“3 i aac EN ha fi ia : if cies ‘ iewianntt Pad isla hats = ca eas citer LF A etlgs cn (td Stilt I$GO C@RNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ~ THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY . ~ HE OLIN LIBRARY — CIRCULATION DATE DUE GAYLORD Tata ADVERTISEMENT. Tue History of the Great Plague in London is one of that par- ticular class of compositions which hovers between romance and history. Undoubtedly De Foe embodied a number of traditions upon this subject with what he might actually have read, or of which he might otherwise have received direct evidence. This dreadful disease, which, in the language of Scripture, might be described as “the pestilence which walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day,” was indeed a fit subject for a pencil so veracious as that of De Foe, Had he not been the author of Robinson Crusoe, De Foe would have deserved immor- tality for the genius which he has displayed in this work. Sir Watter Scort. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE OF LONDON. THE HISTORY i THE PLAGUE OF LONDON, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. BY DANIEL DE FOE. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. NEW YORK: DERBY & JACKSON, 498 BROADWAY. 1860. \ KO Abs 15 36 W. H. Trvgon, Storeotyper, Gionen Russett, & Co., Printers, Ronr of 43 & 45 Contre St., N.Y, : 61 Beekman &t., N.Y. Pa AMD CONTENTS. THE PLAGUE OF Bills of Mortality first Published, . . Infallible Preventives, . . . .« Protective Measures by the Lord Mayor, Examiners Appointed, . % ‘ . Orders concerning Infected Houses, . Tippling Houses Closed, . ; Si tar. ie Pits for Reception of the Dead, . . The Dead Carts, . . . «© « Profanity of the People,. . . . Wholesale Robbery and Murder, . . Remarkable Preservation of Three Poor Men, and their Adventures, The Plague among the Shipping, . s Origin of the Infection, . . .« « Modes of Detecting the Distemper, . Embargo on Ships and Commerce,. . The Crisis, Bo RE ose OR tas The Plague Subsides, . . MH ~ . LONDON. PscE 10 - 81 - 86 « 8 SBaRSE SB - 162 + 169 - 179 - 188 - 194 HISTORY oF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, Ir was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, arnong the rest of my neighbors, heard, in ordinary discourse, that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither they say it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia: others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again. We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to spread rumors and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But such things as those were gathered from the letters of merchants, and others, who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, asthey donow. Butit seems that the govern- ment had a true account of it, and several councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over, but all was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumor died off again, and people began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November, or the begin- ning of December, 1664, when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died 9 10 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. of the plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in endeavored to conceal it as much as possi- ble; but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neigh- borhood, the secretaries of state got knowledge of it. And concern- ing themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house, and make inspection. This they did, and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinion publicly, that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned it to the hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus: Praevx, 2. PaxrisHEes Inrrorxp, 1. The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in the last week “n December, 1664, another man died in the same house, and of the same distemper ; and then we were easy again for about six weeks, when none having died with any marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that, I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another house, but in the same parish, and in the same manner. 3 This turned the people’s eyes pretty much towards -that end of the town; and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles’s parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was among the people at that end of the town ; and that many had died of it, though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the public as possible. This possessed the heads~ of the people very much, and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had extraordinary business, that obliged them to it. This increase of the bills stood thus; the usual number of burials in a week, in the parishes of St. Giles’s in the Fields, and St. An- drew’s, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few more or less; but from the time that the plague first began in St. Giles’s parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in number considerably. For example: THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 11 From Dec. 27th to Jan. 3d, St, Giles’s. 16 St. Andrew’s 17 Jan. 3rd to Jan. 10th, St. Giles’s 12 St. Andrew’s 25 Jan. 10th to Jan. 17th, St. Giles’s 18 St. Andrew’s 18 Jan. 17th to Jan. 24th, St. Giles’s 23 St. Andrew’s 16 Jan, 24th to Jan. 31st, St. Giles’s 24 St. Andrew’s 15 Jan. 31st to Feb. 7th, St. Giles’s 21 St. Andrew's 23 Feb. 7th to Feb. 14th, St. Giles’s 24 Whereof one of the plague. ~ The like increase of the bills was observed in the parishes of St. Bride’s, adjoining on one side of Holborn parish, and in the parish of St. James’s, Clerkenwell, adjoining on the other side of Holborn; in both which parishes the usual numbers that died weekly, were from four to six or eight, whereas at that time they were increased as follows: From Dec. 20th to Dec. 27th, St. Bride’s 0 St. James’a 8 Dec. 27th to Jan. 3d, St. Bride’s 6 St. James’s 9 Jan. 3rd to Jan. 10th, St. Bride’s ll St. James’s 7 Jan. 10th to Jan. 17th, St. Bride’s 12 St. James’s 9 Jan. 17th to Jan. 24th, St. Bride’s 9 St. James’s 15 Jan. 24th to Jan. 31st, St. Bride’s 8 St: James’s 12 Jan. 31st to Feb. 7th, St. Bride’s 13 St. James’s 5 Feb. 7th to Feb. 14th, St. Bride’s 12 St. James’s 6 Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people that the weekly bills in general increased very much during these weeks, although it was at a time of the year when usually the bills are very moderate, The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a week, was from about two hundred and forty, or thereabouts, to three 12 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. hundred. The last was esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills successively increasing, as follows ; Increased. December 20, to the 27th, Buried 291 27, to the 3rd Jan. 349 58 January 3, to the 10th, 394 45 10, to the 17th, 415 21 17, to the 24th, 474 59 This last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than had been known to have been buried in one week, since the preceding visitation of 1656. However, all this went off again, and the weather proving cold, and the frost, which began in December, still continuing very severe, even till near the end of February, attended with sharp though moderate winds, the bills decreased again, and the city grew healthy, and everybody began to look upon the danger as good as over; only that still the burials in St. Giles’s continued high. From the begin- ning of April, especially, they stood at twenty-five each week, till the week from the 18th to the 25th, when there were buried in St. Giles’s parish thirty, whereof two of the plague, and eight of the spotted fever, which was looked upon as the same thing; likewise the number that died of the spotted fever in the whole increas- ed, being eight the week before, and twelve the week above named. , This alarmed us all again, and terrible apprehensions were among the people, especially the weather being now changed and growing warm, and the summer being at hand: however, the next week there seemed to be some hopes again, the bills were low, the number of the dead in all was but 388, there was none of the plague, and but four of the spotted fever. But the following week it returned again, and the distemper was spread into two or three other parishes, viz., St. Andrew’s, Holborn, St. Clement’s Danes, and, to the great affliction of the city, one died within the walls, in the parish of St. Mary Wool Church, that is to say, in Bearbinder Lane, near Stocks Market; in all there were nine of the plague, and six of the spotted fever. It was, however, upon inquiry, found, that this Frenchman who died in Bearbinder Lane, was one who, having lived in Long Acre, near the infected houses, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 13 had removed for fear of the distemrer, not knowing that he was already infected. This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was temperate, variable, and cool enough, and people had still some hopes: that which encouraged them was, that the city was healthy, the whole ninety-seven parishes buried but fifty-four, and we began to hope, that as it was chiefly among the people at the end of the town, it might go no farther; and the rather, because the next week, which was from the 9th of May to the 16th, there died but three, of which not one within the whole city or liberties, and St. Andrew’s buried but fifteen, which was very low. It is true, St. Giles’s buried two-and- thirty, but still as there was but one of the plague, people began to be easy; the whole bill also was very low, for the week before the bill was but 347, and the week above mentioned but 348. We con- tinued in these hopes for a few days. But it was but for a few, for the people were no more to be deceived thus; they searched the’ houses, and found that the plague was really spread every way, and that many died of it every day, so that now all our extenuations abated, and it was no more to be concealed, nay, it quickly appeared that the infection had spread itself beyond all hopes of abatement; that in the parish of St. Giles’s, it was gotten into several streets, and several families lay all sick together; and, accordingly, in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing began to show itself; there were indeed but fourteen set down of the plague, but this was all knavery and collusion; for St. Giles’s parish, they buried forty in all, whereof it was certain most of them died of the plague, though they were set down of other distempers; and though the number of all the burials was not increased above thirty-two, and the whole bill being but 885, yet there were fourteen of the spotted fever, as well as fourteen of the plague; and we took it for granted, upon the whole, that there were fifty died that week of the plague. The next bill was from the 23d of May to the 30th, when the number of the plague was seventeen ; but the burials in St. Giles’s wera fifty-three, a frightful namber! of whom they set down but nine of the plague; but on an examination more strictly by the justice of the peace, and at the lord mayor’s request, it was fond there were twenty more who were really dead of the plague in that parish, but had been set down of the spotted fever, or other distempers, besides others concealed. 14 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. But those were trifling things to what followed immediately after ; for now the weather set in hot, and from the first week in June, the infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rose high, the articles of the fever, spotted fever, and teeth, began to swell: for all that could conceal their distempers, did it to prevent their neighbors shunning and refusing to converse with them; and also to prevent authority shutting up their houses, which, though it was not yet practised, yet was threatened, and people were extremely terrified at the thoughts of ‘it. . The second week in June, the parish of St Giles’s, where still the weight of the infection lay, buried 120, whereof, though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody said there had been a hun- dred at least, calculating it from the usual number of funerals in that parish as above. Till this week the city continued free, there having never any died except that one Frenchman, who I mentioned before, within the whole ninety-seven parishes. Now there died four within the city, one in Wood street, one in Fenchurch street, and two in Crooked Lane: Southwark was entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of the water. I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighborhood continued very easy : but at the other end of the town their consternation was very great, and the richer sort of people, espe- cially the nobility and gentry, from the west part of the city, thronged out of town with their families and servants in an unusual manner ; and this was more particularly seen in Whitechapel ; that is to say, the Broad street where I lived: indeed nothing was to be seen, but wag- gons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc. ; coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away; then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses with servants, who it was apparent were returning, or sent from the country to fetch more people: besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and generally speaking, all loaded with baggage and fitted out for travel- ling, as any one might perceive by their appearance. This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I eould not but look on from morning to night (for in- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 15 deed there was nothing else of moment to be seen), it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it. This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that there was no getting at the lord mayor’s door without exceeding difficulty ; there was such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certifi- cates of health, for such as travelled abroad; for, without these, there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in any inn. Now as there had none died in the city for all this time, my lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too, for awhile. This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months of May and June, and the more because it was rumored that an order of the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes and barriers on the road, to prevent people’s travelling; and that. the towns on the road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing the infection along with them, though neither of these rumors had any foundation, but in the imagination, especially at first. I now began to consider seriously with myself, concerning my own case, and how J should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know not but it may be of momentto those who come after me, if they come to be brought to the same distress, and to the same manner of making their choice, and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to themselves to act by, than a history of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me. I had two important things before me; the one was the carrying on my business and shop; which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the pre- servation of my life in so dismal a calamity, as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city; and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people’s, represented to be much greater than it could be. The first consideration was of great moment to me; my trade was 16 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. asaddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants, trading to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was asingle man, it istrue, but I had a family of servants, whom I kept at my business; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and, in short, to leave them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss not only of my trade, but, of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the world. I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years before come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer was in the three words, the same that was given in another case quite different, viz., Master, save thyself. In a word, he was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his family; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told me the same thing, which I argued for my staying, viz., That I should trust God with my safety and health, was the strongest repulse to my pretensions of losing my trade and my goods; For, says he, is itnot as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of danger, and trust him with your life? I could not argue that I was in any strait, as toa place where to go, having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our family first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister in Lincoinshire, very willing to receive and entertain me. , My brother, who had already sent his wife and two chidren into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very earnestly ; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at that time could get no horse: for though it was true, all the peo- ple did not go out of the city of London; yet I may venture to say, that in a manner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city, for some weeks, Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant; and as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier’s tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm, and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did so at last, especially those who had THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 1 peen in the armies, in the war which had not been many years past: and I must needs say, that speaking of second causes, had most of the people that travelled done so, the plague had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was, to the great dam- age, and indeed to the ruin of abundance of people. But then my servant, whom I had intended to take down with me, deceived me, and being frightened at the increase of the distemper, and not knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and left me, soI was put off for that time; and one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go away, was always crossed by some acci- dent or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again; and this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a needless digres- sion, viz., about these disappointments being from Heaven. It came very warmly into my mind, one morning, as I was mus- ing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of Divine Power, so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary ; and I ought to consi- der whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of Heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts, that if it really was from God, that I should stay; he was able effectually to preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me: and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I believed to be divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that he could cause his justice to overtake me when and where he thought fit. These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again, and when I came to discourse with my brother again, I told him, that I inclined to stay and take my lot in that station in which God had placed me; and that it seemed to be made more especially my duty, on the account of what I have said. My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed at all I had suggested about its being an intimation from Heaven, and told me several stories of such foolhardy people, as he called them, as I was; thatI ought indeed to submit to it as a work Heaven, if I had been any way disabled by distempers or diseases, and that then not being able to go, I ought to acquiesce in the direction of Him, who having been my Maker, had an undisputed right of sovereignty 18 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. in disposing of me; and that then there had been no difficulty “to” determine which was the call of his providence, and which was not; but that I should take it as an intimation from Heaven, that I should not go out of town, only because I could not hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away that was to attend me, was ridiculous, since at the same time I had my health and limbs, and other servants, and might with ease travel a day or two on foot, and having a good cer tificate of being in perfect health, might either hire a horse or take post on the road, as I thought fit. Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences which attended the presumption of the Turks and Mahometans in Asia, and in other places,-where he had been (for my. brother being a merchant, was afew years before, asI have already observed, returned from abroad, coming last from Lisbon), and how presuming upon their professed predestinating notions, and of every man’s end being predetermined, and unalterably beforehand decreed, they would go unconcerned into infected places, and converse with infect- ed persons, by which means they died at the rate of ten or fifteen thou- sand: a week, whereas the Europeans, or Christian merchants, who xept themselves retired and reserved, generally escaped the contagion. Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again, and I began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready ; for in short, the infection increased round me, and the bills were risen to almost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture to stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it but till the next day, and I would resolve; and as I had already prepared everything as well as I could, as to my business, and who to intrust my affairs with, I had little to do but to resolve. _ I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute and not knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly apart to consider seriously about it, and was all alone ; for already people had, as it were by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after sunset; the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by and by. In the retirement of this evening I endeavored to resolve first, what was my duty to do, and I stated the arguments with which my brother had pressed me to go into the country, and I set against them the strong impressions which I had on my mind for staying; the THE PLAGUE IN: LONDON. 19 visible call I seemed to have from the particular circumstance of my calling, and the care due from me for the preservation of my effects, which were, as I might say, my estate: also the intimations which I thought I had from Heaven, that to me signified a kind of direction to venture, and it occurred to me, that if I had what I call a direcrion to stay, I ought to suppose it contained a promise of my being pre- served, if I obeyed. This lay close to me, and my mind seemed more and more encouraged to stay than ever, and supported with a secret satisfaction, that I should be kept. Add to this, that turning over the Bible, which lay before me, and while my thoughts were more than ordi- . narily serious upon the question, I cried out, Well, [know not what to do, Lord direct me! and the like; and at that juncture I happened to stop turning over the book, at the 91st Psalm, and casting my eye on the second verse, I read to the seventh verse exclusive; and after that, included the 10th, as follows: ‘JI will say of the Lord, he is my refuge, and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.: Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day : nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation : there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,” etc. I scarce need tell the reader, that from that moment I resolved that I would stay in the town, and casting myself entirely upon the goodnesss and protection of the Almighty, would not seek any other shelter whatever; and that as ‘my times were in his hands, he was ag able to keep me in a time of the infection, as in a time of health; and if he did not'think fit to deliver me, still I wasin his hands, and it was-meet he should do with me as should seem good to him. With this resolution I went to bed ; and I was farther confirmed in it the next day, by the woman being taken ill with whom I had in- tended to intrust my house and all my affairs. But I had a farther 20 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. obligation laid on me on the same side, for the next day I found my- self very much out of order also; so that if I would have gone away, I could not, and I continued ill three or four days, and this entirely determined my stay; so I took my leave of my brother, who went away to Dorking, in Surrey, and afterwards fetched a round farther into Buckinghamshire, or Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family. It was a very ill time to be sick in, for if any one complained, it was immediately said he had the plague; and though J had indeed no symptoms of that distemper, yet being very ill, both in my head and in my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was in- fected; but in about three days I grew better, the third night I rested well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed; the apprehensions of its being the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I went about my business as usual. These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going into the country; and my brother also being gone, I had no more debate either with him, or with myself, on that subject. It was now mid July, and the plague, which had chiefly raged at the other end of the town, and asI said before, in the parishes of St. Giles’s, St. Andrew’s, Holborn, and towards Westminster, began now to come eastward, towards the part where I lived. It was to be observed, indeed, that it did not come straight on towards us; for the city, thatis to say within the walls, was indifferently healthy still; nor was it got then very much over the water into Southwark; for though there died that week 1,268 of all distempers, whereof it might be sup- posed above nine hundred died of the plague; yet there was but twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but nineteen in Southwark, Lambeth parish included; whereas in the parishes of St. Giles, and St. Martin’s in the Fields alone, there died four hundred and twenty-one. But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the out parishes, which being very populous, and fuller also of poor, the distemper found more to prey upon than in the city, as I shall observe after- ward; we perceived, I say, the distemper to draw our way, viz. by the parishes of Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Shoreditch, and Bishops- gate ; which last two parishes joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infection came at length to spread its utmost rage and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 21 violence in those parts, even when it abated at the western parishes, where it began. It was very strange to observe, that in this particular week, from the 4th to the 11th of July, when, as I have observed, there died near four hundred of the plague in the two parishes of St. Martin’s, and St. Giles’s in the Fields only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but four, in the parish of Whitechapel three, in the parish of Stepney but one. Likewise, in the next week, from the 11th of July to the 18th, when the week’s bill was 1761, yet there died no more of the plague, on the whole Southwark side of the water, than sixteen. But this face of things soon changed, and it began to thicken in Cripplegate parish especially, and in Clerkenwell; so that by the second week in August, Cripplegate parish alone, buried eight hun- dred and eighty-six, and Clerkenwell one hundred and fifty-five; of the first, eight hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the ‘plague, and of the last, the bill itself said, one hundred and forty-five were of the plague. During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, our part of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I went ordinarily about the streets, as my business required, and par- ticularly went generally once in a day, or in two days, into the city, to my brother’s house, which he had given me charge of, tosee it was safe; and having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, and over most of the rooms, to see that all was well; for though it be something wonderful to tell, that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal ; yet certain it is, that all sorts of villanies; and even levities and debauch- eries, were then practised in the town, as openly as ever; I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were many ways lessened. But the city itself began to be visited, too, I mean within the walls; but the number of people there were, indeed, extremely lessened, by so great a multitude having been gone into the country ; and even all this month of July, they continued to flee, though not in such multi- tudes as formerly. In August, indeed, they fled in such a manner, that I began to think there would be really none but magistrates and servants left in the city. 22 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe, that the court removed early, viz., in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them; and the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as touch them ; for which I cannot say, that I ever saw they showed any great token of thankfulness, and hardly anything of reformation, though they did not want being told that their erying vices might, without breach of charity, be said to have gone far, in bringing that terrible judgment upon the whole nation. The face of London was now indeed strangely altered, I mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, saburbs, Westminster, South- wark, and altogether; for, as to the particular part called the city, or within the walls, that was not yet much infected ; but in the whole, the face of things, I say, was much altered; sorrow and sadness sat upon every face, and though some part were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned; and as we saw it apparently coming on, so every one looked on himself, and his family, as in the utmost danger: were it possible to represent those times exactly, to those. that did not see them, and give the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself, it must make jus} impressions upon their minds, and fill them with surprise. London might well be said to be all in tears; the mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for nobody put on black, or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends; but the voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets; the shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their nearest relations were, perhaps, dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard, as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen in almost every house, especially in the first part of the visitation ; for towards the latter end, men’s hearts were hardened, and death was so always be- fore their eyes, that they did not so-much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour. Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even when the sickness was chiefly there; and as the thing was new to me, as well as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see those streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few people to be seen in them, that if I had THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 23 been a stranger, and at a loss for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole street, I mean of the by-streets, and seen nobody to direct me, except watchmen set at the doors of such houses as were shut up; of which I shall speak presently. One day, being at that part of the town, on some special business, curiosity led me to observe things more than usually; and indeed, I walked a great way where I had no business ; I went up Holborn, and there the street was full of people; but they walked in the mid- dle of the great street, neither on one side or other, because, as I suppose, they would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with smells and scents from houses that might be infected. The inns of court were all shut up, nor were very many of the lawyers in the Temple, or Lincoln’s-inn, or Gray’s-inn, to be seen there. Everybody was at peace, there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it being in the time of the vacation, too, they were generally gone into the country. Whole rows of housés in some places were shut close up, the inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left. When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut up by the magistrates; but that great numbers of persons followed the court, by the necessity of their employments, and other depen- dencies; and as others retired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere desolating of some of the streets: but the fright was not yet near so great in the city, abstractedly so called ; and particularly because, though they were at first in a most inexpressible consterna- tion, yet, as I have observed, that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were as it were alarmed, and unalarmed again, and this several times till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the east or south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I may say, a little hardened. It is true, a vast many people fled, as I have observed, yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and from that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the wealthiest of the people; and such persons as were unincumbered with trades and business. But of the rest, the generality stayed, and seemed to abide the worst ; so that in the place we call the liberties, and in the suburbs, in South wark, and in the east part, such as Wapping, Ratcliff, Stepney, 24 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally stayed, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did not depend upon their business. It must not be forgot here, that the city and suburbs were pro digiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the time that it began; for though I have lived to see a farther increase and mighty throngs of people settling in London, more than ever; yet we had always a notion that numbers of people, which, the wars being over, the armies disbanded, and the royal family and the monarchy being restored, had flocked to London to settle in business or to depend upon and attend the court for rewards of services, prefer- ments, and the like, was such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand people more than ever it held before; nay, some took upon them to say, it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party flocked hither ; all the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of families settled here; again, the court brought with it a great flux of pride and new fashions; all people were gay and luxurious, and the joy of the restoration had brought a vast many families to London. But i must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time ; while the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man and abandon their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for an Akeldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found in it would perish with it. Ishall name but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that J have often wondered there was any (wo- men especially) left behind. In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after, another, a little before the fire; the old women, and the phlegmatic hypochon- driac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call old wo- men too, remarked, especially afterward, though not till both these judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over tho city, and that so very near the houses, that it was plain they im- ported something peculiar to the city alone. That the comet before \ THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 25 the pestilence was of a faint, dull languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the fire, was bright and sparkling, or as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious, and that accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible, and frightful as was the plague. But the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift and fiery, as was the conflagra- tion; nay, so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and. fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they heardit, that it made a rushing mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable. I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had had so much of the common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God’s judgments, and especially when the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufli- ciently scourged the city. The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times, in which, I think, the people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales, than ever they were before or since ; whether thisamhappy temper was origin- ally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as ‘“ Lily’s Almanack,” ‘Gadbury’s Astrological Predictions,” ‘Poor Ro- bin’s Almanack,”’ and the like ; also several pretended religious books, one entitled, “‘ Come out of Her, my People, lest ye be partaker of her Plagues,” another called “ Fair Warning,” another “ Britain’s Remem- braneer,” and many such ; all or most part of which, foretold directly or covertly the ruin of the city; nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretend- ing they were sent to preach to the city ; and one in particular, who like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, ‘‘ Yet forty daysand Lon- don shall be destroyed.” I will not be positive whether he said yet forty days, or yet afew days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, Woe to Jerusalem! a little be- 2 26 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. fore the destruction of that city : so this poor naked creature cried, “O! the great and the dreadful God!” and said no more, but re- peated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop or rest or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoke to him, but he would not enter into speech with me or any one else, but kept on his dismal cries continually. These things terrified the people to the last degree; and es- pecially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two in the bills, dead of the plague at St. Giles’s. Next to these public things, were the dreams of old women; or, I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people’s dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London, so that the living would not be able to bury the dead; others saw apparitions in the air, and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never appeared ; but the imagination of the people was really turned wayward and possessed ; and no wonder if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and vopor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword, held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied and the like; just as the imagination of the poor terrified people farnished them with matter to work 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 give every day of what they have seen; and all were so positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no con- tradicting them, without breach of friendship, or being accounted tude and unmannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 27 on the other. One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles’s, I think it was in March, seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion of the form, and the 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 as can be; another saw the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out, What a glorious creature he was! One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, but, perhaps, not with so much willingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had, I must have lied; but the woman turning to me looked me in the face and fancied I laughed, in which her imagination, deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me, called me pro- fane fellow, and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God’s anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and that despisers, such as I, should wander and perish. The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that J should be 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 going through a narrow passage from Petty-France into Bishopsgate churchyard, by a row of almshouses ; there are two churchyards to Bishopsgate church or parish, one we go over to pass from the place called Petty-France into Bishopsgate street, coming out just by the church door, the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the other side more to the right. 28 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. In this narrow passage stood a man looking through the palisades into the burying-place, and asymany people as the narrowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the passage of others, and he was talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing now to one place, then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there; he described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the greatest amaze- ment to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. Ona sudden he would cry, There it is! Now it comes this way ! then, "Tis turned back! till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day making a strange hubbub, considering it was so narrow’a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden. I looked earnestly every way and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything, but so positive was this poor man that he gave them vapors in abun- dance, and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever. This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses, and to the ground, and to the people, plainly intimating, or else they so understanding it, that abundance of people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened, but then he saw such aspects, I must acknowledge 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 as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing done in it, as I am informed, the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already. Neither can I acquit those ministers, that, in their sermons, rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their hearers; many of them I doubt not did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and espe- cially for quickening them to repentance; but it certainly answered not their end, at least, not in proportion to the injury it did another way. One mischief always introduces another ; these terrors and appre. THE PLAGUH IN LONDON. 29 hensions, of the peuple. led them to a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a-sort of people really wicked to encourage them to, and this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning men, and astrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vul- garly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and the like, and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic; to the black art, as they called it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of, and this trade grew so open and so generally practised, that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors, Here lives a fortune-tel- ler; Here lives an astrologer; Here you may have your nativity cal- culated ; and the like; and friar Bacon’s brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these people’s dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin’s head, and the like. With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devil pleased and satisfied the people, I really know not, but certain it is, that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day; and if but a grave fellow, in a velvet jacket, a band, and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack-eonjurors generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow him in crowds and ask him questions as he went along. The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occa- sion to mention again, by and by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away, and it was so, and of them abundance perished, and particularly those whom these false prophets flattered with hopes that they should be kept in their services and carried with their masters and mistresses into the country ; and had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, whose num- ber was exceeding great, and in all cases of this nature must be so, they would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city. These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out; but I must also not forget that the more serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner; the government encouraged their devotion. and 30 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. appointed public prayers and days of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin, and implore the mercy of God, to avert the dreadful judgment which hangs over their heads; and, it is not to be expressed -with what alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occasion, how they flocked to the churches and meet- ings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no coming near, even to the very doors of the largest churches: also, there were daily prayers appointed morning and evening at several churcnes, and days of private praying at other places, at all which, the people attended, I say, with an uncommon devotion ; several private families also, as well of one opinion as another, kept family fasts, to which they admitted their near relations only; so that, in a word, those people who were really serious and religious, applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humili- ation, as a Christian people ought to do. Again, the public showed that they would bear their share in these things; the very court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the public danger. All the plays and inter- Judes, which, after the manner of the French court, had been set up and began to increase among us, were forbid to act; the gaming- tables, public dancing rooms, and music houses, which multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut up and sup- pressed; and the jack-puddings, merry-andrews, puppet shows, rope- dancers, and such-like doings, which had bewitched the common peo- ple, shut their shops, finding indeed no trade, for the minds of the people were agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at these things set upon the countenances even of the common people; death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and diversions. But even these wholesome reflections, which, rightly managed, would have most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of their sins, and look up to their merciful Saviour for pardon, imploring his compassion on them in such a timeof their distress, by which we might have been as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the common people: who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections, as they were brutishly wicked and thought- less before, were now led by their fright to extremes of folly ; and, as I said before, that they ran to conjurers and witches and all sorts of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 31 deceivers, to know what should become of them, who fed their fears and kept them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude them and pick their pockets, so they were as mad upon their running after quacks and mountebanks, and every practising old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not only spent their money but poisoned themselves beforehand for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the plague instead of preserving them against it. On the other hand, it was incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors’ bills, and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic, and inviting people to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as these, viz., InrAaLLIBLE preventive pills against the plague. Nrver-Fraitine preservatives against the infection. Soverruien cordials against the corruption of air. Exaor regulations for the conduct of the body in case of infection. Anti- pestilential pills. Incomparasie drink against the plague, never found out before. An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague. The onty TRUE plague-water. The Royal ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infec- tion: and such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and if I could, would fill a book of themselves to set them down. Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for direc- tion and advice in the case of infection; these had specious titles also, such as these : An eminent High-Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland, where he resided during all the time of the great plague, last year, in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that actually had the plague upon them. An Italian gentlewoman, just arrived from Naples, having a choice secret to pre- vent infection, which she found out by her great experience, and did wonder- ful cures with it inthe late plague, there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day. An ancient gentlewoman, having practised with great success in the late plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice only to the female sex. To be spoken with, etc. An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has, after forty years’ practice, arrived at such skill as may, with God’s blessing, direct persons how to pre- vent being touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis. 32 : THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. I take notice of these by way of specimen; I could give you two or three dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. It is sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humor of those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infec- tion followed. Icannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did no- thing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills, which he gave out in the streets, this advertisement in capital letters, viz., He gives advice to the poor for nothing. : Abundance of people came to him accordingly, to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their health, and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them many good things to do which were of no great moment: but the issue and conclusion of all was, that he had a preparation, which if they took such a quantity of, every morning, he would pawn his life that they should never have the plague, no, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This made the people all resolve to have it, but then, the price of that was so much, I think it was half-a-crown; But, sir, says one poor woman, I am a poor almswo- man, and am kept by the parish, and your bills say, you give the poor your help for nothing. Ay, good woman, says the doctor, so I do, as I publish there, I give my advice, but not my physic! Alas, sir, says she, that is a snare laid for the poor, then, for you give them your advice for nothing; that is to say, you advise them gratis, to buy your physic for their money, so does every shopkeeper with his wares. Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his door all that day telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her up stairs again and give her his box of physic for nothing, which perhaps too was good for nothing when she had it. But, to return to.the people, whose confusions fitted them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mountebank. There is no doubt but these quacking sort of fellows raised great THE PLAGUR IN LONDON. 33 gains out of the miserable people, for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged than those of Dr. Brooks, Dr. Upton, Dr. Hodges, Dr. Ber- wick, or any though the most famous men of the time; and I was told that some of them got 5/. a day by their physic. But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humor of the poor people at . that time, and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of these, for these, petty thieves only deluded them to pick their pockets and get their money, in which their wickedness, whatever it was, lay chiefly on the side of the deceiver’s deceiving, not upon the deceived; but in this part I am going to mention, it lay chiefly in the people deceived, or equally in both: and this was in wearing charms, philters, exorcisms, amulets, and I know not what prepara- tions to fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit, and it was to be kept off with crossings, signs of the zodiac, papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written on them, as particularly the word Abracadabra, formed in triangle or pyramid, thus: ABRACADABRA ABRACADABR Others had the Jesuits’ ABRACADAB mark in a cross: ° ABRACADA I ABRACAD Ss ABRACA ABRAC ABRA Others had nothing but this ABR mark, thus: AB + A I might spend a great deal of my time in exclamations against the follies, and indeed the wickedness of those things, in a time of such danger, in a matter of such consequence as this of a national infec- tion ; but my memorandums of these things relate rather to take notice of the fact, and mention only that it was so. How the ‘poor people found the insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead-carts, and thrown o* 34 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. into the common graves of every parish with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks, remains to be spoken of as we go along. All this was the effect of the hurry the people were in, after the first notion of the plague being at hand, was among them, and which may be said to be from about Michaelmas, 1664, but more particu- larly after the two men died in St. Giles’s in the beginning of Decem- ber; and again, after another alarm in February, for when the plague evidently spread itself, they soon began to see the folly of trust- ing to these unperforming creatures, who had gulled them of their money, and then their fears worked another way, namely, to amazement and stupidity, not knowing what course to take or what to do either to help or to relieve themselves, but they ran about from one neighbor’s house to another, and even in the streets from one door to another, with repeated cries of, Lord have mercy upon us, what shall we do? I am supposing now the plague to have begun, as I have said, and that the magistrates began to take the condition of the people into their serious consideration; what they did as to the regulation of the inhabitants, and of infected families I shall speak to by itself; but, as to the affair of health, it is proper to mention here, my having seen the foolish humor of the people in running after quacks, mountebanks, wizards, and fortune-tellers, which they did as above even to madness. The lord mayor, a very sober and religious gen- tleman, appointed physicians and surgeons for the relief of the poor, I mean the diseased poor, and, in particular, ordered the college of physicians to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor in all the circumstances of the distemper. This indeed was one of ‘the most charitable and judicious things that could be done at that time, for this drove the people from haunting the doors of every dispenser of pills, and from taking down blindly and without consideration, poison for physic, and death instead of life. This direction of the physicians was done by a consultation of the whole college, and as it was particularly calculated for the use of the poor, and for cheap medicines, it was made public, so that every- body might see it, and copies were given gratis to all that desired it: but as it is public and to be seen on all occasions, I need not give the reader of this the trouble of it, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 35 It remains to be mentioned now, what public measures were taken py the magistrates for the general safety, and to prevent the spread- ing of the distemper when it broke out; I shall have frequent occasion to speak of the prudence of the magistrates, their charity, their vigilance for the poor, and for preserving good order, furnish- ing provisions, and the like, when the plague was increased as it afterwards was. But I am now upon the order and regulations which they published for the government of infected families. I mentioned above, shutting of houses up, and it is needful to say something particularly to that; for this part of the history of the plague is very melancholy ; but the most grievous story must be told. About June, the lord mayor of London, and the court of aldermen, as I have said, began more particularly to concern themselves for the regulation of the city. The justices of the peace for Middlesex, by direction of the secre- tary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St. Giles’s in the Fields, St. Martin’s, St. Clement’s Danes, etc., and it was with good success, for in several streets where the plague broke out, upon strict guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to bury those that died as soon as they were known to be dead, the plague ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plagne decreased sooner in those parishes after they had been visited to the full, than it did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a great means to the putting a check to it. This shutting up of the houses was a method first taken, as I understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the coming of King James I. to the crown, and the power of shutting people up in their own houses was granted by act of parliament, entitled, An act for the charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with plague. On which act of parliament, the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London, founded the order they made at this time, and which took place the 1st of July, 1665, when the numbers of infected within the city were but few, the last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but four, and some houses having been shut up in the city, and some people being removed to the pesthouse beyond Bun- hill-fields, in the way to Islington ; I say by these means, when there died near one thousand a week in the whole, the number in the city 36 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. was but twenty-eight; and the city was preserved more healthy in proportion, than any other place all the time of the infection. These orders of my lord mayor’s were published, as I have said, the latter end of June, and took place from the 1st of July, and were as follows, viz. : ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDER- MEN OF THE OITY OF LONDON, CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE; 1665. Wuereas in the reign of our late sovereign King James, of happy memory, an act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with the plague: whereby authority was given to justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers, to appoint within their several limits examiners, searchers, watchmen, keepers, and buriers, for the persons and places infected, and to minis- ter unto them oaths for the performance of their offices; and the same statute did also authorize the giving of their directions, as unto them, for other present necessity, should seem good in their discretions. It is now, upon special consideration, thought very expedient, for pre- venting and avoiding of infection of sickness (if it shall please Almighty God), that these officers following be appointed, and these orders hereafter duly observed. Examiners to be appointed to every Parish. First, it is thought requisite, and so ordered, that in every parish there be one, two, or more persons of good sort and credit chosen by the alderman, his deputy, and common-council of every ward, by the name of examiners, to continue in that office for the space of two months at least: and, if any fit person so appointed, shall refuse to undertake the same, the said parties so refusing to be committed to prison until they shall conform themselves accordingly. The Examiner's Office. That these examiners be sworn by the aldermen to inquire and learn from time to time what houses in every parish be visited, and what persons be sick, and of what diseases, as near as they can inform themselves, and, upon doubt in that case, to command restraint of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 37 access until it appear what the disease shall prove; and if they find any person sick of the infection, to give order to the constable that the house be shut up; and if the constable shall be found remiss and negligent, to give notice thereof to the alderman of the ward. Watchmen. That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen, one for every day, and the other for the night, and that these watch- men have a special care that no person go in or out of such infected houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe punishment. And the said watchmen to do such farther offices as the sick. house shall need and require; and if the watchman be sent upon any busi- ness, to lock up the house and take the key with him; and the watch- man by day to attend until ten o’clock at night, and the watchman by night until six in the morning. . Searchers. That there be a special,care to appoint women-searchers in every parish, such as are of honest reputation, and of the best sort as can be got in this kind; and these to be sworn to make due search and true report to the utmost of their knowledge, whether the per- sons whose bodies they are appointed to search do die of the infec- tion, or of what other diseases, as near as they can; and that the physicians who shall be appointed for the cure and prevention of the infection, do call before them the said searchers, who are, or shall be appointed for the several parishes under their respective cares, to the end they may consider whether they be fitly qualified for that employ- ment, and charge them from time to time, as they shall see cause. if they appear defective in their duties. That no searcher, during this time of visitation, be permitted to use any public work or employment, or keep a shop or stall, or be employed as a laundress, or any other common employment whatso ever. Chirurgeons. For better assistance of the searchers, forasmuch as there has been heretofore great abuse in misreporting the disease, to the farther 38 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. spreading of the infection, it is therefore ordered that there be chosen and appointed able and discreet chirurgeons besides those that do already belong to the pesthouse; amongst whom the city and liber- ties to be quartered as they lie most apt and convenient, and every of these to have one quarter for his limit; and the said chirurgeons in every of their limits to join with the searchers for the view of the body, to the end there may be a true report made of the disease. And farther, that the said chirurgeons shall visit and search such like persons as shall either send for them, or be named and directed unto them by the examiners of every parish, and inform themselves of the disease of the said parties. And, forasmuch as the said chirurgeons are to be sequestered from all other cures, and kept only to this disease of the infection, it is ordered that every of the said chirurgeons shall have twelvepence a body searched by them, to be paid out of the goods of the party searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the parish. Nurse-keepers. If any nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any infected house before twenty-eight days after the decease of any person dying of the infection, the house to which the said nurse-keeper doth so remove herself, shall be shut up until the said twenty-eight days shall be expired. ORDERS OONOERNING INFECTED HOUSES, AND PERSONS SIOK OF THE PLAGUE. Notice to be given of the Sickness. Tue master of every house as soon as any one in his house com- plaineth, either of botch, or purple, or swelling in any part of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick without apparent cause of some other disease, shall give notice thereof to the examiner of health, within two hours after the said sign shall appear. Sequestration of the Sick. As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon, or searcher, to be sick of the plague, he shall the same night be sequestered in the same house, and in case he be so seqestered, then, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 39 though he die not, the house wherein he sickened, shall be shut up for a month after the use of the due preservatives taken by the rest. Airing the Stuff. For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, their bed- ding, and apparel, and hangings of chambers, must be well aired with fire, and such perfumes as are requisite, within the infected house, _ before they be taken again to use. This to be done by the appoint- ment of the examiner. Shutting up of the House. If any person shall visit any man known to be infected of the plague, or entereth willingly into any known infected house, being not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up for certain days by the examiner’s direction. None to be removed out of Infected Houses, but, ée. Item, That none be removed out of the house where he falleth sick of the infection, into any other house in the city (except it be to the pesthouse or a tent, or unto some such house, which the owner of the said house holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his own servants), and so as security be given to the said parish whither such remove is made, that the attendance and charge about the said visited persons shall be observed and charged in all the particularities before expressed, without any cost of that parish to-which any such remove shall happen to be made, and this remove to be done by night; and it shall be lawful to any person that hath two houses, to remove either his sound or his infected people to his spare house, at his choice, so as if he send away first his sound, he do not after send thither the sick; nor again unto the sick, the sound; and that the same which he sendeth be for one week, at the least, shut up, and secluded from company, for the fear of some infection at first not appearing. Burying of the Dead. That the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most convenient hours, always before sun-rising, or after sun-setting, with the privity of the church-wardens, or constable, and not otherwise; and that no ; 40 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. neighbors nor friends be suffered to accopmany the corpse to church or to enter the house visited, upon pain of having his house shut up, or be imprisoned. And, that no corpse dying of the infection shall be buried, or remain in any church in time of common prayer, sermon or lecture. And, that no children be suffered at time of burial of any corpse, in any church, churchyard, or burying-place, to come near the corpse, coffin, or grave; and, that all graves shall be at least six feet deep. And farther, all public,assemblies at other burials are to be for- borne during the continuance of this visitation. No Infeeted Stuff to be uttered. That no clothes, stuff, bedding, or garments, be suffered to be car- ried or conveyed out of any infected houses, and that the criers and carriers abroad of bedding or old apparel to be sold or pawned, be utterly prohibited and restrained, and no brokers of bedding or old apparel be permitted to make any public show, or hang forth on their stalls, shop-boards, or windows towards any street, lane, com- mon-way, or passage, any old bedding or apparel to be sold, upon pain of imprisonment. And if any broker or other person shall buy any bedding, apparel, or other stuff out of any infected house, within two months after the infection hath been there, his house shall be shut up as infected, and so shall continue shut up twenty days at the least. No Person to be conveyed out ofany Infected House. If any person visited do fortune by negligent looking unto, or by any other means, to come or be conveyed from a place infected to any other place, the parish from whence such party hath come, or been conveyed, upon notice thereof given, shall, at their charge, cause the said party so visited and escaped, to be carried and brought back again by night, and the parties in this case offending, to be pun- ished at the discretion of the alderman of the ward, and the house of the receiver of such visited person, to be shut up for twenty days. Every Visited House to be marked. That every house visited be marked with ared cross of a foot long, in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these e ‘ THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 41 usual printed words, that is to say, ‘Lord have mercy upon us,” to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful open- ing of the same house. ® Every Visited House to be watched. That the constables see every house shut up, and to be attended with watchmen, which may keep in, and minister necessaries to them at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge if they be unable. The shutting up to be for the space of four weeks after all be whole. That precise order be taken that the searchers, chirurgeons, keep- ers and buriers, are not to pass the streets without holding a red rod or wand of three feet in length in their hands, open and evident to be seen, and are not to go into any other house than into their own, or into that whereunto they are directed or sent for, but to forbear and abstain trom company, especially when they have been lately used in any such business or attendance. Inmates. That where several inmates are in one and the same house, ana any person in that house happens to be infected, no other person or family of such house shall be suffered to remove him or themselves without a certificate from the examiners of the health of that parish, or in default thereof, the house whether she or they remove, shall be shut up as is in case of visitation. ; Hackney-coaches, That care be taken of hackney-coachmen, that they may not, as some of them have been observed to do after carrying of infected persons to the pesthouse, and other places, be admitted to common use till their coaches be well aired, and have stood unemployed by the space of five or six days after such service. ORDERS FOR OLEANSING AND KEEPING OF THE STREETS SWEPT. The Streets to be kept clean. First, it is thought necessary and so ordered, that every house- 42 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON: holder do cause the street to be daily prepared before his door, and so to keep it clean swept all the week long. 6 That Rakers take it from out the Houses. That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried away by the rakers, and that the raker shall give notice of his coming by the blowing of a horn, as hitherto hath been done. Lay-stalls to be made far off from the City. That the lay-stalls be removed as far as may be out of the city and common passages, and that no nightman or other be suffered to empty a vault into any vault or garden near about the city. Care to be had of unwholesome Fish or Flesh, and of musty Corn. That special care be taken that no stinking fish or unwholesome flesh, or musty corn, or other corrupt fruits, of what sort soever, be suffered to be sold about the city, or any part of the same. That the brewers and tippling-houses be looked into for musty and unwholsome casks. That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies, be suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded by the beadle or any other officer, and the owner punished according to the act of common-council, and that the dogs be killed by the dog-killers ap- pointed for that purpose. ORDERS CONCERNING LOOSE PERSONS AND IDLE ASSEMBLIES, Beggars. For as much as nothing is more complained of than the multitude of rogues and wandering beggars that swarm about in every place about the city, being a great cause of the spreading of the infection, and will not be avoided notwithstanding any orders that have been given to the contrary: it is therefore now ordered that such consta- ‘bles and others, whom this matter may any way concern, take special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the streets of this city, in any fashion or manner whatsoever, upon the penalty provided by law to be duly and severely executed upon them. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 48 Plays. That all plays, bear-baitings, games, singing of ballads, buckler- play, or such like causes of assemblies of people be utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished, by every alderman in his ward. Feasting prohibited That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of this city, and dinners in taverns, ale-houses, and other places of public entertainment, be forborne till further order and allowance, and that the money thereby spared be preserved and employed for the bene fit and relief of the poor visited with the infection. Tippling-Houses. That disorderly tippling in taverns, ale-houses, coffee-houses, and cellars, be severely looked unto as the common sin of the time, and greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no company or person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern, ale-house, or coffee-house, to drink, after nine of the clock in the evening, ac- cording to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the penal- ties ordained by law. And for the better execution of these orders, and such other rules and directions as upon further consideration shall be found needful, it is ordered and enjoined that the aldermen, deputies, and common councilmen shall meet together weekly, once, twice, thrice, or oft- ener, as causé shall require, at some one general place accustomed in their respective wards, being clear from infection of the plague, to consult how the said orders may be put in execution, not intend- ing that any dwelling in or near places infected, shall come to the said meeting while their coming may be doubtful. And the said aldermen, deputies, and cummon-councilmen, in their several wards, may put in execution any other order, that by them, at their said meetings, shall be conceived and devised for the preservation of his majesty’s subjects from the infection. Srr Joan Lawrenor, Lord Mayor. Sir Grorez WATERMAN, : Sm Cnartzs Doz, t eae 44 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. I need not say, that these orders extended only to such places as were within the lord mayor's jurisdiction; so it is requisite to ob- serve, that the justices of peace, within those parishes and places, as were called the hamlets and out-parts, took the same method; as I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on our side, because as I said before, the plague did not reach to this eastern part of the town at least, nor begin to be violent till the beginning of August. For example, the whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of July, was 1761, yet there died but seventy-one of the plague in all those parishes we call the Tower-hamlets ; and they were as follows: , Aldgate, 14 34 65 Stepney, 33 the next 68 and to the 76 Whitechapel, 21 week was 48 Ist. of Aug. 79 St. Kath. Tower 2 ~~ thus: 4 thus: 4 Trin. Minories, 1 1 4 7 145 228 It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same week were, in the next adjoining parishes, thus: St. L. Shoreditch. 64 the next week 84 tothe Ist. 110 St. Bot. Bishopsg. 65 prodigiously 105 ofAug. 116 St. Gile’s, Crippl. 213 increase,as 431 thus: 554 342 620 780 This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations; complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly, and some maliciously, shut up; I cannot say, but upon inquiry, many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued ; and others again, inspec- tion being made upon the sick person, and the sickness not appearing infectious; or, if uncertain, yet, on his being content to be carried to the pesthouse, was released. As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o’clock, there was a great noise; it is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because the people were not very free to gather together, or to stay THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 45 ong together when they were there, nor did I stay long there; but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one, who looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter? A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up; he had been there all night, for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day watchman had been there one day, and was now come to relieve him; all this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen, they called for nothing, sent him of no errands, which used to be the chief business of the watchman, neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from Monday afternoon when he heard a great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It seems the night before, the dead-cart, had been stopt there, and a servant-maid had been brought down to the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away. The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while, but at last one looked out, and said, with an angry quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, What d’ye want, that you make such a knocking? Hoe answered, I am the watchman, how do you do? What is the matter? The person answered, what is that to you? Stop the dead-card. This it seems, was about one o’clock ; soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered ; he contin- ued knocking, and the bellman called out several times, Bring out your dead; but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away. The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone till the morning-man, or day-watchman, as they called him, came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars, they knocked at the door a great while but nobody answered, and they observed that the window or casement, at which the person looked out who had answered before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs. Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went up to the window, and looked into the room, 46 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor, in a dismal man- ner, having no clothes on her but her shift; but though he called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred or answered, neither could he hear any noise in the house. He came down again upon this and acquainted his fellow, who went up also, and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either the lord mayor, or some other magistrate of it, but did not offer to go in at the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broke open, a constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered, and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who, having been infected, and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself, and every one gone, having found some way to delude the watchman, and to get open the door; or get out at some back-door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it; and, as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at this bitter parting, which to be sure, it was to them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house, his wife, several children and servants, being all gone and fled, whether sick or sound, that I could never learn, nor, indeed, did I make much inquiry after it. At another house, as I was informed, in the next street next with- in Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in, because the maid-servant was taken sick; the master of the house had com- plained by his friends to the next alderman, and to the lord mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the pesthouse, but was refused; so the door was marked with ared cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, and a watchman set to keep the door, accord- ing to public order. , After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his wife and his children were locked up with this poor dis- tempered servant, he called to the watchman, and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige them to nurse her, and told him plainly that, if he would not do this, the maid would perish either of the distemper, or be starved for want of food, for he THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Aq was resolved none of his family should go near her, and she lay in the garret, four story high, where she could not cry out, or call to anybody for help. The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched a nurse, as he was appointed, and brought her to them the same evening ; during this interval, the master of the house took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat before or under his shop window; but the tenant, as may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping; having made his way into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman; I say, having made his way into this stall he, sat still till: the watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also; but the night following, having contrived to send the watchman of another trifling errand, which, as I take it, was to an apothecary’s for a plaster for the maid, which he was to stay for the making up, or some such other errand, that might secure his staying some time; in that time he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor wench, that is, throw her into the cart, and take care of the house. _Not far from the same place, they blowed up a watchman with gun- powder, and burnt the poor fellow dreadfully, ; and while he made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family that were able to stir got out at the windows, one story high, two that were left sick, calling out for help. Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them, but the persons fled were never found, till after the plague was abated they returned ; but as nothing could be proved, so nothing could be done to them. In other cases, some had gardens and walls, or pales between them and their neighbors; or yards and back-houses ; and these, by friend- ship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or pales, and so go out at their neighbors’ doors; or, by giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in the night; so that, in short, the shutting up of houses was in nowise to be depended upon; neither did it answer the end at all; serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to such extremities, as that they would break out at all adventures. 48 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out, spread the infection farther by their wandering about with the dis- temper upon them, in their desperate circumstances, than they would otherwise have done: for, whoever considers all the particulars in such cases, must acknowledge, and cannot doubt but the severity of those confinements made many people desperate, and made them run out of their houses at all hazards, and with the plague visibly upon them, not knowing either whither to go, or what to do, or, indeed what they did; and many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down, by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward any way, as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go, till, faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or no, they have perished by the road side, or gotten into barns, and died there, none daring to come to them, or relieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them. On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family, that is to say, when any one body of the family had gone out, and unwarily or otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home, it was certainly known by the family before it was known to the officers, who, as you will see by the order, were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick persons, when they heard of their being sick. In this interval, between their being taken sick, and the examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove himself, or all his family, if he knew whither to go, and many did so. But the great disaster was, that many did thus after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to receive them, which it must be confessed, was very cruel and ungrateful. I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was not less- ened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the other hand, many who thus got away had retreats to go to, and other houses, where they locked themselves up, and kept hid till the plague was THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 49 over; and many families, foreseeing the approach of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions, sufficient for their whole families, and shut themselves, up, and that'so entirely, that they were neither seen or heard of, till the infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well. I might recollect several such as these, and give you the particulars of their management; for doubtless it was the most effectual secure step that could be taken for such, whose circum- stances would not admit them to remove, or who had not retreats abroad proper for the case; for, in being thus shut up, they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I remember, that any one of those families miscarried. Among these, several Dutch mer- chants were particularly remarkable, who kept their houses like lit- tle garrisons besieged, suffering none to go in or out, or come near them ; particularly one in a court in Throckmorton-street, whose house looked into Drapers’ Garden. But I come back to the case of families infected, and shut up by the magistrates. The misery of those families is not to be expressed ; and it was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified, and even frightened to death by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were. I remember, and, while I am writing this story, I think I hear the very sound of it: acertain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune; they were only lodgers in the house where they were. “The young woman, her mother, and the maid, had been abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house was not shut up; but, about two hours after they came home, the young lady complained she was not well, in a quarter of an hour more she vomited, and had a violent pain in her head. Pray God, says her mother, in a terrible fright, my child has not the distemper! The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warm- ed, and resolved to put her to bed; and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary remedy to be taken, when the first apprehensions of distemper began. While the bed was airing, the mother undressed the young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the 3 50 THE PLAGUE 1N LONDON. inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle and screeched out in such a frightful man- ner, that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world; nor was it one scream, or ene cry, but the fright having seized her spirits, she fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs, and down the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours, void of all sense, or, at least government of her senses, and as I wastold, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment; for the gan- grene, which occasions the spots, had spread over her whole body, and she died in lessthantwo hours. Butstill the mother continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child, several hours after she was dead. Itis so long ago, that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after. I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, who be- ing single men, but that had stayed in the city too long to get away, and, indeed, not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor having wherewith to travel far, took a course for their own preserva- tion, which though in itself at first desperate, yet was so natural, that it may be wondered that no more did so at that time. They were of but mean condition, aud yet not so very poor, as that they could not furnish themselves with some little conveniences, such as might serve to keep life and soul together; and, finding the distem- per increasing in a terrible manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could, and to be gone. One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and before that in the Low Countries; and, having been bred to no particular employ- ment but his arms, and, besides, being wounded, and not able to work very hard, had for some time been employed by a baker of sea- biscuit, in Wapping. The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other, had been hurt of one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had work- ed for his living at a sailmaker’s in Wapping or thereabouts; and being a good husband, had laid up some money, and was the richest of the three. The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow ; and he had no wealth, but his box, or basket of tools, with the help % THE PLAGUE IN LONDON 51 of which he could at any time get his living, such a time as this ex- cepted, wherever he went, and he lived near Shadwell. They all lived in Stepney parish, which as I have said, being the last that was infected, or at least violently, they stayed there till they evidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town, and coming towards the east, where they lived. The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me either to vouch the particulars, or answer for any mistakes, I shall give as dis- tinctly as I can; believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor man to follow, in case the like public desolation should hap- pen here; and if there may be no such occasion, which God of his infinite mercy grant us, still the story may have its uses so many ways, as that it will, I hope, never be said that the relating has been unprofitable. I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the present, much more to say before I quit my own part. I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it; as near as I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad; and, at the time IJ first looked at it, about nine feet deep; but it was said, they dug it near twenty feet deep afterwards, in one part of it,till they could go no deeper for the water; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this ; for, though the plague was long a coming to our parish, yet when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and White- chapel. I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the dis- temper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead- carts began to go about, which was not in our parish till the begin- ning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each, then they made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought in a week; which by the middle to the end of August, came to from two hundred to four hundred a week; and they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the 52 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. magistrates, confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of the surface? and the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in one pit; but now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing to more than was ever buried in any parish about London, of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf, to be dug, for such it was rather than a pit. They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more, when they dug it, and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making: pre- parations to bury the whole parish, and the like; but time made it appear the churchwardens knew the condition of the parish better than they did; ‘for the pit being finished the 4th of September, I think they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it 1,114 bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I doubt not but there may be some ancient per- sons alive in the parish, who can justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place of the churchyard the pit lay better than I can; the mark of it also was many years to beseen in the churchyard on the surface, lying in length, parallel with the passage which goes by the west wall of the churchyard, out of Hounsditch, and turns east again, into Whitechapel, coming out near the Three-Nuns inn. It was about the 10th of September, that my curiosity led, or tather drove me to go and see this pit again, when there had been near four hundred people buried in it; and I was not content to see » it in the day time, as I had done before, for then there world have been nothing to have seen but the loose earth; for all the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with earth, by those they called the buriers, which at other times were called bearers; but I resolved to go in the night, and see some of them thrown in. There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits, and that was only to prevent infection; but, after some time, that order was more necessary, for people that were infected, and near their end, and delirious also, would run to those pits wrapt in blan- kets, or rugs, and throw themselves in, and, as they said, bury them- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 53 selves. I cannot say that the officers suffered any. willingly to lie there; but I have heard, that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, it lying open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about, many came and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth upon them; and that when they came to bury others, and found them there, they were quite dead, though not cold. : This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than this; that it was indeed, very, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express. Ln I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sexton who attended, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go: telling me very seriously, for he was 4 good religious and sensible man, that it was, indeed, their busi- ness and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no apparent-call-to-it—— but_my. own-curfosity, which, he said, he believed I would not pre- tend, was sufficient to justify my running that hazard I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that, perhaps, it might be an instructing sight, that might not be without its uses. Nay, says the good man, if you will venture upon that score, "Name of God, go in; for, depend upon it, it will be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life.’ It is a speaking sight, says he, and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance; and with that he opened the door, and said, Go, if you will. His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering for a good while, but, just at that interval, I saw two links come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared a dead-cart, as they called it, coming over the streets ; so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather that led the horse and cart, but when they came up to the pit, they saw aman go to and again, muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his hands, under his cloak, as if he was in great agony ; and the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he wag 54 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. one of those poor delirious, or desperate creatures, that used to pre- tend, as I have said, to bury themselves ; he said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply, and loud, and sighed as he would break his heart. When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a person infected and desperate, asI have observed above, or a person distempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his children, all in the cart, that was just come in with him, and he followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief, that could not give itself vent by tears; and, calmly desiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away, so they left importuning him; but no sooner was the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit, promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least expected they would have been decently laid in, though indeed, he was afterwards convinced that was impracticable ; I say, no sooner did he see the sight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon; the buriers ran to him and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and they led him away to the Pye-tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and where they took care ofhim. He looked into the pit again, as he went away, but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with throw- ing in earth, that, though there was light enough, for there were lanterns and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of the pit, upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more, yet nothing could be seen. 5 This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest; but the other was awful, and full of terror; the cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies, some were wrapt up in linen sheets, some in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose, that what covering they had fell from them, in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the com- mon grave of mankind, as we may call it, for here was no difference THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 55 made, Hut poor i her} there was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for coffins were not to behad for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this. It was reported, by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any corps was delivered to them, decently wound up, as we called it then, in a winding sheet tied over the head and feet, which some did, and which was generally of good linen; I say, it was reported, that the buriers were so wicked as to strip them in the cart, and carry them quite naked to the ground: but, as I cannot credit anything so vile among Christians, and at a time so filled with terrors, as that was, I can only relate it, and leave’it undetermined. 7) Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behavior and practice of nurses, who attended the sick, and of their hastening on the fate of those they attended in their sickness, ButI-shall say more of this in its place. I was indeed shocked with this sight, it almost overwhelmed me; and I went away with my heart most afflicted, and full of afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe; just at my going out of the church, and turning up the street towards my own house I saw another cart, with links, and a bellman going before, coming out of Harrow Alley, in the Butcher Row, on the other side of the way, and being, a8 I perceived, very full of dead bodies, it went directly over the street also towards the church. I stood awhile, but I had no stomach to go back again to see the same dismal scene over again: so I went directly home, where I could not but consider with thank- fulness, the risk I had run, believing I had gotten no injury; as indeed I had not. Here the poor unhappy gentleman’s grief came into my head again, and, indeed, I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it, perhaps more than he did himself; but his case lay so heavy upon my mind, that I could not prevail with myself but that I must go out again into the street, and go to the Pye-tavern, resolving to inquire what became of him. It was by this time one o’clock in the morning, and yet the poor gentleman was theres the truth was, the people of the house know- ing him, had entertained him, and kept him there all the night notwithstanding the danger,of being infected by him, though it appeared the man was perfectly sound himself. 56 THE PLAGUE IN- LONDON. It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people ‘were civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks enough, and had till this time kept their house open, and their trade going on, though not so very publicly as formerly; but there was a dreadful set of fellows that used their house, and who, in the middle of all this horror, met there every night, behaving with all the revelling and roaring extravagances as is usual for such people to do at other times, and indeed to such an offensive degree, that the very master and mistress of the house grew first ashamed, and then terrified, at them. They sat generally in a room next the street; and, as they always kept late hours, so when the dead-cart came across the street end to go into Houndsditch, which was in view of the tavern windows, they would frequently open the windows, as soon as they heard the bell, and look out at them; and, as they might often hear sad lamentations of people in the streets, or at their windows, as the carts went along, they would make their impudent mocks and jeers at them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God to have mercy upon them, as many would do at those times, in their ordinary passing along the streets. These gentlemen being something disturbed with the clatter of bringing the poor gentleman into the house, as above, were first angry and very high with the master of the house, for suffering such a fellow, as they called him, to be brought out of the grave into their house; but, being answered, that the man was a neighbor, and that he was sound, but overwhelmed with the calamity of his family, and the like, they turned their anger into ridiculing the man, and his sorrow for his wife and children ; taunting him with want of courage to leap into the great pit, and go to heaven, as they jeeringly ex- pressed it, along with them; adding some very profane, and even blasphemous expressions. They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and, as far as I could see, though the man sat still, mute, and discongolate, and their affronts could not divert his sorrow, yet he was both griev- ed and offended at their discourse. Upon this I gently reproved them, being weil enough acquainted with their characters, and not unknown in person to two of them. They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths: asked HE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 51 me what I did out of my grave, at such a time, when so many honester men were carried into the churchyard: and why I was not at home saying my prayers, against the dead-cart came for me; and the like. I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not at all discomposed at their treatment of me; however, I kept my temper. I told them, that though I defied them, or any man in the world, to tax me with any dishonesty, yet I acknowledged, that in this terrible.judgment of God, many better than I were swept away, and carried to their grave; but, to answer their question directly, the case was, that I was mercifully preserved by that great God, whose name they had blasphemed and taken in vain, by cursing and swearing in a dreadful manner; and that I believed I was preserved in particular, among other ends of his goodness, that I might reprove them for their audacious boldness, in behaving in such a manner, and in such an awful time as this was, especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman, and a neighbor, for some of them knew him, who they saw was overwhelmed with sorrow, for the breaches which it had pleased God to make upon his family. I cannot call exactly to.mind the hellish abominable raillery, which was the return they made to that talk of mine, being provoked, it seems, that I was not at all afraid to be free with them; nor, if I could remember, would I fill my account with any of the words, the horrid oaths, curses, and vile expressions, such as, at that time of the day, even the worst and ordinariest people in the street «vould not use ; for, except such hardened creatures as these, the most wicked wretches that could be found, had at that time some terror upon their mind, of the hand of that Power which could thus, in a moment, destroy them. But that which was the worst in all their devilish language was, that they were not afraid to blaspheme God, and talk atheistically ; making a jest at my calling the plague the hand of God; mocking, and even laughing at the word judgment, as if the providence of God had no concern in the inflicting such a desolating stroke; and that the people calling upon God, as they saw the carts carrying away the dead bodies, was all enthusiastic, absurd, and impertinent. I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, but which I found was so far from putting a check to their horrid way of speak. Qe 58 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. ing, that it made them rail the more; so that I confess it filled me with horror, and a kind of rage, and I came away, asI told them, lest the hand of that judgment which had visited the whole city, should glorify his vengeance upon them and all that were near them. They received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the opprobrious insolent scoffs that they could think of for preaching to them, as they called it, which indeed grieved me, rather than angered me; and I went away, blessing God, however, in my mind, that I had not spared them though they had insulted me so much. They continued this wretched course three or four days after this, continually mocking and jeering at all that showed themselves religious, or serious, or that were any way touched with the sense of the terrible judgment of God upon us, and I was informed they flouted in the same manner, at the good people, who, notwithstand- ing the contagion, met at the church, fasted and prayed to God to remove his hand from them. Isay, they continued this dreadful course three or four days, I think it was no more, when one of them, particularly he who asked the poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from Heaven with the plague, and died in a most deplorable manner; and, in a word, they were every one of them carried into the great pit, which I have mentioned above, before it was quite filled up, which was not above a fortnight, or thereabout. These men were guilty of many extravagances, such as one would think human nature should have trembled at the thoughts of, at such a time of general terror as was then upon us; and, particularly scoffing and mocking at everything which they happened to see that was religious among the people, especially at their thronging zealously to the place of public worship, to implore mercy from Heaven in such a time of distress; and this tavern where they held their club, being within view of the church door, they had the more particular occa- ion for their atheistical profane mirth. But this began to abate a little with them before the accident, which I have related, happened ; for the infection increased so vio- lently at this part of the town now, that people began to be afraid to come to the church, at least such numbers did not resort thither as THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 59 was usual; many of the clergymen likewise were dead, and others gone into the country; for it really required a steady courage, and a strong faith, for a man, not only to venture being in town at such a time as this, but likewise to venture to come to church and perform | the office of a minister to a congregation, of whom he had reason to believe many of them were actually infected with the plague, and to do this every day, or twice a day, as in some places was done. It seems they had been checked for their open insulting religion in this manner, by several good people of every persuasion, and that the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and atheism at the clamor which was made, when the gentleman was first brought in there, and, perhaps were agitated by the same devil, when I took upon me to reprove them; though I did it at first with all the calmness, tem- per, and good manners that I could, which, for awhile, they insulted me the more for, thinking it had been in fear of their resentment, though afterwards they found the contrary. These things lay upon my mind; and I went home very much grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men’s wickedness, and to think that anything could be so vile, so hardened and so notoriously wicked, as to insult God and his servants, and his worship, in such a manner, and at such a time as this was, when he had, as it were, his sword drawn in his hand, on purpose to take vengeance, not on them only, but on the whole nation. I had, indeed, been in some passion at first, with them, though it was really raised, not by any affront they had offered me personally, but by the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me with; how- ever, I was doubtful in my thoughts, whether the resentment I re- tained was not all upon my own private account, for they had given me agreat deal of ill language too, I mean personally; -but after some pause, and having a weight of grief upon my mind, I retired myself, as soon as I came home, for I slept not that night, and giving God most humble thanks for my preservation in the imminent dan- ger I had been in,I set my mind seriously, and with the utmost earnestness, to pray for those desperate wretches, that God would pardon them, open their eyes, and effectually humble them. By this I not only did my duty, namely, to pray for those wo 60 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. despitefully used me, but I fully tried my own heart, to my full satis- faction, that it was not filled with any spirit of resentment as they had offended me in particular ; and I humbly recommend the method to all those that would know, or be certain, how to distinguish be- tween their zeal for the honor of God, and the effects of their private passions and resentment. I remember a citizen, who, having broken out of his house in Aldersgate street, or thereabout, went along the road to Islington ; he attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and after that at the White Horse, two inns, known still by the same signs, but was refused ; after which he came to the Pyed Bull, an inn also still con- ‘tinuing the same sign; he asked them for lodging for one night only, pretending to be going into Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound, and free from the infection, which also, at that time, had not reached much that way. They told him, they had-no lodging that they could spare, but one bed up in the garret, and that they could spare that bed but for one night, some drovers being expected the next day with cattle; so if he would accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he did; so a servant was sent up with a candle with him, to show him the room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person not used to lie in a garret, and when he came to the room he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the servant, I have seldom lain in such a lodging as this ; however, the servant assured him again that they had no better: Well, says he, I must make shift, this is a dreadful time, but it is but for one night; so he sat down upon the bed-side, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him a pint of warm ale; accordingly the servant went for the ale, but some hurry in the house, which, perhaps, employed her otherways, put it out of her head, and she went up no more to him. The next morning, seeing no appearence of the gentleman, some- body in the house asked the servant that had showed him up stairs, what was become of him? she started; Alas, says she, I never thought more of him: he bade me carry him some warm ale, but I forgot; upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up to see after him, who, coming into the room, found him stark dead, and almost cold, stretched out across the bed; his clothes were pulled off, his jaw fallen, his eyes open in a most frightful posture, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 61 the rug of the bed being grasped hard in one of his hands, so that it was plain he died soon after the maid left him, and it is probable, had she gone up with the ale, she had found him dead in a few minutes after he had sat down upon the bed. The alarm was great in the house, as any one may suppose, they having been free from the distemper, till that disaster, which bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately to other houses round about it. I do not remember how many died in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant, who went up first with him, fell presently ill by the fright, and several others; for, whereas, there died but two in Isling- ton of the plague, the week before, there died nineteen the week after, whereof fourteen where of the plague; this was in the week from the 11th of July to the 18th. There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few, when their houses happened to be infected, and that was this; the families, who, in the first breaking out of the distemper, fled away into the country and had retreats among their friends, generally found some or other of their neighbors or relations to commit the charge of those houses to, for the safety of the goods, and the like. Some houses were indeed entirely locked up, the doors padlocked, the windows and doors having deal boards nailed over them, and only ‘the inspection of them committed to the ordinary watchmen and parish officers, but these were but few. It was thought, that there were not less than a thousand houses forsaken of the inhabitazits, in the city and suburbs, including what was in the out-parishes, and in Surrey, or the side of the water they called Southwark. This was besides the numbers of lodgers and of particular persons who were fled out of other families, so that in all it was computed, that about two hundred thousand people were fled and gone in all. But of this I shall speak again; but I mention it here on this account, namely, that it was a rule with those, who had thus two houses in their keeping or care, that if anybody was taken sick in a family, before the master of the family let the examiners or any other officer know of it, he immediately would send all the rest of his family, whether children or servants, as it fell out to be, to such other house which he had not in charge, and then giving notice of the sick person to the examiner, have a nurse or nurses appointed, and having another person to be shut up in the house 62 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. with them (which many for money would do), so to take charge of the house, in case the person should die. This was in many cases the saving of a whole family, who, if they had been shut up with the sick person, would inevitably have perish- ed; but on the other hand, this was another of the inconveniences of hatin up houses; for the apprehensions and terror of being shut up, made many run away with the rest of the family, who, though it was not publicly known, and they were not quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them; and who, by having an uninterrupted liberty to go about, but being obliged still to conceal their circumstances, or, perhaps, not knowing it themselves, gave the distemper to others, and spread the infection in a dreadful manner, as I shall explain farther hereafter. I had in my family only an ancient woman, that managed the house, a maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself, and the plague beginning to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about what course I should take, and how I should act; the many dismal objects, which happened everywhere, as I went about the streets, had filied my mind with a great deal of horror, for fear of the distemper itself, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and insome more than others ; the swellings, which were generally in the neck or groin, when they grew hard, and would not break, grew so painful, that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at windows, or shot themselves, or other- wise made themselves away, and I saw several dismal objects of that kind: others, unable to contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings, and such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard, as we walked along the streets, that would pierce the very heart to think of, especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves. I cannot say, but that now I began to faint in my resolutions; my heart failed me very much, and sorely I repented of my rashness, when J had been out, and met with such terrible things as these I have talked of; I say, I repented my rashness in venturing to abide in town, and I wished, often, that I had not taken upon me to stay, but had gone away with my brother and his family. Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home some- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 63 times, and resolve to go out no more, and perhaps I would keep those resolutions for three or four days, which time I spent in the most serious thankfulness for my preservation, and the preservation of my family, and the constant confession of my sins, giving myself up to God every day, and applying to him with fasting, and humili- ation, and meditation. Such intervals as I had, I employed in read- ing books, and in writing down my memorandums of what occurred to me every day, and out of which, afterwards, I took most of this work, as it relates to my observations without doors; what I wrote of my private meditations I reserve for private use, and desire it may not be made public on any account whatever. T also wrote other meditations upon divine subjects, such as occur- red to me at that time, and were profitable to myself, but not fit for any other view, and therefore I say no more of that. I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was Heath, whom I frequently visited during this dismal time, and to whose ad- vice I was very much obliged for many things which he directed me to take by way of preventing the infection when I went out, as he found I frequently did, and to hold in my mouth, when I was in the streets; he also came very often to see me, and as he was a good Christian, as well as a good physician, his agreeable conversation was a very great support to me, in the worst of this terrible time. It was now the beginning of August, and the plague grew very violent and terrible in the place where I lived, and Dr. Heath com- ing to visit me and finding that I ventured so often out in the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up, and my family, and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors; to keep all our windows fast, shutters and curtains close, and never to open them; but first, to - make a very strong smoke in the room, where the window or door was to be opened, with resin and pitch, brimstone and gunpowder, and the like, and we did this for some time, but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors entirely ; however, I attempted, though it was very late, to do something towards it; and first, as J had conve- nience both for brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread ; also I bought malt, and brewed as much beer as all the casks 64 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. I had would hold, and which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six weeks; also, I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Cheshire cheese, but I had no flesh meat, and the plague raged so violently among the butchers and slaughter houses, on the other side of our street, where they are known to dwell in great numbers, that it was not advisable so much as to go over the street among them. And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out of our houses to buy provisions, was in a great measure the ruin of the whole city, for the people catched the distemper, on these occasions, one of another, and even the provisions themselves were often taint- ed, at least I have great reason to believe so; and, therefore, I cannot say with satisfaction, what I know is repeated with great assurance, that the market people, and such as brought provisions to town, were never infected. I am certain the butchers of Whitechapel, where the greatest part of the flesh meat was killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at last to such a degree, that few of their shops were kept open, and those that remained of them killed their meat at Mile End, and that way, and brought it to market upon horses. However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and there was a necessity, that they must go to market to buy, and others to send servants, or their children; and, as this was a necessity which renewed itself daily, it brought abundance of unsound people to the markets, and a great many that went thither sound, brought death home with them. Jt is true, people used all possible precaution; when any one bought a joint of meat in the market, they would not take it out of the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose. The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that they might take no change. They carried bottles for scents and perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used were employed; but then the poor could not do even these things, and they went at all hazards. : Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this very account. Sometimes a man or woman dropt down dead in the very markets ; for many people that had the plague upon them knew nothing of it till the inward gangrene had affected their vitals, and they died in a THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 65 few moments; this caused that many died frequently in that manner in the street suddenly, without any warning; others, perhaps, had time to go to the next bulk or stall, or to any door or porch, and just sit down and die, as I have said before. These objects were so frequent in the streets, that, when the plague came to be very raging on one side, there was scarce any passing by the streets, but that several dead bodies would be lying here and there upon the ground; on the other hand, it is observable, that though, at first, the people would stop as they went along, and call to the neighbors to come out on such an occasion, yet, afterward, no notice was taken of them; but that, if at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not come near it; or if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again, and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and, in those cases, the corpse was always left till the officers had notice to come and take them away; or till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart would take them up and carry them away. Nor did those undaunted creatures, who per- formed these offices, fail to search their pockets, and sometimes strip off their clothes if they were well dressed, as sometimes they were, and carry off what they could get. But, to return to the markets; the butchers took that care, that, if any person died in the market, they had the officers always at hand, to take them up upon hand-barrows, and carry’them to the next churchyard; and this was so frequent, that such were not entered in the weekly bill, found dead in the streets or fields, as is "the case now, but they went into the general articles of the great distemper. But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a degree, that even the markets were but very thinly furnished with provisions, or frequented with buyers, compared to what they were before ; and the lord mayor caused the country people who brought provisions, to be stopped in the streets leading into the town, and to sit down there with their goods, where they sold what they brought, and went immediately away; and this encouraged the country people greatly to do so, for they sold their provisions at the very entrances into the town, and even in the fields; as particularly, in the fields beyond Whitechapel, in Spitalfields. Note, those streets, now called Spit- alfields, were then indeed open fields: also, in St. George’s Fields. in ay 66 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Southwark; in Bunbill-Fields, and in a great field, called Wood’s Close, near Islington; thither the lord mayor, aldermen, and magis- trates, sent their officers and servants to buy for their families, them- selves keeping within doors as mnch as possible, and the like did many other people! and after this method was taken, the country people came with great cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very seldom got any harm; which I suppose added also to that report, of their being miraculously preserved. As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a store of bread, butter, cheese and beer, I took my friend and physician’s advice, and locked myself up, and my family, and resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without flesh meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our lives. But, though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though I generally came frighted and terrified home, yet I could not re- strain; only, that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at first. I had some little obligations indeed upon me, to go to my brother’s house, which was in Coleman-street parish, and which he had left to my care; andI went at first every day, but afterwards only once or twice a week. _ In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes; as, par- ticularly, of persons fallng dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and sereechings of women, who in their agonies, would throw open their chamber windows, and cry out in a dismal surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of postures in which the pas- sions of the poor people would express themselves. Passing through Token House Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a ~ casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, Oh! death, death, death! in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror, and a chillness in my very bloode There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another; soI went on to pass into Bell Alley. Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at the window, but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I could THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 67 hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like dis- tracted, when a garret window opened, and somebody from a win- dow on the other side the alley called and asked, What is the matter? Upon which, from the first window it was answered, O Lord, my old master has hanged himself! The other asked again, Is he quite dead? and the first answered, Ay, ay, quite dead: quite dead and cold! This person was a merchant, and a deputy alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention his name, though I knew his name too; but that would be a hardship to the family, which is now flourishing again. <7 But this is but one. It is scarce credible what dreadful cases | happened in particular families every day; people, in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was indeed in- tolerable, running out of their own government, raving and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing them- selves out at their windows, shooting themselves, etc. Mothers mur- dering their own children, in their lunacy some dying of mere grief, as a passion; some of mere fright and surprise, without any infec- tion at all; others frightened into idiotism and foolish distractions ; some into despair and lunacy; others into melancholy madness, The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to ~ some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some grew hard, and they applied violent drawing plasters, or poultices, to break them; and if these did not do, they cut and scarified them in a terrible manner. In some, those swellings were made hard, partly by the force of the distemper, and partly by their being too violently drawn, and were so hard, that no instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some in the very operation. In these distresses, some for want of help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid hands upon themselves, as above; some broke out into the streets, perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river, if they were not stopped by the watch- men, or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water, where- ever they found it. It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of those who were thus tormented: but of the two this was counted the 68 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. most promising particular in the whole infection; for if these swel- lings could be brought to a head, and to break and run, or as the surgeons call it to digest, the patient generally recovered ; whereas, those who, like the gentlewoman’s daughter, were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come out upon them, of- ten went about indifferently easy, till a little before they died, and some till the moment they dropt down, as, in apoplexies and epilep- sies, is often the case. Such would be taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses, if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning, and as it were go away in a dream, ; such as died thus had very little notice of their being infected at all, till the gan- grene was spread through their whole body, nor could physicians them- selves know certainly how it was with them, till they opened their breasts or other parts of their body, and saw the tokens. (a “We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of : nurses and watchmen, who looked after the dying people, that is to i say, hired nurses who attended infected people, using them bar- | barously, starving them, smothering them, or by other wicked means, } hastening their end—that is to say, murdering ofthem. And watch- / men being set to guard houses that were shut up, when there has been | ' but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick, that they have broke in and murdered that body, and immediately thrown them out into the dead-cart and so they have gone scarce cold to the grave. I cannot say but that some such murders were committed and I think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times, were executed for murders of that kind. But Imust say I believe nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been pleased to say ; nor did it seem to be so rational, where the people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves, for such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to commit a murder; at least not equal to the fact, where they were sure persons would die in so short a time, and could not live. That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices committed even in this dreadful time, I do not deny; the power of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 69 avarice was so strong in some, that they would run any hazard to steal and to plunder; and particularly, in houses where all the families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out, they would break in at all hazards, and without regard to the danger of infection take even the clothes off the dead bodies, and the bed clothes from others, where they lay dead. This I suppose must be the case of a family in Houndsditch, where aman and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark naked, one in one chamber, and one'in another, lying dead on the floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence it is supposed they were rolled off, by thieves, stolen and carried quite away. It is, indeed, to be observed, that the women were, in all this calamity, the most rash, fearless, and desperate creatures; and as there were vast numbers that went about as nurses, to tend those that were sick, they committed a great many petty thieveries in the houses were they were employed; and some ot them were publicly whipt for it, when, perhaps they ought rather to have been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on these occasions, till, at length, the parish officers were sent to recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account of who it was they sent, so as that they might call them to account, if the house had been abused where they were placed. But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing clothes, linen, and what rings or money they could come at, when the person died who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses, who, several years after being on her death-bed, confessed with the utmost horror, the robberies she had committed at the time of her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a great degree; butas for murders, I do not find that there was ever any proof of the fact, in the manner as it has been reported, except as above. They did tell me, indeed, of a nurse in one place, that laid a wet cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so put an end to his life, who was just expiring before; and another that smothered a young woman she was looking to, when she was in a fainting fit, and would have come to herself; some that killed them by giving them one thing, some another, and some starved them by 70 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. giving them nothing at all. But these stories had two marks of sus- picion that always attended them, which caused me always to slight them and look on them as mere stories, that people continually frighted one another with. (1.) That, wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at the farther end of the town, opposite, or most remote from where you were te hear it. If you heard it in Whitechapel, it had happened at St. Giles’s, or at West- minster, or Holborn, or that end of the town; if you heard it at that end of the town, then it was done in Whitechapel, or the Minories, or about Cripplegate parish ; if you heard of it in the city, why then it happened in Southwark; and if you heard of it in Southwark, then it was done in the city, and the like. In the next place, of whatsoever part you heard the story, the par- ticulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet double clout on a dying man’s face, and that of smothering a young gentle- woman; so that it was apparent, at least to my judgment, that there was more of tale than of truth in those things. A neighbor and acquaintance of mine having some money owing to him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross street, or thereabouts, sent his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavor to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut, knocked pretty hard, and, as he thought, heard somebody answer within, but was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay, knocked again, and then a third time, when he heard somebody coming down stairs. At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his breeches, or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no stockings, a pair of slip shoes, a white cap on his head, and, as the young man said, death in his face. ‘When he opened the door, says he, What do you disturb me thus for? The boy, though a little surprised, replied, I come from such a one, and my master sent me for the money which he says you know of. Very well, child, returns the living ghost, call as you go by, at Cripplegate church, and bid them ring the bell; and, with these words, shut the door again, and went up again and died the same day, nay, perhaps the same hour. This the young man told me himself, and I have reason to believe it. This was while the plague was not come to a height ; I think it was in June, towards the latter end of the month ; it must have been before the dead-carts came about, and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 71 while they used the ceremony of ringing the bell for the dead, which was over for certain in that parish, at least before the month of July ; for, by the 25th of July, there died five hundred and fifty and upwards in a week, and then they could no more bury in form rich, or poor. T have mentioned above, that notwithstanding this dreadful calam- ity, yet that numbers of thieves were abroad upon all occasions, where they had found any prey; and that these were generally women. It was one morning about eleven o’clock, I had walked out to my brother’s house in Coleman street parish, as I often did, to see that all was safe. My brother’s house had a little court before it, and a brick wall and a gate in it; and within that, several warehouses, where his goods of several sorts lay. It happened, that in one of these ware- houses were several packs of womans’ high-crowned hats, which came out of the country, and were, as I suppose, for exportation ; whither I know not. I was surprised, that when J came near my brother’s door, which was in a place they called Swan Ally, I met three or four women, with high-crowned hats on their heads, and, as I remembered after- wards, one if not more, had some hats likewise in their hands; but as I did not see them come out at my brother’s door, and not know- ing that my brother had any such goods in his warehouse, I did not offer to say anything to them, but went across the way to shun meet- ing them, as was usual to do at that time, for fear of the plague ; but when I came nearer to the gate J met another woman, with more hats, coming out of the gate. What business, mistress, said I, have you had there? There are more people there, said she; I have had no more business there than they. I was hasty to get to the gate then, and said no more to her; by which means she got away. But, just as I came to the gate, I saw two more coming across the yard, to come out, with hats also on their heads, and under their arms; at which I threw the gate too behind me, which having a spring- lock fastened itself; and, turning to the women, Forsooth, said I, what are you doing here? and seized upon the hats and took them from them. One of them, who, I confess, did not look like a thief, Indeed, says she, we are wrong; but we were told they were goods that had no owner; be pleased to take them again, and look yonder, 12 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. there are more such customers as we. She cried, and looked piti- fully; so I took the hats from her, and opened the gate, and bade them be gone; for I pitied the women indeed: but when I looked towards the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, all women, fitting themselves with hats, as unconcerned and quiet as if they had been at a hatter’s shop buying for their money. I was surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at the circumstances J was in; being now to thrust myself in among so many people, who, for some weeks, J had been so shy of myself, that if I met anybody in the street, I would cross the way from them. They were equally surprised, though on another account. They all told me they were neighbors, that they had heard any one might take them, that they were nobody’s goods, and the like. I talked big to them at first, went back to the gate, and took out the key, so that they were all my prisoners; threatened to lock them all into the warehouse, and go and fetch my lord mayor's officers for them. They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, and the warehouse door open, and that it had no doubt been broken open by some who expected to find goods of greater value; which, indeed, was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and ‘not abundance of the hats carried away. At length I considered, that this was not a time to be cruel and rigorous; and besides that, it would necessarily oblige me to go much about, to have several people to come to me, and I go to several, whose circumstances of health I knew nothing of; and that, even at this time, the plague was so high, as that there died four thousand a week; so that, in showing my resentment, or even in seeking justice for.my brother’s goods, I might lose my own life; so I contented myself with taking the names and places where some of them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighborhood, and threatening, that my brother should call them to an account for it when he re- turned to his habitation. Then I talked a little upon another footing with them ; and asked them how they could do such things as these, in a time of such gen- eral calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God’s most dreadful judg- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 13 ments, when the plague was at their very doors, and, it may be in their very houses; and they did not know but that the dead-cart might stop at their doors in a few hours, to carry them to their graves. I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of the neighborhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my brother (for they had been both dependants upon his family), and they came to my assistance. These being, as I said, neighbors, presently knew three of the women, and told me who they were, and where they lived ; and, it seems, they had given me a true account of themselves before. This brings these two men to a farther remembrance. The name of one was John Hayward, who was at that time under-sexton of the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman street; by under-sexton was under- stood at that time grave-digger and bearer of the dead. This man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves, which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in form; and after that form of burying was stopt, went with the dead-cart and the bell, to fetch the dead bodies from the houses were they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and houses; for the parish was, and is, still remarkable, particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very long way, which alleys now remain to witness it; such as White’s Alley, Cross Keys Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of handbarrow, and laid the dead bodies on, and carried them out to the carts; which work he performed, and never had the distemper at-all: lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death. His wife at the same time was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers; yet she never was infected either. He never used any preservative against the infection other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco; this I also had from his own mouth; and his wife’s remedy was washing her head in vinegar, and sprinkling her head-clothes so with vinegar, as to keep them always moist; and if the smell of any of those. she 4 44 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed vinegar up her nose, and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes, and held 2 handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth. It must be confessed, that, though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage. I must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion or prudence ; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any business which they could get any employment in, though it was the most hazardous; such was that of tending the sick, watching houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pesthouse, and, which was still worse, carry- ing the dead away to their graves. It was under this John Hayward’s care, and within his bounds, that the story of the piper, with which people have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and usually went his rounds about ten o’clock at night, and went piping along from door to doer, and the people usually took him in at public-houses where they know him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings ; and he in return would pipe and sing, and talk simply, which divert- ed the people, and thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion, while things were as I have told, yet the pcor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved; and when sybody asked him how he did, he would answer, the dead-cart had rot taken him yet, but that they had promised to call for him next ¢ eek. It happened one night, that this poor fellow, whether somebody had given him too much drink or no (John Hayward said he had not drink in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals than ordinay at a public-house in Coleman stréet,) and the poor fellow having not usually had a bellyful, or, perhaps, not a good while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and fast asleep at a door, in the street near London Wall, towards Cripplegate, and that, upon the same bulk or stall, the people of some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing a bell, which they always rung be- fore the cart came, had laid a body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking too that this poor fellow had been a dead body as the other was, and laid there by some of the neighbors. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 75 Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with the instrument they used, and threw them into the cart; and all this while the piper slept soundly. From hence they passed along, and took in other dead bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart, yet all this while he slept soundly; at length the cart came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mountmill; and, as the cart usually stopt some time before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart stopt, the fellow awaked, and struggled a little to get his head out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the cart, he called out, Hey, whereamI? This frighted the fellow that attended about the work, but, after some pause, John Hayward recovering himself, said, Lord bless us! there’s somebody in the cart not quite dead! So another called to him and said, Who are you? The fellow answered, I am the poor piper: Wheream I? Where are you! saysHayward; why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you. ButI an’t dead though, am I? says the piper; which made them laugh a lit- tle, though, as John said, they were heartily frightened at first; so they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about his business. I know the story goes, he set up his pipes in the cart, and frighted the bearers and others, so that they ran away; but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all; but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above, I am fully satisfied of the truth of. It is to be noted here, that the dead-carts in the city were not confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through several parishes, according as the number of dead presented ; nor were they tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes, but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the burrying ground in tlie out- parts for want.of room. At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but that the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said, all that had friends or estates in the country retired with their fami- lies, and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be nobody lett 6 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, behind, you may be sure, from that hour, all trade except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were, at a full stop. This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the real con- dition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular in it; and, therefore, I descend to the several arrangements or classes of people who fell into immediate distress upon this occasion. For ex- ample, 1. All master workmen in manufactures; especially such as be- longed to ornament, and the less necessary parts of the people’s dress, clothes and furniture for houses; such as riband weavers and other weavers, gold and silver lace makers, and gold and silver wire drawers, seamstresses, milliners, shoemakers, hat-makers, and glove- makers; also upholsterers, joiners, cabinet-makers, looking-glass- makers, and innumerable trades which depend upon such as these. I say, the master workmen in such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen, and all their dependents. 2. As merchandizing was at a full stop (for very few ships ven- tured to come up the river, and none at all went out), so all the ex- traordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen, carmen, porters, and all the poor whose labor depended upon the merchants, were at once dismissed, and put out of business. 8. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of houses were at a fullstop, for the people were far from wanting to build houses, when so many thousand houses were at once stript of their inhabitants; so that this one article turned out all the ordinary workmen of that kind of business, such as bricklayers, masons, car- penters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and all the laborers depending on such. 4. As navigation was at astop; our ships neither coming in or going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and with the sedmen, were all the several tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of ships; such as ship-carpenters, calkers, rope-makers, dry coopers, sail-makers, anchor-smiths and other smiths; block-makers, carvers, gun-smiths, ship-chandlers, ship-carvers, and the like. The masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance, but the traders were uni- versally at astop, and consequently all their workmen discharged. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. qT Add to these, that the river was in a manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen, lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter- builders, in like manner idle, and laid by. 5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as well those that fled as those that stayed; so that an innumerable mul- titude of footmen, serving men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants’ book-keepers, and such sort of people, and especially poor maid-ser- vants, were turned off, and left friendless and helpless without em- ployment and without habitation ; and this was really a disizal arti- cle. Imight be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to mention, in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased, the labor, and by that, the bread of the poor, was cut off; and at first, indeed, the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear; though, by the distribution of charity, their misery that way was greatly abated. Many, indeed, fled into the country; but thousands of them having stayed in London, till nothing but desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and they served for no bet- ter than the messengers of death; indeed, others carrying the infec- tion along with them, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom. The women and servants that were turned off from their places were employed as nurses to tend the sick in all places; and this took off a very great number of them. And which, though a melancholy article in itself, yet was a deliv- erance in its kind, namely, the plague, which raged in a dreadful manner from the middle of August to the middle of October, carried off in that time thirty or forty thousand of these very people, which, had they been left, would certainly have been an insufferable burden, by their poverty; that is to say, the whole city could not have sup- ported the expense of them, or have provided food for them; and they would in time, have been even driven to the necessity of plunder- ing either the city itself, or the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves, which would, first or last, have put the whole nation, as well as the city, into the utmost terror and confusion. It was observable then, that this calamity of the people made them very humble; for now, for about nine weeks together, there died near a thousand a day, one day with another; even by the account 18 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. of the weekly bills, which yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full account by many thousands; the confusion being such, and the carts working in the dark when they carried the dead, that in some places no account at all was kept, but they worked on; the clerks and sextons not attending for weeks together, and not know- ing what number they carried. The account is verified by the fol- lowing bills of mortality. Of all Diseases. Of the Plague. Aug. 8 to Aug. 15...........- B89 ow cases culpa 3880 _ TO 22s scarswiaceiacete 5668 ra ccrraraneae 4237 - LO Zosscst dere dane TAG secs cistare seiatere 6102 From Aug. 29 to Sept. 5.........06- B25 Discs ersten 6988 - $0: D2 iii senistersisieusss MOOD tararsyainss:stesnre's 6544 - 10 Dian vareoes B29 sien serhaaae de 7165 _ to BO... .ceeaaee C100 es enianenes 5533 Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.........06. O7sGya caae nune oe 4929 _- 10 Osea aaa 50GB sie swam wales 4227 59,918 49,605 So that the gross. of the people were carried off in these two months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of the plague was but 68,590, here is fifty thousand of them, within a trifle, in two months; I say fifty thousand, because as there wants 895 in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the account of time. Now, when I say that the parish officers did not give ina full account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts were to be given in; I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior officers; for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the common calamity; especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had, within the year 115 sextons, grave- diggers, and their assistants, that is to say, bearers, bell-men, and drivers of carts for carrying off the dead bodies. Indeed the work was not of such a nature as to allow them leisure to take an exact tale of the dead bodies, which were all huddled THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 59 together, in the dark, into a pit; which pit, or trench, no man could come nigh but at the utmost peril. I have observed often, that in the parishes of Aldgate, Cripplegate, Whitechapel, and Step- ney, there were five, six, seven, and eight hundred in a week in the bills ; whereas, if we may believe the opinion of those that lived in the city all the time, as well as I, there died sometimes two thousand a week in those parishes; and I saw it under the hand of one that made as strict an examination as he could, that there really died a hundred thousand people of the plague in it that one year; whereas, in the bills, the articles of the plague was but 68,590. If I may be allowed to give my opinion, but what I saw with my eyes, and heard from other people that were eye-witnesses, I do verily believe the same, viz., that there died, at least, a hundred thou- sand of the plague only, besides other distempers; and besides those which died in the fields and highways, and secret places, out of the compass of the communication, as it was called, and who were not put down in the bills, though they really belonged to the body of the inhabitants. It was known to us all, that abundance of poor despair- ing creatures, who had the distemper upon them, and were grown stupid or melancholy by their misery, as many were, wandered away into the fields and woods, and into seeret uncouth places, almost any- where, to creep into a bush or hedge, and die. The inhabitants of the villages adjacent, would, in pity, carry them food, and set it at a distance, that they might fetch it if they were able, and sometimes they were not able; and the next time they went, they would find the poor wretches lie dead, and the food untouched. The number of these miserable objects were many; and I know so many that perished thus, and so exactly where, that I believe I could go to the very place and dig their bones up still; for the country people would go and dig a hole ata distance from them, and then, with long poles and hooks at the end of them, drag the bodies into these pits, and then throw the earth in form, as far as they could cast it, to cover them; taking notice how the wind blew, and so come on that side which the seamen call to windward, that the scent of the bodies might blow from them. And thus great numbers went out of the world who were never known, or any account of them taken, as well within the bills of mortality as without. 80 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. This, indeed, I had, in the main, only from the relation of others: for I seldom walked into the fields, except towards Bethnal Green and Hackney ; or as hereafter. But when I did walk, I always saw a great many poor wanderers at a distance, but I could know little of their cases; for, whether it were in the street or in the fields, if we had seen anybody coming, it was a general method to walk away ; yet I believe the account is exactly true. As this puts me upon mentioning my walking the streets and fields, I cannot omit taking notice what a desolate place the city was at that time. The great street I lived in, which is known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of London, I mean of the suburbs as well as the liberties, all the side where the butchers lived, especially without the Bars, was more like a green field than a paved street, and the people generally went in the middle with the horses and carts. It is true, that the farthest end, towards Whitechapel church was not all paved, but even the part that was paved was full of grass also; but this need not seem strange, since the great streets within the city, such as Leadenhall street, Bishopsgate street, Corn- hill, and even the Exchange itself, had grass growing in them in sey- eral places; neither cart nor coach was seen in the streets from morning to evening, except some country carts to bring roots and beans, or peas, hay, and straw, to the market, and those but very few compared to what was usual. As for coaches, they were scarce used but to carry sick people to the pesthouse and to other hospitals and some few to carry physicians to such places as they thought fit to venture to visit ; for really coaches were dangerous things, and people did not care to venture into them, because they did not know who might have been carried in them last; and sick infected people were, as I have said, ordinarily carried in them to the pesthouses, and sometimes people expired in them as they went along. It is true, when the infection came to such a height as I have now mentioned, there were very few physicians who cared to stir abroad to sick houses, and very many of the most eminent of the faculty were dead, as well the as surgeons also; for now it was indeed a dis- mal time, and for about a month together, not taking any notice of the bills of mortality, I believe there did not die less than fifteen or seventeen hundred a day one day with another. