removal to some more hospitable and healthy spot, several of which, fortunately for the lives of his Majesty's subjects, have been discovered on the coasts of Kent and Sussex; and what makes it yet more certain that it is the air of London, and that only, which creates the disorder, is, that it is never cured even in those temples of Hygeia until they be crowded almost to suffocation; a circumstance which, it is well known, would be reckoned fatal in the metropolis.

It is a disorder of the most cruel nature, sparing neither age nor sex. The fair part of the creation are particularly liable to catch it; and they impart it to their parents; who are naturally inclined to listen to the complaints of their tender offspring, and remove them from the pestilential air that threatens to bereave them of every comfort. Where the remedy is neglected, I have known the disorder end in confirmed poutings, lowness of spirits, alarming fits of crying, and total loss of temper. On the contrary, all the symptoms have abated, as if by the influence of a charm, on the sight of a post-chaise, or a cabin not much larger than a post-chaise.

Another proof that the disease is in the air of the metropolis, I just now recollect, as it

was communicated to me by an eminent sea-doctor; and that is, the patients, when removed to their favourite place of destination, never make any change in diet, dress, or other circumstances of living, except what some would think for the worse, such as later hours, and fewer conveniencies of lodging and accommodation, than when at home. But so great are the improvements made in appetite, that the patient can very soon eat any thing placed before him, and loses much of that fastidious taste about diet and wines, which is so common in London. This, no doubt, may sometimes produce a degree of scarcity, and its usual attendant, dearness; but this is never, as in the metropolis, a subject of complaint, because every one is convinced that too high a price cannot be paid for health; an opinion in which the resident inhabitants of the place have the good sense to

concur.

I have been the more particular in collecting these circumstances relative to this plague, because a strange prejudice has gone abroad, that London has never been infested with the plague since the year 1665. What could give rise to such a notion, I shall not stop to inquire; but that it is without foundation must be obvious to every sympathising mind who considers the

matter of fact. That it is not quite so fatal now as at the period above cited may be granted. The vast number of 68,000 is given in the Bills of Mortality for 1665; but from pretty accurate information, upon the average of the last ten years (much of it a time of war too), I reckon that not less than 20,000 are carried off annually by this plague; and surely this is not an inconsiderable number. It is truly melancholy at this season to call at the houses of our departed friends, and ask for father, mother, son, or daughter, and to hear nothing but the doleful answer, "They are all gone, Sir!"

With regard to the termination of the disease, it is various in various years, because, as already observed, it depends on the weather. It begins to disappear when the cold and rain come on, and decreases in proportion to their severity and duration. Some cases of it, however, have occurred even in the winter, when the patients are sent to the Sussex coast; but these I take to be rare, and confined chiefly to persons of high fashion, who live huddled together in routs, and are very poorly provided with cloathing fitted for the season.

As soon as the disorder begins to decrease, and the metropolis, from the additions of wind,

rain, cold, and smoke, becomes fit to breathe in, the patients return home, some with considerable precipitation, in consequence of increased strength, and some so greatly improved in health, that no farther aid is necessary towards complete recovery than what may be furnished from the stores of Apothecaries' hall. Such, likewise, is the efficacy of this locomotive cure, that several patients, who were obliged to be carried in postchaises, have returned home the whole way on foot, to the great astonishment of all beholders; and I have been told that a few of the more active and lively sort have actually run the first five or six miles without ever stopping, or wishing to be stopt.

At what time this plague first appeared, may be a fit subject for historical inquiry. It cer tainly did not immediately succeed the old plague, for there was an interval of at least sixty years or more, during which we have no account how it was possible for people to exist in London. Within the last fifty years, however, it has been gaining ground, and has now put on the regular appearances I have enumerated. Before I quit the subject, I cannot help mentioning that some speculative persons have endeavoured to account for its attacking people in good circumstances in this way, that "they

only can afford it." This is a very strange opinion; and I give it as I received it, without pretending to unravel its hidden mystery. One may afford a jaunt, or afford to throw away money, or afford to be idle, or afford to neglect business, at least there is no grammatical impropriety in such expressions; but to afford a disease, to cheapen an illness, or pay handsomely for a plague, are paradoxes far above my limited comprehension.

By the history of this disorder, I have now vindicated the age from the imputation of carelessness in the article of health; but justice compels me to say, that there are exceptions, as there are to every other general rule. Some persons give a kind of preference to indisposition, and, though it may appear a quibble, are never so well as when they are not well at all. Undoubtedly, in many cases, diseases have their uses. To some they supply a very fertile source of conversation, and are as productive of debate and discussion as the news of the day. I have known a rheumatism on the shoulder take more time in description than a battle on the Rhine; and some of the best speeches in Parliament have been cut short by the detail of a tooth-ache. Foreign affairs are often obliged to give way to inward complaints;