ar panic in
the time of Henry VIII., the fear became contagious, and hundreds who had
laughed at the prediction a week before, packed up their goods, when they
saw others doing so, and hastened away. The river was thought to be a
place of great security, and all the merchant-vessels in the port were
filled with people, who passed the night between the 4th and 5th on board,
expecting every instant to see St. Paul's totter, and the towers of
Westminster Abbey rock in the wind and fall amid a cloud of dust. The
greater part of the fugitives returned on the following day, convinced
that the prophet was a false one; but many judged it more prudent to allow
a week to elapse before they trusted their dear limbs in London. Bell lost
all credit in a short time, and was looked upon even by the most credulous
as a mere madman. He tried some other prophecies, but nobody was deceived
by them; and, in a few months afterwards, he was confined in a lunatic
asylum.

A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of Leeds and
its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the following
circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on which were
inscribed the words, "_Christ is coming_." Great numbers visited the spot,
and examined these wondrous eggs, convinced that the day of judgment was
near at hand. Like sailors in a storm, expecting every instant to go to
the bottom, the believers suddenly became religious, prayed violently, and
flattered themselves that they repented them of their evil courses. But a
plain tale soon put them down, and quenched their religion entirely. Some
gentlemen, hearing of the matter, went one fine morning, and caught the
poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs. They soon
ascertained beyond doubt that the egg had been inscribed with some
corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird's body. At this
explanation, those who had prayed, now laughed, and the world wagged as
merrily as of yore.

At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting a
description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work, _De
Peste Mediolani_, the people, in their distress, listened with avidity to
the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is singular enough
that the plague was foretold a year before it broke out. A large comet
appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were divided with regard to
it. Some insisted that it was a foreru