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 81 One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I thought was in the beginning of September; when indeed, good people were beginning to think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in this miserable city. This was at that time when the plague was fully come into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if I may give my opinion, buried above one thousand a week for two weeks, though the bills did not say so many; but it surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there was not a house in twenty uninfected. In the Minories in Houndsditch, and in those parts of Aldgate parish about the Butcher-row, and the alleys over-against me, I say in those places, death reigned in every corner. Whitechapel parish was in the same condition, and though much less than the parish I lived in, yet buried near six hundred a week, by the bills, and in my opinion, near twice as many; whole families, and, indeed, whole streets of families, were swept away together; insomuch, that it was frequent for neighbors to call to the bellman to go to such and such houses and fetch out the people, for that they were all dead And indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was now grown so very odious and dangerous, that it was complained of that the bearers did not take care to clear such houses where all the inhabitants were dead, but that some of the bodies lay unburied, till the neighboring families were offended by the stench and conse- quently infected. And this neglect of the officers was such, that the churchwardens and constables were summoned to look after it; and even the justices of the hamlets were obliged to venture their lives among them to quicken and encourage them; for innu- merable of the bearers died of the distemper, infected by the bodies they were obliged to come so near; and had it not been that the number of people who wanted employment and wanted bread, as I have said before, was so great, that necessity drove them to under- take anything, and venture anything, they would never have found people to be employed; and then the bodies of the dead would have lain above ground and have perished and rotted in a dreadful manner. But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in this, that they kept such good order for the burying of the dead, that as fast as any of those they employed to carry off and bury the dead, fel: sick or died, as was many times a case, they immediately supplied 82 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. the places with others, which by reason of the great number of poor that was left out of business, as above, was not hard to do. This oc- casioned that, nowithstanding the infinite number of people which died, and were sick, almost all together, yet they were always cleared away, and carried off every night; so that it was never to be said of London, that the living were not able to bury the dead. As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the amazement of the people increased; and a thousand unaccountable things they would do in the violence of their fright, as others did the same in the agonies of their distemper ; and this part was very affect- ing. Some went roaring, and crying, and wringing their hands along the street; some would go praying and lifting up their hands to heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say, indeed, whether this was not in their distraction; but, be it so, it was still an in- dication of a more serious mind, when they had the use. of their senses, and was much better, even as it was, than the frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and especially in the evenings, where heard in some streets. I suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast; he, though not infec- ted at all, but in his head, went about, denouncing of judgment upon the city in a frightful manner; sometimes quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his head. What he said or pretended, indeed, I could not learn. I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or not, or whether he did it out of pure zeal for the poor people, who went every evening through the streets of Whitechapel, and, with his hands lifted up, repeated that part of the liturgy of the church, continually, Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood ; I say, I cannot speak positively of these things, because these were only the dismal objects which represented themselves to me as I looked through my chamber windows, for I seldom opened the casements, while I confined myself within doors during that most violent raging of the pestilence, when, indeed, many began to think, and even to say; that there would none escape; and indeed, I began to think so too, and, therefore, kept within doors for about a fortnight, and never stirred out. But I could not hold it. Besides, there were some people, who, notwithstanding the danger, did not omit publicly to attend the worship of God, even in the most THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. * 83 dangerous times. And though it is true that a great many of the clergy did shut up their churches, and fled, as other people did, for the safety of their lives, yet all did not do so; some ventured to officiate, and to keep up the assemblies of the people by constant prayers, and sometimes sermons or brief exhortions to repentance and reformation; and this as long as they would hear them. And dissenters did the like also, and even in the very churches where the parish ministers were either dead or fled; nor was there any room for making any difference at such a time-as this was. It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty and sound in health, but very impatient of being pent up within doors, without air, as I had been for fourteen days or thereabouts; and I could not restrain myself, but I would go and carry a letter for my brother to the post-house: then it was, indeed, that I observed a profound si- lence in the streets. When I came to the post-house, as I went to put in in my letter, I saw a man stand in one corner of the yard, and talking to another at a window, and a third had opened a door be- longing to the office. In the middle of the yard lay a small leather purse, with two keys hanging at it, with money in it, but nobody would meddle with it. JI asked how long it had lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an hour, but they had not med- dled with it, because they did not know but the person who dropt it might come back to look for it. I had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big, that I had any inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money at the hazard it might be attended with; so I seem- ed to go away, when the man who had opened the door said he would take it up; but so, that if the right owner came for it he should be sure to have it. So he went in and fetched a pail of water, and set it down hard by the purse, then went again and fetched some gun- powder, and cast a good deal of powder upon the purse, and then made a train from that which he had thrown loose upon the purse, the train reached about two yards; after this he goes in a third time, and fetches out a pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I suppose, on purpose; and first setting fire to the train of powder, that singed the purse, and also smoked the air suficiently. But he was not content with that, but he then takes up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the tongs burnt through the purse, anc. then he shook the money out into the pail of water, so he carried it 84 ’ HE PLAGUE IN LONDON. in. The money, as I remember, was about thirteen shillings, and some smooth groats and brass farthings. Much about the same time, I walked out into the fields towards Bow; for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river, and among the ships; and asI had some concern in ship- ping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of secur- ing one’s self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking water. “Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked awhile also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk, at a distance with this poor man. First I asked how people did thereabouts? Alas! sir, says he, almost desolate, all dead or sick: here are very few families in this part, or in that village, pointing at Poplar, where half of them are not dead already and the rest sick. Then he, pointing to one house, They are all dead, said he, and the house stands open, nobody dares go into it. A poor thief, says he, ventured in to steal some- thing, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the church- yard too, last night. Then he pointed to several other houses. There, says he, they are all dead, the man and his wife and five children. There, says he, they are shut up, you see a watchman at the door; and soof other houses. Why, says J, what do you do here alone? Why, says he, I am a poor desolate man; it hath pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of my children dead. How do you mean then, said I, that you are not visited? Why, says he, that is my house, pointing to a very little low boarded house, and there my poor wife and two children live, said he, if they may be said to live; for my wife and one of the chil- dren are visited, but I dare not come atthem. [And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you. ~ But, said I, why do you not come at them? How can you ws \ don your own flesh and blood? Oh, sir, says he, the Lord forbid; I do not abandon them, I work for them as much as Iam able; and, blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want./ And with that I ob- served he lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that pre- Numoni + cal ek THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 85 sently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want. ‘Well, says I, honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all? Why, sir, says he, I am a waterman, and there is my boat, says he, and the boat serves me for a house; I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night, and what I get Ilay it down upon that stone, says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; and then, says he, I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it. Well, friend, says I, but how can you get money as a waterman? Does anybody go by water these times? ‘Yes, sir, says he, in the way I am employed there does. Do you see there, says he, five ships lie at anchor, pointing down the river a good way below the town; and do you see, says he, eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder, pointing above the town. All those ships have families, on board, of their merchants and owners, and such-like, who have locked _ the: nd live on bo hut in, for fear of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ship’s boats, and there I sleep by myself, and,blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto. ell, said I, friend, but will they let you come on board after you have been on shore here, when this has been such a terrible place, and so infected as it is? : Why, as to that, said he, I very seldom go up the ship side, but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side and they hoist it on board: if I did, I think they are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for them. Nay, says I, but that may be worse, for you must have those pro- visions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the town is so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with anybody; for the village, said I, is as it were the beginning of London, though it be at some distance from it. 86 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. That is true, added he, but you do not understand me right. Ido not buy provisions for them here, I row up to Greenwich, and buy fresh meat there, and sometimes I row down the river to Woolwich and buy there; then I go to single farm houses on the Kentish side, where I am known, and buy fowls, and eggs, and butter, and bring to the ships as they direct me, sometimes one sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore here; and I came only now to call my wife and hear how my little family do, and give them a little money which I received last night. Poor man! said I; and how much has thou gotten for them. I have gotten four shillings, said he, which is a great sum, as things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too, and a salt fish, and some flesh; so all helps out. Well, said I, and have you given it them yet? No, said he, but I have called, and my wife has answered that she cannot come out yet, but in half an hour she hopes to come, and I am waiting for her. Poor woman! says he, she is brought sadly down; she has had a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but I fear the child will die; but it isthe Lord !—Here he stopt, and ee very much. Well, hones ést Triend, said I, thou hast asure comforter, if thou hast ES ae eS EE SS ee a ay nee eee in judgm “Of ir-snyeho- it is ifs meror any ou are spared and who am] to repine! Say’st thou so, said I; and how much less is my faith than thine? And here my heart smote me, suggesting how much better this poor man’s foundation was, on which he stayed in the danger, than mine; that he had nowhere to fly; that he had a family to bind him to at- tendance, which I had not ; and mine was mere presumption, his a | true dependence, and a courage resting on God; and yet, that he \ used all possible caution for his safety. = I turned a little way from the man, while these thoughts engaged me; for, indeed, I could no more refrain from tears than he. a At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the door, and called, Robert, Robert; he answered, and bid her stay a few moments, and he would come: so he ran down the common stairs to his boat, and fetched up a sack in which were the provisions THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 87 he had brought from the ships; and when he returned he hallooed again; then he went to the great stone which he showed me, and emptied the sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and then retired ; and his wife came with a little boy to fetch them away ; and he called, and said, such a captain had sent such a thing, and such a captain such a thing, and at the end adds, God has sent it all, give thanks to him. When the poor woman had taken up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at once in, though the weight was not much neither; so she left the biscuit which was in a little bag, and left a little boy to watch it till she came again. Well, but, says I to him, did you leave her the four shillings too, which you said was your week’s pay ? Yes, yes, says he, you shall hear her own it. So he calls again, Rachel, Rachel, which it seems was her name, did you take up the money? Yes,said she. How much was it? said he. Four shillings and a groat, said she. Well, well, says he, the Lord keep-you all ; and so he turned to go away. As I could not refrain from contributing tears to this man’s story, so neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance; so I called him, Hark thee, friend, said I, come hither, for I believe thou art in health, that I may venture thee; so I pulled out my hand which was in my pocket before, Here, says I, go and call thy Rachel once more and give her a little more comfort from me. God will never forsake a family that trusts in him as thou dost; so I gave him four other shillings, and bid him go lay them on the stone, and call his wife. I have not words to express the poor man’s thankfulness, neither could he express it himself but by tears running down his face. He called his wife, and told her God had moved the heart of a stranger upon hearing their condiiion Goerva than al thatniensy, and a great deal more such as that he said to her. The woman, too, made signs of the like thankfulness, as well to Heaven as to me, and joyfully pick ed it up; and I parted with no money all that year that I thought better bestowed. I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached to Greenwich. He said it had not till about a fortnight before, but that then he feared it had; but that it was only at that end of the town which lay south towards Deptford bridge; that he went only to 4 88 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. butcher’s shop and a grocer’s, where he generally bought such things as they sent him for, but was very careful. I asked him then, how it came to pass, that those people who had so shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in sufficient stores of all things necessary? He said some of them had, but, on the other hand, some did not come on board till they were’ frightened into it, and till it was too dangerous for them to go to the proper people to lay in quantities of things, and that he waited on two ships which he showed me, that had laid in little or nothing but biscuit-bread and ship-beer, and that he had bought everything else almost for them, I asked him, if there were any more ships that had separated them- selves as those had done? He told me, Yes, all the way up from the point, right against Greenwich, to within the shores of Limehouse and Redriff, all the ships that could have room rid two and two in the middle of the stream; and that some of them had several fami- lies on board. I asked him if the distemper had not reached them? He said he believed it had not, except two or three ships, whose peo- ple had not been so watchful as to keep the seamen from going on shore as others had been; and he said it was a very fine sight to see how the ships lay up the pool. When he said he was going over to Greenwich, as soon as the tide began to come in, I asked if he would let me go with him and bring me back, for that I had a great mind to see how the ships were rang- ed, as he had told me. He told if I would assure him on the word of a Christian, and of an honest man, that I had not the distemper, he — would. I assured him that I had not; that it had pleased God to preserve me; that I lived in Whitechapel, but was too impatient of being so long within doors, and that I had ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air, but that none in my house had so much as been touched with it. Well, sir, says he, as your charity has been moved to pity me and my poor family, sure you cannot have so little pity left as to put yourself into my boat if you were not sound in health, which would be nothing less than killing me and ruining my whole family. Th poor man troubled meso much when he spoke of his family with such a sensible concern, and in such an affectionate manner, that I could not satisfy myself at first to go at all. I told him, I would lay aside my curiosity, rather than make him uneasy ; though I was sure, and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. ‘ 89 very thankfal for it, that I had no more distemper upon me than the freshest man in the world. Well, he would not have me put it off neither, but, to let me see how confident he was that I was just to him, he now importuned me to go; so, when the tide came up to his boat, I went in, and he carried me to Greenwich. While he bought the things which he had in charge to buy, I walked up to the top of the hill, under which the town stands, and on the east side of the town, to get a prospect of the river; but it was a surprising sight to see the number of ships which lay in rows, two and two, and in some places, two or three such lines in the breadth of the river, and this not only up to the town, between the houses which we call Rat- cliffe and Redriff, which they name the pool, but even down the whole river, as far as the head of Long Reach, which is as far as the hills give us leave to see it. I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think there must have been several hundreds of sail, and I could not but applaud the con- trivance; for ten thousand people and more, who attended ship affairs, were certainly sheltered here from the violence of the con- tagion, and lived very safe and very easy. I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day’s journey, and particularly with the poor man; also, I rejoiced to see that such little sanctuaries were provided for so many families on board, in a time of such desolation. I observed also, that, as the violence of the plague had increased, so the ships which had families on board removed and went farther off, till, as I was told, some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbors and safe roads on the north coast as they could best come at. But it was also true, that all the people who thus left the land, and lived on board the ships, were not entirely safe from the infection; for many died, and were thrown overboard into the river, some in coffins, and some, as I heard, without coffins, whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive up and down, with the tide in the river. But I believe, I may venture to say, that, in those ships which were thus infected, it either happened where the people had recourse to them too late, and did not fly to the ship till they had stayed too long on shore, and. had the distemper upon them, though perhaps they might not perceive it; and’so the distemper did not come to them on board the ships, but they really carried it with them. Oz, 90 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. it was in these ships, where the poor waterman said they had not had time to furnish themselves with provisions, but were obliged to send often on shore to buy what they had occasion for, or suffered boats to come to them from the shore; and so the distemper was brought insensibly among them. And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own de- struction. The plague began, as I have observed, at the other end of the town, namely in Long Acre, Drury Lane, etc., and came on towards the city very gradually and slowly. It was felt, at first in December, then again in February, then again in April, and always but a very little at a time; then it stopped till May, and even the last week in May there were but seventeen in all that end of the town: and all this while even so long as till there died above 3,000 a week, yet had the people of Redriff, and in Wapping, and Ratcliff, on both sides of the river, and almost all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they should not be visited, or, at least, that it would not be so violent among them. Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such other things, as oil, and resin, and brimstone, which is much used by all trades relating to shipping, would preserve them. -Others argued it, because it was in its extremest violence in Westminster, and the parish of St. Giles’s and St. Andrew’s, etc., and began to abate again, before it came among them, which was true, indeed, in part. For example :— From the 8th to the 15th of August. St. Giles’s in the Fields . . . ae a ‘ 3 242 Cripplegate . * . * . . 5 * * 886 Stepney i . . ‘ . a * ¥ 197 St. Mag. Hacmuniagy a . . . . . . 24 Rotherhithe . n # . % ‘ i 5 ‘ 3 Total this week . . . . . * - 1362 From the 15th to the 22d of August. St. Giles’s in the Fields. sw 5 a, Us 175 Cripplegate . . . a % i ‘a $ % 847 Stepney . ‘ . + . y * . 273 St. Mag. Bermeniey . ae eS . . . 36 Rotherhithe . . . . e . . . # 2 Total this week . . ° # . . a 1333 4 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 91 N. B. That it was observed that the numbers mentioned in Step- ney parish at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney parish joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spitalfields, where the parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch churchyard; and the plague at this time was abated at St. Giles’s in the Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch parishes, but there were not ten people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes in Limehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St. Katherine’s, by the Tower, till after the whole month of August was expired; but they paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe by and by. , This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the plague’s going off without reaching them, that they took no care either to fly into the country, or shut themselves up; nay, so far were they from stirring, that they rather received their friends and rela- tions from the city into their houses; and several from other places really took sanctuary in that part of the town, as a place of safety, and as a place which they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest was visited. : And this was the reason, that when it came upon them, they were more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do, than they were in other places, for when it came among them really, and with violence, as it did, indeed, in September and October, there was then no stirring out into the country; nobody would suffer a stranger to come near them, no, nor near the towns where they dwelt; and, as I have been told, several that wandered into the country on the Surrey side, were found starved to death in the woods and commons, that country being more open and more woody than any other part so near London, especially about Norwood, and the parishes of Camberwell, Dulwich, and Lusum, where, it seems nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people for fear of the infection. This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before, that they had recourse to ships for their retreat; and where they did this early, and with prudence, furnishing themselves with provisions, so that they had no need to go on shore for supplies, or suffer boats to come ow 92 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. board to bring them; I say, where they did so, they had certainly the safest retreat of any people whatsoever: but the distress was such that people ran on board in their fright, without, bread to eat; and some into ships that had no men on board, to remove them farther off, or to take the boat and go down the river to buy provisions, where it may be done safely; and these often suffered, and were in- fected on board as much as on shore. As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys, smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats; and many, especially watermen, lay in their boats: but those made sad work of it, especially the lat- ter, for going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsist- ance, the infection got in among them, and made a fearful havoc; many of the watermen died alone in their wherries, as they rid at their roads, as well above bridge as below, and were not found sometimes till they were not in condition for anybody to touch or come near them. Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the town was very, deplorable, and deserved the greatest commiseration ; but, alas! this was a time when every one’s private safety lay so near them, that they had no room to pity the distresses of others ; for every one had death, as it were, at his door, and many even in their families; and knew not what to do, or whither to fly. This, I say, took away all compassion; self-preservation, indeed, appeared here to be the first law. For the children ran away from their parents, as they languished in the utmost distress; and, in some places, though not so frequent as the other, parents did the like to their children; nay, some dreadful examples there were, and partic- ularly two in one week, of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, killing their own children; one whereof was not far off from where I dwelt, the poor lunatic creature not living long enough to be sensi- ble of the sin of what she had done, much less to be punished for it. It is not, indeed, tc be wondered at; for the danger of immediate death to ourselves, took away all bowels of love, all concern for one another. I speak in general; for there were many instances of im- movable affection, pity, and duty, in many, and some that came to my knowledge, that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars. To introduce one, let me first mention, that one of the most de- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 93 plorable cases, in all the present calamity, was that of women with child; who, when they came to the hours of their sorrows, and their pains came npon them, could neither have help of one kind or another ; neither midwife or neighboring women to come near them ; most of the midwives were dead, especially of such as served the poor; and many, if not all, the midwives of note, were fled into the country ; so that it was next to impossible for a poor woman, that could not pay an immoderate price, to get any midwife to come to her; and, if they did, those they could get were generally unskillful and ignorant creatures; and the consequence of this was, that a most unusual and incredible number of women were reduced to the utmost distress. Some were delivered and spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those who pretended to lay them. Children without number, were, I might say, murdered by the same, but a more justifiable igno- rance, pretending they would save the mother whatever became of the child; and many times, both mother and child were lost in the same manner: and especially where the mothers had the distemper, then nobody would come near them, and both sometimes perished. Sometimes the mother has died of the plague; and the infant it may be, half born, or born, but not parted from the mother. Some died in the very pains of their travail, and not delivered at all: and so many were the cases of this kind, that it is hard to judge of them. Something of it will appear in the unusual numbers which are put into the weekly bills (though I am far from allowing them to be able to give anything of a full account), under the articles of childbed, abortive and still-born, chrisoms and infants. Take the weeks in which the plague was most violent, and com- pare them with the weeks before the distemper began, even in the same year. For example: Childbed. Ab. Still-b. { Jan. 3 to Jan. 10.........2000005 W ssa warns ciety Dinca Seesersene 13 | Lol Toa wameneanensdid ee Gi catan ts 1 $0 28y eas cscs aa Qerinasaiecn 5 10 Blesicasicceies teers Decade anette 2 From Jan. 31 to Feb. 7.0... ces eee eeees Bias cates sects 3 2 2 ep Feb. 28to Mar. 7.0... ccc cece ee 48 on np - _ So oS 94 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Childbed. Ab. Still-b. Aug. 1to Aug. 8......00006- D5 saw tietuiace Bi yuneaesinn 1 40. DD parce DBRT a oy Cigna 8 #0: 22 caceeecngcvd DR cons seen sos crsbecrtae 4 fOr 89 sccavetinwes DOS aa saioroces Gh wiaasnics 10 From Aug. 29to Sept. 5..........45 DBs sesmncanied Dl cscaccsitereia 1 0: Diaic eeaenie Be aay ste Dee teeta = £6: 19 acess nanicoeinsy BB croecsesressis Bb ot Ase ldas 17 to: Wb icuccwaste vad 1D steacile ge Gis eones 10 Sept. 26 to Oct. 3..........4- TB ccs cence Me sacces oe 9 291 61 80 To the disparity of these numbers, is to be considered and allow- ed for, that, according to our usual opinion, who were then upon the spot, there were not one-third of the people in the town during the months of August and September, as were in the months of January and February. In aword, the usual number that used to die of these three articles, and, asI hear, did die of them the year before was thus: 1664 Childbed, 189 Abortive and Still-born, 458 647 1565 § Childbed, 625 Abortive and Still-born, 617 1242 This inequality, I say, is exceedingly augmented, when the num- bers of people are considered. I pretend not to make any exact calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in the city ; but I shall make a probable conjecture at that part by and by. What I have said now is to explain the misery of those poor crea- tures above ; so that it might well be said, as in the Scripture, “ Woe be to those who are with child, and to those which give suck in that day ;” for indeed it was a woe to them in particular. I was not conversant in many particular families where these things happened : but the outcries of the miserable were heard afar off. As to those who were with child, we have seen some calculation made, 291 women dead in childbed in nine weeks, out of one-third part of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 95 the number of whom there usually died in that time but eighty-four of the same disaster. Let the reader calculate the proportion. There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck wasin proportion as great. Our bills of mortality could give but lit- tle light in this; yet some it did; there were several more than usual starved at nurse; but this was nothing. The misery was, where they were —First, starved for want of a nurse, the mother dying, and all the family and the infants found dead by them, merely for want; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe, that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this manner. Secondly (not starved but), poisoned by the nurse; nay, even where the mother has been nurse, and having received the infection, has poisoned, that is, infected the infant with her milk, even before they knew they were infected themselves; nay, and the infant has died in such a case before the mother. I cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record, if ever such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city; that all women that are with child, or that give suck, should be gone, if they have any possible means, out of the place; because their misery, if infected will so much exceed all other people’s. I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found sucking the breast of their mothers, or nurses, after they have been dead of the plague. Of a mother, in the parish where I lived, who, having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to view the child, and when he came, as the relation goes, was giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance was herself very well; but when the apothecary came close to her, he saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the child. He was surprised enough to be sure, but not willing.to fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the child into his hand; so he takes the child, and going to a cradle in the room, lays it in, and, opening its clothes, found the tokens upon the child too, and both died before he could get home to send a preventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he had told their condition. ‘Whether the child infected the nurse-mother, or the mother the child, was not certain, but the last most likely. Likewise of a child brought home to the parents from a nurse that had died of the plague; yet the tender mother would not refuse te 96 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. take in her child, and laid it in her bosom, by which she was infect- ed and died, with the child in her arms dead also. It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were frequently found of tender mothers, tending and watching with their dear children, and even dying before them; and sometimes taking the distemper from them, and dying when the child, for whom the affectionate heart had been sacrificed, has got over it and escaped. The like of a tradesman in East Smithfield, whose wife was big with child of her first child, and fell in labor, having the plague upon her. He could neither get midwife to assist her, or nurse to tend her; and two servants which he kept, fled both from her. He ran from house to house like one distracted, but could get no help; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who attended at an in- fected house, shut up, promised to send a nurse in the morning. The poor man, with his heart broke, went back assisted his wife what he could, acted the part of the midwife, brought the child dead into the world; and his wife, in about an hour, died in his arms, where. he held her dead body fast till the morning, when the watchman came, brought the nurse as he had promised ; and coming up the stairs, for ‘ he had left the door open or only latched, they found the man sit- ting with his dead wife in his arms and so overwhelmed with grief, that he died in a few hours after, without any sign of the infection upon him, but merely sunk under the weight of his grief. I have heard also of some, who, on the death of their relations, have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one in particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the presure upon his spirits, that by degrees, his head sunk into his body, between his shoulders, that the crown of his head was little seen above the bone of his shoulders; and by degrees, losing both voice and sense, his face looking forward, lay against his collar-bone, and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up by the hands of other people; and the poor man never came to himself again, but languished near a year in that condition, and died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes, or to look upon any particular object. I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such pas- sages as these, because it was not possible to come at the particulars, where sometimes the whole families, where such things happened, were carried off by the distemper: but there were innumerable cases THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 97 of this kind, which presented to the eye, and the ear, even in pass- ing along the streets, as I have hinted above; nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family, which there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same kind. But as J am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the east- ernmost parts of the town; how for a long time the people of those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did; for, indeed, it came upon them like an armed man when it did come; I say, this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from Wapping, not knowing whither to go, or what to do, and whom I mentioned be- fore; one a biscuit baker, one a sail-maker, and the other a joiner; all of Wapping, or thereabouts. The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was such that they not only did not shift for themselves, as others did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with them; and many people fled out of the city, and out of the infected suburbs to Wap- ping, Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and such places, as to places of security ; and it is not at all unlikely that their doing this helped to bring the plague that way faster than it might otherwise have come. For, though I am much for people’s flying away, and emptying such a town as this, upon the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people, who have any possible retreat, should make use of it in time, and begone; yet I must say, when all that will fly are gone, those that are left, and must stand it, should stand stock still where they are, and not shift from one end of the town, or one part of the town, to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of the whole, and they carry the plague from house to house in their very clothes. Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but be- cause, as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from house to house, and from street to street, so they are capable of carrying the effluvia or infectious steams of bodies infected, even in their furs and hair? and therefore it was, that in the beginning of the infection, an order was published by the lord mayor and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately killed, and an officer was appointed for the execution. 5 98 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. I think they talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times as many cats, a few houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five or six in a house. All possible endeavors were used to destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter by laying rat’s-bane and other poisons for them, and a prodigious multitude of them were also destroyed. I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity upon them, and how it was for want of timely entering into measures and managements, as well public as private, that all the confusions that followed were brought upon us; and that such a prodigious number of people sunk in that disaster, which, if proper steps had been taken, might, Providence concurring, have been avoided, and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a caution and warning from; but I shall come to this part again. I come back to my three men: their story has a moral in every part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women either, if ever such a time comes again; and if there was no other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether my account be ex- actly according to fact or no. Two of them were said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but now a biscuit-baker; the other a lame sailor, but now a sail-maker ; the thirda joiner. Says John, the biscuit-baker, one day to Thomas, his brother, the sail-maker, Brother Tom, what will become of us? the plague grows hot in the city, and increases this way ; what shall we do? Truly, says Thomas, I am at agreat loss what to do, for, I find, if it comes down into Wapping, I shall be turned out of my lodging. And thus they began to talk of it beforehand. John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom! if you are, I don’t know who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another now, there is no getting a lodging anywhere. Tho. Why, the people where I lodge are good civil people, and have kindness for me too; but they say I go abroad every day to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of locking themselves up, and letting nobody come near them. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 99 John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to - =venture staying in town. Tho. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too, for, except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while; there’s no trade stirs now, workmen and servants are turned off every- where, so that I might be glad to be locked up too. But I do not see that they will be willing to consent to that any more than to the other. John. Why, what will you do then, brother? and what shall I do? for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all gone into the country, but a maid, and she is to go next week, and to shut the house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to the wide world before you; and I am resolved to go away too, If I knew but where to go. Tho. We were both distracted we did not go away at first, when we might ha’ travelled anywhere; there is no stirring now; we shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town, they won’t let us ‘have any victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the towns, much less into their houses, John. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to help myself with neither. Tho. As to that, we might make shift; I have a little, though not much; but I tell you there is no stirring on the road. I know a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to travel, and at Barnet, or Whetstone, or thereabout, the people offered to fire at them, if they pretended to go forward; so they are come back again quite discouraged. John. I would have ventured their fire, if I had been there. If I had been denied food for my money, they should have seen me take it before their faces; and if I had tendered money for it, oe could not have taken any course with me by the law. Tho. You talk your old soldier’s language, as if you were in the Low Countries now; but this is a serious thing. The people have good reason to keep anybody off, that they are not satisfied are sound, at such a time as this, and we must not plunder them. John. No, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me too; I would plunder nobody; but for any town upon the road to deny 100 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. me leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve me to death, which cannot be true. Tho. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again from whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you. John. But the next town behind me, will, by the same rule, deny me leave to go back, and so they do starve me between them; be- sides, there is no law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the road. 7 Tho. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing with them at every town on the road, that it is not for poor men to do it, or undertake it, at such a time as this is especially. John. Why, brother, our condition, at this rate, is worse than anybody’s else; for we can neither go away nor stay here. I am of the same mind with the lepers of Samaria, if we stay here, we are sure to die. I mean, especially as you and I are situated, with- out a dwelling-house of our own, and without lodging in anybody’s else; there is no lying in the street at such a time as this, we had as good go into the dead-cart at once. Therefore, I say, if we stay here we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but die; Iam resolved to be gone. Tho. You will go away. Whither will you go? and what can you do? J would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither; but we have no acquaintance, no friends. Here we were born, and here we must die. John. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native country as well as this town. You may as well say, I must not go out of my house if it is on fire, as that I must not go out of the town I was born in, when it is infected with the plague. I was born in Eng- land, and have a right to live in it if I can. Tho. But you know every vagrant person may, by the laws of England be taken up, and passed back to their last legal settlement. John. But how shall they make me vagrant? I desire only to travel upon my lawful occasions, Tho. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather wander upon? They will not be put off with words. John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion? and do they not all know that the fact is true? we cannot be said to dissemble. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 101 Tho. But, suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go? John. Anywhere to save our lives; it is time enough to consider that when we are got out of this town. If I am once out of this dreadful place, I care not where I go. Tho. We shall be driven to great extremities. . I know not what to think of it. Tht yeete a ee hae id’ ttle. Vicon cosiderobea tials) Of ive “Ome” This was about the beginning of July; and though the plague was come forward in the west and north parts of the town, yet all Wap- ping, as I have observed before, and Redriff, and Ratcliff, and Lime- house, and Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich, both sides of the river from the Hermitage, and from over-against it, quite down to Blackwall, was entirely free; there had not one person died of the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on the south side of White- chapel Rroad, no, not in any parish ; and yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1,006. It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again, and then the case was a little altered, and the plague was exceedingly advanced, and the number greatly increased. The bill was up at 2,785, and prodigiously increasing ; though still both sides of the river as below, kept pretty well. But some began to die in Redriff, and about five or six in Ratcliff Highway, when the sailmaker came to his brother John, express, and in some fright; for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging, and had only a week to provide himself. His brother John was in as bad a case, for he was quite out; and had only begged leave.of his master, the biscuit-baker, tolodge in an outhouse belonging to his workhouse, where he only lay upon straw, with some biscuit-sacks, or bread-sacks, as they called them, laid upon it, and some of the same sacks to cover hin. ; Here they resolved, seeing-all employment being at an end, and no work or wages to be had, they would make the best of their way to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection; and being as good husbandgas they could, would endeavor to live upon what they had as long as it would last, and then work for more, if they could get work anywhere of any kind, let it be what it would. While they were considering to put this resolution in practice in the best manner they could, the third man, who was acquainted very 102 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. well with the sail-maker, came to know of the design, and got leave to be one of the number: and thus they prepared to set out. It happened that they had not an equal share of money ; but as the sail-maker, who had the best stock, was, besides his being lame, the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the country, 50 he was content that what money they had should all go into one public stock, on condition that whatever any one of them could gain more than another, it should, without any grudging, be all add- ed to the public stock. They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as possible, because they resolved at first to travel on foot, and to go a great way, that they might, if possible, be effectually safe. And a great many consultations they had with themselves before they could agree about what way they should travel; which they were so far from adjust- ing, that even to the morning they set out they were not resolved on it. At last, the seaman put in a hint that determined it. First, says he, the weather is very hot, and, therefore, I am for travelling north, that we may not have the sun upon our faces and beating upon our breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I have been told, says he, that it is not good to overheat our blood at a time when, for aught we know, the infection may be in the very air. In the next place, says he, Iam for going the way that may be contrary to the wind as it may blow when we set out, that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on our backs as we go. These two cautions were approved of, if it could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the south when they set out to go north. John, the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his opinion. First, says he, we none of us expect to get any lodging on the road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open air; though it may be warm weather, yet it may be wet and damp, and we have a double reason to take care of our healths at such a time as this; and, therefore, says he, you, brother Tom, that are a sail-maker, might easily make us a little tent, and I will undertake to set it every night, and take it down, and a fig for all the inns in England; if we have a good tent over our heads, we shall do well enough. The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to him; he would undertake to build them a house every night with his THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 103 natchet and mallet, though he had no other toois, which should be fully to their satisfaction, and as good as a tent. The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at last, the soldier carried it for a tent; the only objection against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that would increase their baggage too much, the weather being hot. But the sail-maker had a piece of good hap fall in, which made that easy; for his master who he worked for, having a rope-walk as well as sail-making trade, had a poor little horse that he made no use of then, and being will- ing to assist the three honest men, he gave them the horse for the carrying their bggage; also, for a small matter of three days’ work that his man did for him before he went, he let him have an old top- gallant. sail that was worn out, but was sufficient, and more than enough, to make a very good tent. The soldier showed how to shape it, and they soon, by his direction, made their tent, and fitted it with poles or staves for the purpose, and thus they were furnished for their journey ; viz., three men, one tent, one horse, one gun for the soldier, who would not go without arms, for now he said he was no more a biscuit-baker but a trooper. The joiner had a small bag of tools, such as might be useful, if he should get any work abroad, as well for their subsistence as his own. What money they had, they brought all into one public stock ; and thus they began their journey. It seems that in the morning, when they set out, the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his pocket-compass, at N. W. by W.; so they directed, or rather resolved to direct, their course N. W. But then a difficulty came in their way, that as they set out from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, and that the plague was now very violent, especially on the north side of the city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate parish, they did not think it safe for them to go near those parts; so they went away east through Rat- cliff-Highway, as far as Ratcliff Cross, and leaving Stepney church still on their left hand, being afraid to come up from Ratcliff-Cross to Mile-End, because they must come just by the churchyard; and because the wind, that seemed to blow more from the west, blowed directly from the side of the city where the plague was hottest. So, I say, leaving Stepney, they fetched a long compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into the great road just at Bow. Here the watch placed upon Bow-Bridge would have questioned 104 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. them ; but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of the higher end of the town of Bow, to Oldford, avoided any inquiry there, and travelled on to Oldford. The constables, every- where were upon their guard, not so much it seems to stop people passing by, as to stop them from taking up their abode in their towns ; and, withal, because of a report that was newly raised at that time, and that indeed was not very improbable, viz., that the poor people in London, being distressed, and starved for want of work, and, by that means, for want of bread, were up in arms, and had raised a tumult, and that they would come out to all the towns round to plunder for bread. This I say, was only a rumor, and it was very well it was no more; but it was not so far off from being a reality as it has been thought, for in a few weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity they suffered, that they were with great difficulty kept from running out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces wherever they came; and as I have observed before, nothing hindered them but that the plague raged so violently, and fell in upon them so furiously, that they rather went to the grave by thousands than into the fields in mobs by thousands ; for in the parts about the parishes of St. Sepulchre’s, Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, which were the places where the mob began to threaten, the distemper came on so furiously that there died in those few parishes, even then, before the plague was come to its height, no less than 5,361 people in the first three weeks in August, when, at the same time, the parts about Wapping, Ratcliff, and Rotherhithe were, as before described, hardly touched, or but very lightly; so that, in a word, though, as I said before, the good management of the lord mayor and justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of the people from break- ing out in rabbles and tumults, and, in short, from the poor plunder- ing the rich; I say, though they did much, the dead-cart did more, for, as I have said, that, in five parishes only, there died above 5,000 in twenty days, so there might be probably three times that number sick all that time, for some recovered, and great numbers fell sick every day, and died afterwards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say, that if the bills of mortality said five thousand I always believed it was twice as many in reality, there being no room to believe that the account they gave was right, or that, indeed, they were, among THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 105 such confusions as I saw them in, in any condition to keep an exact account, But to return to my travellers :—-Here they were only examined, and as they seemed rather coming” from the country than from the city, they found the people easier with them;.that they talked to them, let them come into a public-house, where the constable and his warders were, and gave them drink and some victuals, which greatly refreshed and encouraged them; and here it came into their heads to say, when they should be inquired of afterwards, not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex. To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much favor of the constable at Oldford, as to give them a certificate of their passing from Essex through that village, and that they had not been at Lon- don; which, though false in the common acceptation of London in the country, yet was literally true; Wapping or Ratcliff being no part either of the city or liberty. This certificate, directed to the next constable, that was at Homer- ‘ton, one of the hamlets of the parish of Hackney, was so serviceable to them, that it procured them not a free passage there only, but a full certificate of health from a justice of the peace; who, upon the constable’s application, granted.it without much difficulty. And thus they passed through the long divided town of Hackney (for it lay then in several separated hamlets), and travelled on till they came into the great north road, on the top of Stamford Hill. By this time they began to weary; and so, in the back road from Hackney, a little before it opened into the said great road, they resolved to set up their tent, and encamp for the first night; which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a barn, or a building like a barn, and first searching as well as they could to be sure there was nobody in it, they set up their tent, with the head of it against the barn; this they did also because the wind blew that night very high, and they were but young at such a way of lodging, as well as at the managing their tent. Here they went to sleep; but the joiner, a grave and sober man, and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate, the first night could not sleep, and resolved, after trying it to no purpose, that he would get out, and taking the gun in his hand, stand sentinel, and guard his companions. So, with oe gun in his hand, he walked to 106 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. and again before the barn, for that stood in the field near the road, but within the hedge. He had not been long upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on as if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he thought, directly towards the barn. He did not presently awake his companions, but in a few minutes more their noise growing louder and louder, the biscuit-baker called to him and asked him what was the matter, and quickly started out too. The other being the lame sail-maker, and most weary, lay still in the tent. As they expected, so the people whom they had heard, came on directly to the barn; when one of our travellers challenged, like soldiers upon the guard, with Who comes there? The people did not answer immediately, but one of them speaking to another that was behind them, Alas! alas! we are all disappointed, says he, here are some people before us; the barn is taken up. They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise; and it seems there were about thirteen of them in all, and some women among them. They consulted together what they should do; and by their discourse, our travellers soon found they were poor distressed people too, like themselves, seeking shelter and safety; and besides, our travellers had no need to be afraid of their coming up to disturb them, for as soon as they heard the words, Who comes there? they could hear the women say, as if frighted, Do not go near them; how do you know but they may have the plague? And when one of the men said, Let us but speak to them, the women said, No, don’t by any means; we have escaped thus far, by the goodness of God; do not let us run into danger now, we beseech you. Our travellers found by this, that they were a good sober sort of people, and flying for their lives as they were; and as they were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, his comrade, Let us encourage them too, as much as we can. So he called to them, Hark ye, good people, says the joiner, we find by your talk that you are flying from the same dreadful enemy as we are: do not be afraid of us, we are only three poor men of us; if you are free from the dis- temper you shall not be hurt by us; we are not in the barn, but in 4 little tent here on the outside, and we will remove for you; we can set up our tent again immediately anywhere else, And upon this a parley began between the joiner, whose name was Richard, and one of their men, whose said name was Ford. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 107 Ford. And do you assure us that you are all sound men? Rich, Nay, we are concerned to tell you of it, that you may not be uneasy, or think yourselves in danger; but you see we do not desire you should put yourselves into any danger, and, therefore, I tell you, that we have not made use of the barn, so we will remove from it that you may be safe and we also. Ford. That is very kind and charitable. But if we have reason to be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation, why should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging, and it may be are laid down to rest? we will go into the barn, if you please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb you. Rich. Well, but you are more than we are; I hope you will assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the danger is as great from you to us, as from us to you. “Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it be but few ; what may be our portion still, _ we know not, but-hitherto we are pre- served, : Rich. What part of the town do you come from? Was the plague come to the place where you lived? Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or else we had not fled away as we do; but we believe there will be very few left alive behind us. Rich. What part do you come from? Ford. We are most of us from Oripplegate parish, only two or three of Clerkenwell parish, but on the hither side. Rich. How then was it that you came away no sooner? Ford, We have been away some time, and kept together as well as we could at the hither end of Islington, where we got leave to lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some bedding and conveniences of our own that we brought with us; but the plague is come up into Islington too, and a house next door to our poor dwelling was infected. and shut up, and we are come away in a fright. Rich. And what way are you going? Ford. As our lot shall cast us, we know not whither; but God will guide those 1 to him. They parleyed no further at that time, but came all up to the barn, aad with some difficulty got into it. There was nothing but hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, and they accommodated Los THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. themselves as well as they could, and went to rest; but our travel- lers observed, that before they went to sleep, an ancient man, who it seems was the father of one of the women, went to prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the blessing and protec- tion of providence before they went to sleep. It was soon day at that time of the year; and as Richard, the joiner, had kept guard the first part of the night, so John, the sol- dier, relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems, when they left Islington, they intended to have gone north away to Highgate, but were stopped at Holloway, and there they would not let them pass ; so they crossed over the fields and hills to the eastward, and came out at the Border-river, and so avoiding the towns, they left Horn- sey on the left hand, and Newington on the right hand, and came into the great road about Stamford hill on that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side. And now they had thoughts of going over the river in the marshes, and make forward to Epping forest, where they hoped they should get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not so poor as to be in want: at least, they had enough to subsist them moderately for two or three months, when, as they said, they were in hopes the cold weather would check the infection, or at least the violence of it would have spent itself; and would abate, if it were only for want of people left alive to be infected. This was much the fate of our three travellers; only that they seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and had it in their view to go farther off; for as to the first, they did not propose to go farther than a day’s journey, that so they might have intelligence every two or three days how things were at London. But here our travellers found themselves under an unexpected inconvenience, namely, that of their horse; for, by means of the horse to carry their baggage, they were obliged to keep in the road, whereas, the people of this other band went over the fields or roads, path or no path, way or no way, as they pleased; neither had they any occasion to pass through any town, or come near any town, other than to buy such things as they wanted for their necessary subsistence, and in that indeed, they were put to much difficulty: of which in its place. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 109 But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or else they must commit spoil, aud do the country a great deal of damage, in breaking down fences and gates, to go over enclosed fields, which they were loth to do if they could help it. Our travellers, however, had a great mind to join themselves to this company, and take their lot with them; and, after some dis- course, they laid aside their first design, which looked northward, and resolved to follow the other into Essex; so in the morning they took up their tent and loaded their horse, and away they travelled all together. They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river side, the ferryman being afraid of them; but, after some parley at a distance, the ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place distant from the usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take it; so, putting themselves over, he directed them to leave the boat, and he, having another boat, said he would fetch it again; which it seems, how- ever, he did not do for above eight days. Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them, but not without, as I said, having received the money before- hand. But now our travellers were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being small and not fit for it; and at last could not do it without unloading the baggage and making him swim over. From the river they travelled towards the forest; but when they came to Walthamstow, the people of that town denied to admit them, as was the case everywhere; the constables and their watch- men kept them off at a distance, and parleyed with them. They gave the same account of themselves as before, but these gave no credit to what they said, giving it “for a reason, that two or three companies had already come that way, and made the like pretences, but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns where they had passed, and had been afterwards so hardly used by the country, though with justice too, as they had deserved, that, about Brentwood or that way, several of them perished in the fields; whether of the plague, or of mere want and distress, they could not tell. This was a good reason, indeed, why the people of Walthamstow 110 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to enter- tain anybody that they were not well satisfied of; but, as Richard, the joiner, and one of the other men, who parleyed with them, told them, it was no reason why they should block up the roads, and refuse to let the people pass through the town, and who asked nothing of them, but to go through the street; that, if their people were afraid of them, they might go to their houses and shut their door; they would neither show them civility nor incivility, but go on about their business. The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason, continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing, so the two men that talked with them went back to their fellows, to consult what was to be done. It was very discouraging in the whole, and they knew not what to for a good while; but, at last, John, the soldier and biscuit-maker, considering awhile, Come, says he, leave the rest of the parley to me. He had not appeared yet; so he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some poles out of the trees, and shape them as like guns as he could, and, in a little time, he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is, he caused them to wrap cloths and rags, such as they had, as soldiers do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from rust; the rest was discolored with clay or mud, such as they could get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the trees by his direction, in two or three bodies, where they made fires at a good distance from one another. While this was doing, he advanced himself, and two or three with him, and set up their tent in the lane, within sight of the barrier which the townsmen had made, and set a sentinel just by it with the real gun, the only one they had, and who walked to and fro. with the gun on his shoulder, so as that the people of the town might see them; also he tied the horse to a gate in the hedge just. by, and got some dry sticks together, and kindled a fire on the other side of the tent, so that the people of the town could see the fire and the smoke, but could not see what they were doing at it. After the country people had looked upon them very earnestly a great while, and by all that they could see, could not but suppose that they were a great many in company, they began to be uneasy, not for their going away, but for staying where they were: and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 111 above all, perceiving they had horses and arms, for they had seen one horse and one gun at the tent, and they had seen others of them walk about the field on the inside of the hedge by the side of the lane with their muskets, as they took them to be, shouldered; I say, upon such a sight as this, you may be assured they were alarmed and ter- ribly frightened; and it seems they went to a justice of the peace, to know what they should do. What the justice advised them to I know not, but towards the evening, they called from the barrier, as above, to the sentinel at the tent. What do you want? says John. Why, what do you intend to do? says the constable. To do, says John, What would you have us to do? Const. Why don’t you be gone? What do you stay there for? John. Why do you stop us on the king’s highway, and pretend to refuse us leave to go on our way? Const. We are not bound to tell you the reason, though we did let you know it was because of the plague. John. We told you we were all sound and free from the plague, which we were not bound to have satisfied you of; and yet you pre- tend to stop us on the highway. Const. We have aright to stop it up, and our own safety obliges us to it; besides, this is not the king’s highway, it is a way upon sufferance. You see here is a gate, and, if we do let people pass here, we make them pay toll. John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well as you, and you may see we are flying for our lives, and it is very unchristian and unjust in you to stop us. ; Const. You may go back from whence you came; we do not hinder you from that. John. No, it is a stronger, enemy than you that keeps us from doing that, or else we should not have come hither. Const. Well, you may go any other way then. John. No, no; I suppose you see we are able to send you going and all the people of your parish, and come through your town when we will, but, since you have stopt us here, we are content; you see we have encamped here, and here we will live; we hope you will furnish us with victuals. Const. We furnish you! what mean you by that. 112 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you? If you stop us here you must keep us. Const. You will be ill kept at our maintenance. John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better allow- ance. Const. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force, will you? John. We have offered no violence to you yet, why do you seem to oblige us to it? Iam an old soldier and cannot starve; and if you think that we shall be obliged to go back for want of provisions, you are mistaken. Const. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be strong enough for you. I have orders to raise the county upon you. John. It is you threaten, not we; and, since you are for mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it. We shall begin our march in a few minutes. Const. What is it you demand of us? John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through the town. We should have offered no injury to any of you, neither would you have had any injury or loss by us; we are not thieves, but poor people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague in London, which devours thousands every week. We wonder how you can be so unmeciful! Const Sele erieareatiereieig A John. What! To shut up your compassion in case of such dis- tress as this? (a nainemmis Const. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavor to have gates opened for you. John. Our horsemen cannot pass with our baggage that way; it does not lead into the road that we want to go, and why should you force us out of the road? Besides, you have kept us here all day without any provisions but such as we brought with us; I think you ought to send some provisions for our relief. Const. If you will go another way, we will send you some pro- visions. John. That is the way to have all the towns in the country stop up the ways against us. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 113 Const. If they all furnish you with food, what will you be the worse? I see you have tents, you want no lodging.’ John. Well; what quantity of provisions will you send us? Const. How many are you? John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company ; we are in three companies ; if you will send us bread for twenty men and about “six or seven women for three days, and show us the way over the field you speak of, we desire not to put your people into any fear for us; we will go out of our way.to oblige you, though we are as free from infection as you are. ~ Const. And will you assure us that your other people shall offer us no new disturbance. John. No, no; you may depend on it. Const. You must oblige yourself too, that none of your people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send you shall be set_ down. John. I answer for it we will not. Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Capt. Rich- ard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the marshes, and meet them in the forest; which was all a sham, for they had no Capt. Richard or any such company. Accordingly, they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and three or four large pieces of good beef, and opened some gates, through which they passed, but none of them had the courage so much as to look out to see them go; and, as it was evening, if they had looked, they could not have seen them, so as to know how few they were. This was John the soldier’s management; but this gave such an alarm to the country, that, had they really been two or three hundred, the whole country would have been raised upon them, and they would have been sent to prison, or perhaps knocked on the head. They were soon made sensible of this; for two days afterwards they found several parties of horsemen and footmen also about, in pursuit of three companies of men armed, as they said, with muskets, who were broke out from London and had the plague upon them; and that were not only spreading the distemper among the people, but plundering the country. As they now saw the consequence of their case, they soon saw the danger they were in; so they resolve, hy the advice also of the old 114 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. svidier, to divide themselves again. Jobn and his two comrades with the horse went away as if towards Waltham; the other in two com- panies, but all a little asunder and went towards Epping. The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off from one another, but not setting up the tent for fear that should discover them. On the other hand, Richard went to work with his axe and his hatchet, and, cutting down branches of trees, he built three tents or hovels, in which they all encamped with as much convenience as they could expect. The provisions they had at Walthamstow, served them very plen- tifully this night, and as for the next, they left it to providence. They had fared so well with the old soldier’s conduct, that they now willingly made him their leader, and the first of his conduct appear- ed to be very good. He told them, that they were now at a proper distance enough from London; that, as they need not be immediately beholden to the country for relief, they ought to be as careful the country did not infect them, as they did not infect the country; that what little money they had, they must be frugal of as they could; that as he would not have them think of offering the country any violence, so they must endeavor to make the sense of their condition go as far with the country as it could. They all referred themselves to his direction; so they left their three houses standing, and the next day went away towards Epping; the Captain also, for so they now called him, and his two fellow-travellors, laid aside their design of going to Waltham, and all went together. When they came near Epping, they halted, choosing out a proper. place in the open forest, not very near the highway but not far out of it, on the north side, under a little cluster of low pollard trees. Here they pitched their little camp, which consisted of three large tents or huts made of poles, which their carpenter, and such as were his assistants, cut down and fixed in the ground in a circle, binding all the small ends together at the top, and thickening the sides with boughs of trees and bushes, so that they were completely close and warm. They had besides this, a little tent where the women lay by themselves, and a hut to put the horse in. It happened, that the next day, or the next but one, was market- day at Epping, when captain John and one of the other men went to market, and bought some provisions; that is to say, bread, and some THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 115 mutton and beef, and two of the women went separately, as if they had not belonged to the rest, and bought more. John took the horse to bring it home, and the sack which the carpenter carried his tools in, to put it in; the carpenter went to work, and made them benches and stools to sit on, such as the wood he could get would afford, and a kind of table to dine on. They were taken no notice of for three or four days, but after that abundance of people ran out of the town to look at them, and all the country was alarmed aboutthem. The people at first seemed afraid to come near them; and, on the other hand, they desired the people to keep off, for there was arumor that the plague was at Waltham, and that it had been.in Epping two or three days; so John called out to them not to come to them, For, says he, we are all whole and sound people here, and we would not have you bring the plague among us, nor pretend we brought it among you. After this the parish officers came up to them, and parleyed with them at a distance, and desired to know who they were, and by what authority they pretended to fix their stand at that place? John ans- wered very frankly, they were poor distressed people from London, who, foreseeing the misery they should be reduced to, if the plague spread into the city, had fled out in time for their lives, and, having no acquaintance or relations to fly to, had first taken up at Islington, but the plague being come into that town, they had pitched their tents thus in the open field, and in the forest, being willing to bear all the hardships of a disconsolate lodging, rather than have any one think, or be afraid, that they should receive injury by them. At first the Epping people talked roughly to them, and told them they must remove; that this was no place for them; and that they pretended to be sound and well, but that they might be infected with the plague for aught they knew, and might infect the whole country, and they could not suffer them there. John argued very calmly with them a great while, and told them, that London was the place by which they, that is, the townsmen of Epping and all the country round them subsisted; to whom they sold the produce of their lands, and cut of whom they made the rents of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very hard: and they would be loth to have it remembered hereafter, and have it 116 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. told, how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they were to the people of London, when they fled from the face of the most terri- ble enemy in the world: that it would be enough to make the name of an Epping man hateful throughout all the city, and to have the rabble stone them in the very streets, whenever they came so much as to market; that they were not yet secure from being visited them- selves, and that, as he heard, Waltham was already; that they would think it very hard, that when any of them fled for fear before they were touched, they should be denied the liberty of lying so much as in the open fields. The Epping men told them again, that they, indeed, said they were sound and free, from the infection, but that they had no assurance of it; and that it was reported, that there had been a great rabble of people at Walthamstow, who made such pretences of being sound as they did, that threatened to plunder the town, and force their way whether the parish officers would or no; that there were two hun- dred of them, and had arms and tents like Low Country soldiers! that they extorted provisions, from the town, by threatening them with living upon them at free quarter, showing their arms, and talking in the language of soldiers; and that several of them having gone away towards Rumford and Brentwood, the country had been infected by them, and the plague spread into both those large towns, so that the people durst not go to market there as usual; that it was very likely they were some of that party: and if so, they deserved to be sent to the county goal, and be secured till they had made satisfaction for the damage they had done, and for the terror and fright they had put the country into. Jobn answered, that what other people had done was nothing to them; that they assured him they were all of one company; that they had never been more in number than they saw them at that time, (which by the way, was very true); that they came out in two separate companies, but joined by the way, their cases being the same; that they were ready to give what account of themselves any- body desired of them, and to give in their names and places of abode, that so they might be called to an account for any disorder that they might be guilty of; that the townsmen might see they were content to live hardly, and only desired a little room to breathe in on the forest where it was wholesome; for where it was not, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 117 they could not stay, and would decamp if they found it otherwise there. But, said the townsmen, we have a great charge of poor upon our hands already, and we must take care not to increase it; we suppose you can give us no security against your being chargeable to our parish and to the inhabitants, any more than you can of being dan- gerous to us as to the infection. Why, look you, says John, as to being chargeable to you, we hope we shall not; if you will relieve us with provisions for our present necessity, we will be very thankful; as we all lived without charity when we were at home, so we will oblige ourselves fully to repay you, if God pleases to bring us back to our own families and houses in safety, and to restore health to the people of London. As to our dying here, we assure you, if any of us die, we that sur- vive will bury them, and put you to no expense, except it should be that we should all die, and then, indeed, the last man, not being able to bury himself, would put you to that single expense, which I am persuaded, says John, he would leave enough behind him to pay you for the expenses of. On the other hand, says John, if you will shut up all bowels of compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort anything by violence, or steal from any one; but when what little we have is spent, if we perish for want, God’s will be done. John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus rationally and smoothly to them, that they went away: and though they did not give any consent to their staying there, yet they did not molest them, and the poor people continued there three or four days longer without any disturbance. In this time they had got some remote acquaintance with a victualling-house on the outskirts of the town, to whom they called at a distance, to bring some little things that they wanted, and which they caused to be set down at some distance, and always paid for very honestly. During this time, the younger people of the town came frequently pretty near them, and would stand and look at them, and would sometimes talk with them at some space between; and, particularly it was observed, that the first Sabbath-day the poor people kept re- tired, worshipped God together, and were heard to sing psalms. These things, and a quiet, inoffensive behaviour, began to get them 118 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. the good opinion of the country, and the people began to pity them and speak very well of them; the consequence of which was, that upon the occasion of a very wet rainy night, a certain gentleman, who lived in the neighborhood, sent them a little cart with twelve trusses or bundles of straw, as well for them to lodge upon as to cover and thatch their huts, and to keep them dry. The minister of a parish not far off, not knowing of the other, sent them also about two bushels of wheat and half a bushel of white peas. They were very thankful to be sure, for this relief, and particularly the straw was a very great comfort to them; for though the ingen- ious carpenter, had made them frames to lie in, like troughs, and filled them with leaves of trees and such things as they could get, and had cut all their tent-cloth out to make coverlids, yet they lay damp and hard, and unwholesome till this straw came, which was to them like feather-beds; and, as John said, more welcome than feather-beds would have been at another time. This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and given an example of charity to these wanderers, others quickly followed, and they received every day some benevolence or other from the people, but chiefly from the gentlemen who dwelt in the country round about; some sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such household things as they gave notice they wanted; some sent them blankets, rugs, and coverlids; some earthen ware, and some kitchen ware for ordering their food. Encouraged by this good usage, their carpenter, in a few days, built them a large shed or house with rafters, and a roof in form, and an upper floor, in which they lodged warm, for the weather began to be damp and cold in the beginning of September; but this house being very well thatched, and the sides and roof very thick, kept out the cold well enough; he made also an earthen wall at one end, with a chimney in it; and another of the company, with a vast deal of trouble and pains, made a funnel to the chimney to carry out the smoke. Here they lived comfortably, though coarsely, till the beginning of September, when they had the bad news to hear, whether true or not, that the plague, which was very hot at Waltham Abbey on the one side, and Rumford and Brentwood on the other side, was also come to Epping, to Woodford, and to most of the towns upon the for- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 119 est; and which, as they said, was brought down among them chiefly by the higglers, and such people as went to and from London with provisions. If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to the report which was afterwards spread all over England, but, which, as I have said, I cannot confirm of my own knowledge, namely, that the mar- ket people, carrying provisions to the city, never got the infection, or carried it back into the country; both which, I have been assured, has been false. It might be that they were preserved even beyond expectation, though not to a miracle; that abundance went and came and were not touched, and that was much encouragement, for the poor people of London, who had been completely miserable if the people that brought the provisions to the markets had not been many times wonderfully preserved, or at least more preserved, than could be reasonably expected. But these new inmates began to be disturbed more effectually; for the towns about them were really infected, and they began to be afraid to trust one another so much as to go abroad for such things as they wanted, and this pinched them very hard, for now they had little or nothing, but what the charitable gentlemen of the country supplied them with; but for their encouragement, it happened that other gentlemen of the country, who had not sent them anything before, began to hear of them and supply them; and one sent them a lage pig, that is to say a porker; another two sheep, and another sent them a calf; in short, they had meat enough, and sometimes had cheese and milk, and such things. They were chiefly put to it for bread, for when the gentlemen sent them corn, they had nowhere to bake it, or to grind it; this made them eat the first two bushels of wheat that was sent them, in parch- ed corn, as the Israelites of old did, without grinding or making bread of it. At last they found means to carry their corn to a windmill, near Woodford, where they had it ground; and afterwards the biscuit- baker made a hearth so hollow and dry, that he could bake biscuit- cakes tolerably well; and thus they came into a condition to live without any assistance or supplies from the towns; and it was wel) they did, for the country was soon after fully infected, and about a 120 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. hundred and twenty were said to have died of the distemper in the villages near them, which was a terrible thing to them. On this they called a new council, and now the towns had no need to be afraid they should settle near them; but, on the contrary, several families of the poorer sort of the inhabitants quitted their houses and built huts in the forest, after the same manner as they had done. But it was observed, that several of these poor people that had so removed had the sickness even in their huts or booths; the reason of which was plain, namely, not because they removed into the air, but because they did not remove time enough ; that is to say, not till by openly conversing with other people their neighbors, they had the distemper upon them, or, as may be said, among them, and so carried it about with them whither they went. Or, (2.) Because they were not careful enough after they were safely removed out of the towns, not to come in again and mingle with the diseased people. But be it which of these it will, when our travellers began to per- ceive that the plague was not only in the towns, but even in the tents and huts on the forest near them, they began then not only to be afraid, but to think of decamping and removing ; for had they stayed, they would have been in manifest danger of their lives. It is not to be wondered that they were greatly afflicted at being obliged to quit the place where they had been so kindly received, and where they had been treated with so much humanity and charity; but necessity, and the hazard of life, which they came out so far to preserve, prevailed with them and they saw no remedy. John, however, thought of a remedy for their present misfortune, namely, that he would first acquaint that gentleman who was their principle benefactor, with the distress they were in; and crave his assistance and advice. This good charitable gentleman encouraged them to quit the place, for fear they should be cut off from any retreat at all, by the violence of the distemper; but whither they should go, that he found very hard to direct them to. At last John asked of him whether he, being a justice of the peace, would give them certificates of health to other justices who they might come before, that so, whatever might be their lot, they might not be repulsed now they had been also so long from London. This his worship immediately granted, and gave THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 121 them proper letters of health; and from thence they were at liberty to travel whither they pleased. Accordingly, they had a full certificate of health, intimating that they had resided in a village in the county of Essex, so long; that being examined and scrutinized sufficiently, and having been retired from all conversation for above forty days, without any appearance of sickness, they were, therefore, certainly concluded to be sound men, and might be safely entertained anywhere; having at last removed rather for fear of the plague, which was come into such a town, rather than for having any signal of infection upon them, or upon any belonging to them. With this certificate they removed, though with great reluctance; and John, inclining not to go far from home, they removed toward the marshes on the side of Waltham. But here they found a man who, it seems, kept a weir or stop upon the river, made to raise water for the barges which go up and down the river, and he terri- fied them with dismal stories of the sickness having been spread into all the towns on the river, and near the river, on the side of Middle- sex and Hertfordshire ; that is to say, into Waltham, Waltham-Oross, Enfield, and Ware, and all the towns on the road, that they were afraid to go that way; though it seems, the man imposed upon them, for that the thing was not really true. However, it terrified them, and they resolved to move across the forest towards Rumford and Brentwood; but they heard that there were numbers of people fled out of London that way, who lay up and down in the forest, reaching near Rumford; and who, having no subsistance or habitation, not only lived oddly, and suffered great extremities in the woods and fields for want of relief, but were said to be made so desperate by those extremities, as that they offered many violences to the country, robbed, and plundered, and killed cattle, and the like: and others, building huts and hovels by the road-side, begged, and that with an importunity next door to demanding relief: so that the country was very uneasy, and had been obliged to take some of them up. This, in the first place, intimated to them, that they would be sure to find the charity and kindness of the county, which they had found here where they were before, hardened and shut up against them: 6 122 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. and that, on the other hand, they would be questioned -wherever they came, and would be in danger of violence from others in like cases with themselves. Upon all these considerations, John, their captain, in all their names, went back to their good friend and benefactor, who had relieved them before, and laying their case truly before him, humbly asked his advice; and he as kindly advised them to take up their old quarters again, or, if not, to remove but a little farther out of the road, and directed them to a proper place for them; and as they really wanted some house, rather than huts, to shelter them at that time of the year, it growing on towards Michaelmas, they found an old decayed house, which had -been formerly some cottage or little habitation, but was so out of repair as scarce habitable; and by con- sent of a farmer, to whose farm it belonged, they got leave to make what use of it they could. The ingenious joiner, and all the rest by his directions, went to work with it, and in a very few days made it capable to shelter them all, in case of bad weather; and inewhich there was an old chimney and an old oven, though both lying in ruins, yet they made them both fit for use: and raising additions, sheds and lean-to’s on every side, they soon made the house capable to hold them all. They chiefly wanted boards to make window-shutters, floors, doors, and several other things: but as the gentleman above favored them, and the country was by that means made easy with them; and above all, that they were known to be-all sound and in good health, every- body helped them with what they could spare. Here they encamped for good and all, and resolved to remove no more; they saw plainly how terribly alarmed that country was every- where, at anybody that came from London; and that they should have no admittance anywhere but with the utmost difficulty, at least no friendly reception and assistance as they had received here. Now although they received great assistance and encouragement from the country gentlemen,-and from the people round about them, yet they were put to great straits, for the weather grew cold and wet in October and November, and they had not been used to so much hardship ; so that they got cold in their limbs, and distempers, but a THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 123 never had the intection. And thus, about December, they came home to the city again. I give this story thus at large, principally to give an account what became of the great numbers of people which immediately appeared in the city as soon as the sickness abated; for, as I have said, great numbers of those that were able, and had retreats in the country, fied to those retreats. So when it was increased to such a frightful extremity as I have related, the middling people who had not friends, fled to all parts of the country where they could get shelter, as well those that had money to relieve themselves, as those that had not. Those that had money always fied furthest, because they were able to subsist themselves; but those who were empty, suffered, as I have said, great hardships, and were often driven by necessity to relieve their wants at the expense of the country. By that means the country was made very uneasy at them, and sometimes took them up, though even then they scarce knew what to do with them, and were always very backward to punish them; but often too, they forced them from place to place, till they were obliged to come back again to London. I have since my knowing this story of John and his brother, in- quired and found that there were a great many of the poor disconso- late people, as above, fled into the country every way; and some of them got little sheds, and barns, and outhouses to live in, where they could obtain so much kindness of the country ; and especially where they had any the least satisfactory account to give of themselves, and particularly that they did not come out of London too late. But others, and that in great numbers, built themselves little huts and retreats in the ffelds and woods, and lived like hermits, in holes and caves, or any place they could find; and where,.we may be sure, they suffered great extremities, such that many of them were obliged to come back again, whatever the danger was; and so those little huts were often found empty, and the country people supposed the inha- bitants lay dead in them of the plague, and would not go near them for fear, no not in a great while; nor is it unlikely but that some of the unhappy wanderers might die so all alone, even sometimes for want of help, as particularly in one tent or hut, was found a man dead ; and on the gate of a field just by, was cut with his knife in uneven letters, the following words, by which it may be supposed the 124 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. other man escaped, or that one dying first, the other buried him as well as he could; OmIsErY! We BoTHShaLLDyE, Wok,Wok T have given an account already of what I found to have been the case down the river among the seafaring men, how the ships lay in the offing, as it is called, in rows or lines, astern of one another, quite down from the Pool as far as I could see. I have been told that they lay in the same manner quite down the river as low as Gravesend, and some far beyond, even everywhere, or in every place where they could ride with safety as to wind and weather; nor did I ever hear that the plague reached to any of the people on board those ships, except such as lay up in the Pool, or as high as Deptford Reach, although the people went frequently on shore to the country towns and villages, and farmers’ houses, to buy fresh provisions, fowls, pigs, calves, and the like, for their supply. Likewise, I found that the watermen on the river above the bridge found means to convey themselves away up the river as far as they could go; and that they had, many of them, their whole families in their boats, covered with tilts and bales, as they call them, and fur- nished with straw within for their lodging; and that they lay thus all along by the shore in the marshes, some of them setting up little tents with their sails, and so lying under them on shore in the day, and going into their boats at night; and in this manner, as I have heard, the river sides were lined with boats and people as long as they had anything to subsist on, or could get ahything of the country ; and indeed the country people, as well gentlemen as others, ov. these and all other occasions, were very forward to relieve them, but they were by no means willing to receive them into their towns and houses, and for that we cannot blame them. There was one unhappy citizen, within my knowledge, who had been visited in a dreadful manner, so that his wife and all his children were dead, and himself and two servants only left, with an elderly woman, a near relation, who had nursed those that were dead as well as she could. This disconsolate man goes to a village near the town, though not within the bills of mortality, and finding an THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 125 empty house there, inquires out the owner, and took the house. After a few days, he got a cart, and loaded it with goods, and car- ries them down to the house; the people of the village opposed his driving the cart along, but with some arguings, and some force, the men that drove the cart along, got through the street up to the door of the house; .there the constable resisted them again, and would not let them be brought in. The man caused the goods to be unloaded and laid at the door, and sent the cart away, upon which they car- ried the man before a justice of peace; that is to say, they com- manded him to go, which he did. The justice ordered him to cause the cart to fetch away the goods again, which he refused to do; upon which the justice ordered the constable to pursue the carters and fetch them back, and make them reload the goods and carry them away, or to set them in the stocks till they came for further orders ; and if they could not find them, and the man would not con- sent to take them away, they should cause them to be drawn with hooks from the house door and burnt in the street. The poor dis- tressed man upon this fetched the goods again, but with grievous cries and lamentations at the hardship of his case. But there was no remedy, self-preservation obliged the people to those severities, which they would not otherwise have been concerned in. Whether . this poor man lived or died I cannot tell, but it was reported that he had the plague upon him at that time, and perhaps the people might report that to justify their usage of him; but it was not unlikely that either he or his goods, or both, were dangerous, when his whole family had been dead of the distemper so little a while before. I know that the inhabitants of the towns adjacent to London were much blamed for cruelty to the poor people that ran from the conta- gion in their distress, and many very severe things were done, as may be seen from what has been said; but I cannot but say also, that where there was room for charity and assistance to the people with- out apparent danger to themselves, they were willing enough to help and relieve them. But as every town were indeed judges in -their own case, so the people who ran abroad in their extremities were often ill-used and driven back again into the town; and this caused infinite exclamations and outcries against the country towns, and made the clamour very popular. 126 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. And yet more or less, maugre all the caution, there was not a town of any note within ten (orI believe twenty) miles of the city, but what was more or less infected, and had some died among them. I have heard the accounts of several; such as they were reckoned up as follows :— In Enfield . © «© © © © © © «© + 32 Hornsey . 7 « * . . . . ‘ 58 Newington . ‘ * . . . . # : 17 Tottenham . . . . “8 . . * 42 Edmonton : . . . . * ‘ ‘ fi 19 Barnet and Hadley . Cw we Ci eS - 43 St. Albans Bo se. es Rat es es Ss » 121 Watford . « « . a . * : 45 Uxbridge . ‘ “ . . . é ‘ . (Wi Hertford . ri . i BE a i we . 90 Ware . . . . . . . . . - 160 Hodsden . . ‘ . . . . . S % 30 Waltham Abbey . . e: aD Se “ ‘ 23 Epping . ‘ * , . . 4 . * ‘ 26 Deptford . * . . . . . . . - 623 Greenwich . . % ° . . . . - 631 Eltham and Lusum A ee ee . 85 Croydon . . . . . . ° ai ‘ ‘ 61 Brentwood .« «© «© «© © « «© «© © 7 Rumford . . * . . . . . - 109 Barking, about . . é . é . * - 200 Brandford * * * . . . . “ « 432 Kingston . . . ° . . . . . » it Staines . . . . . . . . . . 82 Chertsey . ‘ . . . . . . . * 18 Windsor . ¥ . . . . * . , 103 cum aliis. Another thing might render the country more strict with respect to the citizens, and especially with respect to the poor; and this was what I hinted at before, namely, that there was a seeming propen- sity, or a wicked inclination, in those that were infected to infect others. / There have been great debates among our physicians as to the rea- son of this: some will have it to be in the nature of the disease, and that it impresses every one that is seized upon by it with a kind of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 127 mage and a hatred against their own kind, as if there were a malignity, not only in the distemper to communicate itself, but in the very nature of man, prompting him with evil will, or an evil eye, that as they say in the case of a mad dog, who though the gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet then will fly upon and bite any one that comes next him, and those as soon as any who have been most erved by him before. Others placed it to the account of the corruption of human nature, who cannot bear to see itself more miserable than others of its own egies, and has a kind of involuntary wish that all men were as unhappy or in as bad a condition as itself. Others say it was only a kind of desperation, not knowing or regarding what they did, and consequently uncongerned at the dan- ger or safety, not only of anybody near them, but even of them- selves also. And, indeed, when men are once come to a condition to abandon themselves, and be unconcerned for the safety or at the danger of themselves, it cannot be so much wondered that they should be careless of the safety of other people. But I choose to give this grave debate quite a different turn, and answer it or resolve it all by saying that I donot grant the fact. On the contrary, I say that the thing is not really so, but that it was a general complaint raised by the people inhabiting the out-lying vil- lages against the citizens, to justify, or at least excuse, those hard- ships and severities so much talked of, and in which complaints both sides may be said to have injured one another; that is to say, the citizens pressing to be received and harbored in time of distress, and with the plague upon them, complain of the cruelty and injus- tice of the country people, in being refused entrance, and forced back again with their goods and families; and the inhabitants finding themselves so imposed upon, and the citizens breaking in as it were upon them, whether they would or no, complain that when they were infected they were not only regardless of others, but even will- ing to infect them: neither of which was really true, that is to say, in the colors they were described in. It is true there is something to be said for the frequent alarms which were given to the country of the resolution of the people of London to come out by force, not only for relief, but to plunder and rab, that they ran about the streets with the distemper upon them 128 THE PLAGUE 1N LONDON. without any control, and that no care was taken to shut up houses, and confine the sick people from infecting others; whereas, to do the Londoners justice, they never practised such things, except in such particular cases as I have mentioned above, and such like. On the other hand, everything was managed with so mnch care, and such excellent order was observed in the whole city and suburbs, by the care of the lord mayor and aldermen, and by the justices of the. peace, churchwardens, é&c., in the out-parts, that London may be a pattern to all the cities in the world for the good government and the excellent order that was everywhere kept, even in the time of. the most, violent infection, and when the people were in the utmost consternation and distress. But of this I shall speak by itself. One thing, it is to be observed, was owing principally to the pru- dence of the magistrates, and ought to be mentioned to their hon- or, viz., the moderation which they used in the great and difficult work of shutting up houses. It is true, as J have mentioned, that the shutting. up of houses was a great subject of discontent, and I may say indeed the only subject of discontent among the people at that time; for the confining the sound in the same house with the sick was counted very terrible, and the complaints of people so confined were very grievous; they were heard in the very streets, and they were sometimes such that called for resentment, though oftener for compassion; they had no way to converse with any of their friends but out of their windows, where they would make such piteous lamentations as often moved the hearts of those they talked with, and of others who, passing by, heard their story ; and as those complaints oftentimes reproached the severity, and sometimes the insolence, of the watchman placed at their doors, those watchmen would answer saucily enough, and perhaps be apt to affront the peo- ple who were in the street talking to the said families, for which, or for their ill-treatment of the families, I think seven or eight of them in several places were killed; I know not whether I should say mur- dered or not, because I cannot enter into the particular cases. It is true, the watchmen were on their duty, and acting in the post where they were placed by a lawful authority: and killing any public legal officer in the execution of his otfice is always in the language of the law, called murder. But as they were not authorized by the magis- trate’s instructions, or by the power they acted under, to be injuri- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 129 ous or abusive, either to the people who were under their observa- tion, or to any that concerned themselves for them, so that when they did so they might be said to act themselves, not their office; to act as private persons, not as persons, employed; and consequently, if they brought mischief upon themselves by such an undue beha- vior, that mischief was upon their own heads; and indeed they had so much the hearty curses of the people, whether they deserved it or not, that whatever befell them nobody pitied them, and everybody was apt to say they deserved it, whatever it was; nor do J] remem- ber that anybody was ever punished, at least to any considerable degree, for whatever was done to the watchmen that guarded their houses. What variety of stratagems were used to escape and get out of houses thus shut up, by which the watchmen were deceived or over- powered, and that the people got away, I have taken notice of already, and shall say no more to that; but I say the magistrates did moderate and ease families upon many occasions in this case, and particularly in that of taking away or suffering to be removed the sick persons out of such houses, when they were willing to be removed, either to a pest-house or other places, and sometimes giving the well: persons in the family so shut up, leave to remove upon information given that they were well, and that they would confine themselves in such houses where they went so long as should be required of them. The - concern also of the magistrates for the supplying such poor families as were infected: I say, supplying them with necessaries, as well physic as food, was very great, and in which they did not content themselves with giving the necessary orders to the officers appointed, but the aldermen in person, and on horseback, frequently rode to such houses and caused the people to be asked at their windows whether they were duly attended or not; also whether they wanted anything that was necessary, and if the officers had constantly carried their messages, and fetched them such things as they wanted, or not? and if they answered in the affirmative, all was well; but if they complained that they were ill supplied, and that the officer did not do his duty, or did not treat them civilly, they (the officers) were generally removed, and others placed in their stead. It is true such complaint might be unjust, and if the officer had such arguments to use as would ena int the magistrate that he was 130 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. right, and that the people had injured him, he was continued and they reproved. But this part could not well bear a particular in- quiry, for the parties could very ill be heard and answered in the street from the windows, as was the case then; the magistrates there- fore generally chose to favor the people, and remove the man, as what seemed to be the least wrong, and of the least ill consequence ; seeing, if the watchman was injured, yet they could easily make him amends by giving him another post of a like nature; but if the family was injured, there was no satisfaction could be made to them, the damage perhaps being irreparable, as it concerned their lives. A great variety of these cases frequently happened between the watchmen and the poor people shut up, besides those I formerly men- tioned about escaping; sometimes the watchmen were absent, some- times drunk, sometimes asleep when the people wanted them, and such never failed to be punished severely, as indeed they deserved. But after all that was or could be done in these cases, the shutting up of houses, so as to confine those that were well with those that were sick, had very great inconveniences in it, and some that were very tragical, and which merited to have been considered if there had been room for it; but it was authorized by a law, it had the public good in view, as the end chiefly aimed at, and all the private injuries that were done by the putting it in execution must be put to the ac- count of the public benefit. It is doubtful whether, in the whole, it contributed anything to the stop of the infection, and, indeed, I cannot say it did; for nothing could run with greater fury and rage than the infection did when it was in in its chief violence; though the houses infected were shut up as exactly and effectually as it was possible. Certain it is, that if all the infected persons were effectually shut in, no sound person could have been infected by them, because they could not have come near them. But the case was this, and I shall only touch it here, namely, that the infection was propagated insensibly, and by such persons as were not visibly infected, who neither knew whom they infected, nor whom they were infected by. A house in Whitechapel was shut up for the sake of one infected maid, who had only spots, not the tokens, come out upon her, and recovered ; yet these people obtained no liberty to stir, neither for air or exercise, forty days; want of breath, fear, anger, and vexation, and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 131 all the other griefs attending such an injurious treatment, cast the mistress of the family into a fever; and visitors came into the house and said it was the plague, though the physicians declared it was not; however, the family were obliged to begin their quarantine anew, on the report of the visitor or examiner, though their former quarantine wanted but a few days of being finished. This oppressed them so with anger and grief, and, as before, straitened them also so much as to room, and for want of breathing and free air, that most of the family fell sick, one of one distemper, one of another, chiefly scor- butic ailments, only one a violent cholic, until after several prolong- ings of their confinement, some or other of those that came in with the visitors to inspect the persons that were ill, in hopes of releasing them, brought the distemper with them, and infected the whole house, and all or most of them died, not of the plague as really upon them before, but of the plague that those people had brought them, who should have been careful to have protected them from it; and this was a thing which frequently happened, and was, indeed, one of the worst consequences of shutting houses up. I had about this time a little hardship put upon me, which I was at first greatly afflicted at, and very much disturbed about; though, as it proved, it did not expose me to any disaster; and this was, being appointed, by the alderman of.Portsoken ward, one of the ex- aminers of the houses in the precinct where I lived; we had a large parish, and had no less than eighteen examiners, as the order called us; the people called us visitors. I endeavored with all my might to be excused from such an employment, and used many arguments with the alderman’s deputy to be excused; particularly, I alleged, that I was against shutting up houses at all, and that it would be very hard to oblige me to be an instrument in that which was against my judgment, and which I did verily believe would not answer the end it was intended for; but all the abatement I could get was only, that whereas the officer was appointed by my lord mayor to continue two months, I should be obliged to hold it but three weeks, on condition, nevertheless, that I could then get some other sufficient housekeeper to serve the rest of the time for me, which was, in short, but a very small favor, it being very difficult to get any man to accept of such an employment, that was fit to be intrusted with it. Tt is true, that shutting up of houses had one effect, which I am 132 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. sensible was of moment, namely, it confined the distempered people, who would otherwise have been both very troublesome and very dangerous in their running about streets with the distemper upon them: which, when they were delirious, they would have done in a most frightful manner, as, indeed, they began to do at first very much, until they were restrained; nay, so very open they were, that the poor would go about and beg at people’s doors, and say they had the plague upon them, and beg rags for their sores, or both, or any- thing that delirious nature happened to think of. A poor unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen’s wife, was, if the story be true, murdered by one of these creatures in Aldersgate street, or that way. He was going along the street, raving mad to be sure, and singing; the people only said he was drunk, but he himself said he had the plague upon him, which, it seems, was true ; and meeting this gentlewoman, he would kiss her; she was terribly frightened, as he was a rude fellow, and she run from him; but the street being very thin of people, there was nobody, near enough to help her; when she saw he would overtake her, she turned and gave him a thrust, so forcibly, he being but weak, as pushed him down backward ; but very unhappily, she being so near, he caught hold of her, and pulled her down also; and getting up first, mastered her, and kissed her; and which was worst of all, when he had done, told her he had the plague, and why, should not she have it as well as he? She was frightened enough before, being also gone with child; but when she heard him say he had the plague, she screamed out and fell down into a swoon, or in a fit, which, though she recovered a little, yet killed her in a very few days, and I never heard whether she had the plague or no. Another infected person came and knocked at the door of a citi- zen’s house, where they knew him very well; the servant let him in, and being told the master of the house was above, he ran up, and came into the room to them as the whole family were at supper. They began to rise up a little surprised, not knowing what the mat- ter was; but he bid them sit still, he only come to take his leave of them. They asked him, Why Mr.—— where are you going? Going, says he, I have got the sickness, and shall die to-morrow night It is easy to believe, though not to describe, the consternation they were all in; the women and the man’s daughters, which were but little THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 133 girls, were frightened almost to death, aud got up, one running out at one door, and one at another, some down stairs and some up stairs, and getting together as well as they could, locked themselves into their chambers, and screamed out at the windows for help, as if they had been frightened out of their wits. The master, more composed than they, though both frightened and provoked, was going to lay hands on him and throw him down stairs, being in a passion; but then considering a little the condition of the man, and the danger of touching him, horror seized his mind, and he stood still like one astonished. The poor distempered man, all this while, being as well diseased in his brain as in his body, stood still like one amazed; at length he turns round, Ay! says he, with all the seeming calmness imaginable, is it so with you all? Are you all disturbed at me?, Why then [Pll e’en go home and die there. And so he goes imme- diately down stairs. The servant that had let him in goes down after him with a candle, but was afraid to go past him and open the door, so he stood on the stairs to see what he would do; the man went and opened the door, and went out and flung the door after him. It was some while before the family recovered the fright; but as no ill consequence attended, they have had occasion since to speak of it, you may be sure, with great satisfaction; though the man was gone it was some time, nay, as I heard, some days, before they recovered themselves of the flurry they were in; nor did they go up and down the house with any assurance till they had burnt a great variety of fumes and perfumes in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of pitch, of gun-powder, and of sulphur; all separately shifted, and washed their cloths and the like. As to the poor man, whether he lived or died I do not remember. It is most certain, that if by the shutting up of houses, the sick had not been confined, multitudes, who in the height of their fever were delirious and distracted, would have been continually running up and down the streets; and, even as it was, a very great number did so, and offered all sorts of violence to those they met, even just as a mad dog runs on and bites at every one he meets; nor can I doubt but that should one of those infected diseased creatures have bitten any man or woman, while the frenzy of the distemper was upon them, they, I mean the person so wounded, would as certainly 1384 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. have been incurably infected, as one that was sick before, and had the tokens upon him. Theard of one infected creature, who, running out of his bed in his shirt, in the anguish and agony of his swellings, of which he had three upon him, got his shoes on and went to put on his coat, but the nurse resisting and snatching the coat from him, he threw her down, run over her, ran down stairs, and into the street directly to the Thames, in his shirt, the nurse running after him, and calling to the watch to stop him; but the watchman, frightened at the man, and afraid to touch him, let him go on; upon which he ran down to the Still-yard: stairs, threw away his shirt, and plunged into the Thames; and, being a good swimmer, swam quite over the river; and the tide being coming in, as they call it, that is, running westward, he reachedl the land not till he came about the Falcon-stairs, where landing, and finding no people there, it being in the night, he ran about the streets there naked as he was, for a good while, when, it being by that time high water, he takes the river again, and swam back to the Still-yard, landed, ran up the streets to his own house, knocking at the door, went up the stairs, and into his bed again; and that this terrible experiment cured him of the plague, that is to say, that the violent motion of his arms and legs stretched the parts where the swellings he had upon him were, that is to say, under his arms and in his groin, and caused them to ripen and break; and that the cold of the water abated the fever in his blood. Ihave only to add, that I do not relate this any more than some of the other, as a fact within my own knowledge, so as that I can vouch the truth of them, and especially that of the man being cured by the extravagant adventure, which I confess I do not think very possi- ble, but it may serve to confirm the many desperate things which the distressed people falling into deliriums, and what we call light-head- edness, were frequently run upon at that time, and how infinitely more such there would have been if such people had not been con- fined by the shutting up of houses; and this I take to be the best, if not the only good thing, which was performed by that severe method, On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings were very bitter against the thing itself, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 135 It would pierce the hearts of all that came by to hear the piteous cries of those infected people, who, being thus out of their under- standings by the violence of their pain, or the heat of their blood, were either shut in, or perhaps tied in their beds and chairs, to pre- vent their doing themselves hurt, and who would make a dreadful out- ery at their being confined, and at their being not permitted to die at large, as they called it, and as they would have done before. This running of distempered people about the streets was very dis- mal, and the magistrates did their utmost to prevent it; but as it was generally in the night, and always sudden, when such attempts were made, the officers could not be at hand to prevent it; and even when they got out in the day, the officers appointed did not care to meddle with them, because, as they were all grievously infected to be sure when they were come to that height, so they were more than ordinary infectious, and it was one of the most dangerous things that could be to touch them; on the other hand, they generally ran on, not knowing what they did, till they dropped down stark dead, or till they had exhausted their spirits, so, as that they would fall and then die in perhaps half an hour or an hour; and which was most piteous to hear, they were sure to come to themselves entirely in that half hour or hour, and then to make'most grievous and piercing cries and lamentations, in the deep afflicting sense of the condition they were in. There was much of it before the order for shutting up of houses was strictly put into execution: for, at first, the watchmen were not so rigorous and severe as they were afterwards in the keep- ing the people in; that is to say, before they were, I mean some of them, severely punished for their neglect, failing in their duty, and letting people who were under their care slip away, or conniving at their going abroad, whether sick or well. But after they saw the officers appointed to examine into their conduct were resolved to have them do their duty, or be punished for the omission, they were more exact, and the people were strictly restrained; which was a thing they took so ill, and bore so impatiently, that their discontents can hardly be described; but there was an absolute necessity for it, that must be confessed, unless some other measures had been timely entered upon; and it was too late for that. Had not this particular of the sick being restrained as above, been our case at that time, London would have been the most dreadful 136 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. place that ever was in the world; there would, for aught I know, have as many people died in the streets as died in their houses; for, when the distemper was at its height, it generally made them raving and delirious, and when they were so, they would never be persuaded to keep in their beds but by force; and many who were not tied, threw themselves out of windows, when they found they could not get leave to go out of their doors. It was for want of people conversing one with another in this time of calamity, that it was impossible any particular person could come at the knowledge of all the extraordinary cases that occurred in dif- ferent families; and, particularly, I believe it was never known to this day, how many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the Thames, and in the river which runs from the marshes by Hack- ney which we generally called Ware River, or Hackney River. As to those which were set down in the weekly bill, they were indeed few, nor could it be known of any of those, whether they drowned themselves by accident or not; but I believe I might reckon up more, .who within the compass of my knowledge or observation, really drowned themselves in that year, than are put down in the bill of all put together, for many of the bodies were never found, who yet were known to be lost; and the like in other methods of self- destruction. There was also one man in or about Whitecross-street burnt himself to death in his bed; some said it was done by himself, others, that it was by the treachery of the nurse that attended him, but that he had the plague upon him was agreed by all. It was a merciful disposition of Providence also, and which I have many times thought of at that time, that no fires, or no considera- ble ones at least, happened in the city during that year, which, if it had been otherwise, would have been very dreadful; and either the people must have let them alone unquenched, or have come together in great crowds and throngs, unconcerned at the danger of the infec- tion, not concerned at the houses they went into, at the goods they handled, or at the persons or the people they came among: but s0 it was, that excepting that in Cripplegate parish, and two or three lit- tle eruptions of fires, which were presently extinguished, there was no disaster of that kind happened in the whole year. They told us a story of a house in a place called Swan Alley, passing from Goswell street near the end of Old street, into St. John’s street that a family THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 137 was infected there in so terrible a manner that every one of the house died; the last person lay dead on the floor, and, as it is supposed, had laid herself all along to die just before the fire; the fire, it seems, had fallen from its place being of wood, and had taken hold of the boards and the joists they lay on, and burnt as far as just to the body, put had not taken hold of the dead body, though she had little more than her shift on, and had gone out of itself, not hurting the rest of the house though it was aslight timber house. How true this might be I do not determine, but the city being to suffer severely the next year by fire, this year it felt very little of that calamity. Indeed, considering the ‘deliriums which the agony threw people into, and now I have mentioned in their madness when they were alone, they did many desperate things, it was very strange there were no more disasters of that kind. It has been frequently asked me, and I cannot say that I ever knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to pass that so many infected people appeared abroad in the streets, at the same time that the houses which were infected were so vigilantly search- ed, and all of them shut up and guarded as they were. I confess I know not what answer to give to this, unless it be this, that in so great and populous a city as this is, it was impossible to discover every house that was infected as soon as it was so, or to shut up all the houses that were infected; so that people had the liberty of going about the streets, even where they pleased, unless they were known to belong to such and such infected houses. It is true, that as the several physicians told my lord mayor, the fury of the contagion was such at some particular times, and people sickened so fast, and died so soon, that it was impossible, and indeed, to no purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to shut them up with such exactness as the thing required; almost every house in a whole street being infected, and in many places every person in some of the houses; and that which was still worse, by the time that the houses were known to be infected, most of the persons infected would be stone dead, and the rest run away for fear of being shut up so that it was to very small purpose to call them infected houses and shut them up; the infection having ravag- ed, and taken its leave of the house, before it was really known that the family was any way touched. 138 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person, that as it was not in the power of the magistrates, or of any human methods or policy, to prevent the spreading the infection, so that this way of shutting up of houses was perfectly insufficient for that end. Indeed it seemed to have no manner of publig good in it, equal or propor- tionable to the grievous burthen that it was to the particular fami- lies that were so shut up; and as far as I was employed by the pub- lic in directing that severity, I frequently found occasion to see that it was incapable of answering the end. For example, as I was desired as a visitor or examiner to inquire into the particulars of several families which were infected, we scarce came to any house where the plague had visibly appeared in the family but that some of the family were fied and gone. The magistrates would resent this, and charge the examiners with being remiss in their examina- tion or inspection; but by that means houses were long infected before it was known. Now, as I was in this dangerous office but half the appointed time, which was two months, it was long enough to inform myself that we were no way capable of coming at the knowledge of the true state of any family, but by inquiring at the door, or of the neighbors. As for going into every house to search, that was a part no authority would offer to impose on the inhabi- tants, or any citizen would undertake, for it would have been expos- ing us to certain infection and death, and to the ruin of.our own families as well as of ourselves; nor would any citizen of probity, and that could be depended upon, have stayed in the town, if they had been made liable to such a severity. Seeing, then, that we could come at the certainty of things by no method but that of inquiry of the neighbors or of the family, and on that we could not justly depend, it was not possible but that the uncertainty of this matter would remain as above. It is true masters of families were bound by the order to give notice to the examiner of the place wherein he lived, within two hours after he should discover it, of any person being sick in his house, that is to say, having signs of the infection; but they found so many ways to evade this, and excuse their negligence, that they seldom gave that notice till they had taken measures to have every one escape out of the house who had a mind to escape, whether they were sick or sound; and while this was so, it was easy to see that THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 139 the shutting up of houses was no way to be depended upon as a sufii- cient method for putting a stop to the infection, because, as I have said elsewhere, many of those that so went out of those infected houses had the plague really upon them, though they might really think themselves sound; and some of these were the people that walked the streets till they fell down dead, not that they were suddenly struck with the distemper, as with a bullet that killed with the stroke, but that they really had the infection in their blood long before, only, that as it preyed secretly on their vitals, it appeared not till it seized the heart with a mortal power, and the patient died in a moment, as with a sudden fainting, or an apoplectic fit. I know that some, even of our physicians, thought for a time, that those people that so died in the streets were seized but that moment they fell, as if they had been touched by a stroke from heaven, as men are killed by a flash of lightning; but they found reason to alter their opinion afterward, for upon examining the bodies of such after they were dead, they always either had tokens upon them, or other evident proofs of the distemper having been longer upon them than they had otherwise expected. This often was the reason that, as I have said, we that were exam- iners were not able to come at the knowledge of the infection being entered into a house till it was too late to shut it up, and sometimes not till the people that were left were all dead. In Petticoat Lane two houses together were infected, and several people sick; but the distemper was so well concealed, the examiner, who was my neigh- bor, got no knowledge of it till notice was sent him that the people were all dead, and that the carts should call there to fetch them away. The two heads of the families concerted their measures, and so ordered their matters, as that when the examiner was in the neighborhood, they appeared generally at a time, and answered, that is, lied for one another, or got some of the neighborhood to say they were all in health, and perhaps knew no better, till death making it impossible to keep it any longer as a secret, the dead carts were called in the night to both the houses, and so it became public; but when the examiner ordered the constable to shut up the houses, there was nobody left in them but three people, two in one house, and one in the other, just dying, and a nurse in each house, who acknowledged that they had buried five before, that the houses had 140 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. been infected nine or ten days, and that for all the rest of the two families, which were many, they were gone, some sick some well, or whether sick or well, could not be known. In like manner, at another house in the same lane, a man, having his family infected, but very unwilling to be shut up, when he could conceal it no longer, shut up himself; that is to say, he set the great red cross upon the door, with the words—‘“ Lorp, HAVE MEROY UPON us;” and so deluded the examiner, who supposed it had been done by the constable, by order of the other examiner, for there were two examiners to every district or precinct. By this means he had free egress and regress into his house again, and out of it, as he pleased, notwithstanding it was infected, till at length his stratagem was found -out, and then he, with the sound part of his family and servants, made off, and escaped; so they were not shut up at all. “These things made it very hard, if not impossible, as I have said, to prevent the spreading of an infection by the shutting up of houses, unless the people would think the shutting up of their houses no grievance, and be so willing to have it done as that they would give notice duly and faithfully to the magistrates of their being infected, as soon as it was known by themselves; but as that cannot be expected from them, and the examiners cannot be supposed, as above, to go into their houses to visit and search, all the good of shutting up houses will be defeated, and few houses will be shut up in time except those of the poor, who cannot conceal it, and of some people who will be discovered by the terror and consternation which the thing put them into. I got myself discharged of the dangerous office I was in, as soon asI could get another admitted, whom I had obtained for a little money to accept of it; and so, instead of serving the two months, which was directed, I was not above three weeks in it; and a great while too, considering it was in the month of August, at which time the distemper began to rage with great violence at our end of town. In the execution of this office, I could not refrain speaking my opin- jon among my neighbors, as to the shutting up the people in their houses; in which we saw most evidently the severities that were used, though grievous in themselves, had also this particular objec- tion against them, namely, that they did not answer the end, asI THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 141 have said, but that the distempered people went, day by day, about the streets; and it was our united opinion, that a method to have removed the sound from the sick, in case of a particular house being visited, would have been much more reasonable, on many accounts, leaving nobody with the sick persons, but such as should, on such oceasions, request to stay, and declare themselves content to be shut up with them. Our scheme for removing those that were sound from those that were sick, was only in such houses as were infected, and confining the sick was no confinement; those that could not stir would not complain while they were in their senses, and while they had the power of judging. Indeed, when they came to be delirious and light- headed, then they would cry out of the cruelty of being confined ; but, for the removal of those that were well, we thought it highly reasonable and just, for their own sakes, they should be removed from the sick, and that, for other people’s safety, they should keep retired for a while, to see that they were sound, and might not infect others; and we thought twenty or thirty days enough for this, Now, certainly, if houses had been provided on purpose for those that were sound, to perform this demi-quarantine in, they would have much less reason to think themselves injured in such a restraint, than in being confined with infected people in the houses where they lived. It is here, however, to be observed, that after the funerals became so many that people could not toll the bell, mourn, or weep, or wear black for one another, as they did before; no, nor so much as make coffins for those that died; so, after a while, the fury of the infec- tion appeared to be so increased, that, in short, they shut up no houses at all; it seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible fury, so that as the fire the succeeding year spread itself and burnt with such violence, that the citizens, in des- pair, gave over their endeavors to extinguish it, so in the plague, it came at last to such violence, that the people sat still, looking at one another, and seemed quite abandoned to despair. Whole streets seemed to be desolated, and not to be shut up only, but to be emp- tied of their inhabitants; doors were left open, windows stood shattering with the wind in empty houses, for want of people to shut 142 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. them; in a word, people began to give up themselves to their fears, and to think that all regulations and methods were in vain, and that there was nothing to be hoped for but an universal desolation; and it was even in the height of this general despair, that it pleased God to stay his hand, and to slacken the fury of the contagion, in such a manner as was even surprising, like its beginning, and demonstrated it to be his own particular hand; and that above, if not without the agency of means, as I shall take notice of in its proper place. But I must still speak of the plague, as in its height, raging even to desolation, and the people under the most dreadful consternation, even, as I have said to despair. It is hardly credible to what exces- ses the passions of men carried them in this extremity of the distem- per; and this part, I think, was as moving as the rest. What could effect a man in his full power of reflection, and what could make deeper impressions on the soul than to see a man, almost naked, and got out of his house, or perhaps out of his bed into the street, come out of Harrow Alley, a populous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts and passages, in the Butcher Row in Whitechapel; I say, what could be more affecting, than to see this poor man come out into the open street, run, dancing and singing, and making a thou- sand antic gestures, with five or six women and children running after him, crying and calling upon him, for the Lord’s sake, to come back, and entreating the help of others to bring him back, but all in vain, nobody daring to lay a hand upon him, or to come near him ? This was a most grievous and afflicting thing to me, who saw it all ftom my own windows; for all this while the poor afflicted man was, as I observed it, even then in the utmost agony of pain, having, as they said, two swellings upon him, which could not be brought to break or to suppurate; but by laying strong caustics on them, the surgeons had, it seems, hopes to break them, which caustics were then upon him, burning his flesh as with a hot iron. I cannot say what became of this poor man, but I think he continued roving about in that manner till he fell down and died. No wonder the aspect of the city itself was frightful! the usual concourse of the people in the streets, and which used to be supplied ° from our end of the town, was abated; the Exchange was not kept shut indeed, but it was no more frequented; the fires were lost; they had been almost extinguished for some days, by a very smart THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 143 and hasty rain; but that was not all, some of the physcians insisted, that they were not only no benefit, but injurious to the health of the people. This they made a loud clamor about, and complained to the lord mayor about it. On the other hand, others of the same faculty, and eminent too, opposed them, and gave their reasons why the fires were and must be useful, to assuage the violence of the dis- temper. I cannot give a full account of their arguments on both sides, only this I remember, that they cavilled very much with one another. Some were for fires, but they must be made of wood, and not coal, and of particular sorts of wood too, such as fir, in particu- lar, or cedar, because of the strong effluvia of turpentine; others were for coal and not wood, because of the sulphur and bitumen; and others were neither for one or other. Upon the whole, the lord mayor ordered no more fires: and especially on this account, namely, that the plague was so fierce, that they saw evidently it defied all means, and rather seemed to increase than decrease, upon any appli- cation to check and abate it; and yet this amazement of the magis- trates proceeded rather from want of being able to apply any means successfully, than from any unwillingness, either to expose them- selves, or undertake the care and weight of business, for, to do them justice, they neither spared their pains, nor their persons: but nothing answered, the infection raged, and the people were now ter- rified to the last degree; so that, as I may say, they gave themselves up, and as I mentioned above, abandoned themselves to their des- pair. But let me observe here, that, when I say the people abandoned themselves to despair, I do not mean to what men calla religious despair, or a despair of their eternal state; but I mean a despair of their being able to escape the infection, or to outlive the plague, which they saw was so raging and so irresistible in its force, that indeed few people that were touched with it in its height, about August and September, escaped; and, which is very particular, con- trary to its ordinary operation in June and July, and the beginning of August, when, as I have observed, many were infected, and con- tinued so many days, and then went off, after having had the poison in their blood along time; but now, on the contrary, most of the people who were taken during the last two weeks in August, and in the first three weeks in September, generally died in two or three 144 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. days at the farthest, and many the very same day they were taken. Whether the dog-days, as our astrologers pretended to express them- selves, the influence of the dog star, had that malignant effect, or all those who had the seeds of infection before in them, brought it up to maturity at that time altogether, I know not; but this was the time wher it was reported, that above three thousand people died in one night; and they that would have us believe they more critically ob- served it, pretend to say, that they all died within the space of two hours; viz., between the hours of one and three in the morning. As to the suddenness of people dying at this time, more than before, there were inumerable instances of it, and I could name several in my neighborhood: one family withont the bars, and not far from me, were all seemingly well on the Monday, being ten in family : that evening, one maid and one apprentice were taken ill, and died the next morning, when the other apprentice and two children were touched, whereof one died the same evening, and the other two on Wednesday ; in a word, by Saturday at noon, the mas- ter, mistress, four children, and four servants, were all gone, and the house left entirely empty, except an ancient woman, who came to take charge of the goods for the master of the family’s brother, who lived not far off, and who had not been sick. Many houses were then left desolate, all the people being carried away dead, and especially in an alley farther on the same side beyond the bars, going in at the sign of Moses and Aaron. There were several houses together, which they said had not one person left alive in them; and some that died last in several of those houses, were ‘left a little too long before they were fetched out to be buried: the reason of which was not, as some have written, very untruly, that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, but that the mortal- ity was so great in the yard or alley, that there was nobody left to give notice to the buriers or sextons that there were any dead bodies there to be buried. It was said, how true I know not, that some of those bodies were so corrupted and so rotten, that it was with diffi- culty they were carried; and, as the carts could not come any nearer than to the alley-gate in High street, it was so much the more difficult to bring them along; but I am not certain how many bodies were then left. I am sure that ordinarily it was not so. AsI have mentioned how the people were brought into a condi- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 145 tion to despair of life, and abandoned themselves, so this very thing had a strange effect among us for three or four weeks, that is, it made them bold and venturous, they were no more shy of one ano- ther, or restrained within doors, but went anywhere and everywhere, and began to converse; one would say to another—“I do not ask you how you are, or say how I am; it is certain we shall all go, so *tis no matter who is sick or who is sound ;” and so they ran desper- ately into any place or company. As it brought the people into public company so it was surprising how it brought them to crowd into the churches; they inquired no more into who they sat near to, or far from, what offensive smells they met with, or what condition the people seemed to be in, but looking upon themselves all as so many dead corpses, they came to the churches without the least caution, and crowded together as if their lives were of no consequence compared to the work which they came abdut there; indeed, the zeal which they showed in coming, and the earnestness and affection they showed in their attention to what they heard, made it manifest what a value people would all put upon the worship of God if they thought every day they attended at the church that it would be their last. Nor was it without other strange effects, for it took away all manner of prejudice at, or scru- ple about the person whom they found in the pulpit when they came to the churches. It cannot be doubted but that many of the minis- ters of the parish churches were cut off among others in so common and dreadful a calamity; and others had not courage enough to stand it, but removed into the country as they found means for escape; as then some parish churches were quite vacant and forsaken, the peo- ple made no scruple of desiring such dissenters as had been a few years before deprived of their livings, by virtue of an act of parliament called the Act of Uniformity, to preach in the churches, nor did the church ministers in that case make any difficulty in accepting their assistance; so that many of those whom they called silent ministers, had their mouths opened on this occasion, and preached publicly to the people. Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to take no- tice of it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good principles one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life, and our putting these things far from us, that 7 146 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices, breach of charity and of Christian union so much kept and so far carried on among us as it is: another plague year would reconcile all these dif- ferences, a close conversing with death, or with diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gall from our tempers, remove the animosi- ties among us, and bring us, to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things with before; as the people who had been used to join with the church were reconciled at this time with the admitting the dissenters to preach to them; so the dissenters, who had an uncommon prejudice, had broken off from the commu- nion of the church of England, were now content to come to their parish churches, and to conform to the worship which they did not approve of before; but as the terror of the infection abated, those things all returned again to their less desirable channel, and to the course they were in before. I mention this but historically, I have no mind to enter into argu- ments to move either or both sides to a more charitable compliance one with another; I do not see that it is probable such a discourse would be either suitable or successful, the breaches seem rather to - widen, and tend to a widening farther than to closing ; and who am I, that I should think myself able to influence either one side or other? But this I may repeat again, that it is evident death will reconcile us all—on the other side the grave we shall be all brethren again; in heaven, whither I hope we may come from all parties and persuasions, we shall find neither prejudice nor scruple; there we shall be of one principle and of one opinion. Why we cannot be content to go hand in hand to the place where we shall join heart and hand without the least hesitation and with the most complete harmony and affection? I say, why we cannot do so here I can say nothing to, neither shall I say anything more of it, but that it re- mains to be lamented. I could dwell a great while upon the calamities of this dreadful time, and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us every day, the dreadful extravagancies which the distraction of sick people drove them into; how the streets began now to be fuller of frightful objects, and families to be made even a terror to themselves; but after I have told you, as I have above, that one man being tied in his bed, and finding no other way to deliver himself, set the bed on fire 2 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 147 with his candle, which unhappily stood within his reach, and burnt himself in hed ; and how another, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced and sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy from another; I say, after I have mentioned these things, what can be added more? What can be said to represent the misery of these times more lively to the reader, or to give him a perfect idea of a more complicated distress. I must acknowledge that this time was so terrible that I was sometimes at the end of all my resolutions, and that I had not the courage that I had at the beginning. As the extremity brought other people abroad, it drove me home, and, except having made my voyage down to Blackwall and Greenwich, as I have related, which was an excursion, I kept afterwards very much within doors, as I had for about a fortnight before. I have said already, that I repent- ed several times that I had ventured to stay in town, and had not gone away with my brother and his family, but it was too late for that now; and after I had retreated and stayed within doors a good while before my impatience led me abroad, then they called me, as I have said, to an ugly and dangerous office, which ‘brought me out again; but as that was expired, while the height of the distem- per lasted, I retired again, and continued close ten or twelve days more, during which many dismal spectacles represented themselves in my view, out of my own windows, and in our own street, as that particularly from Harrow Alley, of the poor outrageous creature who danced and sung in his agony; and many others there were. Scarce a day or a night passed over but some dismal thing or other happen- ed at the end of that Harrow Alley, which was a place full of poor people, most of them belonging to the butchers, or to employments depending upon the butchery, Sometimes heaps and throngs of people would burst out of the alley, most of them women, making a dreadful clamor, mixed or compounded of screeches, cryings, and calling one another, that we could not conceive what to make of it; almost all the dead part of the night the dead cart stood at the end of that alley, for if it went in, it could not well turn again and could go in but a little way. There, I say, it stood to receive dead bodies; and, as the churchy arél was but a little way off, if it went away full it would soon be back again, It is impossible to describe the most horrible cries and noise 148 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. the poor people would make at their bringing the dead bodies of their children and friends out to the cart: and, by the number, one would have thought there had been none left bebind, or that there were people enough for a small city living in those places. Several times they cried murder, sometimes fire: but it was easy to perceive that it was all distraction, and the complaints of distressed and distempered people. I believe it was everywhere thus at that time, for the plague raged for six or seven weeks beyond all that I have expressed and came even to such a height, that, in the extremity, they began to break in- to that excellent order, of which I have spoken so much in behalf of the magistrates, namely, that no dead bodies were seen in the streets, or burials it the daytime; for there was a necessity in this extremity, to bear with its being otherwise for a little while. One thing I cannot omit here, and, indeed, I thought it was extra- ordinary, at least it seemed a remarkable hand of divine justice; viz., that all the predictors, astrologers, fortune-tellers, and what they called cunning men, conjurors, and the like calculators of nativ- ities, and dreamers of dreams, and such people, were gone and van- ished, not one-of them was to be found. I am verily persuaded, that a great number of them fell in the heat of the calamity, having ven- tured to stay upon the prospect of getting great estates ; and, indeed, their gain was but too great for a time, through the madness and folly of the people; bat now they were silent, many of them went to their long home, not able to foretell their own fate, or to calculate their own nativities. Some have been critical enough to say, that every one of them died. I dare not affirm that; but this I must own, that I never heard of one of them that ever appeared after the calamity was over. But to return tc my particular observations, during this dreadful part of the visitatr n. I am now come, as I have said, tothe month of September, wh.ch was the most dreadful of its kind, I believe, that ever Londor saw; for, by all the accounts which I have seen of the preceding writations which have been in London, nothing has been like it; the number in the weekly bill amounting to almost forty thousands from “he 22d of August to the 26th of September, being but five week. The particulars of the bills are as follows; viz: THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 149 From August the 22d to the 29th................2...005 7,496 To the 5th of September........... cece eee ee eee e cence 8,252 Tithe T2this wiicissis ox vweivew ds overs oeiartete asi nace. wns « 7,690 IP Githe 19th: sis sisvserecedew uss wale eerdscnen Sen's seen ti 8,297 TOM 2Gth iss sc isis irda sere ietaicvicie ste seaulterogey eens ai 6,460, 38,195 This was a prodigious number of itself; but 1f I snould add the reasons which I have to believe, that this account was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would with me make no scruple to believe, that there died above ten thousand a week for all those weeks, one week with another, and a proportion for several weeks, both before and after. The confusion among the people, especially within the city, at that time, was inexpressible; the terror was so great at last, that the courage of the people appointed to carry away the dead be- gan to fail them; nay several of them died, although they had the distemper before, and were recovered; and some of them dropped down when they have been carrying the bodies even at the pitside, and just ready to throw them in; and this confusion was greater in the city, because they had flattered themselves with hopes of escap- ing, and thought the bitterness of death was past. One cart they told us, going up Shoreditch, was forsaken by the drivers, or being left to one man to drive, he died in the street, and the horses going on, overthrew the cart, and left the bodies, some thrown here, some there, in a dismal manner. Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit in Finsbury-fields, the driver being dead, or having been gone and abandoned it, and the horses running too near it, the cart fell in and drew the horses in also. It was suggested that the driver was thrown in with it, and that the cart fell upon him, by reason his whip was seen to be in the pit among the bodies; but that I suppose, could not be certain. In our parish of Aldgate, the dead carts were several times, as I have heard, found standing at the churchyard gate, full of dead bodies; but neither bellman or driver, or any one else with it. Neither in these, or many other cases, did they know what bodies they had in their cart, for sometimes they were let down with ropes out of balconies and out of windows; and sometimes the bearers brought them to the cart, sometimes other people; nor, as the men 150 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. themselves said, did they trouble themselves to keep any account of the numbers. The vigilance of the magistrate was now put to the utmost trial; and it must be confessed, can never be enough acknowledged on this occasion ; also, whatever expense or trouble they were at, two things were never neglected in the city or suburbs either: 1. Provisions were always to be had in full plenty and the price not much raised neither, hardly worth speaking. 2. No dead bodies lay unburied or uncovered; and if any one walked fri m one end of the city to another, no funeral, or sign of it, was to be seen in the daytime; except a little, as I have said, in the first three weeks in September. This last article, perhaps, will hardly be believed, when some accounts which others have published since that, shall be seen; wherein they say, that the dead lay unburied, which I am sure was utterly false; at least, if it had been anywhere so, it must have been in houses where the living were gone from the dead, having found means, as I have observed, to escape, and where no notice was given to the officers. AI which amounts to nothing at all in the case in hand ; for this I am positive in, having myself been employed a little in the direction of that part of the parish in which I lived, and where as great a desolation was made, in proportion to the number of the inhabitants as was anywhere. I say, Jam sure that there were no dead bodies remained unburied; that is to say, none that the pro- per officers knew of, none for want of people to carry them off, and buriers to put them into the ground and cover them; and this is sufficient to the argument; for what might lie in houses and holes, as in Moses and Aaron-Alley, is nothing, for it is most certain they were buried as soon as they were found. As to the first article, namely, of provisions, the scarcity or dearness, though I have men- tioned it before, ‘and shall speak of it again, yet I must observe here. (1.) The price of bread in particular was not much raised; for in the beginning of the year, viz., in the 1st week in March, the penny wheaten loaf was ten ounces and a half; and in the height of the contagion it was to be had at nine ounces and a half, and never dear- er, no, not all that season. And about the beginning of November, it was sold at ten ounces and a half again, the like of which, I believe, was never heard of in any city, under so dreadful a visitation before THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 151 (2.) Neither was there, which I wondered much at, any want of bakers or ovens kept open to supply the people with bread ; but this was indeed alleged by some families, viz., that their maid-servants going to the bakehouses with their dough to be baked, which was then the custom, sometimes came home with the sickness, that is to say, the plague upon them. In all this dreadful visitation, there were, as I have said before, but two pest-houses made use of, viz., one in the fields beyond Old- street, and one in Westminster; neither was there any compulsion used in carrying people thither. Indeed there was no need of com- pulsion in the case, for there were thousands of poor distressed peo- ple, who, having no help, or conveniences, or supplies, but of char- ity, would -have been very glad to have been carried thither, and been taken care of, which, indeed, was the only thing that, I think, was wanting in the whole public management of the city; seeing nobody was here allowed to be brought to the pest-house, but where money was given, or security for money, either at their introducing, or upon their being cured and sent out; for very many were sent out again whole, and very good physicians were appointed to those places, so that many people did very well there, of which I shall make mention again. The principal sort of people sent thither were, as I have said, servants, who got the distemper by going of errands to fetch necessaries for the families where they lived; and who, in that case, if they came home sick, were removed, to preserve the rest of the house; and they were so well looked after there, in all the time of the visitation, that there was but 156 buried in all at the London pest-house, and J59 at that of Westminster. By having more pest-houses, I am far from meaning a forcing all people into such places. Had the shutting up of houses been omit- ted, and the sick hurried out of their dwellings to pest-houses, as some proposed it seems at that time as well as since, it would cer- tainly have been much worse than it was; the very removing the sick would have been a spreading of the infection, and the rather because that removing could not effectually clear the house where the sick person was of the distemper; and the rest of the family being then left at liberty, would certainly spread it among others. The methods also in private families, which would have been aniversally used to have concealed the distemper, and to have con- 152 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, cealed the persons being sick, would have been such that the dis- temper would sometimes have seized a whole family before any visitors or examiners could have known of it. On the other hand, the prodigious numbers which would have been sick at a time would have exceeded all the capacity of public pest-houses to receive them, or of public officers to discover and remove them. This was well considered in those days, and I have heard them talk of it often. The magistrates had enough to do to bring people to submit to having their houses shut up, and many ways they de- ceived the watchmen and got out, as I observed; but that difficulty made it apparent that they would have found it impracticable to have gone the other way to work; for they could never have forced the sick people out of their beds, and out of their dwellings : it must not‘ have been my lord mayor’s officers, but an army of officers, that must have attempted it; and the people on the other hand would have been enraged and desperate, and would have killed those that should have offered to have meddled with them, or with their child- ren and relations, whatever had befallen them for it; so that they would have made the people, who, as it was, were in the most terri- ble distraction imaginable—I say, they would have made them stark mad! whereas, the magistrates found it proper on several occasions to treat them with lenity and compassion, and not with violence and terror, such as dragging the sick out of their houses, or obliging them to remove themselves, would have been. This leads me again to mention the time when the plague first be- gan, that is to say, when it became certain that it would spread over the whole town, when, as I have said, the better sort of people first took the alarm, and began to hurry themselves out of town; it was true, as I observed in its place, that the throng was so great, and the coaches, horses, wagons, and carts were so many, driving and drag- ging the people away, that it looked as if all the city was running away, and had any regulations been published that had been terrify- ing at that time, especially such as would pretend to dispose of the people otherwise than they would dispose of themselves, it would have put both the city and suburbs into the utmost confusion, The magistrates wisely caused the people to be encouraged, made very good by-laws for the regulating the citizens, keeping good order THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 153 in the streets, and making everything as eligible as possible to all sorts of people. In the first place, the lord mayor and the sheriffs, the court of aldermen, and a certain number of the common-council men, or their deputies, came to a resolution, and published it, viz., that they would not quit the city themselves, but that they would be always at hand for the preserving good order in every place, and for doing justice on all occasions ; as also for the distributing the public charity to the poor; and, in a word, for the doing the duty and discharging the trust reposed in them by the citizens, to the utmost of their power. In pursuance of these orders, the lord mayor, sheriffs, etc., held councils every day, more or less, for making such dispositions as they found needful for preserving the civil peace; and though they used the people with all possible gentleness and clemency, yet all manner of presumptuous rogues, such as thieves, housebreakers, plunderers of the dead or of the sick, were duly punished, and several declarations were continually published by the lord mayor and court of aldermen against such. Also, all constables and churchwardens were enjoined to stay in the city upon severe penalties, or to depute such able and sufficient housekeepers as the deputy-aldermen, or common councilmen of the precinct should approve, and for whom they should give security ; and also security in case of mortality, that they would forthwith constitute other constables in their stead. ‘ These things re-established the minds of the people very much; especially in the first of their fright, when they talked of making so universal a flight, that. the city would have been in danger of being entirely deserted of its inhabitants, except the poor, and the country of being plundered and laid waste by the multitude. Nor were the magistrates deficient in performing their part as boldly as they pro- mised it: for my lord mayor and the sheriffs were continually in the streets, and at places of the greatest danger: and though they did not care for having too great a resort of people crowding about them, yet, in emergent cases, they never denied the people access to them, and heard with patience all their grievances and complaints; my lord mayor had a low gallery, built on purpose in his hall, where he stood, a little removed from the crowd, when any complaint came to be heard, that he might appear with as much safety as possible. 164 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Likewise, the proper officers, called my lord mayor’s officers, con- stantly attended in their turns, as they were in waiting; and if any of them were sick or infected, as some of them were, others were instantly employed to fill up and officiate in their places, till it was known whether the other should live or die. In like manner the sheriffs and aldermen did,in their several stations and wards, where they were placed by office, and the sherifi’s officers or serjeants were appointed to receive orders from the respective aldermen in their turn; so that justice was executed in all cases without interruption. In the next place, it was one of their particular cares to see the orders for the freedom of the markets observed; and in this part, either the lord mayor, or one or both of the sheriffs were every market-day on horseback to see their orders executed, and to see that the country people had all possible encour- agement and freedom in their coming to the markets, and going back again; and that no nuisance or frightful object should be seen in the streets to terrify them, or make them unwilling to come. Also, the bakers were taken under particular order, and the master of the Baker’s Company was, with his court of assistants, directed to see the order of my lord mayor for their regulation put in execution, and the due assize of bread, which was weekly appointed by my lord mayor, observed; and all the bakers were obliged to keep their ovens going constantly, on pain of losing the privileges of a freeman of the city of London. By this means, bread was always to be had in plenty, and as cheap as usual, as I said above; and provisions were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it, and re- proached myself with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when the country people came freely and boldly to market, as if there had been no manner of infection in the city, or danger of catching it. It was, indeed, one admirable piece of conduct in the said magis- trates, that the streets were kept constantly clear and free from all manner of frightful objects, dead bodies, or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant; unless where anybody fell down suddenly, or died in the streets, as I have said above, and these were generally covered with some cloth or blanket or removed into the next churchyard till night. All the needful works that carried terror THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 155 ‘with them, that were both dismal and dangerous, were done in the aight; if any deceased bodies were removed or dead bodies buried, or infected clothes burnt, it was done in the night; and all the bodies which were thrown into the great pits in the several church- yards or burying-grounds, as has been observed, were so removed in the night; and everything was covered and closed before day. So that in the daytime, there was not the least signal of the calamity to be seen or heard of, except what was to be observed from the emptiness of the streets, and sometimes from the passionate outcries and lamentations of the people, out at their windows, and from the numbers of houses and shops shut up. * - Nor was the silence and emptiness of the streets so much in the city as in the out-parts; except just at one particular time, when, as I have mentioned, the plague came east and spread over all the city. It was indeed a merciful disposition of God, that as the plague be- gan at one end of the town first, as has been observed at large, so it proceeded progressively to other parts, and did not come on this way, or eastward, till it had spent its fury in the west part of the town; and so as it came on one way, it abated another; for exam- ple :— It began at St. Giles’s and the Westminster end of the town, and it was in its height in all that part by about the middle of July, viz., in St. Giles’s-in-the-fields, St. Andrew’s, Holborn, St. Clement’s Danes, St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, and in Westminster: the latter end of July it decreased in those parishes, and coming east, it increased prodigiously in Cripplegate, St. Sepulchre’s, St. James’s, Clerkenwell, and St. Bride’s and Aldersgate. While it was in all these parishes, the city and all the parishes of the Southwark side of the water, and all Stepney, Whitechapel, Aldgate, Wapping, and Ratcliff, were very little touched; so that the people went about their business uncon- cerned, carried on their trades, kept open their shops, and conversed freely with one another in all the city, the east and north east sub- urbs, and in Southwark, almost asif the plague had not been among us, Even when the north and north-west suburbs were fully infected, viz., Cripplegate, Clerkenwell, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, yet still all the rest were tolerably well: for example :— From the 25th July to the 1st of August, the bill stood thus of all diseases :— 156 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. St. Giles’s Uripplegate . . Sk a je ve » 554 St.Sepulchre’s . . .« 2. «© «© «© . 250 Clerkenwell . . ~ . a . ‘ 103 Bishopsgate . . Be RS - <6 Shoreditch . * * . . ‘ 110 Stepney Parish . . ee 2 ie SE ASn ce 127 Aldgate . - y ‘ é . . . x é 92 Whitechapel . ‘ . . . . 104 All the 97 Parishes within the walls a . * % 228 All the Parishesin Southwark . . . ‘ x“ 205 1889 cl So that, in short, there died more that week in the two parishes of Cripplegate and St Sepulchre’s by 48, than all the city, all the suburbs, and all the Southwark parishes put together; this caused the reputation of the city’s health to continue all over England, and especially in the counties and markets adjacent, from whence our supply of. provisions chiefly came, even much longer than that health itself continued, for when the people came into the streets from the country by Shoreditch and Bishopsgate, or by Old street and Smithfield, they would see the out-streets empty, and the houses and shops shut, and the few people that were stirring there walk in the middle of the streets; but when they came within the city, there things looked better, and the markets and shops were open, and the people walking about the streets as usual, though not quite so many; and this continued till the latter end of August and the beginning of September. But then the case altered quite, the distemper abated in the west and north west parishes, and the weight of the infection lay on the city and the eastern suburbs, and the Southwark side, and this is a frightful manner. Then indeed the city began to look dismal, shops to be shut ané the streets desolate; in the high street indeed necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions; and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty many people, but in the mornings and evenings scarce any to be seen even there, no, not in Cornhill and Cheap- side. These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed by the weekly bills of mortality for those weeks, an abstract of which, as THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 15% they respect the parishes which I have mentioned, and as they make the calculations I speak of very evident, take as follows :— The weekly bill which makes out this decrease of the burials in the west and north side of the city, stands thus :— St. Giles’s, Cripplegate ee St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields ‘os Clerkenwell . . “ . St.Sepulchre’s . . « . St. Leonard, Shoreditch ee 28 Stepney Parish . : Aldgate ‘ : ‘ Whitechapel . Z “ . . In the 97 Parishes within the walls In the 8 Parishes on Southwark side 456 140 V7 214 183 716 623 532 1493 1636 6070 Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a sad change it was, and had it held for two months more than it did, very few peo- ple would have been left alive; but then such, I say, was the merciful disposition of God, that when it was thus, the west and north part, which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew, as you see, much better; and as the people disappeared here, they began to look abroad again there: and the next week or two altered it still more, that is, more to the encouragement of the other part of the town; for example :— From the 19th of September to the 26th. St. Giles’s Cripplegate . . - St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields . ‘ a Clerkenwell . é . . ‘ St.Sepulchre’s . . ‘ e St. Leonard, Shoreditch . ‘ Stepney Parish . . j < Aldgate . ; ‘i ‘ ‘ ‘ Whitechapel . ¥ * In the 97 Parishes within the radls In the 8 Parishes on Southwark side 277 119 76 193 146 616 496 346 1268 1390 4927 158 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. From the 26th of September to the 3d of October. St. Giles’s, Cripplegate . 3 sy 7 - 196 St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields . ‘ , * ‘ * 95 Clerkenwell . ‘ rn 7 : ‘ ¥ 3 * 48 St. Sepulchre’s r ‘ : é ‘ z a? ee | Aae St. Leonard Shoreditch .. é 3 ‘ - 128 Stepney Parish ‘ . a ‘ A s a - 674 Aldgate . * « * a * ‘ “ * * - 372 Whitechapel . . es . . - 328 In the 97 Parishes within the ean ; . j . 1149 In the 8 Parishes on Southwark side. ‘ - 1201 4328 And now the misery of the city, and of the-said east and south parts, was complete indeed; for as you see, the weight of the dis- temper lay upon those parts, that is to say, the city, the eight par- ishes over the river, with the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, and this was the time that the bills came up to such a mon- strous height as that I mentioned before; and that eight or nine, and, as I believe, ten or twelve thousand a week, died; for it is my set- tled opinion, that they never could come at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons which I have given already. Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has since published in Latin an account of those times, and of his observations, says, that in one week there died twelve thousand people, and that particularly there died four thousand in one night; though I do not remember that there ever was any such particular night so remarkably fatal as that such a number died in it: however, all this confirms what I have said above of the uncertainty of the bills of mortality, etc., of which I shall say more hereafter. And here let me take leave to enter again, though it may seem a repetition of circumstances, into a description of the miserable con- dition of the city itself, and of those parts where I lived, at this par- ticular time. The city, and those other parts, notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into the country, was vastly full of people; and perhaps the fuller, because people had, for a long time, a strong belief that the plague would not come into the city, nor, into Southwark, no, nor into Wapping or Ratcliff at all; nay, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 159 such was the assurance of the people on that head, that many removed from the suburbs on the west and north sides, into those eastern and south sides as for safety, and, as I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it. Here, also, I ought to leave a further remark for the use of poster- ity, concerning the manner of people’s infecting one another ; namely, that it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately received by others that were sound, but the well. To explain myself; by the sick people, I mean those who were kown to be sick, had taken their beds, had been under cure, or had swellings or tumors upon them, and the like; these everybody could beware of, they were either in their beds, or in such condition as could not be concealed. By the well, I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it really upon them and in their blood, yet did not show the con- sequences of it in their countenances; nay, even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not for several days. These breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came near them; nay, their very clothes retained the infection, their hands would infect the-things they touched, especially if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too. Now, it was impossible to know these people, nor did they some- times, as I have said, know themselves to be infected. These, were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the streets; for oftentimes they would go about the streets to the last, till on a sudden they would sweat, grow faint, sit down ata door, and die. It is true, finding themselves thu, they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or, at other times, would be just able to go into their houses, and die instantly; other times they would go about till they had the very tokens come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour or two after they came home, but be well as long as they were abroad. These were the dangerous people, these were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid; but then, on the other side, it was impossible to know them. And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visitation to prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance, 160 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. viz., that it is impossible to know the infected people from the sound people ; or that the infected should perfectly know themselves. I knew a man who conversed freely in London all the season of the plague in 1665, and kept about an antidote or cordial, on purpose to take when he thought himself in any danger, and he had such a rule to know, or have warning of the danger by, as indeed I never met with before or since; how far it may be depended on I know not. He had a wound in his leg, and whenever he came among any peo- ple that were not sound, and the infection began to affect him, he said he could know it by that signal, viz., that the wound in his leg would smart, and look pale and white; so as soon as ever he felt it smart it was time for him to withdraw, or to take care of himself, taking his drink, which he always carried about him for that purpose. Now it seems he found his wound would smart many times when he was in company with such who thought themselves to be sound, and who appeared so to one another; but he would presently rise up, and say publicly,—‘‘ Friends, here is somebody in the room that has the plague;” and so would immediately break up the company. This was indeed a faithful monitor to all people, that the plague is not to be avoided by those that converse promiscuously in a town infected, and people have it when they know it not, and that they likewise give it to others when they know not that they have it themselves ; and in this case shutting up the well or removing the sick will not do it, unless they can go back and shut up all those that the sick had conversed with, even before they knew themselves to be sick, and none knows how far to carry that back, or where to stop; for none knows when, or where, or how they may have received the infect- ion, or from whom. This I take to be the reason which makes so many people talk of the air being corrupted and infected, and that they need not be cau- tious of whom they converse with, for that the contagion was in the air. I have seen them in strange agitations and surprises on this ac- count, ‘I have never come near any infected body!” says the dis- turbed person, “I have conversed with none but sound, healthy people, and yet Ihave gotten the distemper!”—“I am sure I am struck from heaven,” says another, and he falls to the serious part. Again, the first goes on exclaiming, ‘I have come near no infection, or any infected person; I am sure it is in the air: we draw in death THE PLAGUE IN LONDON 161 when we breathe, and therefore it is the hand of God: there is no withstanding it.” And this at last made many people, being harden- ed to the danger, grow less concerned at it, and less cautious towards the latter end of the time, and when it was come to its height, than they were at first; then, with a kind of Turkish predestinarianism they would say, if it pleased God to strike them it was all one whe- ther they went abroad or stayed at home, they could not escape it, and therefore they went boldly about, even into infected houses and infect- ed company, visited sick people, and, in short, lay in the beds with their wives or relations when they were infected; and what was the consequence but the same that is the consequence in Turkey, and in those countries where they do those things? namely, that they were infected too, and died by hundreds and thousands. I would be far from lessening the awe of the judgments of God, and the reverence to his Providence, which ought always to be on our minds on such occasions as these; doubtless the visitation itself is a stroke from heaven upon a city, or country, or nation where it falls; a messenger of his vengeance, and a loud call to that nation, or country, or city, to humiliation and repentance, according to that of the prophet Jeremiah, xviii. 7, 8. ‘At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, and pull down, and destroy it: if that nation against whom I have pronounc- ed turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Now to prompt due impressions of the awe of God on the minds of men on such occasions, and not to lessen them, it is that I have left these minutes upon record. I say, therefore, I reflect upon no man for putting the reason of those things upon the immediate hand of God, and the appointment and direction of his Providence; nay, on the contrary, there were many wonderful deliverances of persons from infection, and deliver- ances of persons when infected, which intimate singular and remark- able Providence in the particular instances to which they refer; and I esteem my own deliverance to be one next to miraculous, and do record it with thankfulness. But when I am speaking of the plague as a distemper arising from natural causes, we must consider it as it was really propagated by natural means, nor is it at all the less a judgment for its being under the conduct of human causes and effects; for as the divine power has 162 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. formed tha whole scheme of nature, and maintains nature in its course, go the same power thinks fit to let his own actings with men, whether of mercy or judgment, to go on in the ordinary course of natural causes, and he is pleased to act by those natural causes as the ordinary means; excepting and reserving to himself nevertheless a- power to act in a supernatural way when he sees occasion. Now it is evident that, in the case of an infection, there is no apparent extra- ordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed, and made capable of all the ef- fects that heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these causes and effects this of the secret conveyance of the infection imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness of divine vengeance, without putting it upon supernaturals and n:iracles. The acute, penetrating nature of the disease itself’ was such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that thé most exact cau- tion could not secure us while in the place; but I must be allowed to believe, and I have so many examples fresh in my memory, to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their evidence; I say, J must be allowed to believe that no one in this whole nation ever re- ceived the sickness or infection but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or the clothes, or touch, or stench of somebody that was infected before. The manner of its first coming to London proves this also, viz., by goods brought over from Holland, and brought thither from the Le- vant; the first breaking out of it in a house in Long Acre, where those goods were carried and first opened; its spreading from that house to other houses by the visible unwary conversing with those who were sick, and the infecting the parish officers who were employed about persons dead, and the like. These are known authorities for this great foundation point, that it went on and proceeded from per- son to person, and from house to house, and no otherwise. In the first house that was infected there died four persons; a neighbor, hearing the mistress of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and went home and gave the distemper to her family, and died, and all her household. A minister called to pray with the first sick person in the second house, was said to sicken immediately, and die, with sev- eral more in his house. Then the physicians began to consider, for THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 163 they did not at first dream’ of a general contagion; but the physi- cians being sent to inspect the bodies, they assured the people that it was neither more or less than the plague, with all its terrifying particulars, and that it threatened an universal infection, so many people having already conversed with the sick or distempered, and having as might be supposed, received infection from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it, Here the opinion of the physicians agreed with my observation af- terwards, namely, that the danger was spreading insensibly ; for the sick could infect none but those that came within reach of the sick person, but that one man, who may have really received the infec- tion, and knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a sound person, may give the plague to a thousand people, and they to greater num- bers in proportion, and neither the person giving the infection, nor the persons receiving it, know anything of it, and perhaps do not feel the effects of it for several days after. For example :— Many persons, in the time of this visitation, never perceived that they were infected, till they found, to their unspeakable surprise, the tokens come out upon them, after which they seldom lived six hours; for those spots they called the tokens were really gangrene spots, or mortified flesh, in small knobs as broad as a little silver penny, and hard asa piece of callus or horn; so that when the disease was come up to that length, there was nothing could follow but certain death; aud yet, as I said, they knew nothing of their being infected, nor found themselves so much as out of order, till those mortal marks were upon them. But everybody must allow that they were infected in a high degree before, and must have been so some time ; and, consequently, their breath, their sweat, their very clothes were contagious for many days before. This occasioned a vast variety of cases, which physicians would have much more opportunity to remember than I; but some came within the compass of my observation, or hearing, of which I shall name a few. A certain citizen, who had lived safe and untouched till the month of September, when the weight of the distemper lay more in the city than it had done before, was mighty cheerful and something too bold, as I think it was, in his talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and “ow he had never come near any sick 164 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. body. Says another citizen, a neighbor of his, to him, one day, Do not be too confident, Mr. ——; it is hard to say who is sick and who is well; for we see men alive and well to outward appearance one hour, and dead the next. That is true, says the first man, (for he was not a man presumptuously secure, but had escaped a long while; and men, as I have said above, especially in the city, began to be over-easy on that score). That is true, says he, I do not think my- self secure, but I hope I have not been in company with any person that there has been any danger in. No! says his neighbor; was not you at the Bull-head tavern, in Gracechurch street, with Mr. —, the night before last? Yes, says the first, ] was, but there was nobody there that we had any reason to think dangerous. Upon which his neighbor said no more, being unwilling to surprise him; but this made him more inquisitive, and, as his neighbor appeared backward, he was the more impatient; and in a kind of warmth, says he aloud, Why, he is not dead, ishe? Upon which his neighbor still was silent, but cast up his eyes, and said something to himself; at which the first citizen turned pale, and said no more but this, Then I am a dead man too! and went home immediately, and sent for a neighboring apothecary to give him something preventive, for he had not yet found himself ill; but the apothecary opening his breast, fetched a sigh, and said no more but this, “Look up to God ;” and the man died in a few hours. Now let any man judge, from a case like this, if it is possible for the regulations of magistrates, either by shutting up the sick or re- moving them, to stop an infection which spreads itself from man to man even while they are perfectly well and insensible of its approach, and may be so for many days. It may be proper to ask here how long it may be supposed men might have the seeds of the contagion in them before it discovered itself in this fatal manner, and how long they might go about seem- ingly whole, and yet be contagious to all those that came near them. I believe the most experienced physicians cannot answer this ques- tion directly any more than I can; and something an ordinary observer may take notice of, which may pass their observation. The opinion of physicians abroad seems to be, that it may lie dor- mant in the spirits, or in the blood-vessels, a very considerable time ; why else do they exact a quarantine of those who come into their THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 165 harbors and ports from suspected places? Forty days is, one would think, too long for nature to struggle with such an enemy as this and not conquer it or yield to it: but I could not think by my own observation that they can be infected, so as to be contagious to others, above fifteen or sixteen days at farthest; and on that score it was, that when a house was shut up in the city, and any one had died of the plague, but nobody appeared to be ill in the family for sixteen or eighteen days after, they were not so strict but that they would connive at their going privately abroad; nor would people be much afraid of them afterwards, but rather think they were fortified the better, having not been vulnerable whén the enemy was in their house; but we sometimes found it had lain much longer con- cealed. Upon the foot of all these observations I must say, that, though Providence seemed to direct my conduct to be otherwise, it is my opinion, and I must leave it as a prescription, viz., that the best physic against the plague is to run away from it. I know people encourage themselves by saying, God is able to keep us in the midst of danger, and able to overtake us when we think ourselves out of danger; and this kept thousands in the town, whose carcases went into the great pits by cart-loads: and who, if they had fled from the danger, had, I believe, been safe from the disaster; at least ’tis probable they had been safe. And were this very fundamental only duly considered by the people on any future occasion of this or the like nature, I am per- suaded it would put them upon quite different measures for manag- ing the people from those that they took in 1665, or than any that have been taken abroad, that I have heard of; in a word, they would consider of separating the people into smaller bodies, and removing them in time farther from one another, and not let such a contagion as this, which is indeed chiefly dangerous to collected bodies of peo- ple, find a million of people in a body together, as was very near the case before, and would certainly be the case if it should ever appear again. , The plague, like a great fire, if a few houses only are contiguous where it happens, can only burn 2 few houses; or if it begins in a single, or, as we call it, a lone house, can only burn that lone house where it begins. But if it begins in a closé built town or city, and 166 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. gets a-head, there its fury increases, it rages over the whole place, and consumes all it can reach. I could propose many schemes on the foot of which the govern- ment of this city, if ever they should be under the apprehension of such another enemy (God forbid they should), might ease themselves of the greatest part of the dangerous people that belong to them; I mean such as the begging, starving, laboring poor, and among them chiefly those who, in a case of siege, are called the useless mouths ; who being then prudently, and to their own advantage, disposed of, and the wealthy inhabitants disposing of themselves, and of their servants and children, the city, and its adjacent parts would be so effectually evacuated that there would not be above a tenth part of its people left together, for the disease to take hold upon: but sup- pose them to be a fifth part, and that two hundred and fifty thousand people were left, and if it did seize upon them, they would by their living so much at large be much better prepared to defend themselves against the infection, and be less liable to the effects of it than if the same number of people lived close together in one smaller city, such as Dublin, or Amsterdam, or the like. It is true, hundreds, yea thousands of families fled away at this last plague ; but then of them many fled too late, and not only died in their flight, but carried the distemper with them into the coun- tries where they went and infected those whom they went among for safety; which confounded the thing, and made that be a propa- gation of the distemper which was the best means to prevent it; and this too, is evident of it, and brings me back to what I only hinted at before, but must speak more fally to here: namely, that men went about apparently well, many days after they had the taint of the disease in their vitals, and after their spirits were so seized as that they could never escape it; and that all the while they did so they were dangerous to others ; I say, this proves that so it was; for such people infected the very towns they went through, as well as the families they went among. And it was by that means that al- most all the great towns in England had the distemper among them, more or less; and always they would tell you such a Londoner or such a Londoner brought it down. It must not be omitted, that when I speak of those people who were really thus dangerous, I suppose them to be utterly ignorant of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 167 their own condition; for if they really knew their circumstances to be such as indeed they were, they must have been a kind of willfu. murderers, if they would have gone abroad among healthy people, and it would have verified indeed the suggestion which I mentioned above, and which I thought seemed untrue, viz., that the infected people were utterly careless as to giving the infection to others, and rather forward to do it than not; and I believe it was partly from this very thing that they raised that suggestion, which I hope was not really true in fact. I confess no particular case is sufficient to prove a general, but I could name several people within the knowledge of some of their neighbors and families yet living, who showed the contrary to an extreme. One man, thé master of a family in my neighborhood, having had the distemper, he thought he had it given him by a poor workman whom he employed, and whom he went to his house to see, or went for some work that he wanted to have finished; and he had some apprehensions even while he was at the poor workman’s door, but did not discover it fully, but the next day it discovered itself, and he was taken very ill; upon which he immediately caused himself to be carried into an outbuilding which he had in his yard, and where there was a chamber over a workhouse, the man being a brazier. ‘Here he lay, and here he died; and would be tended by none of his neighbors, but by a nurse from abroad; and would not suffer his wife, nor children, nor servants, to come up into the room, lest they should be infected, but sent them his blessing and prayers for them by the nurse, who spoke it to them at a distance; and all this for fear of giving them the distemper, and without which, he knew, as they were kept up, they could not have it.’ And here I must observe also, that the plague, as I suppose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing constitu- tions. Some were immediately overwhelmed with it and it came to violent fevers, vomitings, insufferable headaches, pains in the back, and so up to ravings and tagings with those pains: others with swel- lings and tumors in the neck or groin, or armpits, which, till they could be broke, put them into insufferable agonies and torment ; while others, as I have observed, were silently infected, the fever preying upon their spirits insensibly, and they seeing little of it till they fell into swooning, and faintings, and death without pain. 168 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. I am not physician enough to enter into the particular reasons and manner of these differing effects of one and the same distemper, and of its differing operation in several bodies; nor 1s it my business here to record the observations which I really made, because the doc- tors themselves have done that part much more effectually than I can do, and because my opinion may, in some things, differ from theirs. J am only relating what I know, or have heard, or believe, of the particular cases, and what fell within the compass of my view, and the different nature of the infection as it appeared in the parti- cular cases which I have related; but this may be added, too, that though the former sort of those cases, namely, those openly visited, were the worst for themselves as to pain, I mean those that had such fevers, vomitings, headaches, pains and swellings, because they died in such a dreadful manner: yet the latter had the worst state of the disease, for in the former they frequently recovered, especially if the swellings broke; but the latter was inevitable death, no cure, no help could be possible, nothing could follow but death; and it was worse also to others, because as above, it secretly and unperceived by others or by themselves, communicated death to those they con- versed with, the penetrating poison insinuating itself into their blood in amanner which it was impossible to describe, or indeed conceive. This infecting and being infected, without so much as its being known to either person, is evident from two sorts of cases, which frequently happened at that time; and there is hardly anybody living, who was in London during the infection, but must have known several cases of both sorts. 1. Fathers and mothers have gone about as if they had been well, and have believed themselves to be so, till they have insensibly infected and been the destruction of their whole families; which, they would have been far from doing, if they had had the least appre- hensions of their being unsound and dangerous themselves. A family whose story I have heard, was thus infected by the father, and the distemper began to appear upon some of them even before he found it upon himself; but searching more narrowly, it appeared he had been infected some time, and as soon as he found that his family had been poisoned by himself, he went distracted, and would have laid violent hands upon himself, but was kept from that by those who looked to him, and in a few days he died. ‘THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 169 2. The other particular is, that many people navihg been well to the best of their own judgment, or by the best observation which they could make of themselves for several days, and only finding a decay of appetite, or a light sickness upon their stomachs; nay, some whose appetite has been strong, and even craving, and only a light pain in their heads, have sent for physicians to know what ailed them, and have been found, to their great surprise, at the brink of death, the tokens upon them, or the plague grown up to an incurable height. It was very sad to reflect, how such a person as this last mention ed sbove, had been a walking destroyer, perhaps for a week or fort- night before that; how he had ruined those that he would have hazarded his life to save; and had been breathing death upon them even perhaps in his tender kissing and embracings of his own child- ren. Yet thus certainly it was, and often has been, and I could give many particular cases where it has been so. If, then, the blow is thus insensibly striking; if the arrow flies thus unseen and cannot be discovered; to what purpose are all the schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people? Those schemes cannot take place but upon those that appear to be sick, or to be infected ; whereas there are among them, at the same time, thousands of people’ who seem to be well, but are all that while carrying death with them into all companies which they come into. This frequently puzzled our physicians, and especially the apothe- caries and surgeons, who knew not how to discover the sick from the sound. They all allowed that it was really so; that many people had the plague in their very blood, and preying upon their spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrified carcases, whose breath was infectious, and their sweat poison, and yet were as well to look on as other people, and even knew it not-themselves: I say, they all allowed that it was really true in fact, but they knew not how to propose a discovery. My friend Dr. Heath was of opinion, that it might be known by the smell of their breath; but then, as he said, who durst smell to that breath for his information? since, to know it, he must draw the stench of the plague up into his own brain, in order to distinguish the smell! I have heard, it was the opinion of others, that it might be distinguished by the party’s breathing upon a piece of glass, where 8 170 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. the breath condensing, there might living creatures be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous, and frightful shapes, such as dra- gous, snakes, serpents, and devils, horrible to behold. But this I very much question the truth of; and we had no microscopes at that time, as I remember, to make the experiment with. It was the opinion also of another learned man, that the breath of such a person would poison and instantly kill a bird; not only a small bird, but even acock or hen; and that if it did not imme- diately kill the latter, it would cause them to be roupy, as they call it; particularly that if they had laid any eggs at that time, they would be all rotten. But those are opinions which I never found supported by any experiments, or hear of others that had seen it! so I leave them asI find them, only with this remark, namely, that I think the probabilities are very strong for them. Some have proposed that such persons should breathe hard upon warm water, and that they would leave an unusual scum upon it, or upon several other things; especially such as are of a glutinous sub- stance, and are apt to receive a scum and support it. But, from the whole, I found that the nature of this contagion was such, that it was impossible to discover it at all, or to prevent it spreading from one to another by any human skill. Here was indeed one difficulty, which I could never thoroughly get over to this time, and which there is but one way of answering that I know of, and it is this, viz., the first person that died of the plague was on December 20th, or thereabouts, 1664, and in or about Long Acre: whence the first person had the infection was generally said to be from a parcel of silks imported from Holland, and first opened in that house. But after this we heard no more of any person dying of the plague, or of the distemper being in that place, till the 9th of Feb., which was about seven weeks after, and then one more was -buried out of the same house: then it was hushed, and we were perfectly easy as to the public fora great while; for there were no more entered in the weekly bill to be dead of the plague till the 22d of April, when there were two more buried, not out of the same house, but out of the same ‘street; and, as near as I can remember, it was out of the next house to the first: this was nine weeks asunder, and after this we had no more till a fortnight, and then it broke out in THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 171 several streets, and spread every way. Now the question seems to lie thus :—Where lay the seeds of the infection all this while? how came it to stop so long, and not stop any longer? Either the distem- per did not come immediately by contagion from body to body, or if it did, then a body may be capable to continue infected, without the disease discovering itself, many days, nay, weeks together, even not @ quarantine of days only, but a soixantine, not only forty days, but sixty days, or longer. It is true, there was, as I observed at first, and is well known to many yet living, a very cold winter, and along frost, which con- tinued three months, and this, the doctors say, might check the infection ; but then the learned must allow me to say, that if, accord- ing to their notion, the disease was as I may say, only frozen up, it would, like a frozen river, have returned to its usual force and cur- rent when it thawed, whereas the principal recess of this infection, which was from February to April, was after the frost was broken, and the weather mild and warm. But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, which I think my own remembrance of the thing will supply; and that is, the fact is not granted, namely, that there died none in those long intervals, viz., from the 20th of December to the 9th of February, and from thence to the 22d of April. The weekly bills are the only evidence on the other side, and those bills were not of credit enough, at least with me, to support an hypothesis, or determine a question of such inportance as this: for it was our received opinion at that time, and I believe upon very good grounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, searchers, and persons appointed to give account of the dead, and what diseases they died of: and as people were very loth at first to have the neighbors believe their houses were infected, so they gave money to procure, or otherwise procured the dead persons to be returned as dying of other distempers; and this I know was practised afterwards in many places, I believe I might say in all places where the distemper came, as will be seen by the vast increase of the numbers placed in the weekly bills under other articles of diseases during the time of the infection; for exam- ple, in the months of July and August, when the plague was coming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have from a thousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred a week, of other 172 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. distempers; not that the numbers of those distempers were really increased to such a degree; but the great number of families and houses where really the infection was, obtained the favor to have their dead be returned of other distempers, to prevent the shutting up their houses, For example :— Dead of other deceases besides the plague. From the 18th to the 25th July . a . - 942 Tothelstof August. . . «.« «© « . « 1004 To the 8th . ‘ . . ‘ . . . . - 1213 To the 15th . . . . . . . . - 1439 To the 22d . . . . . ae . « 1331 To the 29th . . . . . . 4 oe « 1394 Tothe 5thofSeptember . . .« «© «+. «© «1264 Tothel2th . . . . «© «© «© « + 1056 To the 19th . # . 7 . . . . « 1132 To the 26th meh ae. Jat Dt ode ie ce ay 927 Now it was not doubted, but the greatest part of these, or a great part of them, were dead of the plague, but the officers were prevailed - with to return them as above, and the numbers of some particular articles of distempers discovered is as follows :— From the 1st to8th Aug. tol5th. to22d. to 29th. Fever . . . 314 353 348 383 Spotted Fever . - 14 190 166 165 Surfeit . . . 85 87 74 99 Teeth ‘ ‘ . 90 113 111 133 663 743 699 780 From Aug. 29th, to Sept. 5th, to 12th, to 19th, to 26th. Fever a < ‘ 364 332 309 268 Spotted Fever . . 157 97 101 65 Surfeit ms fe a 68 45 49 36 Teeth ‘ 2 - 138 128 121 112 727 602 580 481 There were several other articles which bore a proportion to these, and which it is easy to perceive were increased on the same account, as aged, consumption, vomitings, imposthumes, gripes, and the like, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 173 many of which were not doubted to be infected people; but as it was of the utmost consequence to families not to be known to be infected, if it was possible to avoid it, so they took all the measures they could to have it not believed; and if any died in their houses, to get them returned to the examiners, and by the searchers, as having died of other distempers. This, I say, will account for the long interval which, as I have said, was between the dying of the first persons that were returned in the pills to be dead of the plague, and the time when the distemper spread openly, and could not be concealed. Besides, the weekly bills themselves, at that time, evidently dis- cover this truth; for, while there was no mention of the plague, and no increase after it had been mentioned, yet it was apparent that there was an increase of those distempers which bordered nearest upon it; for example, there were eight, twelve, seventeen of the spotted fever, in a week when there were none or but very few of the plague; whereas, before, one, three, or four, were the ordinary weekly numbers of that distemper. Likewise, as I observed before, the burials increased weekly in that particular parish, and the par- ishes adjacent, more than in any other parish, although there were none set down of the plague; all which tell us that the infection was handed on, and the succession of the distemper really preserved, though it seemed to us at that time to be ceased and to come again in a manner surprising. It might be also, that the infection might remain in Sitter parts of the same parcel of goods which at first it came in, and which might not be perhaps opened ,or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the first infected person ; for J cannot think that anybody could be seized with the contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together, and support his state of health so well, as even not to discover it to themselves; yet, if it were so, the argument is the stronger in favor of what I am saying, namely, that the infection is retained in bodies apparently well, and conveyed from them to those they converse with while it is known to neither the one nor the other. Great were the confusions at that time upon this very account ; and when people began to be convinced that the infection was received in this surprising manner from persons apparently well, they began to be exceeding shy and jealous of every one that came near them. 114 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Once on a public day, whether a Sabbath-day or not, I do not remem- ber, in Aldgate church, in a pew full of people, on a sudded one fan-' cied she smelt an ill smell ; immediately she fancies the plague was in the pew, whispers her notion or suspicion to the next, then rises . and goes out of the pew; it immediately took with the next, and so with them all, and every one of them and of the two or three adjoin- ing pews, got up and went out of the church, nobody knowing what it was offended them, or from whom. This immediately filled everybody’s mouths with one preparation or other, such as the old women directed, and some perhaps as phy- sicians directed, in order to prevent infection by the breath of others ; insomuch, that if we came to go into a church, when it was any- thing full of people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance, that it was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were going into an apothecary’s or druggist’s shop. In a word, the whole church was like a smelling bottle; in one corner it was all perfumes, in another aromatics, balsamics, and a variety of drugs and herbs; in another, salts and spirits, as every one was furnished for their own preservation: yet I observed, that after people were possessed, as J have said, with the belief, or rather assurance, of the infection being thus carried on by persons apparent- ly in health, the churches and meeting-houses were much thinner of people than at other times, before that they used to be; for this is to be said of the people of London, that during the whole time of the pestilence, the churches or meetings were never wholly shut up, nor did the people decline coming out to the public worship of God, except only in some parishes, when the violence of the distemper was more particularly in that parish at that time; and even then no longer than it continued to be so. Indeed, nothing was more strange than to see with what courage the people went to the public service of God, even at that time when they were afraid to stir out of their own houses upon any other occasion: this J mean before the time of desperation which I have mentioned already. This was a proof of the exceeding populous- ness of the city at the time of the infection, notwithstanding the great numbers that were gone into the country at the first alarm, and that fled out into the forests and woods when they were further terrified with the extraordinary increase of it. For when we came THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 175 to see the crowds and throngs of people which appeared on the Sab- bath-days at the churches, and especially in those parts of the town where the plague was abated, or where it was not yet come to its height, it was amazing. But of thisI shall speak again presentiy. I return, in the meantime, to the article of infecting one another at first. Before people came to right notions of the infection, and of infecting one another, people were only shy of those that were really sick; aman with acap upon his head, or with clothes round his neck, which was the case of those that had swellings there, such was indeed frightful; but when we saw a gentleman dressed, with his band on, and his gloves in his hand, his hat upon his head, and his hair combed, of such we had not the least apprehensions, and people conversed a great while freely, especially with their neigh- bors and such as they knew. But when the physicians assured us that the danger was as well from the sound, that is, the seemingly sound, as the sick, and that those people that thought themselves entirely free, were oftentimes the most fatal; and that it came to be generally understood that people were sensible of it, and of the rea- son of it then, I say, they began to be jealous of everybody; and a vast number of people locked themselves up, so as not to come abroad into any company at all, nor suffer any that had been abroad in promiscuous company to come into their houses, or near them; at least not so near them as to be within the reach of their breath, or of any smell from them; and when they were obliged to converse at a distance with strangers, they would always have preservatives in their mouths, and about their clothes, to repel and keep off the infection. It must be acknowledged, that when people began to use these cau- tions, they were less exposed to danger, and the infection did not break into such houses so furiously as it did into others before, and thousands of families were preserved, speaking with due reserve to the direction of divine Providence, by that means. But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the poor. They went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when taken, but madly careless of them- selves, foolhardy and obstinate, while they were well. Where they could get employment they pushed into any kind of business, the most dangerous and the most liable to infection ; and, if they were 176 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. spoken to, their answer would be, I must trust to God for that; if I am taken, then I am provided for, and there is an end of me; and the like. Or thus, Why, what must I do? I cannot starve, I had as good have the plague as perish for want; I have no work; what couldI do? I must do this, or beg. Suppose it was burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching infected houses, which were all terrible hazards; but their tale was generally the same. It is true, necessity was a justifiable, warrantable plea, and nothing could be better; but their way of talk was much the same, where the ne- cessities were not the same. This adventurous conduct of the poor was that which brought the plague among them in a most furious manner ; and this, joined to the distress of their circumstances, when taken, was the reason why they died so by heaps; for I cannot say I could observe one jot of better husbandry among them, I mean the laboring poor, while they were all well and getting money, than there was before, but as lavish, as extravagant, and as thoughtless for to-morrow as ever; so that when they came to be taken sick, they were immediately in the utmost distress, as well for want as for sickness, as well for lack of food as lack of health. The misery of the poor I had many occasions to be an eye-witness of, and sometimes also of the charitable assistance that some pious people daily gave to such, sending them relief and supplies both of food, physic, and other help, as théy found they wanted; and indeed it is a debt of justice due to the temper of the people of that day, to take notice here, that not only great sums, very great sums of money, were charitably sent to the lord mayor and aldermen for the assist- ance and support of the poor distempered people, but abundance of private people daily distributed large sums of money for their relief, and sent people about to inquire into the condition of particular dis- tressed and visited families, and relieved them; nay, some pious la- dies were transported with zeal in so good a work, and so confident in the protection of Providence in discharge of the great duty of charity, that they went about in person distributing alms to the poor, and even visiting poor families, though sick and infected, in their very houses, appointing nurses to attend those that wanted attend- ing, and ordering apothecaries and surgeons, the first to supply them with drugs or plasters, and such things as they wanted, and the last to lance and dress the swellings and tumors, where such were want- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 107 ing; giving their blessing to the poor in substantial relief to them, as well as hearty prayers for them. I will not undertake to say, as some do, that none of those chari- table people were suffered to fall under the calamity itself; but this I may say, that I never knew any one of them that miscarried, which I mention for the encouragement of others in case of the like dis- tress; and doubtless, if they that give to the poor, lend to the Lord, and he will repay them; those that hazard their lives to give to the poor, and to comfort and assist the poor in such misery as this, may hope to be protected in the work. Nor was this charity so extraordinary eminent only in a few; but dor I cannot lightly quit this point) the charity of the rich, as well in the city and suburbs as from the country, was so great that, in a word, @ prodigious number of people, who must otherwise have per- ished for want as well as sickness, were supported and subsisted by “it; and though I could never, nor I believe any one else, come toa full knowledge of what was so contributed, yet I do believe that as I heard one say that was a critical observer of that part, there was not only many thousand pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds, to the relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city; nay, one man affirmed to me that he could reckon up above one hundred thousand pounds a week, which was distributed by the churchwardens at the several parish vestries, by the lord mayor and the aldermen in the several wards and precincts, and by the partic- ular direction of the court and of the justices respectively in the parts where they resided; over and above the private charity dis- tributed by pious hands in the manner J speak of; and this contin- ued for many weeks together. I confess this isa very great sum; but if it be true that there was distributed in the parish of Cripplegate only, seventeen thousand eight hundred pounds in one week to the relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I really believe was true, the other may not be improbable. It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal good pro- vidences which attended this great city, and of which there were many other worth recording; I say this was a very remarkable one, that it pleased God thus to move the hearts of the people in all parts of the kingdom so cheerfully to contribute to the relief and support 8* 178 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. of the poor at London; the good consequences of which were felt many ways, and particularly in preserving the lives and recovering the health of so many thousands, and keeping so many thousands of families from perishing and starving. ‘And now I am talking of the merciful disposition of Providence in this time of calamity, I cannot but mention again, though I have spoken several times of it already on other accounts, I mean that of the progression of the distemper; how it began at one end of the town, and proceeded gradually and slowly from one part to another, and like a dark cloud that passes over our heads, which as it thickens and overcasts the air at one end, clears up at the other end ; so, while the plague went on raging from west to east, as it went forwards east it abated in the west, by which means those parts of the town which were not seized, or who were left, and where it had spent its fury, were (as it were) spared to help and assist the other; whereas, had the distemper spread itself over the whole city and suburbs at once, raging in all places alike, as it has done since in some places abroad, the whole body of the people must have been overwhelmed, and there would have died twenty thousand a day, as they say there did at Naples, nor would the people have been able to have helped or assisted one another. For it must be observed, that where the plague was in its full force, there indeed the people were very miserable, and the consternation was inexpressible. But a little before it reached even to that place, or presently after it was gone, they were quite another sort of peo- ple, and I cannot but acknowledge that there was too much of that common temper of mankind to be found among us all at that time, namely, to forget the deliverance when the danger is past; but I shall come to speak of that part again. It must not be forgot here to take some notice of the state of trade during the time of this common calamity; and this with re- spect to foreign trade, as also to our home trade. As to foreign trade, there needs little to be said. The trading nations of Europe were all afraid of us; no port of France, or Hol- land, or Spain, or Italy, would admit our ships or correspond with us; indeed we stood on ill terms with the Dutch, and were in a furious war with them, though in a bad condition to fight abroad, who had such dreadful enemies to struggle with at home. