Before proceeding further, it may be desirable to show in what manner the dreadful pestilence referred to by the grocer commenced, and how far its ravages had already extended.  Two years before, namely, in 1663, more than a third of the population of Amsterdam was carried off by a desolating plague.  Hamburgh was also grievously afflicted about the same time, and in the same manner.  Notwithstanding every effort to cut off communication with these states, the insidious disease found its way into England by means of some bales of merchandise, as it was suspected, at the latter end of the year 1664, when two persons died suddenly, with undoubted symptoms of the distemper, in Westminster.  Its next appearance was at a house in Long Acre, and its victims two Frenchmen, who had brought goods from the Levant.  Smothered for a short time, like a fire upon which coals had been heaped, it broke out with fresh fury in several places.

The consternation now began.  The whole city was panic-stricken:  nothing was talked of but the plague—­nothing planned but means of arresting its progress—­one grim and ghastly idea possessed the minds of all.  Like a hideous phantom stalking the streets at noon-day, and scaring all in its path, Death took his course through London, and selected his prey at pleasure.  The alarm was further increased by the predictions confidently made as to the vast numbers who would be swept away by the visitation; by the prognostications of astrologers; by the prophesyings of enthusiasts; by the denunciations of preachers, and by the portents and prodigies reported to have occurred.  During the long and frosty winter preceding this fatal year, a comet appeared in the heavens, the sickly colour of which was supposed to forebode the judgment about to follow.  Blazing stars and other meteors, of a lurid hue and strange and preternatural shape, were likewise seen.  The sun was said to have set in streams of blood, and the moon to have shown without reflecting a shadow; grisly shapes appeared at night—­strange clamours and groans were heard in the air—­hearses, coffins, and heaps of unburied dead were discovered in the sky, and great cakes and clots of blood were found in the Tower moat; while a marvellous double tide occurred at London Bridge.  All these prodigies were currently reported, and in most cases believed.

The severe frost, before noticed, did not break up till the end of February, and with the thaw the plague frightfully increased in violence.  From Drury-lane it spread along Holborn, eastward as far as Great Turnstile, and westward to Saint Giles’s Pound, and so along the Tyburn-road.  Saint Andrew’s, Holborn, was next infected; and as this was a much more populous parish than the former, the deaths were more numerous within it.  For a while, the disease was checked by Fleet Ditch; it then leaped this narrow boundary, and ascending the opposite hill, carried fearful devastation into Saint James’s, Clerkenwell.  At the same time, it attacked Saint Bride’s; thinned the ranks of the thievish horde haunting Whitefriars, and proceeding in a westerly course, decimated Saint Clement Danes.