_The City of Flowers_; Florence, where the ravages of the plague were
immortalized in the _Decamerone_ of Boccaccio.

_The pest boil_; Seems to have been the enlarged and discharging gland by
which the specific blood-poison of the plague relieved itself. A 'muddy
glistening' of the eye is noticed as one of the symptoms.

_The common bed_; More than 50,000 are said to have been buried on the
site of the Charter House.

_Albespyne_; Hawthorn.

_Half the giant oak_; 'Of the three or four millions who then formed the
population of England, more than one-half were swept away': (_Green_, B.
IV: ch. iii).



THE PILGRIM AND THE PLOUGHMAN


1382

It is a dream, I know:--Yet on the past
Of this dear England if in thought we gaze,
About her seems a constant sunshine cast;
In summer calm we see and golden haze
The little London of Plantagenet days;
Quaint labyrinthine knot of toppling lanes,