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 119 Our merchants were accordingly at a full stop, their ships could go nowhere, that is to say, to no place abroad; their manufactures and merchandise, that is to say, of our growth, would not be touched abroad; they were as much afraid of our goods as they were of our people; and, indeed, they had reason, for our woollen manufactures are as retentive of infection as human bodies, and if packed up by persons infected, would receive the infection and be as dangerous to the touch as a man would bethat was infected ; and, therefore, when any English vessel arrived in foreign countries, if they did take the goods on shore, they always caused the bales to be opened and aired in places appointed for that purpose. But from London they would not suffer them to come into port, much less to unload their goods upon any terms whatever; and this strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy: in Turkey, and the islands of the Arches indeed, as they are called, as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid; in the first there was no obstruction at all, and for ships which were then in the river loading for Italy, that is, for Leghorn and Naples, being denied pro- duct, as they call it, went on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to unload their cargo without any difficulty, only that when they arrived thereesome of their cargo was not fit for sale in that country and other parts of it being consigned to merchants at Leghorn, the captains of the-ships had no right nor any orders to dispose of the goods, so that great inconveniences followed to the merchants, But this was nothing but what the necessity of affairs required, and the merchants at Leghorn and Naples having notice given them, sent again from thence to take care of the effects, which were particularly consigned to those ports, and to bring back in other ships such as were improper for the markets at Smyrna and Scanderoon. The inconveniences in Spain and Portugal were still greater: for they would by no means suffer our ships, especially those from Lon- don, to come into any of their ports, much less to unlade. There was a report, that one of our ships, having by stealth delivered her cargo, among which were some bales of English cloth, cotton, kerseys and such-like goods, the Spaniards caused all the goods to be burnt, and punished the men with death who were concerned in carrying them on shore. This I believe was in part true, though I do not 180 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. affirm it; but it is not at all unlikely, seeing the danger was really very great, the infection being so violent in London. [heard likewise that the plague was carried into those countries by some of our ships, and particularly to the port of Faro, in the kingdom of Algarve, belonging to the King of Portugal; and that several persons died of it there, but it was not confirmed. On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese were so shy of us, it is most certain that the plague. as has been said, keeping at first much at that end of the town next Westminister, the mer- chandising part of the town, such as the city, and the waterside, was perfectly sound, till at least the beginning of July; and the ships in the river till the beginning of August; for, to the Ist of July, there had died but seven within the whole city, and but sixty within the liberties; but one in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and White- chapel, and but two in all the eight parishes of Southwark ; but it was the same thing abroad, for the bad news was gone over the whole world, that the city of Londonewas infected with the plague ; and there was no inquiring there how the infection proceeded, or at which part of the town it was begun or reached to. Besides, after it began to spread, it increased so fast, and the bills grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose.to lessen the report of it, or endeavor to make the people abroad think it better than it was, the account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient; and that there died two thousand to three or four thousand a week, was sufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the world, and the following time being so dreadful also in the very city itself, put the whole world, I say, upon their guard against it. You may be sure also that the report of these things lost nothing in the carriage; the plague was itself very terrible, -and the distress of the people very great, as you may observe of what I have said; but the rumor was infinitely greater, and it must not be wondered that our friends abroad, as my brother’s correspondents in particular were told there, namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded, that in London there died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead bodies lay unburied by heaps; that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, or the sound to look after the sick; that all the kingdom was infected likewise, so that it was an universal THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 181 malady, such as was never heard of in those parts ot the world; and they could hardly believe us when we gave them an account how things really were, and how there was not above one-tenth part of the people dead; that there were five hundred thousand left that lived all the time in the town: that now the people began to walk the streets again, and those who were fled to return; there was no miss of the usual throng of people in the streets, except as every family might miss their relations and neighbors, and the like; I say, they could not believe these things; and if inquiry were now to be made in Naples, or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would tell you there was a dreadful infection in London so many years ago, in which, as above, there died twenty thousand in a week, etc., just as we have had it reported in London that there was a plague in the city of Naples in the year 1656, in which there died twenty thou- sand people in a day, of which I have had very good satisfaction’ that it was utterly false. But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial to our trade as wellas unjust and injurious in themselves, for it was a long time after the plague was quite over before our trade could recover itself in those parts of the world ; and the Flemings and Dutch, but espe- cially the last, made very great advantages of it, having all the mar- ket to themselves, and even buying our manufactures in the several parts of England where the plague was not, and carrying them to Holland and Flanders, and from thence transporting them to Spain and to Italy, as if they had been of their own making. sa But they were detected sometimes and punished, that is to say, their goods confiscated, and ships also; for if it was true that our manufactures, as well as our people, were infected, and that it was dangerous to touch or to open and receive the smell of them, then those people ran the hazard by that clandestine trade, not only of carrying the contagion into their own country, but also of infecting the nations to whom they traded with those goods; which, consider- ing how many lives might be lost in consequence of such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience could suffer themselves to be concerned in. I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I mean of that kind, by those people; but I doubt I need not make any such proviso in the case of our own country; for either by our people of 182 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. London, or by the commerce, which made their conversing with all sorts of people in every county, and of every considerable town, necessary ; I say by this means the plague was first or last spread all over the kingdom, as well in London as in all the cities and great towns, especially in the trading manufacturing towns and seaports; so that, first or last, all the considerable places in England were visited more or less, and the kingdom of Ireland in some places, but not so universally. How it fared with the people in Scotland I had no opportunity to inquire. It is to be observed, that while the plague continued so violent in. London, the outports, as they are called, enjoyed a very great trade, especially to the adjacent countries, and to our own plantations ; for example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and Hull, on that side of England, exported to Holland and Hamburgh the manufactures of the adjacent counties for several months after the trade with Lon- don was as it were, entirely shut up; likewise the cities of Bristol, and Exeter, with the port of Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the Canaries, to Guinea, and to the West Indies, and par- ticularly to Ireland; but as the plague spread itself every way after it had been in London to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all or most of those cities and towns were infected first or last, and then trade was, as it were, under a general embargo, or at a full stop, as I shall observe farther when I speak of our home trade. _.One thing however must be observed, that as to ships coming in from abroad, as many you may be sure did, some who were out in all parts of the world a considerable while before, and some who, when they went out, knew nothing of an infection or, at least, of one so terrible; these came up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as they were obliged to do, except just in the two months of August and September, when the weight of the infection lying, as I may say, all below bridge, nobody durst appear in business for a while; but, as this continued but for a few weeks, the homeward bound ships, especially such whose cargoes were not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short of the Pool, or fresh water part of the river, even as low as the river Medway, where several of them ran in, and others lay at the Nore, and in the Hope below Gravesend ; so that by the latter end of October there was a very THE PLAGUE IN LONDON, 183 4 great fleet of homeward bound ships to come up, such as the like had not been known for many years. Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage all the while of the infection, and that with little or no interruption, very much to the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed people of the city, and those were the coasting trade for corn, and the New- castle trade for coals. The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels from the port of Hull, and other places in the Humber, by which great quantities of corn were brought in from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire ; the other part of this corn trade was from Lynn, in Norfolk, from Wells, and Burnham, and from Yarmouth, all in the same county; and the third branch was from the river Medway, and from Milton, Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all the other little places and ports round the coast of Kent and Essex. There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suffolk, with corn, butter, and cheese. These vessels kept a constant course of trade, and without interruption came up to that market known still by the name of Bear-key, where they supplied the city plentifully with corn, when land carriage began to fail, and when the people began to be sick of coming from many places in the country. This also was much of it owing to the prudence and conduct of the lord mayor, who took such care to keep the masters and seamen from danger when they came up, causing their corn to be bought off at any time they wanted a market (which, however, was very sel- dom), and causing the corn-factors immediately to unlade and deliver the vessels laden with corn, that they had very little occasion to come out of their ships or vessels, the money being always carried on board to them, and put into a pail of vinegar before it was carried. The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, without which the city would have been greatly distressed; for not in the streets only, but in private houses and families, great quanti- ties of coal were then burnt, even all the summer long, and when the weather was hottest, which was done by the advice of the phy- sicians. Some, indeed, opposed it, and insisted that to keep the houses and rooms hot was a means to propagate the distemper, which was a fermentation and heat already in the blood; that it was known 184 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. to spread and increase in hot weather, and abate in cold, and there- fore they alleged that all contagious distempers are the worst for heat, because the contagion was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was as it were, propagated in heat. Others said, they granted that heat in the climate might propagate infection, as sultry hot weather fills the air with vermin, and nou- rishes innumerable numbers and kinds of venomous creatures, which breed in our food, in the plants, and even in our bodiés, by the very stench of which infection may be propagated ; also, that heat in the air, or heat of weather, as we ordinarily call it, makes bodies relax and faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the pores, and makes us more apt to receive infection or any evil influence, be it from noxious, pestilential vapors, or any other thing in the air; but that the heat of the fire, and especially of coal fires, kept in our houses or near us, had quite a different operation, the heat not being of the same kind, but quick and fierce, tending not to nourish but to consume and dis- sipate all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat rather exhaled, and stagnated than separated, and burnt up; besides, it was alleged that the sulphurous and nitrous particles that are often found to be in the coal, with that bituminous substance which burns, are all assisting to clear and purge the air, and render it wholesome and safe to breathe in, after the noxious particles (as above) are dis- persed and burnt up. The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and, as I must confess, I think, with good reason, and the experience of the citizens confirmed it, many houses which had constant fires kept in the rooms having never been infected at all; and I must join my experience to it, for I found the keeping of good fires kept our rooms sweet and whole- some, and I do verily believe made our whole family so, more than’ would otherwise have been. But I return to the coals as a trade. It was with no little difficul- ty that this trade was kept open, and particularly because as we were in an open war with the Dutch at that time, the Dutch capers at first took a great many of our collier ships, which made the rest cautious, and made them to stay to come in fleets together ; but after some time the capers were either afraid to take them, or their mas- ters, the States, were afraid they should, and forbade them, lest the plague should be among them, which made them fare the better. THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 185 For the security of those northern traders, the coal ships were or- dered by my lord mayor not to come up into the Pool above a cer- tain number at a time, and ordered lighters and other vessels, such as the woodmongers, that is, the wharf-keepers, or coal-sellers fut- nished, to go down and take out the coals as low as Deptford and Greenwich and some farther down. Others delivered great quantities of coals in particular places, where the ships could come to the shore, as at Greenwich, Blackwall, and other places, in vast heaps, as if to be kept for sale, but were then fetched away after the ships which brought them were gone ; so that the seamen had no communication with the river men, nor so much as came near one another. Yet all this caution could not effectually prevent the distemper getting among the colliery, that is to say, among the ships, by which a great many seamen died of it; and that which was still worse was, that they carried it down to Ipswich and Yarmouth, to Newcastle- upon-Tyne, and other places on the coast ; where, especially at New- castle and at Sunderland, it carried off a great number of people. The making so many fires as above did indeed consume an unusu- al quantity of coals; and that upon one or two stops of the ships coming up, whether by contrary weather or by the interruption of enemies, I do not remember, but the price of coals was exceedingly dear, even as high as 4/. a chaldron, but it soon abated when the ships came in, and as afterwards they had a freer passage, the price was very reasonable all the rest of that year. The public fires which were made on these occasions, as I have calculated it, must necessarily have cost the city about 200 chaldrons of coals a week, if they had continued, which was indeed a very great quantity, but as it was thought necessary, nothing was spared ; however, as some of the physicians cried them down, they were not kept a-light above four or five days, The fires were ordered thus : One at the Cust6m House, one at Billingsgate, one at Queenhithe, and one at the Three Cranes; one in Blackfriars, and one at the gate of Bridewell; one at the corner of Leaden-hall street and Grace- church; one at the north, and one at the south gate of the Royal Exchange; one at Guildhall, and one at Blackwell hall gate, one at the lord mayor’s door in St. Helen’s, one at the west entrance into St. Paul’s, and one at the entrance into Bow church. I do not re- 186 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. member whether there was any at the City gates, but one at the bridge foot there was, just by St. Magnus church. I know some have quarrelled since that at the experiment, and séid that there died the more people because of those fires: but I am persuaded those that say so offer no evidence to prove it, neither can I believe it on any account whatever. It remains to give some account of the state of trade at home in England, during this dreadful time; and particularly as it relates to the manufactures and the trade in the city. At the first breaking out of the infection, there was, as it is easy to suppose, a very great fright among the people, and consequently a general stop of trade, except in provisions and necessaries of life; and even in those things, as there was a vast number of people fled, and a very great num- ber always sick, besides the number which died, so there could not be above two-thirds, if above one half, of the consumption of provisions in the city as used to be. It pleased God to send a very plentiful year of corn and fruit, and not of hay.and grass; by which means bread was cheap, by reason of the plenty of corn; flesh was cheap, by reason of the scarcity of grass, but butter and cheese were dear for the same reason ; and hay in the market, just beyond Whitechapel bars, was sold at 4/. per load: but that affected not the poor. There was a most excessive plenty of all sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and they were the cheaper because of the wants of the peo- ple, but this made the poor eat them to excess, and this brought them into fluxes, griping of the guts, surfeits, and the like, which often precipitated them into the plague. But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign exportation being stopped, or at least very much interrupted and rendered difficult, a general stop of all those manufactures followed of course, which were usually brought for exportation: and, though sometimes mer- chants abroad were importunate for goods, yet little was sent, the passages being so generally stopped that the English ships would not be admitted, as is said already, into their ports. This put a stop to the manufactures that were for exportation in most parts of England, except in some outports, and even that was soon stopped ; for they all had the plague, in their turn. But, thongh this was felt all over England, yet, what was still worse, all inter- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 187 course of trade for home consumption of manufactures, especially those which usually circulated through the Londoners’ hands, was stopped at once, the trade of the city being stopped. All kinds of handicrafts in the city, etc., tradesmen and mechan- ics, were, as J have said before, ou® of employ, and this occasioned the putting off and dismissing an innumerable number of journeymen and workmen of all sorts, seeing nothing was done relating to such trades, but what might be said to be absolutely necessary. This caused the multitude of single people in London to be unpro- vided for; as also of families, whose/iving depended upon the labor of the heads of those families; I say, this reduced them to extreme misery; and I must confess, it is for the honor of the city of London, and will be for many ages, as long as this is to be spoken of, that they were able to supply with charitable provision the wants of so many thousands of those as afterwards fell sick, and were distressed, so that it may be safely averred, that nobody perished for want, at least that the magistrates bad any notice given them of. This-stagnation of our manufacturing trade in the country would have put the people there to much greater difficulties, but that the master workmen, clothiers, and others, to the uttermost of their stocks and strength, kept on making their goods to keep the poor at work, believing that as soon as the sickness should abate, they would have a quick demand in proportion to the decay of their trade at that time; but as none but those masters that were rich could do thus, and that many were poor and not able, the manufacturing trade in England suffered greatly, and the poor were pinched all over England by the calamity of the city of London only. It is true that the next year made them full amends by ano- ther terrible calamity upon the city; so that the city by one calam- ity impoverished and weakened the country, and by another calam- ity, even terrible too of its kind, enriched the country, and made them again amends: for an infinite quantity of household stuff, wear- ing apparel, and other things, besides whole warehouses filled with merchandise and manufactures, such as come from all parts of Eng- land, were consumed in the fire of London, the next year after this terrible visitation: it is incredible what atrade this made ull over the whole kingdom, to make good the want, and to supply that loss: so that, in short, all the manufacturing | ands in the nation were set 188 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. on work, and were little enough for several years to supply the mar- ket-and answer the demands; all foreign markets also were empty of our goods, by the stop which had been occasioned by the plague, and before an open trade was allowed again ; and the prodigious demand at home falling in, joined to make a quick vent for all sorts of goods; so that there never was known such a trade all over England for the time, as was in the first seven years after the plague, and after the fire of London. Tt remains now, that I should say something of the merciful part of this terrible judgment. The last week in September, the plague being come to its crisis, its fury began to assuage. I remember my friend, Dr. Heath, coming to see me the week before, told me, he was sure the violence of it would assuage in a few days; but, when I saw the weekly bill of that week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8,297 of all diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him, what he had made his judgment from. His answer, how- ever, was not so much to seek as I thought it would have been. Look you, says he; by the number which are at this time sick and infected, there should have been twenty thousand dead the last week instead of eight thousand, if the inveterate mortal contagion had been as if was two weeks ago; for then it ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight or ten; and then not above one in five recovered, whereas, I have observed, that now not above two in five miscarry ; and observe it from me the next bill will decrease, and you will see many more people recover than used to do; for though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and as many every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die as there did, for the ma- lignity of the distemper is abated ; adding, that he began now to hope, nay, more than hope, that the infection had passed its crisis, and was going off ; and, accordingly, so it was, for the next week being, as I said, the last in September, the bill decreased almost two thousand. It is true, the plague was still at a frightful height, and the next bill was no less than 6,460, and the next to that 5,720; but still my friend's observation was just, and it did appear the people did recov- er faster, and more in number, than they used to do; and, indeed, if it had not been so, what had been the condition of the city of Lon- don? for according to my friend, there were not fewer than sixty thousand people at that time infected, whereof, as above, 20,477 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 189 died, and near forty thousand recovered, whereas, had it been as it was before, fifty thousand of that number would very probably have died, if not more, and fifty thousand more would have sickened ; for, in a word, the whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked as if nose would escape. But this remark of my friend’s appeared more evident ina few weeks more; forthe decrease went on, and another week in October it decreased 1,848, so that the number dead of the plague was but 2,665: and the next week it decreased 1,413 more, and yet it was seen plainly, that there was abundance of people sick, nay, abund- ance more than ordinary, and abundance fell sick every day, but as above, the malignity of the disease abated. Such is the precipitant disposition of our people, whether it is so or not all over the world that is none of my particular business to inquire, but Isaw it apparently here, that as, upon the first sight of the infection, they shunned one another, and fled from one another's houses, and from the city, with an unaccountable, and, as I thought, unnecessary fright: so now, upon this notion spreading, viz., that the distemper was not so catching as formerly, and that if it was catched, it was not so mortal; and seeing abundance of people who really fell sick recover again daily, they took to such a precipitant courage, and grew so entirely regardless of themselves and the infec- tion, that they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever, nor indeed so much. They not only went boldly into company with those who had tumors and carbuncles upon them, that were run- ning and consequently contagious, but ate and drank with them; nay, into their houses to visit them; and even; as I was told, into their very chambers where they lay sick. This I could not see rational. My friend, Dr. Heath allowed, and it was plain to experience, that the distemper was as catching as ever, and as many fell sick, but only he alleged that so many of those that fell sick did not die; but I think, that, while many did die, and that at best the distemper itself was very terrible, the sores and swellings very tormenting, and the danger of death not left out of the circumstance of sickness, though not so frequent as before; all those things, together with the exceeding tediousness of the cure, the loathsomeness of the disease, and many other articles, were enough to deter any man living from a dangerous mixture with the sick 190 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. people, and make them as anxious almost to avoid the infection as before. Nay, there was another thing which made the mere catching of the distemper frightful, and that was the terrible burning of the caustics which the surgeons laid on the swellings, to bring them to break and to run; without which, the danger of death was very great, even to the last; also, the insufferable torment of the swell- ings, which, though it might not make people raving and distracted, as they were before, and as I have given several instances of already, yet they put the patient to inexpressible torment; and those that fell into it, though they did escape with life, yet they made bitter com- plaints of those that had told them there was no danger, and sadly repented their rashness and folly in venturing to run into the reach of it. Nor did this unwary conduct of the people end here; for a great many that thus cast off their cautions, suffered more deeply still, and though many escaped, yet many died; and at least, it had this pub- lic mischief attending it, that it made the decrease of burials slower than it would otherwise have been; for, as this notion ran like light- ning through the city, and the people’s heads were possessed with it, even as soon as the first great decrease in the bills appeared, we found that the two next bills did not decrease in proportion; the reason I take to be the people’s running so rashly into danger, giving up all their former cautions and care, and all shyness which they used to practice ; depending that the sickness would not reach them, or that, if it did, they should not die. The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the people with all their might, and gave out printed directions, spreading them all over the city and suburbs, advising the people to continue reserved and to use still the utmost caution in their ordinary conduct, not- withstanding the decrease of the distemper ; terrifying them with the danger of bringing a relapse upon the whole city, and telling them how such a relapse might be more fatal and dangerous than the whole visitation that had been already; with many arguments and reasons to explain and prove that part of them, and which are too long to repeat here. But it was all to no purpose; the audacious creatures were so pos- sessed with the first joy, and so surprised with the satisfaction of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 191 seeing a vast decrease in the weekly bills, that they were impenetra- ble by any new terrors, and would not be persuaded, but that the bitterness of death were passed; and it was to no more purpose to talk to them, than to an east wind; but they opened shops, went about streets, did business, and conversed with anybody that came in their way to converse with, whether with business or without; neither inquiring of their health, or so much as being ap- prehensive of any danger from them, though they knew them not to be sound. This imprudent, rash conduct cost a great many their lives, who had with great care and caution shut themselves up, and kept retired as it were from all mankind, and had by that means, under God’s providence, been preserved through all the heat of that infection. This rash and foolish conduct of the people went so far, that the ministers took notice to them of it, and laid before them both the folly and danger of it; and this checked it a little, so that they grew more cautious; but it had another effect, which they could not check, for as the first rumor had spread, not over the city only, but into the country, it had the like effect, and the people were so tired with being so long from London, and so eager to come back, that they flocked to town without fear or forecast, and began to show themselves in the streets, as if all the danger was over: it was indeed surprising to see it, for though there died still from a thousand to eighteen hundred a week, yet the people flocked to town as if all had been well. The consequence of this was that the bills increased again four hundred the very first’ week in November; and if I might believe the physicians, there were above three thousand fell sick that week, most of them new comers too. One John Cock, a barber in St. Martin’s-le-Grand was an eminent example of this; I mean of the hasty return of the people when the plague was abated. This John Cock had left the town with his whole family, and locked up his house, and was gone into the coun- try as many others did; and finding the plague so decreased in No- vember, that there died but 905 per week of all diseases, he ven- tured home again; he had in his family ten persons, that is to say, himself and wife, five children, two apprentices, and a maid servant ; he had not been returned to his house above a week, and began to 192 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. open his shop, and carry on his trade, but the distemper broke out in his family, and within about five days they all died, except one ; that is to say, himself, his wife, all his five children, and his two appren- tices; and only the maid remained alive. But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we had reason to expect; for the malignity, as I have said, of the distemper was spent, the contagion was exhausted, and also the wintry weather came on apace, and the air was clear and cold, with some sharp frosts; and this increasing still, most of those that had fallen sick recovered, and the health of the city began to return. There were, indeed, some returns of the distemper, even in the month of Decem- ber, and the bills increased near a hundred; but it went off again, and so in a short while things began to return to their own channel. And wonderful it was to see how populous the city was again all on asudden ; so that a stranger could not miss thenumbers that were lost, neither was there any miss of the inhabitants as to their dwellings. Few or no empty houses were to be seen, or if there were some, there was no want of tenants for them. I wish I could say that, as the city had a new face, so the manners of the people had anew appearance: I doubt not but there were many that retained a sincere sense of their deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that Sovereign Hand that had protected them in so dangerous a time ; it would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise in acity so populous, and where the people were so devout as they were here in the time of the visitation itself; but, except what of this was to be found in particular families and faces, it must be acknowledged that the general practice of the people was just as it was before, and very little difference was to.be seen. Some, indeed said things were worse, that the morals of the peo- ple declined from this very time; that the people, hardened by the danger they had been in, like seamen after a storm is over, were more wicked and more stupid, more bold and hardened in their vices and immoralities than they were before: but I will not carry itso far neither ; it would take up a history of no small length to give a particular of all the gradations by which the course of things in this city came to be restored again, and to run in: their own channel as they did before. Some parts of England were now infected as violently as London THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 193 had been; the cities of Norwich, Peterborough, Lincoln, Colchester, and other places were now visited; and the magistrates of London began to set rules for our conduct as to corresponding with those cities: it is true, we could not pretend to forbid their people coming to London, because it was impossible to know them asunder, so, after many consultations, the lord mayor and court of aldermen were obliged to drop it: all they could do was to warn and caution the people not to entertain in their houses or converse with any peo- ple who they knew came from such infected places. But they might as well have talked to the air, for the people of London thought themselves so plague-free now that they were past all admonitions; they seemed to depend upon it that the air was res- tored, and that the air was like a man that had the small-pox, not capable of being infected again. This revived that notion that the infection was all in the air, that there was no such thing as conta- gion from the sick people to the sound; and so strongly did this whimsy prevail among people, that they run altogether promiscuously, sick and well; not the Mahometans, who, prepossessed with the principle of predestination, value nothing of contagion, let it be in what it will, could be more obstinate than the people of London; they that were perfectly sound and came out of the wholesome air, as we call it, into the city, made nothing of going into: the same houses and chambers, nay even into the same beds, with those that had the distemper upon them, and were not recovered. Some, indeed, paid for their audacious boldness with the price of their lives; an infinite number fell-sick, and the physicians had more work than ever, only with this difference, that more of their patients recovered, that is to say, they generally recovered; but certainly there were more people infected and fell sick now, when there did not die above a thousand or twelve hundred a week, than there was when there died five or six thousand a week; so entirely negligent were the people at that time in the great and dangerous case of health and infection, and so ill were they able to take or accept of the advice of those who cautioned them for their good. The people being thus returned, as it were in general, it was very strange to find, that in their inquiring after their friends, some whole families were so entirely swept away, that there was no remem- 9 194 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. brance of them left; neither was anybody to be found tc possess or show any title to that little they had left; for in such cases, what was to be found was generally embezzled and purloined, some gone one way, some another. It was said such abandoned effects came to the king as the univer- sal heir ; upon which we are told, and I suppose it was in part true, thatthe king granted all such as deodands to the lord mayor and court of aldermen of London, to be applied to the use of the poor, of whom there were very many. For it is to be observed, that though the occasions of relief, and the objects of distress were very many more in the time of the violence of the plague, than now after all was over, yet the distress of the poor was more now, a great deal, than it was then, because all the sluices of general charity were shut; people. supposed the main occasion to be over, and so stopped their hands; whereas, particular objects were still very moving, and the distress of those that were poor was very great indeed. Though the health of the city was now very much restored, yet foreign trade did not begin to stir, neither would foreigners admit our ships into their ports for a great while; as for the Dutch, the misunderstandings between our court and them had broken out into a war the year before, so that our trade that way was wholly inter- rupted; but Spain and Portugal, Italy and Barbary, as also Hamburg, and all the ports in the Baltic, these were all shy of us a great while, and would not restore trade with us for many months. The distemper sweeping away such multitudes, as Ihave observed, many, if not all, of the out-parishes were obliged to make new bury- ing grounds, besides that I have mentioned in Bunhill Fields, some of which were continued, and remain in use to this day; but others were left off, and which, I confess, I mention with some reflection, being converted into other uses, or built upon afterwards, the dead bodies were disturbed, abused, dug up again, some even before the flesh of them was perished from the bones, and removed like dung or rubbish to other places. Some of those which came within the reach of my observations are as follows :— First. A piece of ground beyond Goswell street, near Mount Mill, being some of the remains of the old lines or fortifications of the city, where abundance were buried promiscuously from the parishes of THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 195 Aldersgate, Clerkenwell, and even out of the city. This ground, as I take it, was since made a physic garden, and after that has been built upon. Second. A piece of ground just over the Black Ditch, as it was then called, at the end of Holloway Lane, in Shoreditch parish ; it has been since made a yard for keeping hogs and for other ordinary uses, but is ‘quite out of use as a burying ground. Third. The upper end of Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate street, which was then a green field, and was taken in particularly for Bishopsgate parish, though many of the carts out of the city brought their dead thither also, particularly out of the parish of St. Allhal- lows-on-the-wall: this place I cannot mention without much regret. It was, as I remember, about two or three years after the plague was ceased that Sir Robert Clayton came to be possessed of the ground; it was reported, how true I know not, that it fell to the king for want of heirs, all those who had any right to it being car- ried off by the pestilence, and that Sir Robert Clayton obtained a grant of it from King Oharles II. But however he came by it, certain it is the ground was let out to build on, or built upon by his order. The first house built upon it was a large fair house, still standing, which faces the street, or way, now called Hand Alley, which, though called an alley, is as wide as a street: the houses in the same row with that house northward are built on the very same ground where the poor people were buried, and the bodies, on open- ing the ground for the foundations, were dug up, some of them remaining so plain to be seen that the women’s sculls were distin- guished by their long hair, and of others the flesh was not quite perished; so that the people began to exclaim loudly against it, and some suggested that it might endanger a return of the contagion; after which the bones and bodies, as fast as they came at them, were carried to another part of the same ground, and thrown all together into a deep pit, dug on purpose, which now is to be known, in that it is not built on, but is a passage to another house at the upper end of Rose Alley, just against the door of a meeting-house, which has been built there many years since; and the ground is palisadoed off from the rest of the passage in a little square; there lie the bones and remains of near two thousand bodies, carried by the dead-carts to their grave in that one year. 196 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. Fourth. Besides this, there was a piece of ground in Moorfields, by the going into the street which-is now called Old Bethlem, which was enlarged much, though not wholly taken in, on the same occa- sion. N. B. The author of this journal lies buried in that very ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been buried there a few years before. Fifth. Stepney parish, extending itself from the east part of Lon- don to the north, even to the very edge of Shoreditch churchyard, had a piece of ground taken in to bury their dead, close to the said churchyard; and which, for that very reason, was left open, and is since, I suppose, taken into the same churchyard: and they had also two other burying-places in Spitalfields, one, where since a chapel or tabernacle has been built for ease to this great parish, and another in Petticoat-Lane. There were no less than five other grounds made use of for the parish of Stepney at that time; one where now stands the parish church of St. Paul, Shadwell, and the other where now stands the parish church of St. John, at Wapping, both which had not the names of parishes at that time, but were belonging to Stepney parish.. I could name many more, but these coming within my particular knowledge, the circumstance, I thought, made it of use to record them; from the whole, it may be observed, that they were obliged in this time of distress to take in new burying-grounds in most of the out-parishes for laying the prodigious numbers of people which died in so short a space of time; but why care was not taken to keep those places separate from ordinary uses, that so the bodies might rest undisturbed, that I cannot answer for, and must confess I think it was wrong; who were to blame I know not. I should have mentioned, that the Quakers had at that time also a burying-ground set apart to their use, and which they still make use of, and they had also a particular dead-cart to fetch their dead from their houses; and the famous Solomon Eagle, who, as I mentioned before, had predicted the plague as a judgment, and run naked through the streets, telling the people that it was come upon them to punish them for their sins, had his own wife died the very next day of the plague, and was carried, one of the first, in the Quaker's dead-cart to their new burying-ground, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 197 I might have thronged this account with many more remarkable things which occurred in the time of the infection, and particularly - what passed between the lord mayor and the court, which was then at' Oxford, and what directions were from time to time received from the government for their conduct on this critical occasion. But really the court concerned themselves so little, and that little they did was of so small import, that I do not see it of much moment to mention any part of it here, except that of appointing a monthly fast in the city, and the sending the royal charity to the relief of the poor; both which I have mentioned before. Great was the reproach thrown upon those physicians who left their patients during the sickness ;.and now they came to town again, nobody cared to employ them; they were called deserters, and fre- quently bills were set up on their doors, and written, Here is a doctor to be let! So that several of those physicians were fain for awhile to sit still and look about them, or at least remove their dwellings and set up in new places, and among new acquaintance. The like was the case with the clergy, whom the people were indeed very abusive to, writing verses and scandalous reflections upon them; setting upon the church door, Here is a pulpit to be let; or, sometimes, To be sold; which was worse. It was not the least of our misfortunes that, with our infection, when it ceased, there did not cease the spirit of strife and contention, slander and reproach, which was really the great troubler of the na- tion’s peace before: it was said to be the remains of the old animos- ities which had so lately involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the late act of indemnity had lain asleep the quarrel itself, so the government had recommended family and personal peace, upon all occasions, to the whole nation. But it could not be obtained, and particularly after the ceasing of the plague in London, when any one had seen the condition which the people had been in, and how they caressed one another at that time, promised to have more charity for the future, and to raise no more reproaches; I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought they would have come together with another spirit at last. But, I say, it could not be obtained; the quarrel remained, the church and the presbyterians were incompatible; as soon as the plague was removed, the dissenting ousted ministers, who had sup- 198 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. plied the pulpits which were deserted by the incumbents, retired ; they could expect no other but that they should immediately fall upon them and harass them with their penal laws, accept their preach- ing while they were sick, and persecute them as soon as they were recovered again; this even we, that were of the church, thought was hard, and could by no means approve of it. But it was the government, and we could say nothing to hinder; it; we could only say it was not our doing and we could not answer for it. On the other hand, the dissenters reproaching those ministers of the church with going away, and deserting their charge, abandon- ing the people in their danger, and when they had most need of com- fort, and the like; this we could by no means approve; for all men have not the same faith, and the same courage, and the Scripture commands us to judge the most favorably, and according to charity. A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors that every man is not sufficiently fortified to resist or prepared to stand the shock against. It is very certain that a great many of the cler- gy, who were in circumstances to do it, withdrew, and fled for the safety of their lives; but it is true, also, that a great many of them stayed, and many of them fell in the calamity, and in the discharge of their duty. It is true some of the dissenting turned out ministers stayed, and their courage is to be recommended and highly valued; but these were not abundance. It cannot be said that they all stayed, and that none retired into the country, any more than it can be said of the church clergy that they all went away; neither did all those that went away go without substituting curates and others in their places to do the offices needful, and to visit the sick as far as it was practicable ; so that, upon the whole, an allowance of charity might have been made on both sides, and we should have considered that such a time as this of 1665 is not to be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest courage that will always support men in such cases. I had not said this, but had rather chosen to record the courage andreligious zeal of those of both sides, who did hazard them- selves for the service of the poor people in their distress, without re- membering that any failed in their duty on either side, but the want of temper among us has made the contrary to this necessary; some THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 199 that stayed, not only boasting too much of themselves, but reviling those that fled, branding them with cowardice, deserting their flocks, and acting the part of the hireling, andthe like. I recommend it to the charity of all good people to look back, and reflect duly upon the terrors of the time, and whoever does so will see that it is not an or- dinary strength that could support it; it was not like appearing in the head of an army, or charging a body of horse in the field ; but it was charging death itself on his pale horse; to stay was indeed to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less; especially as things ap- peared at the latter end of August and the beginning of September, and as there was reason to expect them at that time; for no man -expected, and I dare say, believed, that the distemper would take so sudden a turn as it did, and fall, immediately, two thousand a week, when there was such a prodigious number of people sick at that time as it was known there was; and then it was that many shifted away that had stayed most of the time before. Besides, if God gave strength to some more than to others, was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and upbraid those that had not the same gift and support, or ought they not rather to have been humble and thankful, if they were rendered more useful than their brethren ? I think it ought to be recorded to the honor of such men, as well clergy as physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, magistrates, and officers of every kind, as also all useful people, who ventured their lives in discharge of their duty, as most certainly all such as stayed did to the last degree, and several of these kinds did not only venture, but lost their lives on that sad occasion. I was once making a list of all such, I mean of all those professions and employments who thus died, as I call it, in the way of their duty ; but it was impossible for a private man to come at a certainty in the particulars. I only.remember, that there died sixteen clergy- men, two aldermen, five physicians, thirteen surgeons, within the city and liberties, before the beginning of September. But this being, as I said before, the crisis and extremity of the infection, it can be no complete list. As to inferior people, I think there died six and forty constables and headboroughs in the two parishes of Step- ney and Whitechapel; but I could not carry my list on, for when the violent rage of the distemper, in September, came upon us, it 200 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. drove us out of all measure. Men did then no more die by tale and by number; they might put out a weekly bill, and call them seven or eight thousand, or what they pleased; it is certain they died by heaps, and were buried by heaps; that is to say, without account. And if I might believe some people, who were more abroad and more conversant with those things than I, though I was. public enough for gne that had no more business to do than I had; I say, if we may believe them, there was not many less buried those first three weeks in September, than twenty thousand per week; how- ever the others aver the truth of it, yet I rather choose to keep to the public account; seven or eight thousand per week is enough to make good all that I have said of the terror of those times; and it is much to the satisfaction of me that write, as well as those that read, to be able to say that everything is set down with moderation, and rather within compass than beyond it. Upon all these accounts, I say, I could wish, when we were recovered, our conduct had been more distinguished for charity and kindness, remembrance of the past calamity, and not so much in valuing ourselves upon our boldness in staying, as if all men were cowards that fly from the hand of God, or that those who stay do not sometimes owe their courage to their ignorance, and despising the hand of their Maker which is a criminal kind of desperation, and not a true courage. I cannot but leave it upon record, that the civil officers, such as constables, headboroughs, lord mayor’s and sheriff’s-men, also parish officers, whose business it was to take charge of the poor, did their duties, in general, with as much courage as any, and, perhaps, with more; because their work was attended with more hazards, and lay more among the poor, who were more subject to be infected, and in the most pitiful plight when they were taken with the infection. But then it must be added, too, that a great number of them died; indeed, it was scarcely possible it should be otherwise. I have not said one word here about the physic or preparations that were ordinarily made use of on this terrible occasion; I mean we that frequently went abroad up and down the streets, as I did; much of this was talked of in the books and bills of our quack doc- tors, of whom I have said enough already. It may, however, be added, that the College of Physicians were daily publishing severa: THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 201 preparations, which they had considered of in the process of their practice; and which, being to be had in print, I avoid repeating them for that reason. One thing I could not help observing, what befell one of the quacks, who published that he had a most excellent preservative against the plague, which, whoever kept about them, should never be infected, or liable to infection. This man, who, we may reasona- bly suppose, did not go abroad without some of this excellent pre- servative in his pocket, yet was taken by the distemper, and carried off in two or three days. I am not of the number of the physic-haters, or physic-despisers ; on the contrary, I have often mentioned the regard I had to the dic- tates of my particular friend Dr. Heath; but yet I must acknowledge I made use of little or nothing, except, as I have observed, to keep a preparation of strong scent, to have ready in case I met with any- thing of offensive smells, or went too near any burying place or dead body. Neither did I do, what I know some did, keep the spirits high and hot with cordials, and wine, and such things, and which, as I observed, one learned physician used himself so much to, as that he could not leave them off when the infection was quite gone, and so became a sot for all his life after. Iremember my friend the doctor used to say, that there wasa certain set of drugs and preparations, which were all certainly good and useful in the case of an infection ; out of which, or with which, physicians might make an infinite variety of medicines, as the ring- ers of bells make several hundred different rounds of music, by the changing and order of sound but in six bells; and that all these preparations shall be really very good; Therefore, said he, I do not wonder that so vast a throng of medicine is offered in the present calamity; and almost every physician prescribes or prepares a differ- ent thing, as his judgment or experience guides him; but, says my friend, let all the prescriptions of all the physicians in London be ex- amined; and it will be found that they are all compounded of the same things, with such variations only as the particular fancy of the doctor leads him to; so that, says he, every man, judging a little of his own constitution and manner of his living, and circumstances of his being infected, may direct his own medicines out of the ordinary Q* 202 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. drugs and preparations. Only that, says he, some recommend one thing as most sovereign, and some another; some, says he, think that Pill. Ruff., which is called itself the anti-pestilential pill, is the best preparation that can be made; others, think that Venice Trea- .cle is sufficient of itself to resist the contagion, and I, says he, think as both these think, viz., that the first is good to take beforehand, to prevent it, and the last, if touched, to expel it. According to this opinion, I several times took Venice Treacle, and a sound sweat up- on it, and thought myself as well fortified against the infection as any one could be fortified by the power of physic. As for quackery and mountebank, of which the town was so full, I listened to none of them, and observed, often since, with some wonder, that, for two years after the plague, I scarcely ever heard one of them about the town. Some fancied they were all swept away in the infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of God’s vengeance upon them, for leading the poor people in- to the pit of destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them; but I cannot go that length neither; that abundance of them died is certain—many of them came within the reach of my own knowledge; but that all of them were swept off, I much ques- tion. I believe, rather, they fled into the country, and tried their practices upon the people there, who were in apprehension of the infection before it came among them. This, however, is certain, not a man of them appeared, for a great while, in or about London. There were, indeed, several doctors, who published bills recommending their several physical preparations for cleansing the body, as they call it, after the plague, and needful, as they said, for such people to take, who had been visited, and had been cured; whereas, I must own, I believe that it was the opinion of the most eminent physicians of that time, that the plague was itself asufficient purge; and that those who escaped the infection needed no physic to cleanse their bodies of any other things; the running sores, the tumors, etc., which were broken and kept open by the di- rection of the physicians, having sufficiently cleansed them; and that all other distempers, and causes of distempers, were effectually carried off that way; and as the physicians gave this as their opinion, wherever they came, the quacks got little business. There were, indeed, several little hurries which happened after THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 203 the decrease of the plague, and which, whether they were contrived to fright and disorder the people, as some imagined, I cannot say, but sometimes we were told the plague would return by such a time; and the famous Solomon Eagle, the naked Quaker I have mentioned, prophesied evil tidings every day ; and several others telling us that London had not been sufficiently scourged, and the sorer and severer strokes were yet behind: had they stopped there, or had they de- scended to particulars, and told us that the city should be the next year destroyed by fire; then, indeed, when we had seen it come to pass, we should not have been to blame to have paid more than common respect to their prophetic spirits, at least, we should have wondered at them, and have been more serious in our inquiries after the meaning of it, and whence they had the foreknowledge ; but as they generally told us of a relapse into the plague, we have had no concern since that about them; yet, by those frequent clamors, we were all kept with some kind of apprehensions constantly upon us; and, if any died suddenly, or if the spotted fevers at any time in- creased, we were presently alarmed; much more if the number of the plague increased ; for, to the end of the year there were always between two and three hundred of the plague. On any of these oc- casions, I say, we were alarmed anew. Those who remember the city of London before the fire, must re- member, that there was then no such place as that we now call Newgate Market; but, in the middle of the street, which is now called Blow Bladder street, and which had its name from the butchers, who used to kill and dress their sheep there (and who, it seems, had a custom to blow up their meat with pipes, to make it look thicker and fatter than it was, and were punished there for it by the lord mayor), I say, from the end of the street towards Newgate, there stood two long rows of shambles for the selling meat. It was in those shambles, that two persons falling down dead as they were buying meat, gave rise to a rumor that the meat was all infected, which, though it might affright the people, and spoiled the market for two or three days, yet it appeared plainly afterwards, that there was nothing of truth in the suggestion: but nobody can account for the possession of fear when it takes hold of the mind. However, it pleased God, by the continuing of the winter weather, so to restore the health of the city, that by February following, we 204 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and then we were not easily frighted again. There was still a question among the learned, and at first perplex- ed the people a little; and that was, in what manner to purge the houses and goods where the plague had been, and how to render them habitable again which had been left empty during the time of the plague; abundance of perfumes and preparations were prescribed by physicians, some of one kind, some of another ; in which the peo- ple who listened to them put themselves to a great, and, indeed, in my opinion, to an unnecessary expense; and the poorer people, who only set open their windows night and day, burnt brimstone, pitch, and gunpowder, and such things, in their rooms, did as well as the best ; nay, the eager people, who, as I said above, came home in haste, and at all hazards, found little or no inconvenience in their houses, nor in their goods, and did little or nothing to them. However, in general, prudent, cautious people did enter into some measures for airing and sweetening their houses, and burnt perfumes, incense, benjamin, resin, and sulphur, in their rooms close shut up, and then let the air carry it all out with a blast of gunpowder ; others caused large fires to be made all day and alt night, for several days and nights. By the same token that two or three were pleased to set their houses on fire, and so effectually sweetened them by burn- ing them down to the ground; as particularly one at Ratcliff, one in Holborn, and one at Westminster, besides two or three that were set on fire, but the fire was happily got out again before it went far enough to burn down the houses; and one citizen’s servant, I think it was in Thames street, carried so much gunpowder into his master’s house for clearing it of the infection, and managed it so foolishly, that he blew up part of the roof of the house. But the time was not.fully come that the city was to be purged with fire, nor was it far off, for within nine months more I saw it all lying in ashes; when, as some of our quaking philosophers pretend, the seeds of the plague were entirely destroyed, and not before ; a notion too ridicu- lous to speak of here, since had the seeds of the plague remained in the houses, not to be destroyed but by fire, how has it been that they have not since broken out? seeing all those buildings in the suburbs and liberties, all in tho great parishes of Stepney, White- chapel, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Oripplegate, and St. Giles‘s, THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 206 where the fire never came, and where the plague raged with the greatest violence, remain still in the same condition they were in before. But to leave these things just as I found them, it was certain that those people who were more than ordinarily cautious of their health, did take particular directions for what they called seasoning of their houses, and abundance of costly things were consumed on that ac- count, which, I cannot but say, not only seasoned those houses as they desired, but filled the air with very grateful and wholesome smells, which others had to share of the benefit of, as well as those who were at the expenses of them. Though the poor came to town very precipitantly as I have said, yet, I must say, the rich made no such haste. The men of business, indeed, came up, but many of them did not bring their families to town till the spring came on, and that they saw reason to depend upon it that the plague would not return. The court, indeed, came up soon after Christmas ; but the nobility and gentry, except such as depended upon, and had employment un- der the administration, did not come so soon. I should have taken notice here that, notwithstanding the violence of the plague in London, and other places, yet it was very observable that it was never on board the fleet, and yet for some time, there was a strange press in the river, and even in the streets for seamen to man the fleet. But it was in the beginning of the year, when the plague was scarce begun, and not at all come down to that part of city where they usually press for seamen; and though a war with the Dutch was not at all grateful to the people at that time, and the seamen went with a kind of reluctancy into the service, and many complained of being dragged into it by force, yet it proved, in the event, a happy violence to several of them, who had probably per- ished in the general calamity, and who, after the summer service was over, though they had cause to lament the desolation of their families, who, when they came back, were many of them in their graves; yet they had room to be thankful that they were carried out of the reach of it, though so much against their wills. We, indeed, had a hot war with the Dutch that year, and one very great engagement at sea, in which the Dutch were worsted ; but we lost a great many men and some sh’ps; but as I observed, the plague was not in the 206 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. fleet, and when they came to lay up the ships in the river, the vio- lent part of it began to abate. I would be glad if I could close the account of this melancholy year with some particular examples historically; I mean of the thankfulness to God, our Preserver, for our being delivered from this dreadful calamity. Certainly the circumstances of the deliver- ance as well as the terrible enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole nation for it; the circumstances of the deliverance were, indeed, very remarkable, as I have in part mentioned already ; and, particularly, the dreadful condition which we were all in, when we were, to the surprise of the whole town, made joyful with the __». hope of a stop to the infection. -? Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but omnipotent “—~ power could have done it; the contagion despised all medicine, death raged in every corner; and had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared the town of all and everything that had a soul. Men everywhere began to despair, every heart failed them for fear; people were made desperate through the anguish of their souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces and coun- tenances of the people. In that very moment, when we might very well say, Vain was the help of man; I say, inthat very moment it pleased God, with a most agreeable surprise, to cause the fury of it to abate, even of itself; . and the malignity declining, 4s I have said, though infinite numbers were sick, yet fewer died; and the very first week’s bill decreased 1,848, a vast number indeed, It is impossible to express the change that appeared in the very countenances of the people, that Thursday morning when the weekly pill came out: it might have been perceived in their countenances, that a secret surprise and smile of joy sat on everybody’s face; they shook one another by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go on the same side of the way with one another before; where the streets were not too broad, they would open their windows and call from one house to another, and asked how they did, and if they had heard the good news that the plague was abated; some would return, when they said good news, and ask, What good news? And when they answered that the plague was abated, and the bills decreased almost two thousand, they would cry out, God be praised; and THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 207 would weep aloud for joy, telling them they had heard nothing of it; and such was the joy of the people, that it was as it were life to them from the grave. Icould almost set down as many extravagant things done in the excess of their joy as of their grief; but that would bé to lessen the value of it. I must confess myself to have been very much dejected just before this happened; for the prodigious numbers that were taken sick the week or two before, besides those that died was such and the lamen- tations were so great everywhere, that a man must have seemed to have acted even against his reason if he had so much as expected to escape; and as there was hardly a house but mine in all my neigh- borhood but what was infected, so had it gone on, it would not have been long that there would have been any more neighbors to be in- fected; indeed it is hardly credible what dreadful havoc the last three weeks had made; for if I might believe the person whose cal- culations [ always found very well grounded, there were not less than thirty thousand people dead, and near one hundred thousand fallen sick in the three weeks I speak of; for the number that sickened was surprising, indeed, it was astonishing, that those whose courage upheld them all the time before, sunk under it now. In the middle of their distress, when the condition of the city of London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God, as it were, by his immediate hand, to disarm this enemy ; the poison was taken out of the sting; it was wonderful: even the physicians themselves were surprised at it: wherever they visited they found their patients better, either they had sweated kindly, or the tumors were broke, or the carbuncles went down, and the inflammations round them changed color, or the fever was gone, or the violent headache was assuaged, or some good symptom was in the case; so that, in a few days everybody was recovering; whole families that were infected and down, that had ministers praying with them, and expected death every hour, were revived and healed, and none died at all out of them. Nor was this by any new medicine found out, or new method of cure discovered, or by any experience in the operation, which the physicians or surgeons attained to; but it was evidently from the secret invisible hand of Him that had at first sent this disease as a judgment upon us; and let the atheistic part of mankind call my 208 THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. saying what they please, it is no enthusiasm. It was acknowledged, at that time, by all mankind. The disease was enervated, and its malignity spent, and let it proceed from whencesoever it will, let the philosophers search for reasons in nature to account for it by, and labor as much as they will to lessen the debt they owe to their Maker; those physicians who had the least share of religion in them were obliged to acknowledge that it was all supernatural, that it was extraordinary, and that no account could be given of it. If I should say that this is a visible summons to us all to thankful- ness, especially we that were under the terror of its increase, perhaps it may be thought by some, after the sense of the thing was over, an officious canting of religious things, preaching a sermon instead of writing a history; making myself a teacher, instead of giving my observations of things; and this restrains me very much from going on here, as I might otherwise do; but if ten lepers were healed, and but one returned to give thanks, I desire to be as that one, and to be thankful for myself. Nor will I deny but there were abundance of people who, to all appearance, were very thankful at that time: for their mouths were stopped, even the mouths of those whose hearts were not extraordi- narily long affected with it; but the impression was so strong at that time that it could not be resisted—no, not by the worst of the peo- ple. It was a common thing to meet people in the street that were strangers and that we knew nothing at all of, expressing their sur- prise. Going one day through Aldgate, and a pretty many people being passing and repassing, there comes a man out of the end of the Minories, and looking a little up the street and down, he throws his hands abroad, “ Lord, what an alteration is here? Why last week I came along here, and hardly anybody was to be seen.” Another man, I heard him, adds to his words, “Tis all wonderful; ‘tis alla dream.” “Blessed be God,” says a third man, “ and let us give thanks to him, for ’tis all his own doing.” Tuman help and buman skill were at an end. These were all strangers to one another, but such salutations as these were frequent in the street every day; and in spite of the loose behavior, the very common people went along the streets, giving God thanks for their deliverance. It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all apprehen- THE PLAGUE IN LONDON. 209 sions, and that too fast ; indeed, we were no more afraid now to pass by aman with a white cap upon his head, or with a cloth wrapt round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were frightful to the last degree but the week be- fore; but now the street was full of them, and these poor recover- ing creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their unexpected deliverance; and I should wrong them very much, if I should not acknowledge, that I believe many of them were really thankful; but I must own, that for the generality of the people it might too justly be said of them, as was said of the children of Israel, after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed the Red Sea, and looked back and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water; viz., “That they sang his praise, but they soon forgot his works.” I can go no further here. Ishould be counted censorious, and per- haps unjust if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflection, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I wasso much an eye- witness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, therefore, with a coarse but a sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums, the same year they were written ;— A dreadful plague in London was In the year sixty-five, Which swept an hundred thousand souls Away; yet I alive! THE END. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP, OB MARRIAGE ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. PREFACE. As this way of writing, in cases not much unlike this, has been approved of and has met with great success in other hands, it has been an encouragement to this undertaking. Historical dialogues, it must be confessed, have a very taking elegancy in them, and the story being handed forward in short periods, and quick returns, makes the retaining it in the mind the easier, and the impression the more lasting as well as delight- ful. a The story represented here, is capable of such, and so many applications to the cases of young people, whose settlement is always in view, that there will never be a time when the instruc- tion will be useless. If anybody should object, that too much is put here upon the woman’s part, and that a lady cannot be supposed, in the midst of her lover’s addresses, to take upon her to demand such an account of himself asis here suggested ; that few men will stoop to such an examination ; and few women venture the loss of their lovers upon such a subject, let such consider how small the satis- faction here proposed on the lady’s part is, and that no gentle- man can think it hard a woman should be satisfied whether he is a Christian or a Heathen ; a man of religion or an atheist : and, indeed, no man of any tolerable share of sense, will address him- self to a lady for marriage, but he will take care to anticipate it, iv PREFACE. her inquiries of that kind, by showing some concern for knowing what she is herself. : The universal neglect of this trifle, both in men and women, is what this book is designed to correct, and there needs no greater satire upon that part, than the success of the several cases here related, viz. the happy life of the youngest sister, who came into the measures proposed ; and the miserable condition of the second sister, who rashly threw herself into the arms of a man of different principles from her own, though blest with all the good humor in the world. In these accounts, the very great consequence of being equally yoked is illustrated ; and it appears here how essential a share of religion, and a harmony of principles in religion, are to the feli- city of a conjugal life. To those who do not cast off all concern for themselves ; who do not make marrying a mere leap in the dark, and as the first lady expresses it, rush like a horse into the battle, these things will be of some moment. As to those that are void of care of these matters, they must go on, and pay for their experience ; let them take heed, and buy it as cheap as they can. If the women seem to be favored in this story, and have the better part of the staff put into their hands, it is because really the hazard is chiefly on their side, and they are generally the greatest sufferers in the success: but if it were otherwise, yet, if they are treated with more than ordinary regard, the author hopes they will not lay that sin to his charge. This edition of this work recommends itself upon this express condition, viz. that the author has not found occasion to alter anything in the former editions (errors of the press excepted), nor have I found room for any additions, that usual pretence for setting off new impressions and imposing upon those who have bought the first ; being still fully satisfied, the goodness of the design, and the usefulness of the subject, will make the work acceptable wherever it comes. AMERICAN PREFACE. “ Reuicious Courrsuir,” the production of the celebrated Daniel Defoe, and scarcely less esteemed by the British public than his popular “‘ Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,” is now for the first time offered to the American Reader. Few individuals of. the middle and lower classes of English society enter into the marriage state, without giving it a previous and frequent perusal. This American reprint has been undertaken, at the instigation of several Protestant Divines, who entertain the opinion that the cause of religion and domestic harmony will be thereby subserved ; and also in the belief that a work which has maintained its popu- larity on the other side of the Atlantic through so many years, as evinced by the sale of thousands annually, needs only to be known in order to meet with a hearty welcome here. ¥. CONTENTS. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. PART I. PAGE DraLoaua I. Between a Father and his Three Daughters on Getting Married, . x 8 DisLogue II. A Suitor rejected because he lacks Religion, . 6 ke ae . SL DraLoave III. Treats of the unhappy Results of Marriage with an Irreligious Man, 65 Drarogue IV. Father and Daughter discourse on the Necessity of a Woman choosing forherself, . 2. . © «© «© © © «© «© « « 9% PART I. DiaLoace I. Necessity of a clear understanding as to the Religious Views of a Bogoend, « « «© » +» * © © © % w «oF Diatoave II. Duty Fathers owe to their Children not to subject them to Evil Influ- ences—Results of a Union of Protestants and Catholics,. . . 161 DiaLocus IIL. Relates the Death of a Catholic Husband and the Trials of his Pro- testant Wife, . A é . - ) Gn . o 8) 15 PART I. Diatoguz I. Between a Lady and her Servant on the duty of attending Church— Responsibility of Employers on this subject, . é 3 ‘ . 210 DiaLoave II. Ought Employers to engage Servants of a different Religion from the rest of the Household, . - “ a te . . = 2 227 DraLogux III, Necessity of Employers giving to each other veracious answers to questions bearing upon the character of Servants—IIl effects of Deception on this point, . . : . : . 