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.
Hitherto, the city had escaped. The destroyer had not passed Ludgate or
Newgate, but environed the walls like a besieging enemy. A few days,
however, before the opening of this history, fine weather having
commenced, the horrible disease began to grow more rife, and laughing
all precautions and impediments to scorn, broke out in the very heart of
the stronghold--namely, in Bearbinder-lane, near Stock's Market, where
nine persons died.
At a season so awful, it may be imagined how an impressive address, like
that delivered by the grocer, would be received by those who saw in the
pestilence, not merely an overwhelming scourge from which few could
escape, but a direct manifestation of the Divine displeasure.
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