. That the comet before the pestilence was of a faint,
dull, languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but
that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or as others
said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that accordingly
one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible, and frightful,
as was the plague. But the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and
fiery, as was the conflagration; nay, so particular some people were,
that as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire they fancied that
they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the
motion with their eye, but they even heard it,--that it made a rushing
mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just
perceivable.

I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so much of the
common notion of such things in my head that I was apt to look upon them
as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments; and especially when
the plague had followed the first, I saw yet another of the like kind, I
could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the
error of the times, in which I think the people, from what principle I
cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies and astrological
conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before
or since: whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the
follies of some people who got money by it,--that is to say, by printing
predictions and prognostications,--I know not; but certain it is, books
frighted them terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's
Astrological Predictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also
several pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my
People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called 'Fair
Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many such, all or most
part of which foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city; nay,
some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with
their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city;
and one in particular, who like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets,
"Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be positive
whether he said forty days or yet a few days. Another ran about naked,
except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like