walked a great way where I had no business. I went up Holborn, and there
the street was full of people; but they walked in the middle of the
great street, neither on one side or[39] other, because, as I suppose,
they would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with
smells and scents from houses, that might be infected.

The inns of court were all shut up, nor were very many of the lawyers in
the Temple,[40] or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there.
Everybody was at peace, there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it
being in the time of the vacation too, they were generally gone into the
country. Whole rows of houses in some places were shut close up, the
inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left.

When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut up by
the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed the court,
by the necessity of their employments, and other dependencies; and as
others retired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere
desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so
great in the city, abstractedly so called,[41] and particularly because,
though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet, as
I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they
were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times,
till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared
violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the
east or south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I
may say, a little hardened. It is true, a vast many people fled, as I
have observed; yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and
from that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the
wealthiest of the people, and such persons as were unincumbered with
trades and business. But of the rest, the generality staid, and seemed