he bell, mourn or weep, or wear black
for one another, as they did before, no, nor so much as make coffins for
those that died, so, after a while, the fury of the infection appeared
to be so increased, that, in short, they shut up no houses at all. It
seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they
were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an
irresistible fury; so that, as the fire the succeeding year spread
itself and burnt with such violence that the citizens in despair gave
over their endeavors to extinguish it, so in the plague it came at last
to such violence, that the people sat still looking at one another, and
seemed quite abandoned to despair. Whole streets seemed to be desolated,
and not to be shut up only, but to be emptied of their inhabitants:
doors were left open, windows stood shattering with the wind in empty
houses, for want of people to shut them. In a word, people began to give
up themselves to their fears, and to think that all regulations and
methods were in vain, and that there was nothing to be hoped for but an
universal desolation. And it was even in the height of this general
despair that it pleased God to stay his hand, and to slacken the fury of
the contagion in such a manner as was even surprising, like its
beginning, and demonstrated it to be his own particular hand; and that
above, if not without the agency of means, as I shall take notice of in
its proper place.

But I must still speak of the plague as in its height, raging even to
desolation, and the people under the most dreadful consternation, even,
as I have said, to despair. It is hardly credible to what excesses the
passions of men carried them in this extremity of the distemper; and
this part, I think, was as moving as the rest. What could affect a man
in his full power of reflection, and what could make deeper impressions
on the soul, than to see a man almost naked, and got out of his house or
perhaps out of his bed into the street, come out of Harrow Alley, a
populous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts, and passages, in
the Butcher Row in Whitechapel,--I say, what could be more affecting
than to see this poor man come out into the open street, run, dancing
and singing, and making a thousand antic gestures, with five or six
women and children running after him, crying and calling upon him for
the Lord's sake to come back, and entreating the help of others to bring
him back, but a