had long ago fled from the devoted city; and London lay under the
burning heat of the June sunshine, stricken for its sins by the
hand of God. The pest-houses were full, so were the plague-pits,
where the dead were hurled in cartfuls; and no one knew who rose
up in health in the morning but that they might be lying stark
and dead in a few hours. The very churches were forsaken; their
pastors fled or lying in the plague-pits; and it was even
resolved to convert the great cathedral of St. Paul into a vast
plague-hospital. Cries and lamentations echoed from one end of
the city to the other, and Death and Charles reigned over London
together.

Yet in the midst of all this, many scenes of wild orgies and
debauchery still went on within its gates - as, in our own day,
when the cholera ravaged Paris, the inhabitants of that facetious
city made it a carnival, so now, in London, they were many who,
feeling they had but a few days to live at the most, resolved to
defy death, and indulge in the revelry while they yet existed.
"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die!" was their
motto; and if in the midst of the frantic dance or debauched
revel one of them dropped dead, the others only shrieked with
laughter, hurled the livid body out to the street, and the
demoniac mirth grew twice as fast and furious as before. Robbers
and cut-purses paraded the streets at noonday, entered boldly
closed and deserted houses, and bore off with impunity, whatever
they pleased. Highwaymen infested Hounslow Heath, and all the
roads leading from the city, levying a toll on all who passed,
and plundering fearlessly the flying citizens. In fact,
far-famed London town, in the year of grace 1665, would have
given one a good idea of Pandemonium broke loose.