APPENDIX.

I SUPPOSE that no apology can be necessary for exhibiting to the reader the masterly description of a plague, from the pen of a British poet: I therefore feel but little scruple in presenting to him the following extract from Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health. Here and there it will call to his mind the account of the cattle-murrain so graphically treated of by Virgil, although referring to a calamity of a widely different nature, the Sweating Sickness. The subject itself presented far less of picturesqueness than that which employed the Latin poet's genius, and yet it has been handled with no small power by a writer who deserves to be much better known than he seems to be. Armstrong was no common poet.

"Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent

Their ancient rage at Bosworth's purple field;
While, for which tyrant England should receive,
Her legions in incestuous murders mix'd,
And daily horrors; till the Fates were drunk
With kindred blood by kindred hands profused:
Another plague of more gigantic arm

Arose, a monster never known before

Rear'd from Cocytus its portentous head.

This rapid fury not, like other pests,
Pursued a gradual course, but in a day
Rush'd as a storm o'er half th' astonish'd isle,
And strew'd with sudden carcases the land.

"First through the shoulders, or whatever part
Was seized the first, a fervid vapour sprung:
With rash combustion thence, the quivering spark
Shot to the heart, and kindled all within ;
And soon the surface caught the spreading fires.
Through all the yielding pores, the melted blood
Gush'd out in smoky sweats; but nought assuaged
The torrid heat within, nor aught relieved
The stomach's anguish. With incessant toil,
Desperate of ease, impatient of their pain,

They toss'd from side to side. In vain the stream
Ran full and clear, they burn'd and thirsted still.
The restless arteries with rapid blood

Beat strong and frequent. Thick and pantingly

The breath was fetch'd, and with huge labourings heaved.

At last a heavy pain oppress'd the head,

A wild delirium came; their weeping friends
Were strangers now, and this no home of theirs.
Harass'd with toil on toil, the sinking powers
Lay prostrate and o'erthrown: a ponderous sleep
Wrapp'd all the senses up: they slept and died.

"In some a gentle horror crept at first
O'er all the limbs: the sluices of the skin
Withheld their moisture, till by art provoked
The sweats o'erflow'd; but in a clammy tide:
Now free and copious, now restrain'd and slow;
Of tinctures various, as the temperature
Had mix'd the blood; and rank with fetid steams;
As if the pent-up humours by delay

Were grown more fell, more putrid, and malign.
Here lay their hopes, (though little hope remain'd,)
With full effusion of perpetual sweats

To drive the venom out. And here the Fates

Were kind, that long they linger'd not in pain.
For who surviv'd the sun's diurnal race,

Rose from the dreary gates of hell redeem'd :
Some the sixth hour oppress'd, and some the third.

"Of many thousands, few untainted scaped; Of those infected, fewer scaped alive;

Of those who lived, some felt a second blow;
And whom the second spared, a third destroy'd.
Frantic with fear, they sought by flight to shun
The fierce contagion. O'er the mournful land

Th' infected city pour'd her hurrying swarms:
Roused by the flames that fired her seats around,
Th' infected country rush'd into the town.
Some, sad at home, and in the desert some,
Abjured the fatal commerce of mankind;
In vain where'er they fled the Fates pursued.
Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main,
To seek protection in far distant skies;

But none they found. It seem'd the general air,
From pole to pole, from Atlas to the east,
Was then at enmity with English blood.
For, but the race of England, all were safe
In foreign climes; nor did this Fury taste
The foreign blood which England then contain❜d.
Where should they fly? The circumambient heaven
Involved them still; and every breeze was bane.
Where find relief? The salutary art

Was mute; and, startled at the new disease,

In fearful whispers hopeless omens gave.

To Heaven with suppliant rites they sent their prayers;
Heaven heard them not. Of every hope deprived;
Fatigued with vain resources, and subdued
With woes resistless and enfeebling fear,
Passive they sunk beneath the weighty blow.
Nothing but lamentable sounds was heard,
Nor aught was seen but ghastly views of death.
Infectious horror ran from face to face,
And pale despair. 'Twas all the business then
To tend the sick, and in their turns to die.
In heaps they fell. And oft one bed, they say,
The sickening, dying, and the dead contain'd."

Perhaps it may not be unacceptable to the reader to receive some further information on the subject of this extraordinary plague, which in former days ravaged England with such fearful devastation. This I am enabled to supply by the kindness of my friend Dr. Robert Adams, of Dublin, who has referred me to Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, translated by Dr. Babington for the Sydenham Society, as furnishing one of the best accounts of it. From the various parts of this very interesting work have been extracted the different facts, which I have here endeavoured to embody, though not

always observing the peculiarities which were incident to the five distinct visitations of the disease, respectively, in the years 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528-9, and 1551.

It appears that it first broke out in the beginning of August, A.D. 1485, in the army of the Earl of Richmond; and after the battle of Bosworth, followed the conquerors to London. Here it assumed a terrible form early in September, thence spreading over the whole kingdom from east to west, and then with strange caprice travelling back again from west to east. In the short interval of three months it swept off countless numbers of human beings. Health, strength, and vigour proved no security against its mysterious assaults; nay, as if actuated by a wild jealousy, it rather marked out for its prey those who were of robust frames and Herculean constitution. A very Nero in despotism, it rioted as it were in the murder of the great. Its visits were sudden and short. They who went to rest at night in the full enjoyment of rude health were ready to be coffined in the morning. Subsequently, indeed, two or three hours, or even one, was quite enough for the despatch of a victim. Thus the whole land became one great charnel-house: many heads of noble families were laid low in the dust; great merchants trafficked no longer; the ward saw his guardian a corpse before his eyes; orphans cried in vain for parents who were now no more. Instead of a wide-spread joy at the fall of a cruel usurper, all England was filled with mourning and woe; in place of the pageants of a coronation, her people were forced to gaze upon the spectacles of the tortured and the dead.

Awful were the features of the plague. Recovery was no security against recurrence: a second, and even a third attack would often follow a first; and thus the healthy lived in alarm, and the diseased lingered with scarce a hope. Heat was death, cold was death; to arouse perspiration was no less fatal than to check it; and the wretched patient lay as still as a stone on his bed of sickness and dismay, without daring to expose a foot, or even a finger, to the air, on pain of inevitable doom. Even if he succeeded in his battle with the foe, and survived its enmity and power, victory was often pur