, upon the unthankfulness and return of
all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eyewitness of
myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, therefore,
with a coarse but a sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end
of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were written:--

A dreadful plague in London was,
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away, yet I alive.

H.F.[353]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] It was popularly believed in London that the plague came from
Holland; but the sanitary (or rather unsanitary) conditions of London
itself were quite sufficient to account for the plague's originating
there. Andrew D. White tells us, that it is difficult to decide to-day
between Constantinople and New York as candidates for the distinction of
being the dirtiest city in the world.

[5] Incorrectly used for "councils."

[6] In April, 1663, the first Drury Lane Theater had been opened. The
present Drury Lane Theater (the fourth) stands on the same site.

[7] The King's ministers. At this time they held office during the
pleasure of the Crown, not, as now, during the pleasure of a
parliamentary majority.

[8] Gangrene spots (see text, pp. 197, 198).

[9] The local government of London at this time was chiefly in the hands
of the vestries of the different parishes. It is only of recent years
that the power of these vestries has been seriously curtailed, and
transferred to district councils.

[10] The report.

[11] Pronounced H[=o]'burn. {Transcriber's note: [=o] indicates o-macron}

[12] Was.

[13] Were.

[14] Outlying districts; so called because they enjoyed certain
municipal immunities, or liberties. Until recent years, a portion of
Philadelphia was known as the "Northern Liberties."

[15] Attempts to believe the evil lessened.

[16] Was.

[17] Were.

[18] The chief executive officer of the city of London still bears this
title.

[19] One of the many instances in which Defoe mixes his tenses.

[20] Whom. We shall find many more instances of Defoe's misuse of this
form, as also of others (see Introduction, p. 15).

[21] Used almost in its original sense of a military barrier.

[22] Whom.

[23] See Matt, xxvii. 40; Mark xv. 30; Luke xxiii. 35.

[24] Denial.

[25] The civil war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians,
1642-51.

[26] Whom.

[27] This argument is neatly introduced to account for the narr