ing up the River, that part of the City has appear'd a Sea where no Land was within ken; the same frequently happens from a Lime-kelne[1] on the Banke-side neer the Falcon, which when the Wind blowes Southern, dilates it self all over that Poynt of the Thames, and the opposite part of London, especially about S. Paul's, poysoning the Aer with so dark and thick a Fog, as I have been hardly able to pass through it, for the extraordinary stench and halitus it sends forth; and the like is neer Fox-hall at the farther end of Lambeth.
Now to what funest and deadly Accidents the assiduous invasion of this Smoak exposes the numerous Inhabitants, I have already touch'd, whatsoever some have fondly pretended, not considering that the constant use of the same Aer (be it never so impure) may be consistent with Life and a Valetudinary state; especially, if the Place be native to us, and that we have never lived for any long time out of it; Custome, in this, as in all things else, obtaining another Nature, and all Putrefaction, proceeding from certain Changes, it becomes, as it were, the Form, and Perfection of that which is contain'd in it: For so (to say nothing of such as by assuefaction have made the rankest poysons their most familiar Diet) we read that Epimenides continu'd fifty years in a damp Cave, the Eremites dwelt in Dens, and divers live now in the Fens; some are condemn'd to the Mines, and others, that are perpetually conversant about the Forges, Fornaces of Iron and other Smoaky Works, are little concern'd with these troublesome accidents: But as it is not (I perswade my self) out of choyce, that these Men affect them; so nor will any man, I think, commend and celebrate their manner of Living. A Tabid Body might possibly trail out a miserable Life of seven or eight years by a Sea-cole Fire, as 'tis reported the Wife of a certain famous Physician, did of late by the Prescription of her Husband; but it is to be considered also, how much longer, and happier she might have survived in a better and more noble Aer; and that old Par, who lived in health to an Hundred and fifty years of Age, was not so much concern'd with the change of Diet (as
- ↑ I doe assent, that both Lime & Sulphur are in some affections specifies for the Lungs; but then they are to be so prepared, as nothing save the parest parts be received into the body (for so Physicians prescribe Flores sulph. &c.) and not accompanied with such gross and plainly virulent vapours, as these fires send forth: Nor are they (as accurately prepar'd as Art can render them) to be perpetually used, but at certain periods, in Formes, and with due Regiment.
