth, in which 7,052 died; Bristol,
Oxford, Norwich, Leicester, York, and London, where in one burial ground
alone, there were interred upwards of 50,000 corpses, arranged in layers,
in large pits. It is said that in the whole country scarcely a tenth
part remained alive; but this estimate is evidently too high. Smaller
losses were sufficient to cause those convulsions, whose consequences
were felt for some centuries, in a false impulse given to civil life, and
whose indirect influence, unknown to the English, has perhaps extended
even to modern times.

Morals were deteriorated everywhere, and the service of God was in a
great measure laid aside; for, in many places, the churches were
deserted, being bereft of their priests. The instruction of the people
was impeded; covetousness became general; and when tranquillity was
restored, the great increase of lawyers was astonishing, to whom the
endless disputes regarding inheritances offered a rich harvest. The want
of priests too, throughout the country, operated very detrimentally upon
the people (the lower classes being most exposed to the ravages of the
plague, whilst the houses of the nobility were, in proportion, much more
spared), and it was no compensation that whole bands of ignorant laymen,
who had lost their wives during the pestilence, crowded into the monastic
orders, that they might participate in the respectability of the
priesthood, and in the rich heritages which fell in to the Church from
all quarters. The sittings of Parliament, of the King's Bench, and of
most of the other courts, were suspended as long as the malady raged. The
laws of peace availed not during the dominion of death. Pope Clement
took advantage of this stat