History of the Plague in London
Page 7
religious books,--one entitled "Come out of Her,my People, lest ye be Partaker of her Plagues;"[49] another called "FairWarning;" another, "Britain's Remembrancer;" and many such,--all, ormost part of which, foretold directly or covertly the ruin of the city.Nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets withtheir oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city;and one in particular, who, like Jonah[50] to Nineveh, cried in thestreets, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not bepositive whether he said "yet forty days," or "yet a few days." Anotherran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying dayand night, like a man that Josephus[51] mentions, who cried, "Woe toJerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city: so this poornaked creature cried, "Oh, the great and the dreadful God!" and said nomore, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenancefull of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop, orrest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I metthis poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoke tohim, but he would not enter into speech with me, or any one else, butkept on his dismal cries continually.
These things terrified the people to the last degree, and especiallywhen two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one ortwo in the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles's.
Next to these public things were the dreams of old women; or, I shouldsay, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; andthese put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voiceswarning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in Londonso that the living would not be able to bury the dead; others sawapparitions in the air: and I must be allowed to say of both, I hopewithout breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, andsaw sights that never appeared. But the imagination of the people wasreally turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if they who wereporing continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures,representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air andvapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, comingout of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There theysaw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And thereagain, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied and the like, just as theimagination of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter towork upon.
So hypochondriac fancies represent Ships, armies, battles in the firmament; Till steady eyes the exhalations solve, And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve.
I could fill this account with the strange relations such people giveevery day of what they have seen; and every one was so positive of theirhaving seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradictingthem, without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude andunmannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on the other.One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said inSt. Giles's (I think it was in March), seeing a crowd of people in thestreet, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them allstaring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain toher, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in hishand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described everypart of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form, andthe poor people came into it so eagerly and with so much readiness."Yes, I see it all plainly," says one: "there's the sword as plain ascan be." Another saw the angel; one saw his very face, and cried outwhat a glorious creature he was. One saw one thing, and one another. Ilooked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so muchwillingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could seenothing but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the sunupon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could notmake me confess that I saw it; which, indeed, if I had, I must havelied. But the woman, turning to me, looked me in the face, and fancied Ilaughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did notlaugh, but was seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrifiedby the force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me, calledme profane fellow and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God'sanger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and that despisers suchas I should wander and perish.
The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found therewas no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I shouldbe rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them,and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.
Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in goingthrough a narrow passage from Petty France[52] into Bishopsgatechurchyard, by a row of almshouses. There are two churchyards toBishopsgate Church or Parish. One we go over to pass from the placecalled Petty France into Bishopsgate Street, coming out just by thechurch door; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where thealmshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade on it onthe right hand, and the city wall on the other side more to the right.
In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the palisades intothe burying place, and as many people as the narrowness of the placewould admit to stop without hindering the passage of others; and he wastalking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing, now to one place, then toanother, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such agravestone there. He described the shape, the posture, and the movementof it so exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the worldthat everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry,"There it is! Now it comes this way!" then, "'Tis turned back!" till atlength he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that onefancied he saw it; and thus he came every day, making a strange hubbub,considering it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struckeleven; and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if he werecalled away, disappeared on a sudden.
I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this mandirected, but could not see the least appearance of anything. But sopositive was this poor man that he gave them vapors[53] in abundance,and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few peoplethat knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody bynight on any account whatever.
This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses and tothe ground and to the people, plainly intimating (or else they sounderstanding it) that abundance of people should come to be buried inthat churchyard, as indeed happened. But then he saw such aspects I mustacknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of it myself,though I looked most earnestly to see it if possible.
Some endeavors were used to suppress the printing of such books asterrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some ofwhom were taken up, but nothing done in it, as I am informed; thegovernment being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I maysay, all out of their wits already.
Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sunkthan lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them, I doubt not,did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, andespecially for quickening them to repentance; but it certainly answerednot their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did anotherway.
One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensionsof the people led them to a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things,which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage themto; and this was running about to fortune tellers, cunning men,[54] andastrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, tohave their fortunes told them, their nativities[55] calculated, and thelike. And this folly presently made the town swarm with a wickedgeneration of pretenders to magic, to the "black art," as they calledit, and I know not what, nay, to a thousand worse dealings with thedevil than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so open andso generally practiced, that it became common to have signs andinscriptions set up at doors, "Here lives a fortune teller," "Here livesan astrologer," "Here you may have your nativity calculated," and thelike; and Friar Bacon's brazen hea
d,[56] which was the usual sign ofthese people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or elsethe sign of Mother Shipton,[57] or of Merlin's[58] head, and the like.
With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devilpleased and satisfied the people, I really know not; but certain it is,that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day: and ifbut a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band,[59] and a black cloak,which was the habit those quack conjurers generally went in, was butseen in the streets, the people would follow them[60] in crowds, and askthem[60] questions as they went along.
The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasion tomention again by and by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of themwould be turned away. And it was so, and of them