due emphasis and accent, are not to come within this description. So that our readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The dissenters, I mean such as I have heard, do indeed elevate their voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little sense or skill, that their elevation and cadence is bawling and muttering. They make use of an emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant particle, as upon 'if' or 'and.' Now if these improprieties have so great an effect on the people, as we see they have, how great an influence would the service of our church, containing the best prayers that ever were composed, and that in terms most affecting, most humble, and most expressive of our wants, and dependence on the object of our worship, disposed in most proper order, and void of all confusion; what influence, I say, would these prayers have, were they delivered with a due emphasis, and apposite rising and variation of voice, the sentence concluded with a gentle cadence, and in a word, with such an accent and turn of speech as is peculiar to prayer!

"As the matter of worship is now managed, in dissenting congregations, you find insignificant words and phrases raised by a lively vehemence; in our own churches, the most exalted sense depreciated by a dispassionate indolence. I remember to have heard Dr. Se say in his pulpit, of the Common-Prayer, that, at least, it was as perfect as anything of human institution. If the gentlemen who err in this kind would please to recollect the many pleasantries they have read upon those who recite good things with an ill grace, they would go on to think that what in that case is only ridiculous, in themselves is impious. But leaving this to their own reflections, I shall conclude this trouble with what Cæsar said upon the irregularity of tone in one who read before him, 'Do you read or sing? If you sing, you sing very ill.' 5

"Your most humble servant."

Si legis, cantas; si cantas, male cantas, 8, 2, with clauses transposed.

- C. CAESAR in QUINTILIAN, I,

XVII.

DANIEL DEFOE.

(1661-1731.)

HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 1665.

[Written about 1722.]

I LIVED Without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighbourhood continued very easy; but at the other end of the town their consternation was very great, and the richer sort. of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of town, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner; and this was more particularly seen in Whitechapel; that is to say, the Broad-street where I lived; indeed nothing was to be seen, but waggons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc.; coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away; then empty waggons and carts appeared, and spare horses with servants, who it was apparent were returning or sent from the country to fetch more people: besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and generally speaking, all loaded with baggage and fitted out for travelling, as any one might perceive by their appearance.

This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night (for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen,) it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming

upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it.

This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that there was no getting at the lord mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there was such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of health, for such as travelled abroad; for, without these, there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in any inn. Now as there had none died in the city for all this time, my lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninetyseven parishes, and to those within the liberties too, for awhile.

This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months of May and June, and the more because it was rumoured that an order of the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes1 and barriers on the road, to prevent people's travelling ; and that the towns on the road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing the infection along with them, , though neither of these rumours had any foundation, but in the imagination, especially at first.

I now began to consider seriously with myself, concerning my own case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbours did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come to be brought to the same distress, and to the same manner of making their choice, and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to themselves to act by, than a history of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me.

I had two important things before me; the one was the carrying on my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity, as I saw

1 turnstiles, or gates, to prevent passing without authority.

apparently was coming upon the whole city; and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.

The first consideration was of great moment to me; my trade was a saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants, trading to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man it is true, but I had a family of servants, who I kept at my business; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and, in short, to leave them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the world.

I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years before come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer was in the three words, the same that was given in another case quite different, viz., Master, save thyself. In a word, he was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his family; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told me the same thing, which I argued for my staying, viz., That I would trust God with my safety and health, was the strongest repulse to my pretentions of losing my trade and my goods; For, says he, is it not as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of danger, and trust him with your life?

I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to go, having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our family first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister in Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain

me.

My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children

into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at that time could get no horse: for though it is true, all the people did not go out of the city of London; yet I may venture to say, that in a manner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city, for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant; and as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier's tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm, and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did so at the last, especially those who had been in the armies, in the war which had not been many years past: and I must needs say, that speaking of second causes, had most of the people that travelled done so, the plague had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was, to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin of abundance of people.

But then, my servant, who I had intended to take down with me, deceived me, and being frighted at the increase of the distemper, and not knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and left me, so I was put off for that time; and one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go away, was always crossed by some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again; and this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a needless digression, viz., about these disappointments being from heaven.

It came very warmly into my mind, one morning, as I was musing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of Divine Power, so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary and I ought to consider whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of Heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts, that it really was from God that I should stay; he was able effectually to preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me; and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation, and