of old green yarn stockings, all worn and darned at the knees, and their feet cut off. An old coarse shirt, torn and patched at the neck and wrists, and his shoes all cut and slashed." In this disguise he was enabled to skulk from place to place, till he procured a horse, and once more shifted his attire. Near Bentley, the horse cast a shoe, and Charles took him to a blacksmith. As he was holding up the horse's foot, he asked the smith, "What news?" He replied, that the Scots were beaten, but "the rogue Charles Stuart was not taken." The prince rejoined, that, "if that rogue were taken, he deserved to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing in the Scots." The smith told him he 'spake like an honest man," and with this comfort Charles took leave of the blacksmith.

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At Stratford-upon-Avon, he fell in with a troop of horse of the enemy, but escaped recognition. At a house in Cirencester, while eating his breakfast, he found himself in company with a man who had known him perfectly well. Charles questioned him very closely, and the man gave an accurate description of him, with the exception of one particular. "He is," said he, "full three fingers taller than you." Encountering adventures of this kind, and hair-breadth escapes almost without number, he at length reached the sea-coast at Shoreham in Sussex, where some persons in his confidence provided a small vessel, in which he made his escape across the Channel to France. The last of these adventures is amusing. While sitting upon the beach, in company with a fisherman who was in the secret, another fisherman came strolling toward them, smoking his pipe. On approaching close to Charles,

he peered in his face with a stare of rude curiosity. The prince's confidant trembled in fear of a discovery. "Come away," he exclaimed," do n't trouble the gentleman with 60 tobacco-smoke." your Pugh! replied the other, "A cat may look upon a king.''

THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.

ENGLAND has experienced several visitations of this terrible disease. About the middle of the fourteenth century, that country suffered in common with all Europe; the disorder being then called the Black Death. Two centuries afterward, the same general calamity occur. red. In the seventeenth century, the plague again made great ravages there, appearing at four different times. The last of these visits was the most terrible, and is known by the name of the Great Plague. It appears to have been introduced from Holland, where it had swept off great multitudes in the years 1663 and 1664.

On the one

The first cases that attracted notice occurred in the outskirts of London, in December, 1664. These excited alarm, and directed the attention of the public to the weekly variation in the bills of mortality. hand, the cool temperature of the air and the frequent changes in the weather were hailed as favorable circumstances; on the other, it could not be concealed, that the number of deaths, from whatever cause it arose, was continually on the advance. In this state of suspense, alternately agitated by their hopes and

fears, men looked to the result with the most intense anxiety; and at length, about the end of May, under the influence of a warmer sun, and with the aid of a close and stagnant atmosphere, the evil burst forth in all its terrors. From the centre of St. Giles's, the infection spread with rapidity over the adjacent parishes, threatened the court at Whitehall, and, in defiance of every precaution, stole its way into the heart of the city. A general panic ensued; the nobility and gentry were the first to flee; the royal family followed; and then all who valued their personal safety more than the considerations of home and interest, prepared to imitate their example. For some weeks, the tide of emigration flowed from every outlet towards the country; it was checked at first by the refusal of the Lord Mayor to grant certificates of health, and by the opposition of the neighbouring townships, which rose in their own defence and formed a barrier round the devoted city.

The absence of the fugitives, and the consequent cessation of trade, and the breaking up of establishments, served to aggravate the calamity. It was calculated that forty thousand servants had been left without a home; and the number of artisans and laborers thrown out of employment was still more considerable. It is true that the charity of the opulent seemed to keep pace with the progress of distress. The king subscribed the weekly sum of a thousand pounds; the city, six hundred. The queen dowager, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Craven, and the Lord Mayor, distinguished themselves by the amount of their benefactions; and the magistrates were careful to in

sure a constant supply of provisions in the markets. Yet the families that depended on casual relief for the means of subsistence were necessarily subjected to privations, which rendered them more liable to receive, and less able to subdue, the contagion. The mortality was at first confined to the lower classes, carrying off the children in a larger proportion than the adults, and the females, than the men. But, by the end of June, so rapid was the diffusion, so destructive were the ravages of the disease, that the civil authorities deemed it time to exercise the power with which they had been invested by an act of James the First, “for the charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with the plague." They divided the parishes into districts, and allotted to each district a competent number of officers, under the denominations of examiners, searchers, nurses, and watchmen. They ordered that the existence of the disease, wherever it might pene. trate, should be made known to the public by a red cross, one foot in length, painted on the door, with the words, "Lord have mercy on us!" placed above it. From that moment the house was closed; all egress, for the space of one month, was inexorably refused; and the wretched inmates were doomed to remain under the same roof, communicating death to one another. Of these, many sunk under the horrors of their situation; many were rendered desperate. They eluded the vigilance, or corrupted the fidelity of the watchmen; and by their escape, instead of avoiding, served only to disseminate the contagion. Provision was also made for the speedy interment of the dead. In the daytime, officers were always on the watch to

withdraw from public view the bodies of those who expired in the streets. During the night, the tinkling of a bell, accompanied by the glare of links, announced the approach of the pest-cart, making its round to receive the victims of the last twenty-four hours. No coffins were prepared, no funeral service was read, no mourners were permitted to follow the remains of their relations or friends. The cart proceeded to the nearest cemetery, and shot its burden into the common grave, a deep and spacious pit, capable of holding some scores of bodies, and dug in the churchyard, or, when this was full, in the outskirts of the parish.

The disease generally manifested itself by the usual febrile symptoms of shivering, nausea, headache, and delirium. In some, these affections were so mild as to be taken for a slight and transient indisposition. The victim saw not, or would not see, the insidious approach of his foe; he applied to his usual avocations, till a sudden faintness came on; the macula, the fatal tokens, appeared on his breast, and within an hour life. was extinct. But in most cases the pain and delirium left no room for doubt. On the third or fourth day, buboes or carbuncles arose; if these could be made to suppurate, recovery might be anticipated; if they resisted the efforts of nature and the skill of the physician, death was inevitable. The sufferings of the patients often threw them into paroxysms of frenzy. They burst the bands by which they were confined to their beds, they precipitated themselves from the windows, they ran naked into the streets and plunged into the river.