stilence, are
from Italy; and these may enable us to form a just estimate of the
general state of families in Europe, taking into consideration what is
peculiar in the manners of each country.

"When the evil had become universal" (speaking of Florence), "the hearts
of all the inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity. They fled
from the sick and all that belonged to them, hoping by these means to
save themselves. Others shut themselves up in their houses, with their
wives, their children and households, living on the most costly food, but
carefully avoiding all excess. None were allowed access to them; no
intelligence of death or sickness was permitted to reach their ears; and
they spent their time in singing and music, and other pastimes. Others,
on the contrary, considered eating and drinking to excess, amusements of
all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratification, and an
indifference to what was passing around them, as the best medicine, and
acted accordingly. They wandered day and night from one tavern to
another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In this way they
endeavoured to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned their
houses and property to chance, like men whose death-knell had already
tolled.

"Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of
every law, human and divine, vanished. Most of those who were in office
had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many
members of their family, that they were unable to attend to their duties;
so that thenceforth every one acted as he thought proper. Others in
their mode of living chose a middle course. They ate and drank what they
pleased, and walked abroad, carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs, or
spices, which they smelt to from time to time, in order to invigorate the
brain, and to avert the baneful influence of the air, infected by the
sick and by the innumerable corpses of those who had died of the plague.
Others carried their precaution still further, and thought the surest way
to escape death was by flight. They therefore left the city; women as
well as men abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and retiring
into the country. But of these also many were carried off, most of them
alone and deserted by all the world, themselves having previously set the
example. Thus it was that one citizen fled from another--a neighbour
from his neighbours--a relation from his relations;