And I will give you another Verse, says I: I've ate Eel-pie, Mother, make my Bed soon For I'm sick at heart and shall Die before Noon.
Nat muses a while on this merry Song and then continues in his rushing Fashion: We must all eat, Master, and when you were lock'd in your chamber last night, I know not why and I do not ask, I had two penny worth of Beef and one penny worth of Pudding at the Boiling Cooks over the street yonder. That was the money I had laid by, so you see I am not such a child neither: and when the Cook pressed me to taste another Dish I pushed him off with some Words, Don't you come with that upon me, I told him Nat, 1 said, leave off your idle twittle-twattle. You are magoty-headed.
You are in the right, he replies, you are in the right. And he withdraws from me a little with downcast looks.
I have not bin out of my Bed these two weeks, since I was seiz'd on the Street with such a fit of the Gout that I could neither stand nor goe; with the help of a Chair-man I returned to my Lodgings and have lain since in my own Sweat like a Drab. Thus: I have a ganglio form swelling below my left Knee, which will soon become an encystid Tumor as usual in such cases. Also I have a black Spot on the joint of the great Toe of my left foot: the Spot is as broad as a Sixpence and black as a Hat. I know there is no Remedy, for it is the way my Humour is inclin'd: a rich state of Blood loaded with salts, sulphurs and spirituous Particles must at length kindle up a certain fiery Phosphorous which Nature exterminates in a fitt of the Gout. But it is like the gnawing of a Dogge and an actual Flame at the same time, and a man cannot without Horrour think upon this Fire got into his Veins and preying upon his Carcasse.
I call'd last week for a certain Rogers, an apothecary at the corner of Chancery-Lane and Fleetstreet, but when he walked into my Chamber I saw he was a Monkey for, if the language was learned, he who spoke it was Ignorant. Prepare for your Master, says he solemnly to Nat, four oyster shells red hot in Cyder: and Nat gaz'd at him in Perplexity as if he had been asked to tell the Stars through the Holes in his Hat. Then, says the Monkey-Doctor sitting at my Bedside, we must put Blisters of cantharides upon the Neck and Feet. And Nat scratch'd himself like a Wherry-man. Raw vapours are imbib'd, he continues, thro' the Pores and assimilate some Humour to themselves, so we must throw morbific matter upon the Extremities and this to relieve the Whole by punishing a Part. And I smil'd as Nat sat down in a Tremble.
After I had took his Physic, I made water freely and had a good Stool every day: both were foetid, the water full of clowds and very high-smelling. The Monkey also instructed me to eat sprouts, brocoli, spinage, parsley, turneps, parsneps, selery, lettice, cowcumbers and the like: this being done, I felt relief for three Dayes but I was only crawling out of the Shambles for a while and on the fourth day I could not rise from my Bed because of my Affliction. So now I lye by Day and toss or rave by Night, since the ratling and perpetual Hum of the Town deny me rest: just as Madness and Phrensy are the vapours which rise from the lower Faculties, so the Chaos of the Streets reaches up even to the very Closet here and lam whirl'd about by cries of Knives to Grind and Here are your Mouse-Traps. I was last night about to enter the Shaddowe of Rest when a Watch-man, half-drunken, thumps at the Door with his Past Three-a-dock and his Rainy Wet Morning. And when at length I slipp'd into Sleep I had no sooner forgot my present Distemper than I was plunged into a worse: I dream'd my self to be lying in a small place under ground, like unto a Grave, and my Body was all broken while others sung. And there was a Face that did so terrifie me that I had like to have expired in my Dream. Well, I will say no more.
Since I am too 111 to move out of Door I have written to Walter Pyne, inclosing my Instructions for the Churches which are to be dispatch'd with Haste, viz Sir Chris, will be with you next week by Tuesday or Wensday, so pray gett all our Accounts in good order and see that Sir Chris, findes noe Confusion through the whole Affair. You must also, Walter, coppy over the great plan of our second Church, in Lime-house, and deliver it presently to the Commission: do this on the scale of 10 ft in one inche, and put it in Inke so far as you are certain of it. And write thus at the foote of the Draughte: the Depth from East to West, or from A to C, is 113V2 Feet; the Length from North to South, or from E to F, is 154 Feet. Let me hear from you, Walter, when you have done this and I shall wait for your answer with Impatience. And praye minde that the Plummer performes his gutters well. And so fair well for now.
The rest I omit, for many a bitter Pill can be swallowed under a golden Cover: I make no Mencion that in each of my Churches I put a Signe so that he who sees the Fabrick may see also the Shaddowe of the Reality of which it is the Pattern or Figure. Thus, in the church of Lime-house, the nineteen Pillars in the Aisles will represent the Names of Baal-Berith, the seven Pillars of the Chappell will signify the Chapters of his Covenant. All those who wish to know more of this may take up Clavis Salomonis, Niceron's Thaumaturgus Opticus where he speaks of Line and Distance, Cornelius Agrippa his De occultia philosophia and Giordano Bruno his De magia and De vinculis in génère where he speaks of Hieroglyphs and the Raising of the Devilles.
You see there, Nat (for he has come slinking into my Chamber as I write to Walter), you see the great Iron chest by the window with three Locks to it: take this Key and open it. What is in there Master, says he, that must be lockd up and Bolted? His Eyes revolved around the Room, and I shoot out a laugh like a Pudding in a Bag: if you could but imagine the various Postures his causeless Fears place him in, you would be a great sharer with me in that Laughter. It is only the Paper to wrap up this Letter, I told him, and you must go with it now to my Office. And make haste: it is close by, you Rogue, and I will expect you back again presently.
My Lodgings are in the house of Mrs Best (a Taylor 's Widow) in Bear Lane, off Leicester-Fields; it is an old decay'd House, much like its Owner, and for ten shillings a week I have the two upper storeys: a closet, a dining room, and a bed chamber. Nat has his bed below, for I wish no one to be near me when I sleep. The Mistress of the House is a clownish woman, a Relict daubed thicker with Paint than her Sceleton is with Flesh so that she appears very much like a Mossoleum. All her business is with Sisars and Toothpicks, Tweezers, Essences, Pomatum, Paints, Paists and Washes; she has so many Patches upon her Face that she may soon be Pressed to Death like the inhabitants of Newgate. On the first day of my present Sicknesse, she was brought into my Chamber by Nat who knew not what to do for me.
Ah Mr Dyer, says she, I see you suffer mightily from the Gout as it was with my husband of dear Remembrance: you do not know the perpetual Watchings, the numberless Toils, the frequent Risings in the Night which Mr Best brought me to. Then she busied herself about my Bedside and gave me, as she said, her best advice: what lies in me, she whispered, will be at your Service. She rose to go, but turned like a dry leaf in a wind before reaching the Door: I could not forebear taking notice, she said, that you are enamoured of the old Books and does this mean that you have the Poets for Recreation? (I lay back in Pain, which she took for assent.) May I, she continu'd in a very familiar Manner, show you the Product of my Idle hours? And with that she went down to her Parlour and brought up with her again several Epitaphs and Elegies of her own composing. Do you wish to hear, Nat Eliot? she ask'd my Boy, feigning to be Coy with me, and as he gaped up at her she spoke thus: O Blessed letters, that combine in one All ages past; and make one live with all!