Make us confer with those who now are gone, And the dead living unto counsel call!
There is a want of Sense in that line, she mutters before continuing quickly: By you th'unborn shall have communion Of what we feel, and what does us befall.
Do you like? said she fetching a deep Sigh as Nat wept like a Tapster without good liquor. You say true, he murmured, you say true and the Relict gave a little satisfied Grin. I was like to have hurled back at her: Twas not the Muse but her strong beer that stung Her mouth being stopt, the Words came through the Bung.
But I held my peece: I am not yet an ancient Tenent, and can not be merry with her in my Fashion.
It is good Fortune, Nat said after she had departed, to have such Company: for what do we know that the Poets may not teach us, and this Mistress can spout well in Rhyme. And why is it, he went on, that Rhyme touches my Memory?
Let it touch nothing, 1 told him, or you will be a poor Boy indeed.
But Nat had already gone off in a Dream: Where were you, Master, he asks, before I was born and thought of?
I was here and there, I answered gazing out of the Window.
But where were you in this City?
I have had so many Dwellings, Nat, that I know these Streets as well as a strowling Beggar: I was born in this Nest of Death and Contagion and now, as they say, I have learned to feather it. When first I was with Sir Chris. I found lodgings in Phénix Street off Hogg Lane, close by St Giles and Tottenham Fields, and then in later times I was lodged at the corner of Queen Street and Thames Street, next to the Blew Posts in Cheapside. (It is still there, said Nat stirring up from his Seat, I have passed it!) In the time before the Fire, Nat, most of the buildings in London were made of timber and plaister, and stones were so cheap that a man might have a cart-load of them for six-pence or seven- pence; but now, like the Aegyptians, we are all for Stone. (And Nat broke in, I am for Stone!) The common sort of People gawp at the prodigious Rate of Building and exclaim to each other London is now another City or that House was not there Yesterday or the Situacion of the Streets is quite Chang'd (I contemn them when they say such things! Nat adds). But this Capital City of the World of Affliction is still the Capitol of Darknesse, or the Dungeon of Man's Desires: still in the Centre are no proper Streets nor Houses but a Wilderness of dirty rotten Sheds, allways tumbling or takeing Fire, with winding crooked passages, lakes of Mire and rills of stinking Mud, as befits the smokey grove of Moloch. (I have heard of that Gentleman, says Nat all a quiver). It is true that in what we call the Out-parts there are numberless ranges of new Buildings: in my old Black-Eagle Street, Nat, tenements have been rais'd and where my Mother and Father stared without understanding at their Destroyer (Death! he cryed) new-built Chambers swarm with life. But what a Chaos and Confusion is there: meer fields of Grass give way to crooked Passages and quiet Lanes to smoking Factors, and these new Houses, commonly built by the London workmen, are often burning and frequently tumbling down (I saw one, says he, I saw one tumbling!). Thus London grows more Monstrous, Straggling and out of all Shape: in this Hive of Noise and Ignorance, Nat, we are tyed to the World as to a sensible Carcasse and as we cross the stinking Body we call out What News? or What's a dock?.
And thus do I pass my Days a stranger to mankind. I'll not be a Stander-by, but you will not see me pass among them in the World.
(You will disquiet your self, Master, says Nat coming towards me).
And what a World is it, of Tricking and Bartering, Buying and Selling, Borrowing and Lending, Paying and Receiving; when I walk among the Piss and Sir-reverence of the Streets I hear, Money makes the old Wife trot, Money makes the Mare to go (and Nat adds, What Words won't do, Gold will). What is their God but shineing Dirt and to sing its Devotions come the Westminster-Hall-Whores, the Charing-cross whores, the Whitehall whores, the Channel-row whores, the Strand whores, the Fleet Street whores, the Temple-bar whores; and they are followed in the same Catch by the Riband weavers, the Silver-lace makers, the Upholsterers, the Cabinet-makers, Watermen, Carmen, Porters, Plaisterers, Lightemen, Footmen, Shopkeepers, Journey-men… and my Voice grew faint through the Curtain of my Pain.
Thus did I speak to Nat on the first Day of my Sicknesse and, thinking now on those work men that I mencioned, I see them as they pass by me in the thorow-fare of my Memory: Richard Vining, Jonathan Penny, Geoffrey Strode, Walter Meyrick, John Duke, Thomas Style, Jo Cragg. I speak these Names into the Air and the Tears run down my Face, for I know not what Reason. And now my Thoughts are all suspended and like a Pilgrim moving into the Glare of the Sun I am lost in the wastes of Time.
I was in the middle of this earnest Business when Nat comes in, returned from delivering my Letter to Walter, with his Will you drink a Dish of Tea with your Bread and Butter or will you have a Glass of Ale? He put me in such Confusion that I would have dismist him with a kick in the Arse, and yet the Particles of Memory gather around me and I am my self again.
And so I may return from this Digression to the Narrative of my trew History: I ought in method to have informed the Reader a few pages ago of my Life as a Street-Boy after my strange converse with Mirabilis, and so I shall go back a little here to where I left off. I will save you from Ruin, little Faustus he had said to me, and I have already imparted to you my Reasons for staying with his Assembly in Black Step Lane; for being a Boy pennyless and friendless as I then was, the Key to his Door burned a Hole in my Breeches (as they say) until I imployed it. For altho' my Rambling mood was not yet extinguish'd, it was still my Pleasure to studdye with Mirabilis when I so desired it: he did not press me to stay, nor did he so much as Hint at it, and when the Assembly arrived at Dusk I hasten'd into the Streets and made my self a child of Hazard. There was a Band of little Vagabonds who met by moon-light in the Moorfields, and for a time I wandred with them; most of them had been left as Orphans in the Plague and, out of the sight of Constable or Watch, would call out to Passers by Lord Bless you give us a Penny or Bestow a half penny on us: I still hear their Voices in my Head when I walk abroad in a Croud, and some times I am seiz'd with Trembling to think I may be still one of them.
For I was then much like a Glass-Bottle-House Boy, dealing always in the Street dirt: I slept in the days before Winter in Bulk-heads and Shop-doors where I was known (I cou'd not sleep in the House of Mirabilis, where the Noises affrighted me) and in the Winter, when the Plague had abated and the Streets were lighted again, I got into Ash-holes and was the very Figure of a Beggar boy, despicable and miserable to the last degree. Those in their snug Bed-chambers may call the Fears of Night meer Bugbears, but their Minds have not pierced into the Horror of the World which others, who are adrift upon it, know. So those who looked upon me in those past Evil Days shook their Heads and cryed Poor boy! or Tis a Pity!, but they offred me no Help and let me go: I did not make a Noise then but I laid up all these things in my Heart so that I was as well read in Men as in Books.
Truly, said Mirabilis gazing at my Raggs, you are Ship-wracked upon the Isle of Man but do not be downcast; read these Bookes, studdye them well and learn from me, and these Christian Gentlemen who turn their Faces from you will then be Dust under your Feet: when they are consum'd in Flame, the Lords of the Earth will do you no Harm. And thus was I comforted, even though my Portion did seem to be presently one of Confinement and a Gaol.