History of the Plague in London. Defoe Daniel

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СКАЧАТЬ did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for he was a good, religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might not be without its uses. "Nay," says the good man, "if you will venture upon that score, 'name of God,106 go in; for, depend upon it, it will be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life. It is a speaking sight," says he, "and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance;" and with that he opened the door, and said, "Go, if you will."

      His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering for a good while; but just at that interval I saw two links107 come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared a "dead cart," as they called it, coming over the streets: so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit, they saw a man go to and again,108 muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his hands, under his cloak, as if he was109 in great agony. And the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as110 he would break his heart.

      When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a person distempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart that was just come in with him; and he followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief, that could not give itself vent by tears, and, calmly desiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away. So they left importuning him; but no sooner was the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit promiscuously, – which was a surprise to him, for he at least expected they would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwards convinced that was impracticable, – I say, no sooner did he see the sight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon. The buriers ran to him and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and they led him away to the Pye111 Tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went away; but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with throwing in earth, that, though there was light enough (for there were lanterns,112 and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of the pit upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more), yet nothing could be seen.

      This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest. But the other was awful, and full of terror: the cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped up in linen sheets, some in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it; for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together. There was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should,113 for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this.

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      1

      At first, a weekly; with the fifth number, a bi-weekly; after the first year, a tri-weekly.

      2

      Preface to his pamphlet entitled Street Robberies.

      3

      For a very different estimate, see Saintsbury's Selec

1

At first, a weekly; with the fifth number, a bi-weekly; after the first year, a tri-weekly.

2

Preface to his pamphlet entitled Street Robberies.

3

For a very different estimate, see Saintsbury's Selections from Defoe's Minor Novels.

4

It was popularly believed in London that the plague came from Holland; but the sanitary (or rather unsanitary) conditions of London itself were quite sufficient to account for the plague's originating there. Andrew D. White tells us, that it is difficult to decide to-day between Constantinople and New York as candidates for the distinction of being the dirtiest city in the world.

5

Incorrectly used for "councils."

6

In April, 1663, the first Drury Lane Theater had been opened. The present Drury Lane Theater (the fourth) stands on the same site.

7

The King's ministers. At this time they held office during the pleasure of the Crown, not, as now, during the pleasure of a parliamentary majority.

8

Gangrene spots (see text, pp. 197, 198).

9

The local government of London at this time was chiefly in the hands of the vestries of the different parishes. It is only of recent years that the power of these vestries has been seriously curtailed, and transferred to district councils.

10

The report.

11

Pronounced Hō´burn.

12

Was.

13

Were.

14

Outlying districts; so called because they enjoyed certain municipal immunities, or liberties. Until recent years, a portion of Philadelphia was known as the "Northern Liberties."

15

Attempts to believe the evil lessened.

16

Was.

17

Were.

18

The chief executive officer of the city of London СКАЧАТЬ