Having reached very near the end of his narrative, the author is in a mood to reconcile his accounts, and in a spirit of tolerance he strikes a balanced tone, urging that compassion color the judgments made, particularly of those clergy and physicians who fled the city in fear. Here and there is a settling of scores, particularly with respect to quacks, mountebanks, and prognosticators, but in general he is inclined to forgive and move on, both as a matter of personal inclination and as a literary device toward concluding his story. He lists various offices that, in the main, distinguished themselves by their devotion to duty, speaks of the largely useless efforts to purge and purify houses affected by the distemper, and ends this episode as he began it, with a swipe at the uninvolved and indifferent national government.
[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]
Credits:
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard.
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting. Used by permission.
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