Fly, lays of mine, but not to riotous halls, Where dancing sylphs supply voluptuous songs, But seek the huts where pestilence appals, And death completes the round of human wrongs.

The darkness is deepest just before the dawn, and never did a grosser darkness or a thicker mist of moral pestilence brood over the surface of Pagan society than at the period when the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings.

They are as ignorant of drouth, murrain, pestilence locusts, and blight, as they are of the true meaning of want and fear.

He likewise collected a number of herbs and simples; as Virginian snakeweed, contrajerva, pestilence-wort, angelica, elecampane, zedoary, tormentil, valerian, lovage, devils-bit, dittany, master-wort, rue, sage, ivy-berries, and walnuts; together with bole ammoniac, terra sigillata, bezoar-water, oil of sulphur, oil of vitriol, and other compounds.