in our own times great national calamities would
show that many superstitions exist which had been thought extinct, and
we should see excited among the ill-educated that particular form of
persecution which arises, not from zeal for religion and not from
intolerance, but from the belief that the troubles have been sent
because of unbelief and the fear that unless some expiation be made the
evil will not pass away from the midst of the people. It is at such
times of general affliction that minds of the meaner sort have proved
'zealous even to slaying.'

The influence of strange appearances in the heavens on even thoughtful
and reasoning minds, at such times of universal calamity, is well shown
by Defoe's remarks on the comets of the years 1664 and 1666. 'The old
women,' he says, 'and the phlegmatic, hypochondriacal part of the other
sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked that those two
comets passed directly over the city' [though that appearance must have
depended on the position whence these old women, male and female,
observed the comet], 'and that so very near the houses, that it was
plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; and that the
comet before the Pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, 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 even that they heard it; that it made a mighty rushing noise,
fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable. I
saw both these stars, and must confess had I had so much 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 having followed the first, I yet saw another of the same
kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
city' [London].

The comets of 1680 and 1682, though they did not bring plagues or
conflagrations immediately, yet were not supposed to have been
altoge