Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/211

 Parties and Perſwaſions, we ſhall find neither Prejudice or Scruple; there we ſhall be of one Principle and of one Opinion, why we cannot be content to go Hand in Hand to the Place where we ſhall join Heart and Hand without the leaſt Heſitation, and with the moſt compleat Harmony and Affection; I ſay, why we cannot do ſo here I can ſay nothing to, neither ſhall I ſay any thing more of it, but that it remains to be lamented.

I could dwell a great while upon the Calamities of this dreadful time, and go on to deſcribe the Objects that appear’d among us every Day, the dreadful Extravagancies which the Diſtraction of ſick People drove them into, how the Streets began now to be fuller of frightful Objects, and Families to be made even a Terror to themſelves: But after I have told you, as I have above, that One Man being tyed in his Bed, and finding no other Way to deliver himſelf, ſet the Bed on fire with his Candle, which unhappily ſtood within his reach, and Burnt himſelf in his Bed. And how another, by the inſufferable Torment he bore, daunced and ſung naked in the Streets, not knowing one Extaſie from another, I ſay, after I have mention’d theſe Things, What can be added more? What can be ſaid to repreſent the Miſery of theſe Times, more lively to the Reader, or to give him a more perfect Idea of a complicated Diftreſs?

I muſt acknowledge that this time was Terrible, that I was ſometimes at the End of all my Reſolutions, and that I had not the Courage that I had at the Beginning. As the Extremity brought other People abroad, it drove me Home, and except, having made my Voyage down to Blackwall and Greenwich, as I have related, which was an Excurſion, I kept afterwards very much within Doors, as I had for about a Fortnight before; I have ſaid already, that I repented ſeveral times that I had