History of the Plague in London Part 18

It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all apprehensions, and that too fast. Indeed, we were no more afraid now to pa.s.s by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a cloth wrapped round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin,--all which were frightful to the last degree but the week before. But now the street was full of them, and these poor recovering creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their unexpected deliverance, and I should wrong them very much if I should not acknowledge that I believe many of them were really thankful; but I must own that for the generality of the people it might too justly be said of them, as was said of the children of Israel after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they pa.s.sed the Red Sea, and looked back and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water, viz., "that they sang his praise, but they soon forgot his works."[352]

I can go no further here. I should be counted censorious, and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eyewitness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, therefore, with a coa.r.s.e but a sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were written:--

A dreadful plague in London was, In the year sixty-five, Which swept an hundred thousand souls Away, yet I alive.

H.F.[353]

FOOTNOTES:

[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] p.r.o.nounced H[=o]'burn. {Transcriber's note: [=o] indicates o-macron}

[12] Was.

[13] Were.

[14] Outlying districts; so called because they enjoyed certain munic.i.p.al 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 still bears this t.i.tle.

[19] One of the many instances in which Defoe mixes his tenses.

[20] Whom. We shall find many more instances of Defoe's misuse of this form, as also of others (see Introduction, p. 15).

[21] Used almost in its original sense of a military barrier.

[22] Whom.

[23] See Matt, xxvii. 40; Mark xv. 30; Luke xxiii. 35.

[24] Denial.

[25] The civil war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, 1642-51.

[26] Whom.

[27] This argument is neatly introduced to account for the narrator's staying in the city at all, when he could easily have escaped.

[28] Explained by the two following phrases.

[29] Whom.

[30] "Lay close to me," i.e., was constantly in my mind.

[31] Kept safe from the plague.

[32] "My times are in thy hand" (Ps. x.x.xi. 15).

[33] Dorking is about twenty miles southwest of London.

[34] Rather St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and St. Giles's.

[35] Was.

[36] Charles II. and his courtiers. The immunity of Oxford was doubtless due to good drainage and general cleanliness.

[37] Eccl. xii. 5.

[38] Have seen.

[39] Nor. This misuse of "or" for "nor" is frequent with Defoe.

[40] The four inns of court in London which have the exclusive right of calling to the bar, are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Temple is so called because it was once the home of the Knights Templars.

[41] The city proper, i.e., the part within the walls, as distinguished from that without.

[42] Were.

[43] The population of London at this time was probably about half a million. It is now about six millions. (See Macaulay's History, chap.

iii.)

[44] Acel'dama, the field of blood (see Matt. xxvii. 8).

[45] Phlegmatic hypochondriac is a contradiction in terms; for "phlegmatic" means "impa.s.sive, self-restrained," while "hypochondriac"

means "morbidly anxious" (about one's health). Defoe's lack of scholars.h.i.+p was a common jest among his more learned adversaries, such as Swift, and Pope.

[46] It was in this very plague year that Newton formulated his theory of gravitation. Incredible as it may seem, at this same date even such men as Dryden held to a belief in astrology.

[47] William Lilly was the most famous astrologer and almanac maker of the time. In Butler's Hudibras he is satirized under the name of Sidrophel.