dream; warning

Next to these public things were the dreams of old women, Old women or, I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; and these put abundance of people even out voices, &c. of their wits; some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London so that the living would not be able to bury the dead: others saw apparitions in the air; and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never appeared; but the imagination of the people was really turned wayward and possessed: and no wonder if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and vapour. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a Flaming point hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses sword, &c. and coffins in the air, carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied, and the like, just as the imagination of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon.

So hypochondriac fancies represent

Ships, armies, battles, in the firmament;
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,

And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve.

I could fill this account with the strange relations such people gave every day of what they had seen; and every one was so positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude or unmannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on the other. One time, before the plague was begun (otherwise than, as I have said, in St. Giles's). I think it was in March, seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air, to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head: she described every part of the figure to the life; showed them the motion and the form; and the poor people came into it so eagerly, and with so much readiness. "Yes, I see it all plainly," Signs and says one, "there is the sword as plain as can be.” Another wonders.

saw the angel. One saw his very face, and cried out, "What a glorious creature he was!" One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, but, perhaps, not with so much

willingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavoured to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had, I must have lied; but the woman turning upon me, looked in my face, and fancied I laughed; in which her imagination deceived her too; for I really did not laugh, but Dreadful was very seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified judgment of the High by the force of their own imagination. However she turned and Mighty from me, called me a profane fellow and a scoffer; told me that King foreit was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching; and that despisers, such as I, should wonder and perish.

told.

Defoe, an unbeliever and in

danger of being mobbed.

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she; and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them; and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them: so I left them; and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also: and this was in going through a narrow passage from Petty-France into Bishopsgate church-yard, by a row of alms-houses; there are two church-yards to Bishopsgate church or parish; one we go over to pass from the place called Petty-France into Bishopsgate-street, coming out just by the church-door; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the alms-houses are on the left; and a dwarf-wall with a palisade on it, on the right hand; and the city wall on the other side, more to the right.

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through between the palisades into the burying-place, and as many people as the narrowness of the passage would admit to stop, without hindering the passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing now to one place, and then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a grave-stone there; he described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the greatest matter of amazement to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry, "There it is-now it comes this way: " then, "'tis turned back :" till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it, and another fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day, making a strange hubbub, considering it was in so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven; and then the

ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden.

I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything; but so positive was this poor man, that he gave people the vapours in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frighted: till, at length, few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever.

ghost.

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the Prognostihouses, and to the ground, and to the people; plainly intimating, cations of a or else they so understanding it, that abundance of the people should come to be buried in the church-yard, as, indeed, happened: but that he saw such aspects, I must acknowledge, I never believed; nor could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it, if possible.

overcome

These things serve to show how far the people were really People are overcome with delusions; and as they had a notion of the with deluapproach of a visitation, all their predictions ran upon a most sions. dreadful plague, which should lay the whole city, and even the kingdom, waste; and should destroy almost all the nation, both man and beast.

To this, as I said before, the astrologers added stories of the conjunctions of planets in a malignant manner, and with a mischievous influence; one of which conjunctions was to happen, and did happen, in October, and the other in November; and they filled the people's heads with predictions on these signs of the heavens, intimating that those conjunctions foretold drought, famine, and pestilence; in the two first of them, however, they were entirely mistaken, for we had no droughty season, but in the beginning of the year a hard frost, which lasted from December almost to March; and after that, moderate weather, rather warm than hot, with refreshing winds, and, in short, very seasonable weather; and also several very great rains.

Stories of

astrologers.

ment unwilling to exasperate the people.

Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of such Governbooks as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispensers of wi them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing was done in it, as I am informed, the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.

Neither can I acquit those ministers that, in their sermons, rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their hearers; many ot them, no doubt, did it for the strengthening the resolution of

of the

clergy.

the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance; Misconduct but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way; and indeed, as God himself, through the whole Scriptures, rather draws to him by invitations, and calls to turn to him to live, than drives us by terror and amazement; so, I must confess, I thought the ministers should have done also, imitating our blessed LORD and Master in this, that his whole gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God's mercy, and his readiness to receive penitents, and John v. 40. forgive them; complaining, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;" and that, therefore, his gospel is called the gospel of peace and the gospel of grace.

Religious breaches in the

churches.

But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and opinions, whose discourses were full of terror; who spoke nothing but dismal things; and as they brought the people together with a kind of horror, sent them away in tears, prophesying nothing but evil things; terrifying the people with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, not guiding them, at least not enough, to cry to heaven for mercy,

It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us in matters of religion: innumerable sects, and divisions, and separate opinions prevailed among the people; the Church of England was restored, indeed, with the restoration of the monarchy, about four years before; but the ministers and preachers of the Presbyterians, and Independents, and of all the other sorts of professions, had begun to gather separate societies, and erect altar against altar, and all those had their meetings for worship apart, as they have now, but not so many then, the dissenters being not thoroughly formed into a body as they are since; and those congregations which were thus gathered together were yet but few; and even those that were, the government did not allow, but endeavoured to suppress them, and shut up their meetings.

But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a time, and many of the best and most valuable ministers and preachers of the dissenters were suffered to go into the churches where the incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand it; and the people flocked without distinction to hear them preach, not much inquiring who, or what opinion they were of; but after the sickness was over, that spirit of charity abated, and every church being again supplied with their own ministers, or others presented, where the minister was dead, things returned to their old channel again.

cunning

One mischief always introduces another: these terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to; and this was running Fortuneabout to fortune-tellers, cunning men, and astrologers, to know tellers and their fortune, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes men. told them, their nativities calculated, and the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they call it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of; and this trade grew so open, and so generally practised, that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors :-"Here lives a fortune-teller," "Here lives an astrologer,"-" Here you may have your nativity calculated," and the like; and Friar Bacon's brazen head, which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin's head, and the like.

the devil

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff, these oracles Oracles of of the devil pleased and satisfied the people I really know not; and quack but certain it is, that innumerable attendants crowded about their conjurors. doors every day; and if but a grave fellow, in a velvet jacket, a band, and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack-conjurors generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them in crowds, and ask them questions as they went along.

I need not mention what a horrid delusion this was, or what it tended to; but there was no remedy for it, till the plague itself put an end to it all, and I supposed cleared the town of most of those calculators themselves. One mischief was, that if the Mock astropoor people asked these mock astrologers whether there would logers. be a plague, or no, they all agreed in the general to answer, yes; for that kept up their trade: and had the people not been kept in a fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered useless, and their craft had been at an end; but they always talked to them of such and such influences of the stars, of the conjunctions of such and such planets, which must necessarily bring sickness and distempers, and consequently the plague; and some had the assurance to tell them the plague was begun already, which was too true, though they that said so knew nothing of the matter.

The ministers, to do them justice, and preachers of most sorts,