to force in reality the vile stew of which he
had spoken down the throat of the hungry
Guld Publeek, together with a nauseous mess
called DUBLINCUMTAX, and to put bitters in
his drink, strew dust on his head, blacken his
face, shave his eyebrows, pluck away his beard,
insult him and make merry with him. He
then caused him to be attired in a shameful
dress and set upon an ass with his face to the
tail, and in this state to be publicly exposed
with the inscription round his neck, This is
the punishment of Guld Publeek who asked
for nourishment and said he wanted it. Such
is the present droll condition of this person;
while my near relation, the Barmecide, sits
in the post of honour with his turban very
much on one side, enjoying the joke. Which
I think you will all admit is an excellent
one.

Hansardadade having made an end of the
discourse of the loquacious Barber, would
have instantly begun another story, had not
Brothartoon shut her up with, Dear Sister, it
will be shortly daybreak. Get to bed and be
quiet.

PLAGUES OF LONDON.

HARROWING accounts of the great plague
are familiar to all readers. We do not wish
to add to their number, and mean only to
suggest some analogies between the plague
of sixteen hundred and sixty-five and the
plague of our own times, say of eighteen
hundred and fifty-five, by showing how a
sensible man talked about it. There are
extant a number of unpublished letters from
the Rev. Patrick Symon, Rector of St. Paul's,
Covent Garden, afterwards Lord Bishop of
Ely. He addressed these letters to a lady
who had retired, for safety's sake, into the
country. On the ninth of August, sixteen
hundred and sixty-five, he wrote to his
friend in a tone used certainly by many who
wrote from London in the same month of
last year. "There is some danger, no doubt,
in this place, and it increases a little; but I
am not in any fear, which will make the
danger less. There died, as you will see by
the bills of mortality to-morrow, twenty in
this parish, whereof sixteen of the plague.
This, I know, will debar me of the liberty of
seeing you, and I submit to that restraint.
For though you will be inclined, I believe, to
give me that freedom, yet it will not be either
civil or kind to accept of that grant till we
be in a better condition of health." But he
went on to suggest a terror happily banished
from the current history of London pestilence.
"If you think there is any danger
from those papers which you receive, the fire,
I suppose, will expel it, if you let them see it
before they come into your hands. You see
how cautious I am grown." In the month
following says the good pastor—"Last week
I was more than ordinary feeble, which was
a thing common to me with others, the effects
of which you see in the vast increase of the
sickness. It was a lovely season yesterday, and
we hoped for some sweet, clear weather, but
it pleases God the wind is changed again, and
brings abundance of rain with it; and,
indeed, we have had no settled weather since I
saw you, which hath made the sickness, I
believe, rage more. For south winds are
always observed to be bad in such times,
and the wind stays not long out of that
quarter. It (the plague) decreases in some
places and grows very much in others. I hope
that there will not so many die here as did
last week, and yet we have twenty-one or
twenty-two dead already. I suppose you
think that I intend to stay here still, though
I understand by your question you would not
have me. But, my friend, what am I better
than another? Somebody must be here, and
is it fit I should set such a value upon myself
as my going away and leaving another will
signify?" [Here you speak, Mr. Symon,
like a minister right worthy of your calling.]
"I preach to those who are well, and write to
those who are ill (I mean, print little papers
for them, which yet are too big to send
to you by the post); but I am sure while
I stay here I shall do good to their bodies,
and perhaps save some from perishing."

The terrible phantom which was the especial
horror of the plagues of our forefathers
rises in this passage from a letter written
later in the autumn: "May I not buy a pair
of stockings of a friend whom I can be
confident is not infected, and which have lain
long in his shop? I want nothing else at
present, and how should it be more dangerous
than to receive beer and wine, the vessels
being capable of infection; but, especially
Bread, they say, is the most attractive of it,
which I am forced to buy, for I have no other
ways to have it." Upon the daily bread of
the poor with how terrible a curse must this
notion have rested!

"I saw last Tuesday," says the Rector of
St. Paul's, Covent Garden, "about thirty
people in the Strand, with white sticks in
their hands, and the doctor of the pest-house,
in his gown, walking before them. The first
woman rid on an horse, and had a paper flag
on the top of her stick with LAUS DEO
written in it. They were going to the
justice's, being poor people sent thither and
recovered by him" (the doctor) "of the
plague. He seemed to take no small content
in his stately march before them."

Dr. Patrick tells how he took treacle as an
antidote, and grew fat, although many clergymen
were dying round about him. The
depression of his mind, probably, caused the
slovenly manner of his letters, full of dejected
I believes and I supposes. The main exciting
cause of the old plagues as of the modern
cholera was, beyond doubt, confinement in
foul air, living among the filth of towns or
villages in ill-constructed houses. When the