OF THE GREAT PLAGUE IN LONDON A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR BEING OBSERVATIONS OR MEMORIALS OF THE MOST REMARK- LAST GREAT VISITATION IN 1665 WRITTEN BY A CITIZEN WHO CONTINUED ALL THE WHILE IN LONDON. EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY BYRON SATTERLEE HURLBUT, A.M. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN HARVARD COLLEGE BOSTON, U.S.A., AND LONDON PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY 1896 788.3239HEduc I 817.400. 425 Harvard University, Dept. of Education Library TRANSFERRED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY BYRON SATTERLEE HURLBUT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Company PREFACE. IN preparing this edition of A Journal of the Plague Year, I have aimed primarily to supply a correct text, and such notes as serve to show the sources of Defoe's narrative and its trustworthiness in general outline and effect. For any other purpose, notes are unnecessary, -Defoe's language needs as little explanation to-day as it did two centuries ago. The text is based upon that of the edition of Edward Wedlake Brayley, F.S.A., M.R.S.L., etc., published at London in 1839. The text of Brayley's most excellent work was carefully prepared from the very rare first edition of the book. Were it not that Brayley's edition was long since out of print, there would be no need of another. In the Notes, I have endeavored to show, by means of extracts from contemporary publications, to what extent Defoe was indebted for his material to the work of others. In addition, the Notes contain, with the exception of a few slight omissions, all the foot-notes of Brayley's edition, and, from the Diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, all the entries relating to the plague during the years 1664–1666. The Introduction adds nothing new to the history of Defoe's life. The account which I have given is based upon the works of Wilson, Lee, Minto, Mr. Saintsbury, and Mr. Wright. HOLLIS HALL, CAMBRIDGE, August 19, 1895. B. S. H. INTRODUCTION. I. DANIEL DEFOE was the son of James Foe, a prosperous London butcher, who, under the Act of Uniformity, cast his lot with the Nonconformists. He was born in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, but in the parish register there is no entry of his baptism. Until recently, 1661 has been generally agreed upon as the year of his birth, but within the last few years, some investigators have fixed upon 1659 (The Life of Daniel Defoe, by Thomas Wright, chap. i). Of his family and of his youth but little is known. Defoe, who affected to despise pride of family, was not unwilling that people should believe that he was of Norman extraction, and this may have been one of the reasons why he changed his name by assuming the Norman prefix. William Lee, his most painstaking biographer, refuses to accept this as a part of the explanation, and believes that the practice "began accidentally, or was adopted for convenience, about 1703, to distinguish him from his father," and shows, in support of this theory, that, between 1703 and 1730, Defoe used both names, apparently without discrimination (Daniel Defoe: His Life and Recently Discovered Writings. . . . by William Lee, chap. i). Defoe's grandfather, Daniel Foe, "was in good circumstances in Northamptonshire during the Civil Wars, and kept a pack of hounds; but we only learn this accidentally, in 1711, when, as an apt illustration of party animosity, he states (Review VII, Preface) that ‘all the generals of both armies were hounds in the pack."" Of Defoe's youth we have only a couple of anecdotes, one of |