In The Review, no. 4, 12 Aug. 1712, Defoe wrote: ‘Some have said, it [the plague in 1665] was to punish the Nation, for the horrid Debaucheries of the King’s Party, and yet the Roundheads died as fast as the Cavaliers.’

London … the whole Mass: Defoe stood in perpetual astonishment before the spectacle of ‘this great and monstrous Thing, called London’, as he wrote in his Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–6). He estimates that ‘the Extent or Circumference of the continued Buildings of the Cities of London and Westminster, and the Borough of Southwark, all of which, in the common Acceptation, is called London, amounts to Thirty Six Miles, Two Furlongs, Thirty Nine Rods’ (Tour, ed. G. D. H. Cole (1927), i. 323 ff.).

City … not yet much infected: following the week of 2 May when one death from plague was reported, the Bills of Mortality showed no deaths from plague in the City until the week of 6 June (4 reported). Then the subsequent weekly deaths were 10, 4, 23, 28, 56, rising to 128 in the week of 18 July. The greatest number for a single week in the 97 parishes of the City was 1,189, the week of 12 Sept.

Inns-of-Court … shut up: in the second week of June notices of postponed readings appeared at the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and Lincoln’s Inn, and shortly after at Gray’s Inn.

City and Suburbs … prodigiously full of People: reliable figures on the population of London at the time of the Great Plague are not available. John Graunt, whose figure from his Natural and Political Observations is much quoted, estimated about 460,000 in and about London at the beginning of Charles II’s reign.

Encrease … in London: two years or so after writing the Journal Defoe refers to Sir William Petty, ‘famous for his Political Arithmetick, [who] supposed the City … to contain a Million of People’ (Tour, i. 324). In his Another Essay in Political Arithmetic (1687), A2, Petty ‘proves’ that London (the parishes within the Bills of Mortality) contains ‘about 696 thousand People’. In 1724 Defoe estimated 1,500,000.

Jerusalem … besieg’d: by the Roman emperor Titus in AD 70.

Hundred Thousand Ribband Weavers: a greatly exaggerated figure. In The Review, 20 Mar. 1705, Defoe seems to accept half that figure: ‘As to Spittle-fields, in about 1679 and 80 … ’twas alledg’d then … were about 50000 Narrow Weavers, as they call’d them, or in Common English Ribbon-Weavers.’

Akeldama: ‘the field of blood’, the name given by the Jews of Jerusalem to the field Judas purchased with the money received from the betrayal of Christ, so called because of his violent death there (Acts 1:19; Matthew 27:8 differs).

a blazing Star or Comet: in mid-December 1664, and early April 1665, the appearance of comets over London was related to the plague in popular literature and scientific discussions. Pepys mentions the first comet on 15 Dec. 1664, and the second on 6 April 1665.

the Comet … of a faint, dull, languid Colour: Defoe here follows astrological theory. John Gadbury’s 1665 De Cometis divides comets into seven species: ‘Such as are of a Leaden, Envious, Pale, Ashy Colour, are termed Saturnine. And such was this Comet or Blazing Star that lately appeared to us’ (p. 9).

foretold a heavy Judgment … as was the Plague: Gadbury, De Cometis, writes ‘Saturnine Comets always denote, there shall happen in the world many pernicious evils, as Famine, Plague … and absolute Destruction of all things that grow upon the earth, useful for man and beast’ (p. 23). See also John Merrifield, who describes himself as a student of ‘Heavenly and Sublime Sciences’, Catastasis Mundi (1684): ‘Comets of the nature of Saturn … denote many Evils, as … Chronick Diseases, and Melancholy Distempers … Leprosie, Palsies, Consumption, and all Diseases which are of lung continuance’ (p. 29). Cf. the sceptical medical opinion voiced by Hodges in Loimologia, 4: ‘Whoever duly considers it, can never imagine that this Pestilence [of 1665] had its Origin from any Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, in Sagitarius on the Tenth of October, or from a Conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same sign on the twelfth of November, which was the common opinion.’ Not all comets were sinister. Gadbury lists among the seven kinds, ‘jovial comets’: these ‘presage a very great plenty of all things, a very fertile year, a pleasant salubrious Air’ (p. 24). In Applebee’s Journal, 7 Dec.