But even these wholesome reflections, which, rightly managed, would have
most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of
their sins, and look up to their merciful Savior for pardon, imploring
his compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by which we
might have been as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the
common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections as they
were brutishly wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their
fright to extremes of folly, and, as I said before, that they ran to
conjurers and witches and all sorts of deceivers, to know what should
become of them, who fed their fears and kept them always alarmed and
awake, on purpose to delude them and pick their pockets: so they were as
mad upon their running after quacks and mountebanks, and every
practicing old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with
such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were
called, that they not only spent their money, but poisoned themselves
beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their
bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the
other hand, it was incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts
of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors'
bills, and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic,
and inviting people to come to them for remedies, which was generally
set off with such flourishes as these; viz., "INFALLIBLE preventitive
pills against the plague;" "NEVER-FAILING preservatives against the
infection;" "SOVEREIGN cordials against the corruption of air;" "EXACT
regulations for the conduct of the body in case of infection;"
"Antipestilential pills;" "INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never
found out before;" "An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague;" "The ONLY TRUE
plague water;" "The ROYAL ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infection;" and
such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and, if I could, would fill