-had
flocked to London to settle in business, or to depend upon and attend
the court for rewards of services, preferments, and the like, was[42]
such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand
people more than ever it held before. Nay, some took upon them to say
it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party
flocked hither, all the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of
families settled here. Again: the court brought with it a great flux of
pride and new fashions; all people were gay and luxurious, and the joy
of the restoration had brought a vast many families to London.[43]

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time. While
the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by
several odd accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the
whole body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their
dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for
an Aceldama,[44] doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and
that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name
but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many
wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered
there was any (women especially) left behind.

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months
before the plague, as there did, the year after, another a little before
the fire. The old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac[45] part of
the other sex (whom I could almost call old women too), remarked,
especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over,
that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very
near the houses that it was plain they imported something peculiar to
the city alone; 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