I once heard Dr Donne preaching in St Paul's. He spoke of 'that glorious creature, that first creature, the Light.' The remembrance that the Light was the first created thing has stayed with me since. I always recall it when I get up early and witness the dawn, as today.
This morning I met Pompey Bum on the stairs. The sun not long risen, that greased, cruel, potbelly whoremaster was already drunk. He sat at the turning of the bannisters, his mouth agape and drivelling. He was reading a book, with his bottle beside him. His eyes went to and fro. He read from left to right, lips moving, silently, then bent to kiss the page where he had read it. He wept and trembled. Then he burst out with a lamentable cry, saying, 'What shall I do to be saved?'
When I asked him what he meant, he wept the more. Then he told me that he was for certain informed that this our city of London will be burnt with fire from heaven, in which fearful overthrow we shall all miserably come to ruin.
I comforted my landlord as I could, and advised him to take more water with it.
Then I came in here to attend to my Aeolian harp. But the day is close and windless, and the strings will not speak.
The end of my book is in sight, yet there are a number of things which I meant to include in it but which now there will be no room for. Fatigue and my lack of competence may be blamed. All these are matters recorded on notes, which I have accumulated in my boxes, but which now it is too late to work into the fabric of my book. Here is a list of things despaired of, things that belong in my Life of William Shakespeare but which now I must leave for others to write about:
Abraham men alarums aprons mountant artichokes asphodel aspic aunts bankrout beggars barber-surgeons Basimecu bat-fowling bed-pressers bed-swervers Belgia bogs bona-robas bonfires bottom-grass breaking wind brewers bubukles bullets cabbage cabinets caddis-garters cannibals cataplasm catastrophe (tickling of) caudle-cups chop-logic christom children clergy in WS's works cock-fighting comfits cony-catchers copyright cries of London cross-gartering Cutpurse Moll dropsy Dudley Digges duelling dulcimers eclipses eglantine elephants elixirs endives eringo excursions faggots fairies falcons fern-seed fewmets fleas fools (at Court) fools (on stage) football fustian galliards ghosts giants glanders (in horses) glow-worms grace (at meals) hair-pins handkerchiefs hautboys heart-burn hedgehogs hemlock hobby-horses howlets humours (the 4) impresas Ireland jennets Jones, Inigo jordans Kendal green knot gardens l adysmocks lethargy mackerel maggot-pie mandragora marchpane medlars mermaids microcosm motley mumchance Neapolitan bone-ache novum quinque nutmeg oats onions oranges osprey ouches palsy pantofles partelets passing-bells passy-measures peasecod pissing-conduits plainsong poking-sticks politics poor-laws porcupine potatoes prickets pricksong progresses (royal) projection (alchemical) pumpions quotidian fever ragged robin raisins rascal (deer) Ratsey the highwayman rebatoes Rhenish rogero (dance) salamanders shoemakers silkworms slops slugs snapdragon snipe soap (cost of) sorcerers (Lapland) spoons still music strawberries sublimation (in alchemy) sweating sickness table manners tadpoles tinkers tooth-brushes trash (of hounds) troll-my-dames tuckets valerian Venus' glove Vice (in moralities) walnuts wasters whirligigs wild-goose-chasing wormwood