102 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. Contemporary writers are full of similar descrip- tions, and one employs the following striking and impressive language. " Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down very sharp: Death rides triumphant on his pale horse through our streets, and breaks into almost every house, where the inhabitants are to be found : people fall as thick as leaves from the trees in Autumn, when shaken by a mighty wind. There is a dismal soli- tude in London streets : every day looks with the face of a sabbath, observed with a greater so- lemnity than it used to be in the city. Shops are shut up ; people rare ; and few that walk about, insomuch that grass begins to grow in some places, and a deep silence in almost every place, especially within the city walls." * Within the walls, The most frequented once and noisy parts Of town, now midnight silence reigns e'en there •' A midnight silence, at the noon of day ! And grass, untrodden, springs beneath the feet ! Dryden. These scenes of desolation and woe excited in the mind of Pepys the following train of thought and extraordinary moral reflection : " Sept. 3d. — Lord's day. Up ; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new periwigg, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it ; and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done, as to periwiggs, for nobody will dare to buy any liaire, for fear of the
- God's terrible Voice to the City, by Plague and Fire. — Vincent.
