[1] The miraculous bell of Velilla, a little village in Aragon, nine leagues from Saragossa, about this time (the death of Ferdinand of Aragon) gave one of those prophetic tintinnabulations which always boded some great calamity to the country. The side on which the blows fell denoted the quarter where the disaster was to happen. Its sound, says Dr. Dormer, caused dismay and contrition, with dismal “fear of change,” in the hearts of all who heard it. No arm was strong enough to stop it on these occasions, as those found to their cost who profanely attempted it. Its ill-omened voice was heard for the twentieth and last time in March, 1679. As no event of importance followed, it probably tolled for its own funeral. See the edifying history, in Dr. Diego Dormer, of the miraculous powers and performances of this celebrated bell, as duly authenticated by a host of witnesses.—‘Discursos Varios,’ pp. 198–244. Prescott’s ‘History of Ferdinand and Isabella.’

[2] The term Plague or Pestilence, as used here, is meant in its general sense to express all sorts of distempers; the Hebrew Deber, which properly signifies plague, being used in the Hebrew tongue, as in most others, to express every variety of epidemic disease.

[3] Some time ago, some fagots were sent into the Lings coalpit, belonging to the Wingerworth Coal Company, for the purpose of filling up the chasm over the timber, where the roof had given way. A bough of hawthorn was carelessly thrown aside in an opening, and it is now in full leaf and blossom. A branch of it was brought out at night; but the leaves, and blossoms also, began to flag in a few hours after it was exposed to the fresh air. There is still a part of the thorn in the pit, 500 yards from the bottom of the shaft, in a healthy growing state; all the difference observable between a thorn growing on the top of the ground, and the one above named, is, that the leaf is quite white, and the blossom without smell.

[4] A writer punningly remarks, that “Notwithstanding our national situation, and the dominion we naturally claim and boast of over the watery element, a degree of Hydrophobia still prevails among us.”

[5] A.D. 1695, on 31 Dec., the House of Commons resolved to raise £1,200,000 for supplying the deficiency of the clipped money by a tax on windows.

[6] Fortunately for the people, this tax was repealed while these pages were passing through the press. It was not, however, deemed advisable to change the language used in the text.

[7] For further evidence consult, Diemerbroek, Agricola, Ammianus Marcellinus, Quincy, Wolfius, and though last, not least, the works of Mr. George Alfred Walker, that most indomitable advocate for the prevention of the most disgusting abuses of our dead, with the view of benefiting the stultified living.

[8] In explanation of what is meant by this text, ‘Leprous House,’ Michaelis observes that the walls of houses are often attacked by something that corrodes and spoils them. The walls become wet and mouldy from a mural salt, and that to such a degree as, in consequence of the erosion spreading further and further, to cause the house to tumble down; the plaster also becomes damaged, and requires frequent replacing, furniture becoming spoiled, and persons being injured in their health, by sleeping near such walls. If we experience such effects in modern Europe, there is room to conclude that they were more strongly exhibited at the earlier period under notice, and in countries where the houses were but of one story and low. Taking this, therefore, for the ‘house leprosy,’ the object of the Mosaic law or ordinance is sufficiently intelligible. Besides, to this day there are certain diseases of trees in Egypt and Palestine, to which the name of leprosy is given. In Switzerland, also, they speak of cancer in buildings on the same principle, and why should we not understand the leprosy in buildings of the text as being something of a similar description? It is true that man, stone, and clothes have not the same diseases; but from some analogous circumstances, real or fanciful, the diseases of man may be, and have been, evidently from the above, applied by a figure of speech to diseases in other things.

If we believe that the house leprosy here spoken of was anything relating to the disorder of the same name in man, it will be difficult to account for the symptoms and mode of treatment; and if we suppose that the walls of the house had taken a leprous contagion from man, and were in a condition, when really infected, to transmit it to man, the very direction to remove the furniture before the entering of the priest, would lead to the contrary opinion, for removing the furniture would be calculated to propagate the leprous infection. It was the damp and unwholesome state of the house to which attention was directed.