belle Fontanges.-There is good Rhenish and rare Canary in the cellars of Christchurch, and we will all pledge our fair partners of the dance in each liquor, until beauty and the glass shall give a zest to one another. 'Ods fish! the sight of those tipsy masquers has made me thirsty: so hey for the Banquet-room! without further parley." At these words he walked out of the hall, followed by the courtiers, each leading his partner or his mistress, and all smiling, talking, and laughing, till their glittering dresses and waving plumes gradually disappeared, the buzz of their voices was no longer heard, and only one person remained in the silent and deserted hall: that one was Jocelyn. Disgusted by what he had already seen, he was too sad and sick at heart to endure any farther festivities. Far from participating in the past entertainment, his thoughts had reverted to the appalling scenes from which he had so recently escaped; and when he contrasted the ghastliness and desolation of the depopulated, plaguestricken city, its yawning sepulchres, and the tolling bells of its dead-carts, with the wild festivities and unbridled foolery, the mirth, music, and madness that had just been exhibiting before his eyes, he almost expected that a voice should come up out of the great pit to rebuke these revellers for thus defying the King of Terrors, and fluanting in the very face of an offended God. Impressed with these feelings he withdrew from the Hall to his own apartments, wrote an excuse to the Duke of Monmouth, with whom he had engaged to sup on the following night, and determined to remain at home and devote the whole of the fast-day to that serious frame of mind, and those devotional exercises, which were appropriate to the solemn occasion.* * Pepys assigns a reason for accelerating the Fast-day,which, if not founded on fact, at least shows the opinion that was then entertained of the Court." 1666, November 20. To church, it being thanksgiving-day for the cessation of the plague. But, Lord! how the town do say that it is hastened before the plague is quite over, there being some people still ill of it, but only to get ground of plays to be publicly acted, which the bishops would not suffer till the plague was over." Diary, Vol. i. 483. Evelyn says the Fast was ordered to "humble us on the most dismal judgments that could be inflicted, but which, indeed, we highly deserved, for our prodigious ingratitude, burning lusts, dissolute Court, profane and abominable lives, under such dispensations of God's continued favour in restoring Church, Prince, and People, from our late intestine calamities, of which we were altogether unmind-ful, even to astonishment." Memoirs, Vol. i. p. 398. Although De Foe's Journal of the Plague was not written till fifty-seven years after the event which it records, and is a mere fiction as to the assumed character and station of the author, yet its details appear to have been accurately compiled from authentic materials, a circumstance which may give some value to the following statements." I should observe that the Court removed early, viz. in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it VOL. III. 10* pleased God to preserve them; and the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as touch them; for which I cannot say that I ever saw they showed any great token of thankfulness, and hardly any thing of reformation, though they did not want being told that their crying vices might, without breach of charity, be said to have gone far in bringing that terrible calamity upon the whole nation.” p. 33. "But really the Court concerned themselves so little, and that little they did was of so small import, that I did not see it of much moment to mention any part of it here, except that of appointing a monthly Fast in the city, and the sending the royal charity to the relief of the poor, both which I have mentioned before." p. 477. This was a donation of 10007. a-week to be distributed in four different quarters; but the author adds that he only speaks of it as a report. CHAPTER V. "While he, young, wanton, and effeminate boy, So dissolute a crew." SHAKSPEARE. AFTER having remained for some weeks longer at Oxford, beguiling the time with such festivities and amusements as could be obtained in that grave and reverend city, the joyful news was at length circulated that the Court was about to return to London; the plague having gradually exhausted its fury, until all danger of contagion had disappeared. Congratulations flew from mouth to mouth, not so much upon the cessation of the pestilence, as upon the prospect of again plunging into the delights and dissipation of the metropolis. Never was a more cheerful alacrity displayed in packing up and preparing for flight. The seat of the Muses had little attractions for a set of gay triflers whose literature was limited to licentious poems and obscene plays, and who consequently thought colleges and gowns a sorry substitute for theatres and petticoats. Oxford had long been voted triste à toute outrance, a phrase which was in every mouth, when, in the rage for French fashions, the langage de beau was affected by all pretenders to modishness and gentility; and the whole assemblage that accompanied or followed the King and Queen, turned their backs upon the city to which they had been indebted for their preservation from infection, not only without gratitude or regret, but with all the vituperation and ridicule that their anger or their wit could suggest. By the greater part of them, London was reentered with little or no emotion, for they found it nearly as they had left it. To Jocelyn, however, it offered a contrast with its last appearance, which he could have hardly believed credible in so short a space of time. The numerous fugitives, encouraged by the announced return of the Court, had all hastened back to their abodes; the shops were re-opened; the streets were again thronged with people; equipages and carriages of every description were rattling along the pavement; quicklime had been spread over the church-yards, and the other huge excavations in which the dead had been deposited; and it appeared as if some moral caustic had been also spread over the memories of the survivors; for after the expression of a transient wonder, and the inquiries of Who has perished? Who has been saved? the business and |