they shall not be satisfied : they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm.' In the reign of William the First ^ there was so great a dearth and famine, especially in Northumberland, that men were glad to eat horses, dogs, cats, and rats, and what else is most abhorrent to nature. In Honorius's reign there Avas such a scarcity of all manner of provision in Rome, that men were even afraid of one another ; and the common voice that was heard in the kirk was Pone pretium huinance carni, Set a price on man's flesh. In Italy, when it was wasted by the Goths under Justinian, tlie famine was so great, that in Picene^ only, fifty thousand persons died with hunger, and not only man's flesh was made meat of, but the very excrements of men also. In the reign of Hubid, king of Spain, there was no rain for six and twenty years together, so that the drought was so great that all the fountains and rivers, except Iber and Betis, [Baetis,] were dried up ; so that the earth gaped in several places, that whole fields were parted, and that many who had thought to have fled into other parts were hindered, and could not get passage over these fearful openings of the earth. Hereby Spain, especially those places nearest the Medi- terranean Sea, being stripped naked of all herbs, and the glory of trees being dried up, except a few trees which were preserved upon the banks of the river Betis, men and beasts being consumed with tliirst and famine, was turned by this judgment into a miserable solitude and wilderness. The royal line of the kings was by this means extinct ; and the poorer sort of men, whose means were short and provision small, went into other places as they could conveniently and with all speed, not being able to stand or stay out this six and twenty years' misery.3 In the Peloponnesian war, at Potidtea, men ate one another, [Tlmcydides.] When Utica was besieged by Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, men ate one another, the famine was so great amongst them, [Polybius.] At Antioch in Syria many of the Christians, in the holy war, through famine devoured the dead bodies of the late slain enemies. * At the siege of Scodra, horses were dainty meat ; yea, they were glad to eat dogs, cats, rats, and the skins of beasts sod. A little mouse, and puddings made of dogs' guts, was sold at so great a price as exceeds all credit. When Hannibal besieged Casilinum, the famine was so great, that a mouse was sold for two hundred groats, that is, for three pounds eighteen shillings and eight pence.^ That was a sore famine in Samaria when an ass's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver — that is, say some, for four or five pound, 2 Kings vi. 25 ; others say ten, for a shekel of silver was with the Jews as much as two shillings and sixpence with us. By this account an ass's head was sold for ten pounds sterling. In Edward the Second's time, anno 1316, there was so great a famine, that horses, dogs, yea, men and children, were stolen for food ; and the thieves newly brought into the jails were torn in pieces and eaten presently, half alive, by such as had been longer there.^ In war, oppression, captivity, and many other
^ Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle, p. 26.
* Pisa of the Peloponnesus, or Pissae (spelled Pisanus) or Etniria ? — G.
•* All these things do the histories of Spain report.
^ [Knolles] Turk. Hist. fol. IS.
^ Val. Max. lib. vii. cap. 6. Turk. Hist. [Livy, xxiii. 17, IP.— G 1 ■
" Pinch. Pilgrim., p. 289. Speed, vi. 4.
192 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, '25.
caliiniitics, mucli of tlie liand of man is to be seen; but famine is a deep, evident, and apparent judgment, which God himself brings upon the sons of men In' Ins own liigli hand. Many or most of those calamities that are bronglii upon us by human means are avoidable by human helps; but iiimine is that compreliensive judgment, that the highest power on earth cannot help against : ' If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barn-floor, or out of the wine- press?' said the king of Israel in the famine of kSamaria, 2 Kings vi, 27. Ah London, London ! if the Lord had inflicted upon thy in- hal)itants this sore judgment of famine, making 'the heavens as iron, and the earth as brass ;' if the Lord had cut off all thy delightful and necessary provisions, and thy citizens liad been forced to eat one an- other, or every one to eat the flesh of his own arms, and the fruit of his own body, how dismal would thy condition have been ! Lev, xxvi. 19 ; Hab. iii. 17 ; Dent, xxviii. 23. Certainly such as have been swe])t away by the raging pestilence ashore, and such as have been slain by the bloody sword at sea, might very well l)e counted happy, in com- parison of those who should live and die under that lingering judgment of a famine. Doubtless famine is a sorer judgment than either sword, fire, or pestilence. There be many deaths in a dearth. Famine is the top of all human calamities, as Basil termeth it. Extreme hunger hath mad;3 mothers murderers, and so turned the sanctuary of life into the shambles of death.
[3.] Thirdly, God might have overturned London and her inhabitants in a moment by some great and dreadful earthquake, as he hath done several great, rich, strong, and ])()pulous cities and towns in former times, Isa. xiii. 13, and Ps. xviii. 7. Under Tiberius the emperor thirteen cities of Asia fell down with an earthquake, and six under Trajan, and twelve under Constantine. In Campania, Fcrrara in Italy, 15(39,1 ii;. the space of forty hours, by reason of an earthquake, many palaces, temples, and houses were overthrown, with the loss of many a man, the loss amounting to forty hundred thousand jiounds. In the year 1171, there was such a mighty earthquake that the city Tripoli, and a great part of Damascus in Antiochia, and Hulcipre (?), the chief city in the kingdom of Loradin (?), and other cities of the Saracens, eitlier perished utterly or were wonderfully defaced. In the year 1509, [Bodin,] in the month of September, there was so great an eartliquake at Constantinople, that there were thirteen thousand men destroyed by it, and Ibe city miserably shattered and ruined by it. In the reign of Henry the rirst,^ the earth moved with so great a violence, that many buildings were shaken down ; and Malmesbury saith, ' That the house wherein he sat was lifted up with a double remove, and at the third time settled again in the proper ]>lace.' Also in divers |)laces it yielded forth a hideous noise, and cast forth flames. In Lombardy [Hoveden] tliere was an eartliquake that continued forty days, and removed a town fi'om the jilace where it stood a great way ofl\ In the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Second,^ on the six and twentieth day of January, was so great an earthquake in Ely, Nor- folk, and Suffolk, that it overthrew them that stood upon their feet, and made the bells to ring in the steeples. In the four and twentieth