person was stricken with the disease, the house wherein he dwelt was to be shut up. Watchmen were appointed to see that no one entered or left it, and to get what things were needed by the inhabitants. In the middle of the door was to be painted a red cross a foot long, and the words, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" The dead were to be buried by night.

Notwithstanding all these precautions, the plague continued to spread. More than five thousand died of it in July, more than thirteen thousand in August, and in September as many as ten thousand died in a single week. Whole rows of houses stood empty and open to the winds; grass grew in the streets; hardly any one ventured abroad, the few people that did go out keeping to the midde of the road and avoiding one another; a silence as of the grave reigned around, save when the air was rent by the cries of mourners, or the shrieks of the sick, or the ravings of those whom distress had driven mad. When darkness fell, the dead-cart went its rounds. The uncoffined bodies were flung pell-mell into it, taken to the nearest churchyard, and thrown into a common pit.

As the cold weather came on, the plague grew less and less deadly. By December, seventy-three parishes were declared free from it, and many of the people who had fled into the country were returning. In a month or two all danger was over. During the visitation a hundred thousand persons had died.

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON. BEFORE London had been a twelvemonth free from the plague, another terrible calamity befell it. On Sunday, September 2nd, 1666, a fire broke out in the house of

a baker near London Bridge. The streets being very narrow, and the houses mostly of wood, the high wind, which was blowing from the east, drove the flames rapidly westward. As one building after another became alight, men were filled with a terror and despair which kept them from doing anything to check the fire. They simply rushed from their doomed homes to the fields, taking with them their families and what goods they could carry. John Evelyn says that on Friday he "went towards 2 Islington and Highgate, where one might have seen two hundred thousand people of all ranks and degrees dispersed, and lying along by the heaps of what they could save from the fire."

Monday night was terrible. The going down of the sun brought no darkness, for the blazing buildings yielded a light which is described as of noonday. The glaring sky above the burning city was visible for forty miles around. Tuesday night was even worse, for then the area of destruction was wider. "Among other things that night," says an account published soon after, "the sight of 3 Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood, the whole body of it together, in view for several hours after the fire had taken it, without flames (possibly because the timber was such solid oak), in a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass."

On Wednesday the wind abated, and the king, who had worked hard in helping the citizens, ordered a number of houses to be blown up, so that when the fire reached the spaces thus made, it should stop. In this way the progress of the flames was stayed, and on Thursday they were extinguished.

The mind cannot take in the amount of damage done. A column 202 feet high, called the Monument, was put

up 202 feet from the spot where the disaster began. The inscription on it states that the fire "consumed eighty-nine churches, the city gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling houses, four hundred streets. Of twentysix wards, it entirely consumed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt. The ruins of the city were four hundred and thirty-six acres. To the estates and fortunes of the citizens it was merciless, but to their lives very favourable, for no person was known to be burnt or to be trodden to death in the streets."

Although such a terrible calamity at the time, the fire was in the end a blessing, for the new streets were made broad, straight, and regular, while the new houses were built of brick or stone, and were better lighted and better ventilated than the old ones had been. The benefit of the change was seen in the improved health of the citizens. In the thirteen years following the fire, only eighty-two persons died of the plague; in the fourteenth, the dreaded sickness altogether disappeared.

1 John Evelyn, a gentleman who lived at the time, and left behind him a very interesting diary. 2 Islington and Highgate, then little villages some distance north of London; now parts of London. 3 Guildhall, the townhall of the city. 4 ward, a division of a town.

TITUS OATES' PLOT.

power was

IN the time of Charles II. France was under the rule of an able and ambitious monarch called Lewis XIV. He used to say that the spread of his "at once the noblest and most pleasing occupation" of a king. By acting upon this principle he caused much bloodshed and misery, for other countries combined to

check him, and several wars resulted. In 1668, England, Holland, and Sweden formed a "triple alliance" against him. The union frightened him, and peace was for a while restored.

When Charles returned to his native land the Royalists thought him nearly perfect; gradually, however, it dawned upon them that he was not without faults, and in a few years they discovered that he was almost without virtues. Even the House of Commons elected in 1661, when the fever of loyalty was strong upon the nation, learned at length to mistrust him, and frequently opposed measures on which he had set his heart. He was therefore anxious to free himself from the control of Parliament altogether; but he could not do without money, and the fate of his father had taught him the danger of raising money from the people in unlawful ways. Hence he made a disgraceful bargain with Lewis. By the secret treaty of Dover, Charles agreed to withdraw from the Triple Alliance, to join France in attacking Holland, to openly profess the Catholic religion, and to foster its growth. In return, Lewis was to pay him large sums and to furnish him with French soldiers if his subjects showed any disposition to rebel.

Charles's determination" 'not to go again upon his travels," prevented his announcing himself a Catholic, but he kept the rest of the shameless agreement. He made war on the Dutch, and he issued a Declaration of Indulgence granting all his subjects permission to worship as they chose. We believe in the wisdom of perfect religious liberty, but the people of that time did not. Their feeling was strong against the toleration of all Dissenters, and especially strong against the toleration of Catholics; it was strengthened by the suspicion

that the king was a Catholic, and the knowledge that his 2 brother was one. Parliament caused Charles to recall the Declaration, and to assent to the Test Act, which required all persons holding office under the government to take the communion according to the rites of the Church of England, and to forswear a leading doctrine of the Church of Rome.

The English did not yet know the greatness of their sovereign's shame. When they learned that he had sold himself to Lewis they were filled with horror and indignation, and before the excitement of the discovery had passed away, they heard that a dangerous Popish plot had been revealed by Titus Oates. The nation