up, of which I shall speak
presently.

One day, being at that part of the town on some special business,
curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, and indeed I
walked a great way where I had no business. I went up Holborn, and there
the street was full of people, but they walked in the middle of the
great street, neither on one side or other, because, as I suppose, they
would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with
smells and scent from houses that might be infected.

The Inns of Court were all shut up; nor were very many of the lawyers in
the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there. Everybody
was at peace; there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it being in
the time of the vacation too, they were generally gone into the country.
Whole rows of houses in some places were shut close up, the inhabitants
all fled, and only a watchman or two left.

When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut up by
the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed the Court,
by the necessity of their employments and other dependences; and as
others retired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere
desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near
so great in the city, abstractly so called, and particularly because,
though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet as
I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they
were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times,
till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared
violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the
east and south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as
I may say, a little hardened. It is true a vast many people fled, as I
have observed, yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town,
and from that we call the heart of the city: that is to say, among the
wealthiest of the people, and such people as were unencumbered with
trades and business. But of the rest, the generality stayed, and seemed
to abide the worst; so that in the place we calf the Liberties, and
in the suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping,
Ratcliff, Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally
stayed, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did
not depend upon their business.

It must not be forgot here that the city and subur