One mischief always introduces another.  These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them to 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,[54] and astrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities[55] 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 practiced, 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,[56] 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,[57] or of Merlin’s[58] 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,[59] and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them[60] in crowds, and ask them[60] questions as they went along.

The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasion to mention again by and by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away.  And it was so, and of them abundance perished, and particularly those whom these false prophets flattered with hopes that they should be kept in their services, and carried with their masters and mistresses into the country; and had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, whose number was exceeding great (and in all cases of this nature must be so), they would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city.

These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out.  But I must also not forget that the more serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner.  The government encouraged their devotion, and appointed public prayers, and days of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin, and implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hangs over their heads; and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occasion, how they flocked to the churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no coming near, even to the very doors of the largest churches.