him too far, died of it at the siege of Gibraltar, on the 26th of March,
1350. He was the only king in Europe who fell a sacrifice to it; but
even before this period, innumerable families had been thrown into
affliction. The mortality seems otherwise to have been smaller in Spain
than in Italy, and about as considerable as in France.

The whole period during which the Black Plague raged with destructive
violence in Europe was, with the exception of Russia, from the year 1347
to 1350. The plagues which in the sequel often returned until the year
1383, we do not consider as belonging to "the Great Mortality." They
were rather common pestilences, without inflammation of the lungs, such
as in former times, and in the following centuries, were excited by the
matter of contagion everywhere existing, and which, on every favourable
occasion, gained ground anew, as is usually the case with this frightful
disease.

The concourse of large bodies of people was especially dangerous; and
thus the premature celebration of the Jubilee to which Clement VI. cited
the faithful to Rome (1350) during the great epidemic, caused a new
eruption of the plague, from which it is said that scarcely one in a
hundred of the pilgrims escaped.

Italy was, in consequence, depopulated anew; and those who returned,
spread poison and corruption of morals in all directions. It is
therefore the less apparent how that Pope, who was in general so wise and
considerate, and who knew how to pursue the path of reason and humanity
under the most difficult circumstances, should have been led to adopt a
measure so injurious; since he himself was so convinced of the salutary
effect of seclusion, that during the plague in Avignon he kept up
constant fires, and suffered no one to approach him; and in other
respects gave such orders as averted, or alleviated, much misery.

The changes which occurred about this period in the north of Europe are
sufficiently memorable to claim a few moments' attention. In Sweden two
princes died--Haken and Knut, half-brothers of King Magnus; and in
Westgothland alone, 466 priests. The inhabitants of Iceland and
Greenland found in the coldness of their inhospitable climate no
protection against the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from
happier countries. The plague caused great havoc among them. Nature
made no allowance for their constant warfare with the elements, and the
parsimony with which she had meted out to them