Hawksmoor (8 page)

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!

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.