7 ‘ . 244 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. PART I. Taere lived in a village near London, an ancient, grave gentle- men, of a good estate, which he had gained by trade, having been bred a merchant, though of a very good family tee, He had been a man in great business, but his circumstances being easy, and his love of a retired life increasing with his years, he had left off his business, and taken a house a mile or two out of town. He was a widower at the time of this affair, his wife having been dead some years before. He had five or six children, and all grown up, but none settled in the world, though he had an estate sufficient to give them very plentiful fortunes. His three daughters were very agreeable women: and, which was still better, were very sober, modest, sensible, and religious young ladies; two of them especially. And as the character of their father, and the fortune he was able to give them, recom- mended them very well to the world, so they had several gentlemen that.made honorable and handsome proposals to their father for their marriage. I shall most carefully avoid giving any room here, so much as to guess what opinion in religion they were bred up in, or whether the old gentleman was a churchman or a dissenter; and the same caution T shall use with all the rest of the persons whom J shall bring upon the stage in the course of this story: my reason for which everybody will understand by the nature of the relation, and of the times we live in. ‘ 8 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. The father of these ladies had been a man always, till now, hur- ried in the world; being crowded with a vast business, taken up with getting money, and with growing rich; so that he neither had much concern for, nor indeed took any care of the education or in- struction of his children, but left them wholly to the conduct of their mother. Nor was it any great loss to the children, especially to the daughters; their mother being a most pious, religious, and virtuous lady, who was not only extraordinarily qualified to instruct her chil- dren, but gave up her whole time to it from their childhood. One morning, a little before her death, calling her daughters to her, she told them, among other things, That as to marriage, she had but two injunctions to lay upon them, which, as she was not likely to live to see them settled, she would deisre them to lay down as maxims in the choice of their husbands, and which she would, as upon her death-bed, if her words had any extraordinary influence upon them, oblige them to observe strictly, viz. First, Never to marry any man, whatever his person or fortune might be, that did not, at least, profess to be a religious man. Second, Never to marry any man, how religious soever he may seem to be, if he was not of the same principle and opinion in re- ligion as themselves. And as this was but a little before her death, so the daughters were more than ordinarily touched with the sense of it, and resolved to pursue it exactly. How they did pursue it, and the consequences of it, will be seen in the following dialogues. It followed some time after, that a gentleman of a very good estate courted the youngest of these daughters: and making very handsome proposals to her father (for he offered to settle 600£. per annum up- on her) the father was exceedingly pleased with the match; he being a gentleman, thoroughly well bred, an agreeable person, and ina word, nothing appearing to give the least reason, why he should not be as acceptable to the lady as he was to the father. As he came thus recommended to the father, there appeared nothing disagreeable in it to the young lady; nor had she at his first appearance, the least exception to make against the gentlemen as to his person. Indeed, as to his estate, though her fortune was very handsome, yet his was so far beyond it, that there was no compari- von in the case ; and besides all this, she had this engaging cireum- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 9 stance in the proposal, viz. That she being the youngest of the three daughters, the gentleman had passed over her two eldest sisters, and ‘had singled her out by his more particular fancy, giving her that undeniable mark of his affection, viz. That she would be the wife of his choice, and consequently should have an uncommon security of the sincerity of his love to her. The father opposed his proposal a little at first, as a slight offered’ to his elder daughters; but the gentleman told him, that he hoped, if he accepted his design of coming into his family, he would give him leave to take the person his judgment had made choice of, and that he thought he might be happy with: that it would be a very hard circumstance to him, and what he could not think of with pa- tience, to marry one of his daughters, and be in love with another: that he was very far from offering any slight to the eldest; letting him know, that happening to see the youngest first, he found such a suitableness, and something so agreeable in her to him, that he re- solved to look no further. That, perhaps, if he had seen the eldest or the second daughter first, it might have been the same thing; but that ashe could not answer for the bias of his fancy, so neither could he answer it to his own conduct, not to choose her that was, from the first moment he saw her, the only woman in the world that he ever thought could make him happy. Her father could make no return to an answer that had so much weight in it, and which appeared to beso sincere; and therefore, not acquainting his eldest daughter with the design he had to propose her to him, he took occasion to talk to them all together, one morn- ing as they were drinking chocolate; and thus begins merrily with them. DIALOGUE I. Father. Well girls, you little think now, which of you all is like to be first married. What say you, child (turning to the youngest). I hope you are content to let your eldest sisters go before you? Third Daughter. Yes, yes, sir; I desire both my sisters may go before me: for I see nothing in the world to make me in haste 1* 10 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. fa, Why, what’s the matter that you are so out of love with all the world on a sudden? Is it that you think yourself too good for every body, or every body too good for you? 8d Da. No, sir; I am neither so vain to think the first, nor so humble to think the last? but I desire to think of myself as I ought to think. Fa. How is that, pray ? 8d Da. Why, sir, I think I live too well to change for the worse ; and this is not an age to change for the better: and therefore, I de- sire to be as I am. Fa. Why, is this age so much worse than that which went before, pray ? 3d Da. Nay, sir, I don’t know: but I am very well satisfied, sir, with your first proposal; that my sisters may try before me. Fa, Well, well, and if you go before your sisters, there will be no harm done, if it be to your liking, I hope. I dare say none of your sisters will be angry. At which the two eldest said, No, no; we shall be very glad to see it. And so they fell to jesting with their younger sister, till they almost angered her. You are mighty difficult, says the eldest sister, that you fall upon the whole world, as if there was nothing good enough for you. Says the second sister, She will be as easily pleased as another, I warrant her, if she was talked to in earnest. Upon which, notwith- standing their father was present, they fell to rallying one another between jest and earnest, a little too warmly, as follows, 8d Da. That may be, as my eldest sisters teach me, I hope they intend to set me a good example; for it is their turn first. 1s¢ Da. We don’t know that; if a good offer comes in your way, you'll hardly put it off, and say, your betters must go before you. 8d Da. For all you are both my eldest sisters, I question whether you understand what a good offer means; and, it may be, have consid- ered it no more than I. There’s a great deal in that word. 1st Da. Oh! Tl explain it in afew words: A good estate, and a man you like. 2d Da. Nay; you might have stopt at the first; it is no matter what the man is, if the estate be but good. 3d Da. Is that the example my eldest sisters intend to at me? Fa, Ay; and a good example too, child. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. il 3d Da. You are disposed to jest, sir; but I believe you would not be pleased with such a way of choosing a husband for any of your daughters. 2d Da. I hope my father would; I am sure IJ should. 3d Da. That’s no token to me that you have considered much of the matter, as I said before. 2d@ Da. Why, what would you have besides a good estate? What matter is it what the man is? I would pass by a great many homely defects for a good settlement. 3d Da, As for the homely defects, perhaps I may be no nicer than you, if there was nothing else wanting. 2d Da. What can be wanting if there be money enough? 3d Da. Nothing, I hope, when my sister comes to choose. 2a Da. N 03 nor when you come to choose either, it may be. 3d Da. I am afraid there will. 2d Da. For my part, I shall inquire for nothing else as I know of. 8d Da. No! What! would you have your husband have no reli- gion? 2d Da. What have Ito do with his religion? He'll be a Obristian, I hope. 3d Da. And what if he should not? 2d Da. Nay, then, he may be a heathen if he will; what’s that to me? 8d Da. That’s a proof of what I said before, that you have not considered much of the matter. 2d Da. No, indeed, not I; but I suppose my younger sister has. 3d Da. Your youngest sister never told you so yet: But me- thinks, there requires very little consideration, to say, if I ever should marry, I would not have a rake, a heathen, a profligate fellow, aman without religion, purely for his money. If you think these things no objections, and are got over such scruples in the case, I must tell you, sister, that it seems the business has been more in your head than in mine, or at least to worse purpose. 2d Da, Well, it may be so; and then it may follow, that when you have considered more of it too, you will be of my mind. 3d Da, What, to marry an Atheist! a man of no principles! that knows neither God nor devil! 12 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 2d Da. Ay, ay; that, or any thing else, if you have but a good settlement, child. A good settlement will make up all those things ; you'd take him, I warrant you. 8d Da. No, sister; not for all I can see with my eyes. 24 Da. Oh, you don’t know your own mind, till you come to be tried ; we shall see you tell another tale hereafter. 8d Da. I an’t so fond of a husband, whatever my sister is. [Here the father seeing that the younger sister began to be a little moved, and unwilling they should make a quarrel of it, put an end to the discourse, and so they soon after withdrew; and then the father being left with the eldest daughter only, went on with his dis- course thus to her.] Fa. Child, you are a little too hard upon your sister. Da. She should not have taken it so, sir; she knows it is but in jest. Fa, But you do not know whether it may be all in jest or no. Da, Nay, sir, I am sure all our share in it was in jest; if there is anything in it, I should have talked in another way. [Here she was very inquisitive with her father to know if there was any thing in it or not, at which he only smiled.] Da. Nay, sir, then J understand how it is. Fa, Well, child, how will you take it, to see your younger sister married before you? Da. Oh, very well, sir: I shall be very glad of it, if it be for her good. But, if I were to speak my mind, I should say something to her, about it that it may be there may be occasion for. Fa, Well, pray speak your mind then. Da. Why, sir, for all my sister’s bantering her, I must own, our youngest sister will not be easily pleased in a husband, as times go now. Fa. How do you mean, child? Da. Why, sir, I mean, that though she may be the first of us that shall be asked, she may be the last of us that will be married. Fa, Ay, wy girl! is it sowith you then? What! have you been both making your bargains without me? And are they so near con- cluding? That’s very hard. Da. Dear father, how could you have such a thought of us? You are quite wrong; you don’t understand me at all. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 13 Fa. Nay; how cafi I understand you any other way? If it is not so, explain yourself. Da. Sir, I mean that my sister will not be easily pleased. She will scarce take the first that comes, I dare say. Fa. No; then I shall take it very ill: for I assure you he that I mean is a very good one. Da, Nay, if he is a good one, it may be she may; but it is a ques- tion, sir, whether her good one, and your good one, may be both of a sort. 2 Fa. Why he has a very good estate, ll assure you: far beyond what she can expect.. Da. That’s a good thing; but that will go but a little way witb her, I know. Fa. Well, he is a very handsome, well-accomplished, well-bred gentleman. She cannot mislike him. He is a most agreeable young gentleman, I assure you. Da, That won’t go a bit the farther with her either, I am sure. Fa, Then he is in love with her, and has singled her out from you all, She will be the wife of his affection to be sure. What can she desire more? Da, She will desire something more still, sir; though the last is a thing will go very far; doubtless further than any we have talked on yet. But you know, sir, my sister is a very sober, religious body, and she will never marry a man that is not so too; though his estate, his person, his accomplishments, were beyond all the rest of the world. And this was the reason why I said she may be the first asked and last married. Fa, Nay, I can’t tell how matters are as to that. Da. V'll assure you, sir, she will know how it is as to that, before she engages. Fa, Nay let her alone to that part; that’s none of my business. [Here he was touched a little, and reflected back softly to himse’f, Oh! why do I say it is none of my business ? Whose business is it, it it is not mine ?] Da. But sir, when you know her mind in that case, it may pre- vent you receiving any disappointment, and prevent her venturing to disoblige you, in refusing what you may propose to her. 14 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Fa. No, no; I dare say she won’t refuse hifi; she is not such a fool either. Da. Dear sir, then I hope you know he is a sober religious gentle- man. Fa. I know nothing to the contrary, my dear ; I suppose he is. Da. But, sir, it makes me anxious about it; because you said just now, you could not tell. I hope you will inquire farther into it be- fore you take any farther steps about it. Fa, Why, child, as to that, I dare say, she need not be concerned. He is so good a humored man, he will never cross her in small mat- ters, especially in religious things. Child, do you think any gentle- man can be angry, that his wife is sober and religious? To be sure, she may be as religious as she will. Da. Oh dear sir, my sister can never be satisfied so, sure. [He observes his daughter concerned at it, and that tears stood in her eyes.] : fa, Child, what’s the matter? What makes you so concerned about it ? Da. It is a sad life, sir, for a woman to have no help from her hus- band in things that are good, but only to have liberty for herself to be as good as she will, or rather as good as she can. By the same rule, she may be as bad as she will; and it may be he will like her ne’er the better for the one, nor the worse for the other. Fa. Well, he is a fine gentleman, and professes a great affection for her. Da. Before he has seen her, it may be, or knows anything of her. Fu. No, no, he has seen her; but he has never been in her com- pany, I know. Da. So that I find he cares not what she is; he chooses by her outside only. Fa. He takes all the rest upon trust. Da. But my sister won’t take him so, I can tell him that. Fa, I will take it very ill from her if she slights him; for I assure you he is not to be slighted; he has very near £2,000 a-year estate, Da, But I am sure if he is not-a religious man, she will slight him for all that; my meaning is, she will never have him; I suppose she will not be rude to him. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP: 15 Fa. If she does retuse him, she and J shall quarrel, I assure you, and that very much. Da. Thope you won't, sir: you will give her leave to choose to her own liking. It is for her life, and she must bear the discomfort of it; nobody can bear it for her. Besides, sir, you know she was very religiously instructed by my mother. Fa. Ay, ay: your mother was a good woman. Da, And you know, sir, I suppose, what advice my mother gave her upon her death-bed, viz. never to marry any man that was not religious, whatever other advantages might offer with him. Fa. And did she not give you the same advice too, my dear? Da. Yes, to be sure; and all of us. Fa. Well; and yet you heard what yoursister said just now, viz. that she would not trouble herself about it, so there was but a good estate. Da. But I hope my sister would consider better, if'she came to the question. oo Fa. Why, child, would you refuse such a gentleman, and such a. settlement as this is, that offers now to your sister, for such a nicety as that? Da. Tt will be time enough, sir, for me to answer that question, when IJ am offered such a one; there’s no danger of me yet. Fa. T hope you would be wiser. Da. T hope, sir, I should act as becomes me. But the case is not mine now; if it was, I should not have begun the discourse. Fa. Well, but did your mother give you such advice, child, when she was ill? Da. Yes, sir, and more than advice; for she told us, she would leave it as an injunction upon us, as far as her dying words could have any influence to oblige us. a, Very well; that is as much as to say, she had found the incon- venience of it herself. [Here his conscience touched him again, though but slightly, and he fetched a sigh, and said softly, If she did, it was nothing but what she had too much reason to do; for she lived but an uncom- fortable life with me on that very account.] Da, Nay, indeed, dear father, we never put any such construction upon it. 16 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Fa, And so, my dear, you think your sister will not like this gentleman, do you? Da. Indeed, sir, I cannot tell, till 1 know what kind of a gentle- man he is; no, nor then either. For how can I tell what my sister will like, or how her fancy may lead her to act against her judgment if she would like him very well upon seeing him ? Fa. But you believe she won't. Da. If he is not a very sober, religious man, I do think she won't. If she does, she must break in upon the most solemn resolution that she is able to make. Fa. Why, will nothing serve her but a saint? Alas! where does she think to find him? What! would she marry a bishop? Da. Nay, sir, if she should, she is not sure she should not be dis- appointed. Ministers are but men. Fa, No, indeed, child; nor always the best of men either. Da. But, sir, where there is a profession of religion, there is a likelihood of finding the truth of it; but where there is no profes- sion, there it cannot be. Now, though we are not obliged, to be sure, our husbands should be saints, yet I believe we ought to be satisfied that they are not Atheists. There’s a great deal of differ- ence, sir, between a friend to religion, and an enemy. Fa. Well, well; the girls of this age do not much trouble themselves about religion. They generally let it alone, till they see what reli- gion their husbands are of. Da. Dear father, I hope your girls are not of that sort. Fa. My daughters are like other folks’ daughters, I believe. I hope they are not worse. Da. But, sir, if that were true, then there would still be the more reason to take care that they should marry religious husbands; else they would have no religion at all. Fa. But how shall you know it? Da. We must endeavor to be satisfied as well as we can. If we are deceived, it may be our unhappiness, but it will not be our fault ; but if we neglect the caution, it may be a double misery, by its be- ing our sorrow and our sin too. fa, Well, child, I hope this gentleman will please your sister, as well as he does me; and I would not have her stand in her own RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. WW light. If he is not so religious now, it may come afterwards. The man is a sober, well-bred, ingenious gentleman. Da. I can say nothing to it, sir, unless I knew him. I only take notice of the principle, sir, on which my sister goes; and by which Iam sure she will act in this matter, that you may not be disap- pointed, and resent it; for I know she will not go from it. fa. Vil warrant you. I intend to talk with her about it. I don’t doubt but she will like him very well. [Two or three days after this discourse, the father brings home this young gentleman to dinner; and after dinner he takes occasion to talk with his daughter; and to tell her, that this was the gentle- man that he had told her of, that intended to court her; and that he expected she would think of the thing, and receive him as her own inclinations, and his merit, should direct. The gentleman did not discourse much with her by herself that time, having no design to begin closely at the first view. However, he had the opportunity of walking two or three turns with her in a green walk in the garden; and when he took his leave, told her, he resolved to wait on her again; to which she made no answer for that time. The next evening he came again; and after that for several eve- nings together: when, having made her acquainted with his design, and laid close siege to her for some time, she found nothing to object against him,; for he was indeed a most agreeable person. And her father pressing her to it on the other hand, and letting her know what honorable proposals he had made her, and how he had sin- gled her out from all her sisters, as the object of his choice, she be- gan insensibly to find her affections very strongly biased in his favor. All this while she could make no discovery of anything about re. ligion in him, nor so much as whether he was well inclined or per- fectly destitute. The respect he showed her, and the distance she kept him at, permitted him not to use any loose expressions, that might give her any light into his principles: and, as he afterwards confessed, he found her so nice in things of that kind, that the least dislocated word would have given her offence; and therefore. he kept upon his guard a great while, tillat length, when they became more intimate, he abated his usual caution. 18 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. By this time, as she confessed to her sister, she did not only like him, but really loved him ; and having nothing to object against him, had given him reason to see that she designed to have him. But she was under a great concern how to know what he was as to religion, and terribly afraid lest she should give her affections such a loose, that though she should be deceived in the main point, she should not be able to master herself, so much as to go back. As she was mus- jug very seriously upon this one morning in her chamber, her eldest 4# sister came in to her, and began the following discourse with her.] Elf, sist. Sister ! How stands the world with you now? Yo. sist. Never worse, sister! If you do not help me, Jam undone, Eid. sist. What’s the matter? Yo. sist. Why, if I have this man, I shall be the miserablest crea- ture alive. Lild. sist. How so? Yo. sist. Oh, there’s nothing of religion in him. Zid. sist. Are you sure there is not? Yo. sist. No, I am not sure; but we have conversed this month now, and I never heard one word about it come out of his mouth. And if I speak a word, he turns it off and does it so cleverly, that I can’t put in another word for my life. Eld. sist. I warrant you, I would find it out if it were my case. Yo. sist. You could not, I am sure. Eld. sist. Why I would ask him point blank, what religion he was of | Yo. sist. Why so I did, and he laughed at me, and said, O, child, I am a mighty good Christian. Eld. sist. I should have told him I was afraid he wa’n’t. Yo. sist. Why, I did that too, in the very words, and still he put me off. Another time I asked him, if he was not a papist? Imme- diately he fell a crossing himself all over, and made himself and me too so merry at it, that though I was really troubled about it, I could not for my life get the least serious thing out of him. Eld. sist. Why, you must let it go ona little farther, till you are more intimate: and till you come to talk of your way of living, the affairs of his family and house, and the like. Yo. sist. Really, sister, I am afraid to go on any farther; for I must confess, I begin to have a strange kindness for him: and if I RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 19 go any farther I may love him better, till my affection be a snare to me, and I may be prevailed with to take him, without farther in- quiry, which I shall have no peace in. Lid. sist. What will you do then ? Yo. sist. I know not what to do. I wish you wouldtry what you can make of him. ‘You are free enough with him, to talk anything of that kind, stre. Eid. sist. I can be free enough ; but that won’t do it. If he is too cunning for you, he will easily be too cunning for me. Yo. sist. Why do you think, then, that it is a disguise ? Ed. sist, What else can it be? Do you think he guards himself so strictly against all your attempts for nothing. Yo. sist. If I thought so, I should inquire no farther, it would be a plain discovery to me. Eilld. sist. Why so? Yo. sist. Why, if he was a serious person, he would have no reason or occasion to conceal it. If he endeavors to hide himself it is for something that he would not have known; and then I need not ask any more after it. Eld. sist. No doubt of it; you cannot think any other. Yo, sist. But indeed I do think otherwise: I verily believe it is all mere nature, and nothing but the height of good humor; for I never put the question downright to him, but in akind of jesting way. Eid. sist. But why don’t you then? Why do you trifle and dally so long with a thing of such consequence? You an’t afraid of diso- bliging him, are you? Yo. sist. No, indeed; I am more afraid that his answer will dis- oblige me. Eid. sist. Well, well; you had better have it discoursed now than hereafter. I would not be backward to speak plain to him. Yo. sist. If I talk never so plain, he will not give a serious answer. He is so merry, I cannot bring him to talk. I beg you will see if you can break in upon him. Eid. sist. Come, T’ll tell you what I will do, which will be better agreat deal than my talking with him by myself. You know we shall walk all together awhile before supper ; I'll begin it before you, and you may speak or not speak, take it in jest or in earnest, as yov find it proper. 20 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Yo. sist. Do then; I think that will be very well. [The next evening, the two sisters, and this young gentleman walking in the garden, as was usual before supper, and talking of several different things, a servant brings the eldest sister a letter, which made some little stop in their walk. She opened it, and read it; and he finding her color change a little in the reading, stept up to her; says he, What's the matter, sister, (for he always called her sister) you have no bad news I hope? Truly, says she, one way it is no bad news, and another way it is.—And, turning to her sister, she says, Sir James is dead. He was a little concerned to hear some of the family was dead, lest it should grieve his mistress. But she, without any appearance of trouble, returned, Well, since it is the dis- posal of Providence, I am not grieved; for my aunt is delivered from one of the worst good husbands that ever a sober woman had. He took hold of that word presently, and still directing his speech to her sister, said Worst good husband! What mystery is that? Why, truly, says the sister, the thing is too true: Sir James is a very good husband in his humor, and in several other things: but my lady had a dreadful life with him. Why, says he, that may be very true; a man may be a very good husband in one thing and be very unkind in another; it is owing much to the disagreement of tempers. The -young lady’s sister was disappointed in his answer, for she expected he would have inquired into the particulars; but he put it off, as a thing that did not concern him much. At which the youngest sister looked at her, and smiled, which was as much as to tell her, that she had found now, that what she had told her was true; namely, that she would not see it easy to break in upon him. She took the hint, and resolved she would try the best of her skill, and she found it soon answered her end; so she returned to him very smartly. No, no, sir, says she, it was not at all from a disagreement of tempers in this case; it is worse a great deal; it was a disagreement of princi- ples; for the gentleman was of a very good temper, I assure you. Then, if he had a good wife, returns he, he should have made it his first principle to have been obliging and good tempered to his wife. Alas! says the lady, he had no religion, and she is the most pious religious lady in the world. It may be then, says he, she had enough for her and her husband too. Her being religious, said she, made his want of it an unsufferable burden to her. Then she was to blame RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Q1 says he, for what need she have been uneasy at that? Not uneasy! says she, how isit possible a religious woman can live comfortably with an irreligious, profane husband? Oh very well, says he again, what signifies it to a woman whether her husband have any religion or no? I have better thoughts of you, saysshe, than to believe you speak as you think, or that you would be understood so. Her sister had listened very attentively to all this, and was sensi- bly affected with it; but said nothing till now, when:she turned upon her sister: Why, sister, said she, should you think so? I hope Mr. says nothing but what he is very sincerein. Do youthink he has not his religion to choose as well as other young gentle- men? . Madam, says he, how should I choose my religion, that have not chosen me a wife! Then you are for choosing you a wife first, says his mistress, and your religion afterwards? Why, madam, says he, don’t all the gentlemen in England do so too! I don’t know what they do, says she, but I know what they ought. to do. She was now too well satisfied of what she feared before, and her mind was so oppressed with it, that she was not able to hold; but making an excuse to take her sister’s letter and go in and tell her father the news of the death of his brother-in-law, she left her sis- ter to walk with her lover, and went up into her chamber, and lock- ing herself in, she gave vent to her passions by crying vehemently a great while. When she had recovered herself, considering that she was obliged, in civility, to go down again, she composed her thoughts, and kneeling down prayed to God to fortify her soul in the resolu- tions she had always taken, never to join herself to any man that did not acknowledge God, and profess to fear and serve him ; and, in this temper, she went down to him again. She was with him after that some hours in the evening, as usual; but he observed she was not easy nor free; at length she told him, that upon this occasion of a relation being dead, it was proper for the family, and decent to their father, that they should make some little alteration in their conduct, and desired he would not take it ill, that she retired from him sooner than she used to do. This he could not object against, and accordingly he took his leave, believing that her uneasiness was nothing but the business of her aunt’s being a widow; which, though, as she said, she was not much concerned 22 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. for, yet several things about it might take up her thoughts, so as to make her not so perfectly easy, or so good company as she was before. But he was quite out in his guess; for her uneasiness was of ano- ther kind, and she had nothing now to lay upon her mind, but how she should discharge herself entirely of his importunities, and yet without being rude and uncivil to him, and without disobliging her father: for she was firmly resolved in her mind never to see him more. When she had thus taken her leave of him, she went up into her chamber, sending her maid to desire her sister to come up; and order- ing the servant to exouse her to her father for not coming to supper, for she was indisposed. As soon as her sister came into her chamber, she ran to her in the greatest passion imaginable, and throwing her arms about her neck, O sister, says she, help me but out of this wretched business, and Pll never come into the like as long as I live. [She said no more, but hung about her, crying violently a great while.] Sist. What can I do for you, child? you know Tll.do anything I can. Yo. sist. Don’t you see how itis now? Was I not right in my suspicion ? Sist. I am afraid you are: I don’t know what to say to it. Yo. sist. Say to it! I would not marry him if he was Lord High Treasurer of Britain. Sist. What will you do, then? How will you put him off? Yo. sist. Put him off! let him put himself off, an’ he will; I have no more to say to him. Sist. Nay, you must have more to say to him, you must tell him so. Yo. sist. NotI; [ll never see him more. Sist. Child, you must not be rude to him; you don’t want man- ners. Yo. sist. I would not be rude to him, that’s it I want your help for. Sist. What can I do in it? Icannot go down to him, when he comes, and tell him you will see him no more. You cannot desire me to carry such a message. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 23 Yo. sist. No, that’s true, I can’t. I know not what to do, not I. Sist. Shall I speak to my father to do it? Yo. sist. I think my father is the fittest to give him his answer. He brought him first on, and I think he should put him off. Sist. But he will be in such a rage, I hardly dare speak of it to him, Yo. sist. Dear sister, he won't be angry with you, his anger will be all at me. : Sist. You know, sister, my father’s infirmity, that if he is angry with anybody, he is angry with every body; I know he'll use me very ill if I break it to him. ; Yo. sist. What shall I do then? Jl be gone, if I never come home again while I live. Sist. No, no, you shan’t be gone; whither will you go? Yo. sist. I beg of you, sister, speak to my father about it. Sist. What shall I say, if he calls for you? will you come down? Yo. sist. If I must I will; but keep it off if you can. [The eldest daughter goes down to her father, a little before sup- per; and as soon as he saw her, he began the discourse. ] Fa, Child; what’s the matter with your sister? Her maid tells me she is not well. Have you seen her? Da, Yes, sir: I came just from her: she is not very well. Fa. What ails her? She must not be sick now whatever she does. Why it is ominous to be sick when she is a-wooing.: Da. I believe she is sicker of that than of anything else, sir; if she was delivered from her gentleman, she would be well enough. Fa, What do you mean? why I intend they shall be married the week after next. The writings are a-drawing, and I designed by and by to have given her a hundred pounds towards buying her wedding- clothes. Da, You may adjourn that awhile, sir; she has changed her mind. Fa, Changed her mind! what do you mean ? [The father rises up in a great passion, and walks about the room.] Da. Dear father, do not be angry with me; it is no business of mine. I hadrather say no more of it, for I see it will put you ins passion. But why should you be in a passion with me? 24 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. _ fa, Not in a passion! who can but be in a passion with all of you? Changed her mind, say you? Ay, and I'll change my mind too. [ll never give her a groat; no, not a shilling, to any other man; that I'll promise her. Da. I dare say, sir, she has no other man in her view. Fa. What does she mean, then! is she mad? to ruin herself thus, and:stand in her own light? ‘Does she ever expect to have such another offer? Da. No, I believe not sir; nor does she desire it. Fa. No, nor ever shall, I'll marry again, as old as I am, and give away what I have to strangers, before I'll give it to children that shall treat me thus. Da. Will you punish, sir, the innocent with the guilty. Fa. Why, you are all guilty, for aught I know: what do you come with such a story for? where is she? call her down. Da. Sir, she is very much indisposed. If you would please to let her alone till to-morrow, she may be better able to speak for herself, and you may not be so much in a passion with her. Fa. Well, let her alone till morning, then. I suppose she’ll change her mind again by that time. Da. Tam sorry, sir, to see you take it so ill of her: but I dare say she will be the same to-morrow, and as long as she lives. Fa. Well, then I'll be of the same mind too, to-morrow. [The eldest sister went up, after supper, to her sister’s chamber, who waited for her, impatient enough. As soon. as she came, she gave her sister an account of what discourse she had with her father, and how angry he was; which, though it terrified and afflicted her very much, yet it did not move her at all to alter her resolutions; and she endeavored, as well as she could, to furnish herself with answers to give her father when he should begin with her. But whether it was, that her father was impatient to hear what she had to say, or that she believing he would not meddle with it till next morning, came unwarily in his way, is not material; but happening to see her the same night, he called her in to him, and told her he wanted to speak with her. He began very mildly with her, which a little encouraged her ; for she was something surprised at his beginning to talk, before she ex- pected it; and taking her by the arm, feels for her pulse. What's RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 25 the matter with you, child? says her father; they tell me you wa’nt well; I think your pulse beats very true.] Da. I am better, sir, now; but I was very much out of order. Fa, Only a little in love, my dear: that’s all, I hope. Da. No indeed, sir, the contrary to an extreme, as I suppose my sister has told you. Fa. Your sister, child? I can lay no stress on anything she said: T cannot tell whether she was in jest or in earnest. Da. Sir, I am very sorry that what she said is disobliging, and more, that it should put you into a passion; I hope, when you con- sider of it, you will be in the same mind with me. Fa. What do you mean, child, by the same mind? I have recom- mended a gentleman to you, whom you can have no objection against, and his estate is double to what you can expect. You told me your- self that you had no objection against his person, and he has made you his choice, and is in love with you above all your sisters; what can you desire more? Da. All that you say, sir, is true; and for his person and estate, they are both better than I ought to expect, But—— fa. But what? Prithee, child, don’t bring any of your canting scruples to me, I'll hear none of your buts. Da. It was my fear that you would be in a passion sir, and would not hear me. . [She cries. Fa, What father can bear to be so treated, and not be in a passion? What would you have me hear? Da. Six, I would have you hear the reasons why I cannot comply. Fa. It is enough for me to hear you cannot. The reasons I have for the match are good. You acknowledge the gentleman is agree- able; you cannot say that you cannot love him, and I am sure then you cannot give a good reason against it; and therefore I expect you go on with it: I have appointed the week after next for your wedding, and here, there’s some money to buy your clothes. [Holds out-bank bill to her. Da. Sir, I beg you will not take it it ill that I cannot do it. [She pulls back her hand. Fa, What do you mean? I advise you not to play the fool with me any longer. 26 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. [Here the father being in a great passion, her sister, who was in pain for her, hearing him loud, came in, which greatly encouraged her; and she spoke though very respectfully, to her father, yet with great plainness.] Da. Sir, this seems to be a hardship that never was put upon any one before. If I was going to marry any one you did not like, it was no doubt in your power to command me not to do it; but I cannot think you ought to command me to marry any man against my will. Fa. I have a great many reasons why I ought to expect your compliance in this; and you know my reasons are good. Da. You cannot then but think, sir, that I have some reasons against it, or I should comply with my father, for I never disobeyed you before; and why should not any reason be heard ? Fa, I know you can have no reasons that are sufficient. Da. Will you please to let any one else be judge of that for me? Fa. Vll have no arbitrators between me and my children. Da. I cannot help: myself in that. Fa, My dispute with you is short:—Will you have this gentle- man or no? Da, Tf it was not to my father, I should give a different answer ; but I desire to say nothing that may displease you. Fa. I can’t be.displeased with words so much as I am by actions. The gentleman has made his way through everything, made pro- posals too great for any father to refuse: you have entertained him, showed him a great deal of respect, and now to treat him thus, and treat your father thus, it is intolerable. Da. When the gentleman and you treated of this matter, it was without me; I had no knowledge of it; neither was it my part to be concerned. : Fa. Well, I know that. Da, After you were agreed, you bring him to me: I suppose this to be that I might converse with him and see if I liked to make him wy choice: if this was not the case, you might as well, by your com- mand, have ordered me to marry him the first day, as now. Fa, Well, what do you niake of all this? Da. Upon frequent visits made me, I found nothing disagreeable RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 20 in him, and showed him as much respect as was my part. I hope I have not showed him more than became me. Fa. Yes, truly, if you resolve not to have him. Da, Let bim reproach me with that if he can. Fa. Why should you have entertained him at all, if you resolved not to have him? Da, I did not for some time resolve not to have him, till I dis- covered him farther; and it was your command that put me first upon the trial, and my reasons against it now are good, if you please to hear them patiently: but I'll rather bear all you please to lay upon me, than put you into passions at me. , fa. I desire no reasons nor discourse: answer me the question is short, whether you will have him or no? It will raise my passion less than your impertinent reasons. Da. If it must be so, sir, without hearing any reasons, then my answer is, No, never while I live; and I leave my reasons for it, to him that judges righteous judgment. Fa, Then, from this time forward, you are no relation of mine any more than my cook-maid. [The young lady was too full to say any more, and went out of the room while he was speaking.] Hild. Da. Dear father, do not say so. Fa, Nay, it isno matter whether she heard me-or no; I’li keep my promise with her. ld. Da. T hope you won't, sir; it may be my sister may be bet- ter advised, or you may be farther satisfied of her reasons. Fa. I know her reasons well enough. He is not hypocrite enough . for her, I suppose; if a fawning smooth-tongued fellow would come and talk scripture to her, she would take him presently. She does not know what religion is. ’ Eid. Da. Sir, if that were true, she should have stronger reasons for desiring a religious husband than she may have now, that she might have a kind instructor to assist her. We have all need of helps that way at least. We need no profane hftsbands to keep us back: a loose, irreligious husband is a dreadful snare. [This was a night of passion, and little was done all the evening by the father but to make work for repentance. He was so pro- voked at his daughter, that he made terrible resolutions against her, 28 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. that he would never give her a farthing; that he would turn her out of doors; that she should go to service; that he would make his will, and whatever he left to the rest of his children, it should be upon condition that they should never relieve her, nor own her, nor call her sister; and that if they did, what they had should go to his eldest son; and the like. He was so disturbed, that he got but little sleep all night; and, in the morning, he was obliged to go out of town early to his sister’s, about forty miles off, whose husband was just dead; so that he did not see his youngest daughter any more before he went; but just as he was stepping into his chariot, he called his eldest daughter to him. What, says he, child, is to be done in this affair while I am gone? She won’t be so rude as to turn him off while I am away, will she? ‘Indeed, sir, says the daughter, I am perplexed about it; I know not how it will be managed; but I believe she will see him no more. Not see him! says the father; that is the unmannerliest thing in the world: sure she won’t be so rude to me; she might give me the opportunity to put an end to it handsomely. Pray tell her, I expect it; and I assure you, if she refuses to see him till my return, I'll never see her more as long as I live. In this temper the father went away; the eldest daughter, poor lady, had her heart full with such a message; and scarce knew how to deliver it; however, upon talking farther with her sister the same morning, and finding her inflexible, and perhaps more stiff than she thought she needed to be, she did at last deliver it; their dialogue was short, but effectual, as follows.] Ed. sist. Dear sister, what will you do in this matter? My fa- ther is gone. Yo. siat. What can I do? I think my father is very unkind to me. Ed, sist. My father is passionate, you know. Yo. sist. But not to hear me, nor to ask my reasons, this is very hard! Do any fathers marry their daughters by force ? Hid. sist. Why,*Tll tell you what your father says to that; he says, he knows your reasons beforehand, and he thinks them of no weight. Yo. sist. Dear sister, do you think them of no moment? Eld. sist. "Tis hard for a daughter to make herself judge between eres RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 29 her father and the rest of his children: I am sorry you are so hard pushed at. Yo. sist. What would you do in my case? Hid. sist. Indeed that’s hard to say too; I would act as my con- science should tell me was my duty; I confess, there is a powerful force in a father’s command. Yo. sist. No father can command counter to God’s command. Elld. sist. That’s true, my dear; but consider, child, how far Gud’s command lies on you here; I know your text, Be not wnequally yoked ; and I remember my dear mother’s words, that-this cannot be understood of anything but a religious person marrying with a profane. Yo. sist. Well, sister, and you remember the charge she gave-us, and the promise we made her. I look upon these things to be very binding in themselves, and very sacred engagements. Eid. sist. They are binding indeed to what is our duty at the same time, and they add force to it; otherwise the case would differ. Yo. sist. Just so I understand it; andI am sure, reason, experience, and the nature of the thing join with it: what a wretched house must there be, whether it be the man or the woman’s case, where one is a Christian, and the other an infidel; one devout, the other profane; one pious and religious, and the other knowing or valuing nothing that is serious! What helps to heaven are such to one an- other! For my part, I need no wicked discouragements to pull me back in my duty ; no ill examples to allure me to folly; I want all the assistance possible the other way. ld. sist. You preach like an oracle, child; I cannot oppose one word you say; but what must you do? you heard what sad rash resolutions my father made. Yo. sist. No, I did not hear them; and J am glad I did not ; but I am sure I am right; I must do my duty, and trust Pregidenies if my father does not do the duty of his relation to me, Pl pray to God to forgive him. Eld. sist. Well, but what will you do with Mr. ——? Yo. sist. I have no thoughts about him now, I am pretty well over it. Eld. sist. Bet you must not be rude to him, even upon my father’s account. 30 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Yo. sist. Nay, I wilt not be rude to him for his own sake; for I have no quarrel at him. Eid. sist. How will you avoid it if you do not see him? Yo. sist. See him! I would not venture to see him upon any account. Hid. sist. Child, what do you call venture? you are undone if you don’t see him. Yo. sist. I dare not trust myself to see him; I am pretty well over it now; but if I see him again, I know not what influence my own weakness may have upon my resolution? for I must own to you, sister, I have no aversion to him. Hild. sist. You might as well say, you own you love him. Yo. sist. Well, if I should own it, perhaps it might bear being called so; is it not better, then, that I should avoid the struggle be- tween conscience and affection. ild. sist. But I have a strong fancy, that you ought to enter into closer discourse with him upon this matter. I think you do not do either him or yourself justice else ; for first, perhaps you may find that though he talked loosely then, when he did not know, perhaps, whether we were in jest, or in earnest, yet if you talked seriously with him of the main point yourself (for you know our discourse was at a distance, and was rather a kind of civil raillery than argu- ment), you may find one of these two things will happen, viz. either he will talk seriously, and let you see, that he has a bottom of re- ligious good sentiments, which is all you ought to insist upon, and would be a happy discovery on your side; or talk profanely, and bo self-convicted. Yo. sist. There is more weight in this, than in all you have said yet; but I can never do it. Eld. sist. Well, let me add to it, what I was loth to tell you, and that is, what my father said just now when he went away. [She tells her father’s words, which staggers her resolution.] Yo. sist. My father uses*me very hardly. Eld. sist. I am sorry for it; but it is in nobody’s power to help it; he would be the same to any of us. Yo. sist. What would you advise me to do, then? El. sist Truly, if I might advise you, I would have you see him © * once more. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 31 Yo. sist. To what purpose? £ild. sist. Why, if it be only to try, whether what he said before was in jest, or in earnest. Yo. sist. I think the discovery is rot worth the compliment. Eid. sist. Really, I cannot say that. Would you be content to have it true, that he is a sober and religious inclined gentleman ? Yo. sist. Yes, with all my heart. Hild. sist. Is not an estate of near £2000. a year, and an agreeable gentleman, very suitable, when it is joined with a good Obristian ? * Yo. sist. I allow it all. Eid. sist. Well; and you have really not made trial enough to resolve whether it be so or no. Yo. sist. So you would have me see him once more, to try if I can persuade myself to be cheated ? Eid. sist. That’s unkind: would I have you to be cheated! No, far be it from me! but I would have you leave no room to blame yourself hereafter. ¢ d Yo. sist. You almost persuade me to let him come to-night; but if he does, I shall be very ill-natured to him: I question whether I shall be civil to him or no. ~ Eid. sist. That is not my proposal; you may do it, and be very civil and obliging too, let the thing take a turn which way it will; and I wish you would try. Yo. sist. Well, I think I will venture, then. DIALOGUE II. Tue young lady, having resolved to see her gentleman once more, at the persuasion of her sister, there needed nothing to be done but to sit still till evening, when he was sure to come. It seemsshe had resolved to send a footman to him, to tell him she was gone out of town for two or three days, and so to prevent his coming, till her father would tell him, in general, that it could not be a match: and to make it good, she had ordered her father’s coach to be ready to carry her to Hampstead, to an uncle’s house she had there; but, on 32 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. this occasion, she deferred it, and in the evening he came as usual to wait on her. It would not perhaps be possible to set down the par- ticulars of the courtship of this night, there being a great deal of va- riety in it, and nobody present but themselves: but the best account we have of it being from her own mouth, I have set it down as she related it to her sister in the following dialogue. As soon as the gentleman was gone, which, his entertainment be- ing not much to his mind, was some hours sooner than usual, she came directly to her sister, who was expecting her with the utmost impatience, though she did not look for her so soon either as she came; the following dialogue will give an idea of the whole. As soon as she came to her sister she prevented her thus: Well, sister, you have a nice guess with you; it is all as you said, and the business is now all done and over. 1st sist. Well, before I enter into particulars, are you pleased and satisfied ? 8d sist. Perfectly satisfied and pleased. 1s¢ sist. Are you pleased that you have seen him? 3d sist, Thoroughly pleased: I would not have but seen him again for any good. s 1s¢ sist. Is it as you expected ? 3d sist. Ay, ay, just as I expected; a true gentleman, perfectly educated, politely bred, that knows about as much of religion asa parson’s horse; that is to say, knows the way to the church door, but scorns to debauch his breeding with such a clumsy thing as reli- gion; is more a gentleman than to trouble himself with the mean- ness of religion, and not hypocrite enough to pretend to the sublimer parts of it; one that has not been long enough in this world to think of the next, nor is yet come to any resolution when he shall. 1st sist. I am sorry for it: I assure you it is not as I expected. 3d sist. But it is as I expected, I assure you. 1s¢ sist. Well, but though it is, I believe you are not sorry you met him. 8d sist. No, no, not at all, I assure you; Iam much the better satisfied that I have now the open declarations of it from his own mouth. 1st sist. You surprise me; I thought he had had more policy than—— RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 33 8d sist. I assure you, as I told you, he is no hypocrite. . He is not ashamed to be believed to be full as bad as he is, and made no doubt but I would like him the better for it. Ist sist. That’s hard another way; he could not think you were so too, sure. 3d sist. Why, he does not think he does anything amiss, I assure you: and takes it ill to be thought mistaken. 1s¢ sist. I can scarce form all this in my mind. I wish you would tell me some of the history of this night’s salutation, now it is so fresh in your thoughts. 3d sist. With all my heart; but it will be a long story. 1s¢ sist. No matter for that; it will be the more profitable, and, I dare say, not the less diverting. 3d sist. Why, after we had been together about half an hour, he seemed to recollect himself, and told me he asked my pardon, that he had not condoled with me for the loss of my uncle, Sir James ——. I told him he need not, for the loss was not so great. He replied, he thought I appeared very much concerned at it last night, which made him withdraw sooner than he intended. I told him, I was thoughtful indeed, but not so much about that; for, though I believed my aunt was very sorry for his death, yet I thought she had no great reason; for I was sure she lived a very uncomfortable life with him. He wanted then very much to know, what I was so thoughtful about, if I was not troubled at the loss of my uncle. I declined telling him, but did it in a way that I intended should prompt his curiosity; for I desired nothing more than to have a fair opportunity to tell him very plainly what troubled me; and he soon gave itme. He told me, he took himself to be so much interested in me now, as to be concerned in all my griefs; and he claimed to know if anything afflicted me, that he might bear his share in it; and add- ed something so handsome and so obliging on that head, that I must acknowledge it shook my resolution very much; and I had almost given over my design; but I recovered myself again in a moment or two. 1st. sist. Indeed you are a resolute girl. I think what you repeat of him was very engaging. 3d. sist. I told him, it was natural for people to make sudden transitions from other people’s cases to their own, and that indeed ox 34 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. that was the occasion that made me so uneasy. I knew my aunt was a lady of great piety and virtue, that every one knew to be ex- ceeding religious and serious. That, on the other hand, Sir James was a mad, frolicsome, merry fellow, that neither understood any religion, nor troubled himself about it, but would play a thousand mad tricks with her, because of her strict observation of religious things; and, that this gave her a constant uneasiness. He smiled, and said, he hoped I was not afraid of him on that score; for, madam, says he, though I pretend to no religion myself, I cannot but respect them that do. This was the first, and I think a considerable confirmation of what we had before; was it not sister? 1st. sist. I am sorry to hear it; but I'll tell you, however, there was one thing I observe to be a good foundation for religion, viz.: That he respected them that were religious. 8d. sist. Ay, sister; but we did not end here: I told him I was very sorry to hear him say he had no religion himself; because, as perhaps I had not a great deal, to marry a man that had none, would endanger my losing what I had; and I should rather have a husband to help me on towards heaven, than to pull me back. 1st. sist. What could he say to that? 3d. sist. He told me, he did not doubt but I would go to heaven without his help. He said jestingly, it was a road he had never tra- velled; but I might be assured, he would not willingly pull me back, if he did not help me on. 1st. sist. Well, there was something very honest in that too. 3d. sist. That’s true sister; but negative religion is but a poor stock to begin on. 1st. sist. But it is better than a despiser of religion; you ought to have acknowledged what good you found. 8d. sist. My designs lay another way; I aimed at a fuller dis- covery, and soon had it. 1st. sis. Well, go on then. 8d. sist. I told him what tricks my uncle used to serve my aunt; how he got a book of devotions out of her closet once, and got a long printed story about ducking a scold pasted into it; and another time got the ballad of Cheve Chace bound into her psalm book; how, . when he knew she was inher closet at her devotion, he would bring his huntsmen to feed the hounds just under her window; and how, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 35 one time, he made a fellow cry fire, and the like; as you know, sis- ter, he played many such pranks, and would do anything to put her thoughts into disorder. He told me, though he was but a young fel- low, and had not, troubled his thoughts much about religion (there was another stab to my affections, sister), yet he said he could not bear to make a jest of it either. 1st. sist. Well, but that was another word in his favor too. 3d. sist. I replied, I was very sorry to hear him own, that he had not troubled his thoughts about religion; and asked him upon what foundation he could think of setting up a family, if that was his case? He told me he kept a chaplain; and jestingly told me he was devout enough for all the rest of the house. I grew chagrined and dull; I told him that these things had filled me with very sad thoughts about marrying, and it looked very dismal to me: but all I could say, could not bring him to believe I was in earnest. 1st. sist. I believe he is really very good humored. 3d. sist. Ay, sister, that’s true; but I look for something farther in a husband, or I am resolved I'll have no husband at all. 1st. sist Well, but pray go on with your story; what answer did he make. 8d. sist. He laughed at me, and told me he believed marrying would make him mighty religious; that he would chose a wife first, and then chose his religion. 1st sist. The man was mad, sure, to open himself so fully. 8d sist. I appeared then really disturbed, and whether he perceived it or no, I am sure the tears stood in my eyes; however, I strug- gled with my disorder, and told him I was very sorry then that it was his misfortune to begin with one, that could not be content to marry upon these terms; and hoped, when he was fully satisfied of the reason of such a resolution in me, he would not take it ill, that I would stay for him, till he resolved more seriously upon a thing of so much importance. 1st sist. That was very cunningly answered. 8d sist. Then he began to think I was in earnest, and told me, he hoped I would not talk so, because it might be longer than he de- sired to be without me. 1st sist. That was still making the case worse ; for it was as much as to say, he neither had any religion, nor intended to have any. 36 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 8d sist. I did not failto take it so; and told him, the longer he was without me, it might be the better for him; but the longer he was without religion, I was sure would be worse for him; and that I wondered how'a man of his sense could talk so. He replied, he had rather talk of anything else; for he found his discourse did not please me. JI told him he mistook me very much; for, though I confessed it did not please me to find him to be what I hoped he was not, that is, a person who pretended to no religion, yet it pleased me very well that he had been so just to himself, as to let me know it before any engagement had passed between us. 1s¢. sist. If I had not known that my sister was never courted be- fore, I should have thought you had passed a great many such en- counters as these. 3d. sist. You know it is all new to me: but, however, I knew the thing was for my life, and that I must speak now or never; and I was resolved to put an end to it. . 1st. sist. I must own you were in the right, though I am persuad- ed I could not have said half so much. 8d. sist. Why you ha’nt heard half of it yet; I made him angry, serious, laugh; and think, verily, once I made him almost cry. 1st. sist. I am sorryI interrupted you: pray goon,then. What said he next? 8d. sist. He said, he wondered I could say that no engagements were between us. He said he was so engaged to me, as he never could go back. J answered, that as his engagements were from him- self, so they were best known to himself, but that he knew very well I was under none to him. He smiled then, and said, he hoped I was. I answered, I had not professed to be engaged; I told him I would not deny, that I had respect enough for him to have gone farther, had not such difficulties appeared as J could never get over, and had he been the person he was represented; but that, as it was, I had too much respect for myself to ruin myself with my eyes open, and too much respect for him to keep him in suspense. 1st. sist. Would he not take that for being in earnest. 8d sist. Yes, he showed me then that he took me to be in earnest, and showed me that he was in earnest too, for he appeared warm, and a little angry. He told me, he was very sorry to be charged with deceiving me; and asked, if ever he had said anything of him- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 37 self which was not true? For, madam, says he, if I axa not the per- son I appeared to be, I must have deceived you in something; pray, what sort of person did you take me for? I replied as warm as he, that I wondered he should mistake me so much; that I thought he did not do me justice; that I had said indeed he was not the per- son he had been represented, but never said, that he had represented himself one way or the other. Then he begged pardon again, and told, me, he had taken me wrong; that, whatever came of it, he would never deceive me; I should know the worst of him, whether I would have him or no. Indeed, sir, said I, I am persuaded you are no hypocrite. I understand you, said he; you think I have used more honesty than discretion. No, sir, said I, I very much approve of your honesty, and do not blame your discretion at all. But I do, said he; for I find, if I could have counterfeited more serious things than I am master of, and feigned myself a little religious, all had been well. J told him, I would not say that it was in his power to have deceived me; but I hoped he had acted a part much more like a gentleman. He replied, that it was hard then I should make so un- kind a return to him, as to make him lose his mistress for his honesty. 1st. sist. Why, really, sister, so it was. 3d. sist. I told him I thought the best return was to treat him with the same sincerity, and that was the reason of the freedom I took; that, as he told me plainly what he was, I must tell him plain- ly, I could not think of engaging with him any farther, till he had thought a little of things which alone could make it reasonable for him to think of marrying. He would fain have turned it off to a jest; he laughed at me, he bantered me, he asked me, how long I would stay for him? I told him I was in no haste. He asked me, how long I thought I might stay, before I got a saint to my mind, as the world went now? I told him, I was but an ill judge of saints, and might be cheated, as wiser than I had been; but that, as I told him before, I. would not fall into the pit with my eyes open. Hoe told me, abruptly, he wished I had never seen him. At that word I confess I was a little alarmied ; however, I made no answer, but look- ed full in his face; I saw he was concerned, and as I thought in a kind of passion. When he found I looked at him, he repeated the words thus, I wish with all my heart you had never seen me. I an- swered nothing. He added, he wished he had known my mind sooner. 88 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. I still said nothing. Then he flung himself into my arms, and hung about me: My dear, says he, with an inexpressible tenderness, why are you silent? Because, says I, I would not give you an answer in kind to anything that is disobliging. He returned, it was impossi- ble for him to say or do anything disobliging to me; that it was true, he wished I had never seen him, and that he had known my mind sooner ; but it was, that he might have disguised himself better, and not to have lost me for being so foolishly honest. Why, said J, would you have endeavored to have cheated me? Ay, certainly, said he, rather than lose you; and would have done it effectually too, Why, what would you have done? said I. Done! replied he, I would have been the soberest, gravest young fellow that ever you saw in your life. And, do you think yourself hypocrite enough, said I, to have concealed yourself effectually? Why not? said he; perhaps you think I am too much a fool for it. No, sir, said I, I think you are too honest for it: and, of the two, it is much the better on your side. 1st. sist. This was a kind of turn and return between jest and earnest: but how did it end ? 8d. sist. Why, he carried it on thus a long time, till he put an odd case to me, which made me put a short end to the discourse; we were speaking of fortunes, and the grandeur of families: at last we came to speak of the young Duke of ——. Why now, says he, if his Grace should come and court you with the state and grandeur of his quality, the title of a duchess, etc, you would not turn short upon him, as you did upon me, and say, My Lord Duke, pray what re- ligion are you of ? and yet he has no more religion than I. I told him,. I thought he did not treat me fairly: that it was saying nothing at all, to say I would not have this man or that man, who never made any pretensions to me; it was enough to me, that I would let him know, I would refuse all the men in the world that should ever come to me, unless I found a reverence of God, a sense of religion, and a profession at: least of the duty we all owe to our Maker, had made some impressions on them: that I might be de- ceived indeed with an hypocrite,-for it was not in me to judge of the heart, and as the world was now stated, it was but too probable I should; but then it should be my misery, not my fault; and that since he seemed to insinzate, that I did not act in that affair with sincerity RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 39 I had no better specimen of my resolution than this, that though I was very sorry to treat him so, who, I was satisfied had a respect,for me, and whose respect I acknowledged was not disagreeable, and whose estate and proposals were very much better than I had reason to expect: yet that upon this one single account, I assured him, I neither could nor would discourse more with him on this affair ; and hoped he would not take it ill, that I was forced to be so plain with him, before I could persuade him I was in earnest; and having said all this, I offered to rise and retire, but he held me fast in his arms, and would not let me stir. 1st. sis¢. Cruel wretch! how could you talk so to him? how did he look? 3d. sist. Look! I confess, sister, his looks moved me more than all the words he could have said in half a year: and I shall never for- get them. He seemed strangely affected, and once or twice I saw tears in his eyes ; but he turned his head away, and recovered him- self, and embarked me in another discourse, in spite of all I had said. Hold, says he, you have broke one positive promise you made me already. I told him, I did not remember that I had ever made him any promise at all. Yes, said he, you told me that you would stay for me, till Thad made choice in matters of religion. I told him I had not broke that promise yet. Yes, he said, I had, in saying I would never discourse more with himon this affair. Ireplied, then, I would except that circumstance, though I thought he need not insist upon it for several reasons: first. Because he might find sa many ladies abroad, who would not trouble their heads to make the objection I had done, and there was no occasion for him to turn reli- gious for a wife. Secondly, Because there was no appearance of his turning upon these terms. He said, that was more than I knew. But, pray, madam, said he, why do you lay such a mighty stress upon this particular? Religion is an entire article by itself; my being religious or not religious, need not obstruct our affection to one another; I am no enemy to religion. I answered, that it was indeed an acceptable thing, as times went now, not to find a gentle- mana despiser and hater of religion, and of all that favored it; but that I was assured, where there was not a profession of religion, and where God was not acknowledged, there could be no blessing expected, and that I should think I had renounced God, and declared 40 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. war agamst heaven, if I should marry a man that openly acknow- ledged he had no religion. He told me he was sorry to see me run things to such an extremity; that he did not think I had been in earnest, when he, in jest, said, he had not thought of religion; that he would not urge me ina thing, which I laid so much stress upon, but would wait on me again, and hoped to find me in another mind, and to let me know he was not quite so bad as I thought him to be. And thus we broke up. 1st. sist. What! did he go away angry? 3d. sist. Truly, I cannot say how he was; he seemed disturbed aud uneasy, and went away willinger than I expected. : 1st. sist. Ay, ay, and willinger than you desired too; I can per- ceive it, sister, well enough. 