e fled
away, as many were, not being able to stand it; and the people flocked
without distinction to hear them preach, not much inquiring who or what
opinion they were of. But after the sickness was over, that spirit of
charity abated; and every church being again supplied with their own
ministers, or others presented where the minister was dead, things
returned to their old channel again.

One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensions
of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things,
which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them
to: and this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning-men, and
astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is vulgarly expressed,
to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and
the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked
generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they called it,
and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil
than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so open and so
generally practised that it became common to have signs and inscriptions
set up at doors: 'Here lives a fortune-teller', 'Here lives an
astrologer', 'Here you may have your nativity calculated', and the
like; and Friar Bacon's brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these
people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the
sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin's head, and the like.

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devil
pleased and satisfied the people I really know not, but certain it is
that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day. And if
but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band, and a black coat, which
was the habit those quack-conjurers generally went in, was but seen
in the streets the people would follow them in crowds, and ask them
questions as they went along.

I need not mention what a horrid delusion this was, or what it tended
to; but there was no remedy for it till the plague itself put an end to
it all--and, I suppose, cleared the town of most of those calculators
themselves. One mischief was, that if the poor people asked these mock
astrologers whether there would be a plague or no, they all agreed
in general to answer 'Yes', for that kept up their trade. And had the
people not been kept in a fright about that, the wizards would presently
have been rendere