3d. sist. Why, I cannot deny but I have acted all this by a force upon my affections; but I should have been undone; I should never have had any peace, or expected any blessing in the match; for, as a religious life is the only heaven upon earth, if it please God to sup- port my resolution, I'll never sell the prospect of it for an estate, or for the most agreeable person alive. Ist. sist. It isnobly resolved, sister! I hope you will be supported in so just a resolution; but do you think he will come no more? 8d. sist. I hope not; but if he does, I resolve not to see him, if I can avoid it. We must now leave the two sisters a while, and follow the young gentleman a little; for his story does not end so. He went away very much concerned, as above, and particularly it touched him very sensibly, that he should be taken for such a creature, that a sober, virtuous lady (for such he was sure his mistress was) should refuse him merely on account of his wicked character ; and that though she acknowledged she had a respect for him, she was obliged to shun him, purely because she was afraid of him, as a hater of religion, and therefore dangerous to live with. It has often run in his mind, that she had said, she could expect no blessing with him; and that if she married him, she should think she had renounced God, and declared war against heaven; so that, to be sure, I am a dreadful fellow, says he, that she dares not take me, lest she should appear to be a confe- derate with one of God’s enemies. It then occurred to him, that it really was no otherwise in fat RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 41 that she was in the right in it all ; that he had in truti no religion or sense of God, upon his mind, nor had ever entertained any notions of religion in his thoughts, and had told her so himself, and that therefore the young lady was in the right of it, and if she had any fund of religion herself, had a great deal of reason to refuse him; that every sober woman ought to refuse him upon the same account ; aud that she, that did not, was not fit to make him a wife, or at least such a wife, as he could expect any happiness from; that this young lady had made a true judgment, and it was his business not to think of persuading her to alter her mind, which, in short, must lessen his opinion of her; but to consider what state and condition he was in, and what was his first business to do, to deliver himself out of it, before he went to her any more. . He grew uneasy upon this subject for some time, and being per- fectly ignorant of every thing called duty, having had an education wholly void of instruction, that uneasiness increased ; and not know ing which way to cast his thoughts for immediate direction, he grew very melancholy and dejected: he loved this young woman to an extreme, and that affection was infinitely increased by her conduct in this affair, and by the extraordinary manner of her refusing him ; but the reproaches of his heart, as being such a monster, that a wo- man that even owned she loved him, durst not join herself to him, doubled upon him as his affections for her increased. He could not think of coming to her again: for he confessed the reasons, which she gave for her not daring to take him were so just, and she had argued them so well, that if she should abate anything of them, he should not have so much esteem for her as he had be- fore; and yet he saw, that if she did not, he could never expect to have her; and yet also he could not bear the thoughts of not having her, for all that. He lived in this uneasy condition some months: his friends per. ceiving him to be very melancholy, tried many ways to divert him: but none reached his case, or, if they did, they understood not how to advise him: for his relations were most like himself, people of levity and gallantry, being rich and gay; a family that dealt very lit tle in matters of religion. He had an aunt, his mother’s sister, who seemed very much concerned about it; but as she thought all that ailed him was his being crossed in his affection, she worked her 42 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. thoughts about, night and day, to find out a wife for him, and so to take his thoughts off, and turn them another way. At length, she found out a young lady in the city, of a very great fortune; for she had near £20,000 to her portion, and she plyed itso warmly with him, that he consented to treat of it with her friends, and his cir- cumstances being such as few fortunes would refuse, he found his way clear enough, and so went to visit the young lady. It was an odd kind of courtship, you may be sure, and he went about it accordingly: for, as he confessed afterwards, he resolved, before he saw her, not to like her or anything she said or did; no, nor ever to be in earnest with her upon anything; but only to jest with, and banter her; and he told his aunt so beforehand. However, his aunt would not take him at his word, but would have him wait upon her, and so he did; but he needed not to have taken up any resolutions in the case, for he was spoiled for courtship already, at least for most of the ladies of. the times; he had no relish for any of their conversations; it was like music to one that had no ear; all the gaiety and flutter about them was lost upon him; his first mis- tress had treated him with such solid reasoning, such serious talk, and had handled him after such a manner, that in short nothing but what was serious had now any relish with him; however, as I have said, he resolved to put a force upon himself, so far as to go and see what kind of thing his new mistress was; and accordingly he did go, as above. But when he had been one evening there, and had talked a little with her, he soon saw he had no need of making resolutions; that he was in no danger of being ensnared by her; the levity of her be- havior, the emptiness of her discourse, the weakness of her conduct, made him sick of her the very first time ; and when he came away, he said to himself, Is it possible for any man in his senses to bear this shuttlecock, that had been but one half hour with my other mis- tress? And away he came, not pleased at all. However, he went again for some time, till at last, not finding things mend, but rather grow worse, he was resolved he would talk a little with her about religion ; and, as he asked her one night, What religion she was of ? she answered him just in the very words that he had bantered his other mistress; Oh, says she, I am a mighty good Christian. I be- lieve so, thought he; just such another as I was when I was asked RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 43 the same question. However, he concealed his thoughts, resolved to carry it on a little farther, and gave her a mighty civil answer: I don’t doubt that, madam, says he. Well, says she, then, what would you have more? Nay, nothing, madam, returned he, I was only in jest. Oh, says she, you want to know what opinion I am of? You see I am no Quaker. No, says he, madam, I am not concerned about your opinion; you may easily have as much religion asI. Nay, says she, I have not troubled my head much about it; I don’t know what I may do when I keep a chaplain. He had enough of that dis- course, and so he turned it off to something else; for, though it was almost the pattern of what he-had done with his first mistress, yet it looked with such a different face to him now, that, as he said after- wards, it made his very blood run cold within him, and filled him with horror at his own picture, which, he thought, now was set be- fore his eyes in all its just deformities. When he came away from her, he said to himself, Well, now I see the true force of what that dear creature argued for herself against me; that to venture upon me, while I declared against religion, was to run herself into the pit with her eyes open, and ruin herself by mere premeditated choice. It would be just so with me in this case, if I should marry this but- terfly ; we should even go hand in hand very lovingly to the devil. This will not do my business! So he put an end to that affair as soon as he could, and resolved to see her no more. All this while he had no assistance from either books, friends ministers, or anybody, only the just and natural reflections of his own reason: but, as he was a gentleman of polite manners, and bred to conversation with gentlemen of the best quality, as well as of the best parts, so the government of himself was the more easy, and he restrained the dejection of his spirits from making any extraordin- ary discovery of itself, only that he appeared a little more sedate and more thoughtful than before, and was a little more retired in his way of living; but not so much but that he came often into public company, as before. It happened one time, that in promiscuous conversation, at a chocolate-house near the court, this gentleman and seven or eight more being present, the company fell from talking of news to talk- ing of religion : the discourse began about the differences which had happened in France lately, and were then depending, between the 44 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Pope and the French clergy; and of the Sorbonne, or faculty of theology, as they are called there, being at that time employed in drawing up a new system of divinity, or body of doctrine as they called it; and as a consequence, it was hinted how likely it was, that such a strict inquiry, made by men of learning and virtue, into the fundamentals of religion should lead them at last into Protestant principles, and break the whole kingdom off from the errors and ignorance of Popery, opening the eyes of the people to Christian knowledge. There being some sober and sensible gentlemen there, the discourse was carried on very gravely and judiciously, and the whole company seemed to receive it with pleasure; when a couple of young beaux, who happened to be in the room, beginning to be tired with a thing so much out of their way, one of them rises up on a sudden, and says to the other, Come, Jack, I am tired of this dull religious stuff; prithee let us go, there’s nothing in it. Ay, says the other, with all my heart, I know nothing of the matter; come, will you go to the opera? There sat another young gentleman of their acquaintance there, and they pulled him to come with them: No, says he, I like this discourse very well, it is worth two operas to me. Why, says the other, how long have you been in orders, pray? Is such stuff as that fit conversation for a gentleman? Yes, says the sober young gentleman, I think it is; pray, what can there be in religious conversation that is unfit for a gentleman? There sat an ancient nobleman by, talking with a clergyman, who hearing the young gentleman’s reply, fell a laughing; for this discourse put the former subject to a stop. On my word, gentlemen, says his lord- ship, Mr ——has met with you: I don’t think you can answer his question. Yes, my lord, says the foolish beau, I think it is below a man of quality to trouble his head about it. Pray, sir, says the lord, is it below a man of quality to be a Christian? Oh, my lord, says the other beau, bantering and jesting, we are mighty good Christians at the opera; and turning away to his comrades, says he, Come, Jack, prithee let us go; so they went both out together, for they did not care to engage. Our gentleman listened with pleasure to all this discourse, till he heard these words, mighty good Christians: and then reflected upon his having used that expression to his mistress, and how his last lady gave him the same return: but he thought it was so absurd a turn to a thing of that consequence, that he RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 45 reproached himself with having talked so foolishly, and was ashamed to think, how like one of these fops he had appeared to her, and how he had talked after the same senseless way, which he now looked upon to be the most empty, scandalous thing in the world. When the two young rakes were gone, the lord, turning to the young gentleman that had refused them, complimented him upon his having given them so handsome an answer, and having run them both a-ground in one inquiry. My lord, said the gentleman, if my question ran them a-ground, your lordship’s question quite confound- ed them. Indeed, my lord, continued he, it is too much the notion now, especially among persons of quality, that it is below them to be religious. My lord said, it was so indeed; but that he would fain ask such people, whether they thought St. Paul was a gentleman or not? And whether he did not show as much good breeding and good manners, when he appeared before Agrippa, Festus, and the govern- or Sergius Paulus, as any nobleman in Britain could have done at the bar of the house of lords? Upon this subject his lordship went on for half an hour, with a discourse so handsome, so to the purpose, and yet so serious, that it highly entertained the company; showing, how it became every man of quality to behave himself in subjection to the rules given to him by his Maker, as it became every subject to honor his governor; how piety and religion were the glory of a man of quality, and made nobility truly illustrious; that it was so far from being true that religion was not suited to the life of a gentle- man, that it was certain a man could not truly be a gentleman with- out it; that religion was so far from being a dull, phlegmatic thing, and useless in conversation, as was the fashionable notion of the town, that really no man could be so bright, so perfectly easy, so cheerful, so sociable, and so always in humor for society, as a Chris- tian; that religion was the beauty of conversation, and assisted to make it pleasant and agreeable; that without it company was empty, discourse unprofitable, society unpleasant; and, in short, that con- versation, without a mixture of something regarding religion, and a due connection with it, was like a dance without music, or a song without measure; like poetry without quantity, or speech without grammar: that it was a mistake to think Christianity received hon- or from the dignity of the persons who professed it; and his lord- ship said, he wondered to hear men express themselves so absurdly 46 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. vain, as to say, such a man is an honor to religion; that the thing was true only in the reverse, and it should be said, religion is an honor to such a person: That it was a contradiction in the very na- ture of the thing, to say such 2 man was noble, great, honorable, or a gentleman, without religion; and it might with every jot as much sense, be said so of a person who had neither birth, family, nor manners. Our gentleman came home charmed with this discourse, as indeed the whole company were besides; especially considering the author- ity and dignity of the person who spoke it. His mind was inspired with new thoughts by it, both of religion and of himself; he not only saw more of the excellency of religion in itself, bat began clear- ly to see it was the ornament of a gentleman to be a Christian. It was with the greatest contempt, that he now looked back upon the notion he had formerly espoused of a gentleman’s being above troub- ling himself with serious things. How sordid and brutish did the two beaux appear, said he, compared to that noble and excellent per- son, my lord ——! How were they laughed at and despised by all the gentlemen in the company, and looked upon as fellows fit for nothing, but in the highway to disaster! On the other hand, it oc- curred to him, how handsomely did that young gentleman answer them? with what modesty did he speak and yet boldly, in defence of a religious life? and what an honor was paid him for it by all the company, and by the nobleman in particular? and then to think of what the lord had said, with what applause it was received ; how all the company listened to his lordship, as to an oracle; how general a consent was given to it by all the gentlemen; and, in a word, how agreeable the conversation of the day was, put it all together; and yet, said he, of eleven gentlemen in the room, there was not one man among them, except the clergyman, who was not above me both in quality and estate. From all this he drew this general and happy conclusion for him- self, viz: That he should never be a complete gentleman, till he became a religious man: and that the more of a Ohristian he was, the fitter he should be for the conversation of the best and greatest men in the kingdom ; and, in consequence of this resolution, he re- solved to apply himself seriously to the study of religious things. To avoid the usual diversions of the town, while these serious RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 4” thoughts were upon him, he resolved to retire into the country, to a little seat he had in Hampshire, remote from all conversation, and where he had nobody to talk to, but his own servants, or some of the neighborhood, who were all his tenants. When he found himself so perfectly alone, it began to be a little too much for him, and he grew very heavy, and alittle hypochondriac ; his mind was oppressed with the thoughts of his circumstances, but dark as to the due Inquiries he ought to have made; at length he roused himself a lit- tle with these thoughts. . I talk of being religious! and being a Christain! why, I under- stand nothing of it, or how to goabout it. What is it? what is religion? and what is it to be a Christian? He posed himself with these questions, and knew not what answer to give himself, when it came thus into his mind. Did not that dear first preacher (meaning the young lady he had courted) tell me what religion was, and how she understood it, viz.: A reverence of God, a sense of his worship, and impressions of duty to him that made us? This certainly is religion, and this is to be religious; but which way must I go about it? He was seriously musing on this part one evening, walking all alone in a field near his house, when he began to look with great con- cern upon the want which he felt, of an early foundation laid in his mind by a religious education, Sure, said he to himself, we that are men of fortune, are the most unhappy part of mankind; we are taught nothing: our anncestors have had so little notion of religion themselves, that they never so much as thought of it for their child- ren: I don’t wonder they have thought it below them: for knowing little or nothing of it themselves, they had no other excuse to one another for the leaving their children entirely destitute of it, but by pretending it was below their quality. This flung him into a reflec- tion which raised this sudden passionate expression, God be merci- ful unto me! says he. What is become of my father and grand- father! He went on thus: WhoamI! agentleman! I am attend- ed by servants, sir’d and worship’d, and honor’d here, by a parcel of poor workmen and tenants, that think themselves nothing to me, and are half frightened if they do but see me; and I am in the sight of him that made me, and in my own too, a dog, a monster, a creature athousand times worse than the meanest of them: for I am a wretch 48 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP, with a soul, and yet know nothing of him that gave it me: a soul commanded to serve and obey the God that made it, and yet never taught to know him. There lives a poor ploughman, aud yonder lives a poor farmer ; they both fare hard, and work hard; how sober, how religious, how serious are they! how are they daily teaching and instructing their children! and how they were taught and instructed by their parents! and there’s scarce a boy of ten years old in their families but knows more of God and religion than I do. I have been taught nothing, and know nothing but this, that I am under the curse of darkness, in the midst of light ; ignorance in the midst of knowledge; and have more to give an account of than a negro of Africa, or a savage of America. He had wandered so long in these meditations, not minding his way, that he found night, coming on, and he scarce knew he was so far from his own house, tillhe looked about him; then he resolved to go back; so he broke off his thoughts a while, and made a little haste homeward. In his way he necessarily went by a poor: labor- ing man’s door, who, with a wife and four children, lived in a small cottage on the waste, where he (the gentleman) was lord of the manor. As he passed by, he thought he heard the man’s voice: and stepping up close to the door, he perceived that the poor-good old man was praying to God with his family. As he said afterwards, his heart sprung in his breast for joy at the occasion, and he listened eagerly to hear what he said. The poor man was, it seems, giving God thanks for his condition, and that of his little family, which he did with great affection ; repeating how comfortably they lived ; how plentifully they were provided for; how God had distinguished them in his goodness ; that they were alive when others were snatch- ed away by diseases and disasters ; in health, when others languished with pain and sickness; had food when others were in want; at liberty, when others were in prison; were clothed and covered, when others were naked and without habitation; concluding, with admiring and adoring the wonders of God’s providence and mercy to them, who had deserved nothing. He was confounded, and struck as it were speechless with surprise at what he had heard. Nothing could be more affecting to him ; he came away (for he staid as long as his heart could hold) and walked to some distance, and there he stopped, looked up, and round him, as RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 49 he said, to see if he was awake, or if it was a dream. At last he got some vent to his thought, and throwing out his arms, Merciful God! says he, is this to be a Christain? What, then, have I been all my days? What is this man thus thankful for? Why, my dogs live bet- ter than he does, in some respects, and he is on his knees adoring infinite Goodness for his enjoyments! Why, I have enjoyed all I have, and never had the least sense of God’s goodness to me, or ever once said, God, I thank thee for it, in my life. Well might a sober woman be afraid of me. Is this humble temper, this thankfulness for mere poverty ? is this the effect of being aChristian? Why, then, Christians are the happiest people in the world! Why, I should hang myself, if I was to be reduced to a degree a hundred times above him ; and yet here is peace of mind, satisfaction in circumstances, nay, thankfulness, which is the excess of human felicity; and all this in a man who just lives one degree above starving. We think our far-" mers poor slaves, who labor and drudge i in the earth to support us that are their landlords, and who look upon us like their lords and masters; why, this poor wretch is but a drudge to these drudges, a slave of slaves; and yet he gives God thanks for the happiness of his condition! Is this the frame of religious people! What a monster am! Then he walked a little way farther, but not being able to con- tain his astonishment, I'll go back, says he, to poor William (for he knew his name), he shall teach me to be a Christian; for I am sure I know nothing of it yet. Away he goes back to the poor man’s house, and standing without, he whistled first, and then called William! William! The poor man, his family worship being over, was just going to supper, but hearing somebody whistle, he thought it might be some stranger who had lost his way, as is often the case in the country, and went to the door, where he saw a gentleman stand at some distance; but not seeing him perfectly, because it was dusk, he asked who it was ; but was surprised when he heard his voice, and knew who he was Don’t you know me, William; says his landlord. William. Indeed I did not know your worship at first. I am sorry, to see you out so late, an’t please your worship, and all alone; I hope you an’t on foot too. Landlord. Yes, I am, William; indeed, I have wandered through 3 50 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. the wood here a little too far, before I was aware; will you go home with me, William ? Will. Yes, an’t please your worship to accept of me, with all my heart; you shall not go alone in the dark thus: an’t please your wor- ship to stay a bit, Pll go call Goodman Jones and his son too; we'll all see you safe home. La. No, no; Vl have none but you, William; come along. Will. An’t please you I'll take my bill in my hand then; it is all the weapons I have. La, Well, do then; but how will you do to leave your wife and children ? Will. God will keep them, I hope, an’t please your worship; his protection is a good guard. a La. That’s true, William; come along, then: I hope there are no ‘thieves about. [They go together. Will, Alas! an’t please your worship, it is a sorry thief would rob a cottage. La. Well, but that little you have, William, it is something to you; and you would be loath to lose it. Will. Indeed I could ill spare what I have, though it be very mean, because I could not buy more in the room of it. La. I know you are poor, William ; how many children have you? Wiil. I have four, an’t please you. ~ La, And how do you all live? Wiill. Indeed, an’t please you, we live all by my hard labor. La. Aud what can you earn a-day, William? Will, Why, an’t please you, I cannot get above 10d. a-day now: but when your worship’s good father was alive, he always gave the steward orders to allow me 12d. a-day, and that was a great help to me. La. Well, but William, can your wife get nothing? Will. Truly, now and then she can, in the summer; but it is very little: she’s but weakly. La, And have you always work, William ? Will. Truly, an’t please you, sometimes I have not, and then it is very hard with us. La. Well, but you do not want, I hope, William? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 51 Will. No, blessed be God, an’t please you, we do not want; no, no, God forbid I should say we want; we want nothing but to be more thankful for what we have. [This struck him to the heart, that this poor wretch should say he wanted nothing, etc.] La, Thankful, William? why, what hast thou to be thankful for? Will. O dear! an’t please you, I should be a dreadful wretch if I should not be thankful! What should become of me, if I had no- thing but what I deserve. La, Why, what couldst thou be worse than thou art, William ? Will. The Lord be praised, an’t please your worship, I might be sick and lame, and could not work, and then we must-all perish; or I might be without a cover; your worship might turn me out of this warm cottage, and my wife and children would be starved with cold; how many better Christians than I are exposed to misery and want, and I am provided for! Blessed be the Lord, I want for nothing, an’t please you. [It was dark, and William could not see him; but he owned after- wards, that it made his heart burn within him, to hear the poor man talk thus; and the tears came out of his eyes so fast, that he walked thirty or forty steps before he could speak to him again.] La, Poor William! thou art more thankful for thy cottage, than ever I was for the manor-house; prithee, William, can you tell me how to be thankful too ? Will. An’t please your worship, I don’t doubt but you are more thankful than I; you have a vast estate, and are lord of all the country, I know not how far; to be sure you are more thankful than I, an’t please you. La. T ought to be so, you mean, William; I know that; for it all comes from the same hand. Will. I don’t doubt but you are very thankful to God, an’t please you, to be sure you are; for he has given your worship great wealth; and where much is given, you know, an’t please you, much is required; to be sure you are much more thankful than I. La. Truly, William, I’d give a thousand pounds I were as happy end as thankful as thou art: prithee, William, tell me how I shall bring myself to be thankful; for though thou art a poorer man, J believe thou art a richer Ohristian than I am. 52 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Will. Oh! an’t please your worship, J cannot teach you; I ama poor laboring man; I have no learning. La. But what made you so thankful, William, for little more than bread and water ? Will. Oh, sir, an’t please you, my old father used to say to me, that to compare what we receive with what we deserve, will make any- body thankful. La. Indeed that’s true, William: alas! we that are gentlemen are the unhappiest creatures in the world; we cannot quote our fathers for anything that is fit to be named: was thy father as thankful as thou art, William ? Will. Yes, an't please you, sir, and a great deal more! Oh! I shall never be so good a Ohristian as my father was. La. I shall never be so good a Christian as thou art, William. Will. I hope you are, an’t please you, much better already; God has blessed your worship with a vast great estate, and if he gives you grace to honor him with it, he has put means in your Worship’s hands to do a great deal of good with it, an’t please you. La, But you have a better estate than I, William. Will. I an estate! an’t please you, I am a poor laboring man; if I can get bread by my work, for my poor children, it is all I have to hope for on this side eternity. La, William! William! thou hast an inheritance beyond this world, and I want that hope; I am very serious with thee, William. Thou hast taught me more this one night, of the true happiness of a Christian’s life, than ever I knew before; I must have more talk with thee upon this subject ; for thou hast been the best instructor ever I met with. Will. Alas! Sir, I am a sorry instructor; I want help myself, an’t please you: and sometimes, the Lord knows, I am hardly able to bear up under my burden; but, blessed be God, at other times I am comforted, that my hope is not in this life. La, J tell thee, William, thy estate is better than all mine; thy treasure is in heaven, and thy heart is there too; I would give all my estate to be in thy condition. Will. Oh, sir, I hope your worship is in a better condition than I every way. La. Look you, William, I am very serious with thee; thou know- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 53 est how I have been brought up, for you remember my father very well. Will. Yes, I do indeed ; he was a good man to the poor: I was the better for him many a day; he was a worthy gentleman. La. But, William, he never took any care of us that were his chil- dren, to teach us anything of religion; and this is my case, as it is the case of too many gentlemen of estates; we are the unhappiest creatures in the world ; we are taught nothing and we know nothing of religion, or of him that made us; it is below us, it seems. Will. It is a great pity, indeed, an’t please you; but I know it is so too often: there is young Sir Thomas —— your worship’s cousin, he is a pretty youth, and may make a fine gentleman; but though he is but a child, he has such words in his mouth, and will swear so already, it grieves me to hear him sometimes. It is true, his father is dead; but sure if my lady knew it, she would teach him better ; it is a pity so hopeful a young gentleman should be ruined. La, And who do you think spoiled him ? Will. Some wicked children that they let him play with, I believe, or some loose servants. La, No, no, William, only his own father and mother; I have heard his father take him, when he was a child, and make him speak lewd words, and sing immodest songs, when the poor child did not so much as know the meaning of what he said, or that the words were not fit for him to speak. And you talk of my lady! why she will swear and curse as fast as her coachmen. How should the child learn any better? Will. O dear, that is a dreadful case indeed, an’t please you; then the poor youth must be ruined of necessity; there’s no remedy for him unless it please God to single him out by his distinguishing invisible grace. La. Why, his case, William, is my case, and the case of half the gentlemen in England. What God may do, as you say, by his invis- ible grace, I know not, nor scarce know what you mean by that word; we are, from our infancy, given up to the devil, almost as directly as if we were put out to nurse. to him. Will. Indeed, sir, an’t please you, the gentlemen do not think much of religion: I fear it way always so; the scripture says, Nos 54 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. many rich, not many noble are called; and itis the poor of this world that are rich in faith. James ii. 5. La, I find it so indeed, William, and I find myself at a dreadful loss in this very thing; I am convinced, the happiness of man does not consist in the estate, pleasures, and enjoyments of life ; if so, the poor alone would be miserable, and the rich men only be blessed; but there is something beyond this world, which makes up for all that is deficient here; this you have, and I have not; and so, William, you, in your poor cottage, are richer and more happy, than I am with the whole manor. Will. Indeed, sir, if in this world only we had hope, the poor would be of all men the most miserable; blessed be the Lord that our portion is not in this life. But, sir, an’t please you, I hope you will not discourage yourself neither; for God has not chosen the poor only ; rich men have temptations from the world, and hindran- ces very many, and it is hard for them to enter into the kingdom of heaven; but they are not shut out; the gate is not barred upon them because they are rich. La. I know not how it is, William, nor which way to begin; but T see so many obstructions in the work, that I doubt I shall never get over it. Will. Do not say so, I beseech you, sir, an’t please you; the prom- ise is made to all; and if God has given you a heart to seek him, he will meet you and bless you ; for he has said, Their hearts shall live that seek the Lord. Many great and rich men have been good men; we read of good kings and good princes; and if your difficulties are great, you have great encouragements; for you that are great men, have great opportunities to honor God, and do good to his church; poor men are denied these encouragements; we can only sit still, and be patient under the weight of our sorrows, and our poverty, and look for his blessing, which alone makes rich and adds no sorrow to tt. La, But tell me, William, what is the first step such a poor unedu- cated thing as I am should take? I see a beauty in religion which I cannot reach; I see the happiness which thou enjoyest, William, in a humble, religious, correct life; I would give all my estate to be in thy condition; I would labor at the hedge and in the ditch, as RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 55 thou dost, could I have the same peace within, and be as thankful and have such an entire confidence in God as thou hast; I see the happiness of it, but nothing of the way how to obtain it. Will. Alas! sir, an’t please you, you do not know my condition: Iam a poor disconsolate creature; I am sometimes so Jost, so dark, so overwhelmed with my condition, and with my distresses, that I am tempted to fear God has forgotten to be gracious: that I am cast off and left to sink under my own burden: I am so unworthy, so forgetful of my duty, so easily let go my hold, and cast off my con- fidence, that I fear often I shall despair. La. And what do you do then, William ? Will. Alas! sir, I go mourning many a day, and waking many a night; but I bless the Lord, I always mourn after him; I always cleave to him; I am not tempted to run from him; I know [I am undone, if I seek comfort in any other. Alas! whither else shall I go? I cry night and day, Return, return, O Father! and resolve to lie at his feet; and that, though he slay me yet will I trust in him: and blessed be the God of my hope, he does send comfort and peace, though sometimes it is very long. La, Well, William, and is this a disconsolate condition? Would you change your condition with me that am the rich glutton? Will. Ob, do not say so of yourself, an’t please you: God has touched your worship’s heart, I perceive, with an earnest desire af- ter him; you have a gracious promise, that would greatly encourage you, if you would but take it to yourself. La, Encourage me, William! that’s impossible: what can encour- age me? what promise is it you talk of that looks towards me? Will. Why, an’t please you, I heard you say you would change your condition with such a poor wretch as I; you would labor at the hedge and the ditch, to have the knowledge of God and religion, and to be able to be thankful to him, and have confidence in him; this implies, that you have a longing earnest desire after him, and after the knowledge of his truth. La. Indeed, that is true, William. Will. Then there are many comforting scriptures, which speak directly to you, sir, viz. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled : the longing soul shall be satis 56 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. fied: he will satisfy the desires of all those that fear him; and the like. La, But what mustI do? which is the way an ignorant wretch must take? Will. Sir, an’t please you, the way is plain: we must pray to him ; prayer is the first duty, and prayer is the greatest privilege we can enjoy in the world. La, Ay, William ; but there is a great deal required in prayer that I am an utter stranger to; I never prayed in my life; no, nor I believe my father or grandfather before me, William! I came of a cursed race, William, and I doubt it is entailed upon the family, like the estate. Will. Oh, sir, do not say that: the scripture is plain, an’t please you, that the children shall not be punished for the father’s transgres- sion. La. But then certainly they must not tread in their father’s’ steps, as I do exactly, William. Will. That’s true, indeed, sir, they must not tread in those steps. , La. But what dost thou talk then of prayer being the first duty? Why if that be the first thing, I must not begin; for, how can such a creature as I pray to God? Will. As the spirit of God will assist those, whose hearts are to- wards him, so we must pray, that we may be taught to pray. La, Is it pot a difficult thing for a man to pray to God, William, that scarce ever thought of God in all his life? Will. Well, sir, but who do you think put those thoughts in your mind, which now you have? and who opened your eyes, sir, to see a beauty in religion, as now you see; and touched your heart with such an earnest desire after the ways and things of God, as you now expressly say you have? do you think this is not of God, an’t please you? La, Indeed, William, I know not; it would be a very delightful thing, if [thought it was so. Will. Without question, sir, it is; man can have no such power; nature prompts us to evil thoughts and evil desires, and to them only ; the imagination of the thoughts of our hearts are evil, and only evil; RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 5% if there are any good motions, or heavenly desires in the heart, they are from God. Every good gift, and every perfect gift, comes down from above; it is his power works them, his invisible grace forms all holy desires in the soul. La. Well; and what do you infer from thence, William ? Will. Why, sir, an’t please you, if God has begun a good work, he will perfect it: if he has turned your face towards him, he will lift up your heart to him: to pray to God is as natural to a convert, as to ery after the father or mother is to an infant. La, Thou speakest, William, with more clearness than ever I heard before: but it is a strange thing to me to talk of praying to God: I pray! that, except just the common road of going to church, cannot say that ever I kneeled down to pray to God once in all my life! how shall I pray ? Will. That’s sad, indeed, an’t please you! I am sorry to hear your worship say so: does any creature live, and not pray to God? Oh! dear! that’s a sad, dreadful thing in truth! but however, sir, do not let that hinder you now. La. How dost mean, hinder me? what can be said to hinder me doing what I have no knowledge in, no notion of, no inclination to? Will. Oh, sir, an’t please you, you mistake your own condition very much: do not discourage yourself thus; you know how to pray bet- ter than many that make much noise with their devotions; I sce it plainly. La. I pray! William; I pray! I tell thee, I never prayed in all my life as I know of. Will. An’t please your worship not to be angry with me for my plain way—— La. Prithee, William, be plain, and speak freely ; do not worship me and sir me now; talk to me as if I were your neighbor or com- rade; these are not things to talk of with cringes and bows; I am a wretched, contemptible, poor, rich man: thou arta poor, rich, happy Christian; talk plainly to me, William; the coarser, the better; I like it best: there will be no difference, William, between thee and me hereafter, but what will be on thy side: tell me therefore what you mean, William, by my praying. Will. Why, sir, as you allow me to be plain, then I say, you mis- take your own condition, and thereby put off the comfort you might 3* 58 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. receive; I say, you do pray, and know better how to pray than many that come to church, and appear as if they prayed every day. La. You must explain yourself; William, I do not understand you. Will. Why, sir, those earnest desires you have after the knowledge ot God, and after the true worship of God, which is the sum of reli- gion, I say, those earnest desires are really prayers in their own nature; sincere wishes of the heart for grace are prayers to.God for grace; prayer itself is nothing but those wishes and desires put into words, and the first is the essential part; for there may be words used without the desire, and that is no prayer, but a mockery of God; but the desires of the heart may be prayers, even without the words. La. You surprise me a little, William. Will. Besides, sir, an’t please you, those earnest desires you have after religion, and after the knowledge of God, will force you to pray first or last, in a verbal prayer; they will break out like a flame that cannot be withheld ; your heart will pray, when you know not of it: praying to God, sir, is the first thing a sense of religion dictates, as a child crieth as soon as it is born. La. Alas! William, I know nothing of it ; I am such an unaccount- able wretch; God knows, I know nothing what belongs to praying, not I; thou hast let me see farther into it, by that thou saidst just now, than ever I saw or heard before. Will. Why, look ye now, an’t please you, I told you it would break out, when you knew not of it, and you would pray to God be- fore you were aware. Did you not pray just now. La, Pray! Why, what did Isay? Isaid I know nothing of prayer. Will. Nay, that was not all. What is the meaning of those words —Alas, William! and whence came that sigh when you called your- self that hard name? and what was the sense of your soul but this, God be merciful to me, and teach me to pray, for alas! I know nothing what belongs to praying? Was not all this praying ? La. Indeed, William, my heart had such a kind of meaning; but I cannot form the thought into words, no not into my very soul. Will. It is all one, sir; God that moves the soul, certainly hears his own motion; how should he but hear it? is it not his own work- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 59 ing? The preparation of the heart, and the answer of the tongue, is of the Lord. He will hear every sincere desire which he forms in your soul, whether it be conceived into words or not; for it is the voice of his own spirit and grace. La. Thou art a comforting preacher, William: I don’t wonder you enjoy such a shining beam of light in your own soul, when you have such a sense of things as this; you shall be my instructor, Wil- liam ; I may call you father, rather; for thou art better to me than ten fathers. Will. Oh sir, an’t please you, my discomforts are very great, and the beam you speak of is very dim, in me. Do not speak such things of me; it makes me very sad; for I know my own darkness; I am a poor despised creature. La. Well, but God may make you an instrumeut of good to me, or to any one he pleases: I never had this much instruction in my life, William; you will not be backward to do good, I hope, if it be thus cast in your way. Wii. I shall be very glad, if such a worm asI am, should be an instrument, in God’s hand, to comfort or inform your worship ; and shall praise God for this occasion as long as I live: and indeed I re- joice, an’t please you, to see your worship inquiring after these things. I pray God increase the knowledge of himself in your mind, and comfort you with the hope of his presence and blessing. La. Amen, I thank you, William. Will. Look you now, sir, an’t please you, did you not pray then, again. La. I joined with you, William; I don’t know; but if that be praying, I think I did pray. Will. Thus God will move your heart to pray to him: and I be- seech your worship to read the scriptures; read them much, read them seriously; and pray, sir, observe this one thing, when you read, which I have experienced often, and very comfortably; and I dare say you and every one that reads the word of God, with desire of a blessing, will experience the like, viz. When you are reading, and come to any place that touches you, and that your mind is affect- ed with, you shall find, even whether you will or no, your heart will every now and then lift itself up thus, Lord! make, good. this word to me! Lord! draw my heart thus to thee! Lord, help me thus 60 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. to seek thee, and the like: and be not afraid to call that praying; for mental petition is prayer, as well as words; and is, perhaps, the best moved prayer, and the best expressed in the world. La, You will persuade me, William, that I both have prayed al- ready, and shall again, whether I will or no; and whether I know anything of it or no, and that I want no teaching. Will. Pray, sir, does a child want to be taught to cry? La. Will that simile hold, William? Will. Indeed it will, sir. Read the scripture; if God’s word reaches your heart, you will not need to be taught to pray. La. I told you, William, you hardly knew who you were talking to. You talk of my reading the scripture; why, I tell thee, Wil- liam, I ha’nt a Bible in the world, and never had one in my life. There’s the manor-house yonder; I question whether God was ever prayed to in it, or his name ever mentioned there, except profanely, or perhaps to swear by it, since it was built. Why, you know as well as I, what a family it was that lived in it, when my father pur- chased it. They were as much strangers to religion, William, as thou art to Greek and Hebrew ; and ours were but little better, that came after them. Will. I fear indeed, an’t please your worship, it was so. Poor gentlemen! they lived badly indeed, very badly. Alas! gentlemen must not be told of it by us poor men; but they were a sad wicked family ; I remember it well. La. But, William, thou can’st lend me a Bible, can’st thou not? and I'll read it all over while I stay in the country. Will. Yes, an’t please your worship, [ll lend you a Bible; Pl bring it in the morning. La. Do, William, and come and stay with me to-morrow; I'll make thee amends for thy day’s work, and there’s something for thy good advice, and coming so far with me. [He gives him some money, and sends him back again.] Wit. Thank your worship. [They were now come to the manor-house, and he was loth to de- tain him, because it was late, and because they were so affected with the discourse they had had, that he wanted very much to be alone. As soon as he came into his own house, he locked himself into a parlor, and began to consider, with great seriousness, all these things, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 61 and especially what the poor man had said to him about praying to God; and, as his thoughts were intent upon the meaning of prayer, the nature of it, and the advantages of it, at every turn of these thoughts he found a secret kind of hint like a voice in him, Oh, that I could pray! Oh, if I could pray as the poor man does! How happy should I be, if I could but pray to God! and the like. He was not aware of these movements; they seemed to be wrought in his affec- tions perfectly involuntarily and sudden; and they passed over with- out being noticed or observed, even by himself, till after a good while they returned stronger and more frequent upon him; so that he not only perceived it, but remembered how often his heart had thrown out these expressions; when, on a sudden, the poor man’s words came into his mind with such a force, as if the man himself had been there; why this was praying; certainly I have been praying all this while, and knew it not. Upon this reflection, it was impossible for him to express, as he said afterwards, what a strange rapture of joy possessed his mind, and how his heart was turned within him; then he fell into the same sacred ejaculations of another kind, viz. of admiration, praises, thanksgiving, and mere astonishment; but still without speaking otherwise than a kind of mental voice, sounding or injecting words into his mind: snch as these, Lord! shall I be brought to pray to God—I that have never been told so much as how to mention his name—TI that have never known anything of God, or myself, or have been taught anything of my duty to him—shall I be taught to pray ? and taught by whom? by this poor despicable creature, that at an- other time I would not have spoken to, if he had made me twenty bows and scrapes! His tongue then was let loose; and he cried out, Blessed be God that ever I came near that poor man. He continued all that evening filled with comforting reflections, and with a kind of inward peace and satisfaction; which as he had never known before, so he knew not how to describe or relate it, or indeed how to manage it. In the morning he found the same medita- tion and the same lightness upon his spirits returned, and he remem- bered what the poor man had prayed for, for him, viz. That he might be comforted with the hopes of the presence and blessing of God, to which his heart had so readily said Amen. And now he longed for the poor man’s coming with the Blble. 62 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. The poor man was likewise mightily affected with his case, con- sidering him a young gentleman of such a family and fortune; and who was so far above him as that, though he was his landlord, he durst never offer to speak to him in his life, but with the greatest submission and distance; how he should come to call him out, and to talk to him, of such things especially, and in so serious a manner. He then reflected, with a serious joy, that this young gentleman should be thus touched with a solid sense of religion and good things; for it was easy to see that it was not a slight or an insincere work upon his mind. It rejoiced his heart, that the heir of the estate should be thus likely to prove a good man; and it presently occur- red to his thoughts, how great a blessing such a gentleman might be to the country, to the poor, and to the uninstructed people round him ; as well by reforming their manners, and restraining their vices, as, perhaps, by bringing religion to be accepted and received among them by his example. These were some of the thoughts he came along with, and as he walked, he prayed to God, very earnestly, that he might be made an instrument to bring the soul of this gentleman to the knowledge of God, and to bow at the footstool of his Redeemer as a true penitent. His prayers were not in vain. Prayer, put up from such a princi- ple, and with such a spirit, seldom is made in vain. He came to the gentleman, while he was in his bed; for he had given orders to his servants to bring him up to his chamber; there he delivered him the Bible, and told him he hoped he would find in it both encouragement and direction in the great work which he was going about, and that God would bless it to him, and would supply by his grace all the wants of early instruction, which he had so much complained of. He received the poor man with a glad heart, made him sit down by him, and told him, God had made him the instrument of so much good to him, that he could not part with him any more while he stayed in the country. William, says he, God has made you a father to me, and I'll bea father to you and your family; you shall go no more home to that poor cottage, you shall have something else to be thankful to God for than bread and water.] Will. An’t please your worship, I have much more to be thankful RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 63 for than that already ; but, if God has been pleased to assist me to do you good in this great business of bringing such a soul as yours to the knowledge of himself, I shall have cause to praise him, beyond all that ever J had before. La. Well, William, Ihave sent for your wife and children; they shall be my care now, not yours; I’ll provide a house for you. [He gave them a house and a little farm, rent free, to live on, and made him his bailiff and receiver of the rents of the manor.] Will. Your worship will be a father to me and my family indeed, then; I can never deserve so much at your hands; an’t please you, I am very willing to work still for my bread, I thank your worship. La. No, William, you shall never work any more for your bread ; you have been thankful for a little, William; I heard you last night, when you were at prayer in your family, and giving thanks to God for the plenty you enjoyed. Poor William! you do not know how it affected me, that never gave God thanks in my life; now you shall be thankful for better things. Will. I shall be greatly bound to be thankful to you worship too, an’t please you. La. No, William, do not thank me, thank God still. Will. And your worship mend my condition, I fear my thankful- ness to God should abate: when I lived so near misery and distress, it made me more sensible of God’s goodness, in keeping me out of it, than I may, I doubt, when I am full. La. J do not think you will ever be unthankful, William, that could be so full of sense of God’s mercy, even in the extremest poverty: but come, William, I shall leave that; I have ordered my steward both to provide for, and employ you, and I shall say no more of that now: but my business now is of another nature: and first; I must tell you how I have been employed since I left you last night. (Here he gave the poor man an account of himself, and of his re- flections upon what he had said to him, and how insensibly he had received secret comfort, as above, and he found tears run down the old man’s cheeks, all the while he was talking to him, for Joy] Will. O sir! give God the praise, this is all his own work; and ] 64 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. hope your comfort shall increase and continue: did I not tell you, sir, God would teach you to pray ? La. But now, William, what should I do with this book? Will. Read it, sir, an’t please you, and you will pray over it whether you will or no. La. But I am still ignorant; I have no minister near me to explain it to me. Will. The Spirit of God will expound his own word to you. La. Well, William, you shall be my minister: come, sit down by me and read in it. Will. Alas! I am asorry creature to be a teacher, sir, but an’t please you, I have turned down some places, which I thought of, to show your worship for your first reading. La, That’s what I wanted, William. Will. An’t please you, here’s a text which tells you what is the whole design of a written gospel; for what end the life of our blessed Redeemer was laid down, and his works and doctrine were published to the world; and this seems to be the first thing we should know of the scriptures ; for, indeed, it is the sum and substance of them. La. Let me see it, William. Will. Here it is, sir. These things are written, that ye might be- lieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.—John xx. 31. La. That is very comprehensive indeed, William. Wiil. And here is another passage I folded down, lest you should ask, how should you do to believe; it is in Mark ix. 24. Itis astory of a man, who brings his child to our Lord to be healed, when pos- sessed of an evil spirit: our Lord asks him, if he could believe? Jf thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth: and v.24. The father cried out with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelie?. [William looks full in his face, while he repeated the words.] La, What do you look at me for, William ? Will. Ob sir! I saw your very heart ; I know you prayed; I know you said Amen in your very soul to that word ; glory be to the grace of God, and to the word of God for you; the scripture, read with such a heart as yours now is, will soon teach you all that you want to know, and all that you want to do. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP, 65 [The poor gentleman was overcome with his words, and could not speak for a good while; tears came out of his eyes; and at last he burst out thus: Lord! what a creature have I been, that have lived without the teachings of the scripture all my days! Thus far this happy poor man was made an instrument to the restoring this gentlemen, and bringing him to the knowledge of God, and to a sense of religion, and in a word, to be a most sincere Chris- tian. We shall hear farther of him, after the next dialogue.] DIALOGUE III. We must now go back to the family which we began with: the father of the young ladies was gone into the country to visit his sister, who was newly become a widow; little thinking, whatever his eldest daughter had said to him, that his youngest daughter would make such short work with her lover in his absence, and that she would quite put an end to the courtship all at one blow, as she had done, before he came home again. He spent some little time at his sister’s to comfort her, and assist her in her affairs after the loss of her husband; and particularly, because her eldest son, being of age, and just upon marrying, she in- tended to remove; the house, which was the seat of the family, be- ing fo be fitted up for her new daughter-in-law. Upon these circum- stances, he began the following discourse with his sister. Bro. Well, pray sister, what kind of a lady has my nephew got? is he well married ? Sist. Truly, brother, I can hardly tell how to answer you that question: I believe everybody will be better pleased than I. Bro. Why, sister, what is the cause, pray, that you are so difficult ? Sist. Oh, brother! the main difficulty that has made me all my days the most miserable of women. - Bro. What! religion, I warrant you; you would have had him have married a nun? Sist. Nay, I don’t know why I should desire a religions woman to come into the family. ‘66 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Bro. I never saw the like of you, sister, you are always com- plaining; you had one of the best humored, goodést-conditioned, merriest fellows in the world for these five and twenty years, and yet you call yourself a miserable woman: what would you ask in a husband, that you had not in Sir James? Sist. Dear brother, is this a time for me to tell you what I want- ed in Sir James, when he is in his grave? I have wanted nothing in him that a woman could desire in a husband; he was rich in his es- tate, a lovely, complete, handsome gentleman in his person, and held it to the last; he was the best humored man that ever woman had, and kind, as a husband, to the last degree; I never saw him ina passion in my life; he was a man of good sense and good learning ; a man of honor, good breeding, and good manners; none went be- yond him; all the country knows it, and loved him for it. Bro. Very well! and yet my sister a miserable woman! Would not any man laugh at you! I think, sister, if ever you were a miser- able woman, it is now, because you have lost him. Sist. Well, that’s true too; Iam so now, many ways, and some, perhaps, that you do not think of, brother. Bro. I know what you mean again; J warrant you have been whining over him, to think what is become of him now; prithee, what's that to you or me? What can you, by your concern for him, do in that case, one way or other? can’t you leave him to God’s mercy, now he’s gone. Sist. Dear brother, it is in vain to answer you; I must leave him to God’s mercy, and so we must leave ourselves; but dg you think, it is not an afflicting, dreadful thing to me, that knows how he liv- ed, and how he died, to reflect upon his condition, if I had any love for him. Bro. Why, how did he live? He lived like a gentleman, as he was. Sist. That’s true; and that, as times go, brother, is to live like a heathen; you know well enough what a life I have had with him on that only account: you know he was so far from having any sense of religion, or of his Maker, on his mind, that he made a jest and a mock of it all his days, even to the last. Bro. I know he did not trouble himself much about it. Sist. Nay, he not only did not himself, but he did not really love RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 67 to have anybody about him religious. I have known many gentle- men that have had no religion themselves, yet value it in others, and value and reverence good men: but he thought all people hypo- crites that talked of anything religious, and could not abide to see any appearance of it in the house. It was the only thing we had any difference about all our days. Bro. And I think you were a great fool-to have any difference with him about that. Could not you have kept your religion to yourself, and have let him alone, to be as frolicksome as he would without it? Sist. Nay, I was obliged to do that, you may be sure; you know it well enough. Bro. Yes, yes, I know he served you many a merry prank about your religious doings: such as putting every now and then a ballad in your prayer-book; or psalm-book; and I think he put the story of Tom Thumb once in one of Dr. Tillotson’s sermons. Sist. No; it was two leaves out of Don Quixote. He did a great many such thing as those to me. Bro. But they were all frolicks; there was nothing of passion or ill-nature in them. Did not he write something in the children’s spelling-book once, and make them get it without book, instead of the lesson you had set them? Sist. Yes, yes, he played me a thousand tricks that way. Bro. I think once he pasted a receipt to make a tansy or a cake just next to one of the questions of the catechism, where your daugh- ter’s lesson was. Sist. Ay, ay; and every now and then he would paste a single printed word, that he cut out of some other book, just over another word in their books, so cunningly, that they could not perceive it, and make them read nonsense. Bro. Why, what harm is there in all that? Sist. Why, it showed his general contempt of good things, and making a mock of them, otherwise the thing was not of so much value. Bro. Well, and wherein was you miserable, pray, in all this? I don’t understand you in that at all. Sist. Why, in this, that he was not at all a religious man. Bro. But what is that to you, still? Sist. Why, first, brother, there was all family religion lost at ono 68 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. blow. There could not be so much asthe appearance of worshiping or acknowledging the God that made us; nay, we scarce asked him leave to eat our meat, but in secret, as if we were ashamed of it. Sir James never so much as said grace, or gave thanks at table, in his life, that I remember. Bro. And they that do, make it nothing but a ceremony, and do it for fashion-sake, not that they think it signifies anything. Sist. Well, let them do it for fashion-sake then, if they will, but let them do it. It is the most rational thing in the world, while we own that God gives us our meat, that we should ask him leave to eat it, and thank him for it when we have done. But alas! this is but a small part of the ill consequences of an irreligious family. Bro, Well, what more is there? for this is nothing but what is in thousands of familieis, who pretend to religion on all sides. Sist. Why, all relative religion was lost too. Bro. Relative religion! Sister, what do you mean by that? Sist. Why, first I mean by it that religion that ought to be between aman and his wife; such as comforting, encouraging, and directing one another, helping one another on in the way to heaven; assisting one another in Christian duties, praying with and for one another, and much more which I could name, and which, without doubt, passes to their mutual comfort and delight, between a man and his wife, where they are mutually agreed in worshiping and serving God, and walking on in the happy course of a religious life. All this has been lost’; and it has been a sad loss to me, brother: we have all need of helps: and it is not every one that considers, or indeed that knows, what help, what comfort, what support, a religious husband or wife are or may be to one another. This, I say, has been a sad loss to me, I assure you. Bro. These are nice things; but, methinks, if you could not have those helps from your husband, you might find them in other things, such as books, ministers, etc. It need not be called such a loss neither. Sist. It is such a loss, brother, that if I were to live my days over again, I would not marry a man that made no profession of religion; not I, though he had ten thousand pounds a year, and I had but a hundred pounds to my portion; nay, I think I would work for my bread rather. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 69 Bro. You lay a mighty stress upon these things. Sist. Everybody, brother, that has any sense of the blessing of a religious family must do so. Pray, if the honoring and serving of God be our wisdom, our duty, our felicity, in this world, and our way to the next, what comfort, what happiness can there be, where these are wanting in the head of a family ? Bro. It is better, to be sure, where they may be had, but to lay all the happiness of life upon it, as if a man or a woman could not be religious by themselves, without they were so both together, I do not see that; I think you carry it too far. Sist. Yl convince you that I do not carry it too far at all; I do not say a man or a woman may not be religious by themselves, though the husband or wife be not so; but I say, all the helps and comfort of relative religion is lost; the benefit and value of which none knows, but they that enjoy it, or feel the want of it; but there is another loss which I have not named, and which my heart bleeds in the sense of every day. Bro. Whait’s that, I wonder? Sist. Why, children! brother, children; you see J have five chil- dren: what dreadful work has this want of family religion made among my poor children ! Bro, Why, Sir James did not hinder you instructing your children. Sist. Did he not? it is true he did not when they were little ; but has he not by example, and want of restraint, encouraged all manner of levity, vanity, folly, nay, and even vice itselfin them? Do you think children, thus let loose to humor their own inclinations, and to the full swing of their pleasures, would not soon snatch themselves out of the arms of their mother, and deliver themselves from the im- portunities of one that had no other authority with them than that of affection ? Bro. Why, truly there is something in that; but I do not see that your children are much the worse; there is your eldest son, Sir James that is now; he is a pretty young gentleman; I hear a very good character of him. Sist. Why, truly, brother, as times go now with gentlemen, we may be thankful neither he nor his brother are debauched or vicious, and I am thankful for it. They have good characters for modest pretty gentlemen, as you say: but still, brother, the main thing is 50 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. wanting, I cannot be partial to them, though they are my own: there is not the least sense or notion of religion in them; they can- not say they have no knowledge of it. I took care to deprive them of that excuse, as early as they knew anything ; but it goes no far- ther; my eldest son will tell me sometimes, he has as much religion as a gentleman of a thousand a-year should have; and his brother tells me, if I would have had him have any religion, I should have kept our parish living for him, and bred him a parson. Bro. They are very merry with you, then, I find upon that subject. Sist. It is a dreadful jest to me, brother; I am far from taking it merrily ; you know I was otherwise brought up; our father and mo- ther were of another sort of people; they united their very souls in the work of God; they joined in every good thing with the utmost affection; they loved the souls as well as the bodies of us their chil- dren. The family was a house of cheerful devotion ; God was served night and day; and, in a word, as they lived, so they died; they dropped comfortably off, and went, as it were, hand in hand, to heaven. Bro. And yet, sister, you see, we that were their childen were not at all alike. There is our brother Jack, and our sisters Betty and Sarah, what can be said about them? Pray, what religion are they of? Sist. Tl tell you what can be said, and what will stick close to them one time or other, viz. If they are lost, it is not for want of good instruction, or good example; they cannot blame father or mo- ther; it has been all their own. Parents may beg grace for their children; but they cannot give it them; they may teach their chil- dren good things, but they cannot make them learn ; that is the work of God, and parents must submit it to him. But, when parents do nothing, nay, rather by example and encouragement, lead their chil- dren into wickedness, what a dreadful thing is that? Bro. Well, but our two sisters were not led into wickedness; and yet, as I said, they value religion as little as anybody. Sist. Ay, brother, I can tell you how our sisters were both ruined; for they were not so educated. Bro, What do you mean by ruined? they are not ruined, I hope. Sist. I mean as to their principles, brother, which I think is the worst sort of ruin; they were ruined by marrying profligate, irreli- gious husbands. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP, qd Bro. I don’t know what you mean by profligate; I think they were both very well married. Sist. Yes, as you call well married, and that I call being undone. Bro. And pray what has ruined Jack? for he is as graceless a wretch almost as your Sir James was. Sist. Truly, brother, just the other extreme: he has a wild, giddy. play-house-bred wife; full of wit, and void of grace, that never had any religion, nor knew what the meaning of it was; this has ruined him. My brother was a sober, well taught, well inclined young man, as could be desired; but getting such a tempter at his elbow, instead of a wife to help him on to heaven, she has led him hood- winked to the gates of hell, and goes cheerfully along with him: a sad instance, brother, of the want of family religion! Bro. Well, but what’s all this to what we were upon of parents leading their children into wickedness? he was not led by his parents. . Sist. But you see his children are. Bro. I cannot say that; few parents, though they are bad them- selves, will prompt their children to be so too; that’s what I have seldom seen. : Sist. Well, that has been the case of my family ; and that it is that has broke my heart, and gives me cause to say, I have been the most miserable woman alive. Bro. But you have this comfort still, that you have not been the occasion of it. Sist. That’s true; but even that does not lessen the grief of seeing my children lost and ruined before my face, and their own father to be the instrument to it. Bro. They cannot be said to be ruined; they are very fine gentle- men, I assure you. Sist. They are ruined as to the best qualifications of a gentleman. Bro. I warrant you they don’t think so, sister: religion makes us good Christians, that is confessed; but I do not see it makes a gen- tleman. What is more frequent than to see religion make men cynical and sour in their tempers, morose and surly in their conver- sation? They think themselves above the practice of good manners or good humor. Sist. This is all by the mistake of the thing; it is want of religion 72 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. that makes them thus. It is in good breeding as it is in philosophy ; a little philosophy, a little learning makes aman an atheist; a great deal brings him back, and makes him a Christian: so, a little religion makes a man a churl; but a great deal teaches him to know himself and be'a gentleman. When good principles join with good manners, how should they but illustrate the education, and set off the breeding of a man of quality? As it is a mistake to say, that jewels should be worn by none but homely women, it is just the contrary ; so religion adorns education, as jewels give real beauty a double lustre. Bro. Your notions are delicate. You are very nice, it seems, in these things, sister ; though I must confess, I am of your mind, when I consider it well. Sist. Let the scripture be judge, whether the rules of life, dictated by the apostles to the Christian churches, were not such as not only agreed well with that of a gentleman, but indeed with that, without which: no man can be a gentleman; if you look almost through all the epistles in the New Testament, you will find it so; Dll name you a few. Phil. i. 9.10. That your love may abound in knowledge and all judgment.—There’s wisdom and learning. That you may approve things that are excellent—There’s solid judgment. That ye may be sincere and without offence—There is the honest and open heartedness of a true gentleman. 1 Pet. Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.—There is the charity, the beneficence, and the good breeding of a gentleman. Col. iii, 12. Put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, etc.—Who can be a gentleman without these? Col. iv. 8. Whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, think of these things.—What think you now? Can the practice of these things dishonor a gentleman? or, do they honor and illustrate, and indeed make a gentleman Phil. ii. 8. Jn lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselues.—What becomes a gentleman more than such humi- lity? I could name you many others. Will any man that needs these rules say, they are not suitable to a gentleman? No, brother, it RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 13 shall ever be a rule to me, that the only complete man upon earth is a religious gentleman. Bro. Why, you are wrapt up in these notions, sister; I fancy you have been documenting my daughter; I am afraid of it, I assure you; she has just got the same things in her noddle, and she has carried her scruples to such a length, that she had like to have refused the best match that ever will be offered to her as long as she lives; but I believe I rattled her out of it, when I came away. Sist. I am perhaps the fuller of it, because it has been the ruin ‘of my family, and of my children; and I think, if ever poor woman was unhappy with a gentleman that had not one bad quality in him, it was I; Sir James, as J told you, was such a man, for everything else, as there are few such in the world; but he hated religion, and that has ruined us all. Bro. You would make any one laugh to hear you talk of being ruined; why, are you not left happy, easy, and pleasant? is not your eldest son a baronet, and has £14,00 a year? is not your second son very well provided for? have not your daughters £5,000 a-piece for- tune left them ? and are you not left so rich, you know not what to do with it all? Sist. I do not speak of ruin as you understand it, brother ; I think a family without religion, is a family ruined, and that in the worst sense that ruin can be understood in: if I were to marry again, I would not marry the best Duke in the nation, that would not endeavor to carry me to heaven, and go there himself. The com- mand of the scripture is plain in it, Be not unequally yoked, 2 Cor. iv. 14. How shall a husband that professes no religion, dwell with a wife according to knowledge, 1 Pet. iii 7; and what is the reagon the apostle gives for this Christian rule in marrying, but this, That your prayers be not hindered ? Bro. Why, Sir James did not hinder your prayers, sister. Sist. Did he not? Sir James is in his grave, and it is not my part to say what he did; but it is the mutual prayers of husband and wife together that is meant in that scripture. Do you think Sir James prayed with his wife? Bro. No, I believe he did not, indeed, nor with any bodyelse. Sist. And do you think that is the life of a Christian, or the man- ner of a Christian family, brother? You and I were not bred up 4 74 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. so, and yet our father was a gentleman, and wanted neither family nor fortune equal to any of them. Sir James is in his grave, and I have no more to say of that; butif I were as young as I was when I married him, and were to choose again, I would not marry the best nobleman in the nation, if he was not a religious man: all enjoyments in the world are nothing without it, unless I resolved to cast off all religion too; and where would that end? Bro. This is just my daughter again. Sist. Besides, brother, consider another thing; how many young women, and young men too, who have been religiously bred, has this way of marrying been a snare to? that, when they come to husbands with no religion, or to giddy, loose, profane wives, they drop all their own principles, and become empty of all religion too at last. You know how it has been with our brothers and sisters, as I hinted to you before. Bro. There is no arguing with you, sister, who have had so much experience of it: but I tell my daughter, that perhaps, she may convert her husband. Sist. I don’t know my niece’s case, and so I can say little to it; but if this be it, that she refuses a man for his being of no religion, she is in the right; she is a good religious child herself: my sister educated all your children very well, and if she marry a gentleman as the times go now, that thinks religion below him, and unbecoming, as most of them do, she is undone. Bro. So she says, and has just your arguments; that made me say, you had been documenting to her. Sist. No, indeed, brother, not I; but I'll tell you what, I have been a memento to the family ; aul don’t doubt but my sister might show them the danger of it, by their aunt’s example. I pray God they may take warning. I know she was not wanting to them in her instruction, and in cautioning them against everything that was hurtful; and if she forgot this of cautioning them never to marry a man of no religion, then she was not that wise woman I took her for. Bro. I know not who has cautioned her, nor who has instructed her; but if I had not taken it up very warmly, she had ruined her- self with her nicety. Tl tell you how it is. [Here he tells her the whole story of his daughter and the gentle- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 15 man, to the time of his coming from home, he not knowing what had happened since.] Sist. Well, brother, you will allow me to be free with you; I must needs say I think you are in the wrong. Bro. Yes, yes; I expected that from you. Sist. I speak from my experience, brother; I would not force a child’s inclination in such a case for the world. Bro. What do you mean by inclination. She forces her own inclination: for her sister says, she loves the gentleman and has owned it; and yet upon this simple nicety, she pretended to cross herself, affront the gentleman, and disoblige her father. Sist. And will not all that convince you, then, that she acts by strength of judgment, and upon principles of conscience? If it be as you say, itis the noblest resolution that ever I heard, since the story of St. Catherine. Bro. Don’t tell me of your noble resolutions, and your fine prin- ciples; it is a first principle, an original command of God, that child- ren should obey their parents. Sist. Ay, brother, where the parent commands nothing that clashes with the laws of God; but then, brother, our authority ceases. Bro. But I am sure this match is for her advantage, and I'll make her have him. Sist. That’s a severe resolution, and if it be against her conscience, you may fail in all you resolve upon; besides, it is evident you ought not to resolve so. Bro. What! am not I her father? has it not been always the right of all fathers to give their daughters in marriage? nay, to bargain for them, even without their knowledge: did not Caleb promise his daughter Achsah in marriage to him that should smite Kirjathsepher, not knowing who it should be, or whether the girl should like him or no? and are there not many such instances in the scripture? Sist. All that is true, brother; but I do not think the laws of God or man give parents that authority now. Bro. Then you allow my daughters to marry whom they please, without putting any weight upon my consent one way or other; would you give your daughters that liberty ? Sist. No, brother, you wrong me; but there isa great differenco 56 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 4 between your negative authority and your positive authority, in the case of a daughter ? asthere is a great difference between your author- ity in the marriage of a daughter and the marriage of a son. Bro. I know my lady sister is a nice civilian: pray explain your- self. Sist. I can take all your banters patiently, brother, and J will ex- plain myself; contradict me if you can; I distinguish them thus: if your daughter desires to marry any person you don’t like, I grant that you have power by the law of God to forbid her positively : the scripture is plain, you have power to dissolve even a vow or promise of hers to marry, or not to marry at all. But if your daughter is not willing to marry one you may like, I do not think you have the same right to command: for you might then command her to marry a person she may have an abhorrence of, and aversion to, which could not be; the very laws of matrimony forbid it; she could not repeat the office of matrimony at her marriage, viz. to love and honor him: and to promise what she knew at the same time would be impossible for her to perform, would be to perjure herself (for the marriage promise is a solemn.oath) and to deceive her husband in the grossest manner ; neither of which would be lawful for her to do. Bro. Well, well, for all your fine harangue, I have made her do it. Sist. Are they married then, brother? Bro. No; but they shall, as soon as I come home. Sist. J wish her well; she is a child that deserves very well, I am sure; she is a serious, sensible, religious child, and will be an extra- ordinary woman: but, if you force her to marry, as you say you will, remember my words, brother, you will make her miserable as Ihave been. Bro. Yes, yes, so she will; just so miserable, she will have a good husband, and about £2,000 a year estate; a very miserable condition truly! Sist. All that is nothing; nor will it lessen the misery at all toa good woman: I am sure she had better go to service, or marry a good, sober, religious shoemaker, and I would do so myself, if I had my choice to make again; therefore I say it again, dear brother, remember my words: if you do it, you make her miserable, and will repent it. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. TT Bro. Nay, nay, 1 am not so positive either ; I would not ruin my child, you may be sure; but I shall see when I come home. Sist. Pray let me hear how it goes, when you come home. Bro. So you shall, I promise you. [After this discourse he stayed but two or three days with his sis- ter, and then went home. When he came home, to be sure the first question he asked his eldest daughter was, how Mr. —— did? and if he was in the house.] Da, Tn the house? no, sir, I think not. Fa. Why you think not? when was he here? Da. Never, sir, since the evening after you went away. fa. Why, she has not served me so, has she? Da. Served you, sir! nay, it is he has served you so, for he said the last time he was here, he would wait on her again; but he has never been here since. . fa. Then she must have used him very ill; IJ am sure he had never done so else; where is she? Call her down. Da. Sir, my sister is gone to my aunt ’s, at Hampstead. Fa, Very well; finely managed, I assure you: well, I'll manage her, and all of you, if this be the way I am to be used. [He isina great passion. | Da. I believe there is nothing done to use you ill, sir, or to pro- voke you in the least. Fa. What is she gone out of the house for ? Da. Sir, you are so angry with her, when you talk with her, that you fright her; I was afraid, last time you talked to her, you would have thrown her into fits; and so we really all advised her to go home with my aunt last week, when she was in town, and stay there till we could see what you will please to have her do. Fa. Do! she knows what I expected she should do. Da. As to marrying Mr. -—, sir, that she can never do; and she has talked it to him so handsomely, that, sir, I assure you, he said himself he could not answer her objections ; that she had reason for what she did, that he could not urge it any farther. Fa. Why, did you not say he promised to come again? Da. Yes, he did say he would wait on her again; but he is gone into the country, I hear. Fa. Well, I'll say no more till he comes again, then, 18 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Da. Nay, if he had come again, she had resolved she would not have seen him. Fa. Say you so! I'll be as positive as she; if she will see him no more, she shall see me no more: I'll let her know so much. Da. I am sorry things are so; but I am sure, she will never see him, if she never comes home more. Fa, Vil try that. Dll go over to Hampstead in the morning; I'll see what I can do with her. [Her sister was now in as great a fright as before; she knew the principle her sister went upon was good, and she was very loth to have her thrust by violence into a state of life she so abhorred ; and this made her take more freedom with her father than she would have done, and take more care of her sister too, lest her father should bring her away and marry her by force; so she sent a man and horse away the same night to Hampstead to her sister, to give her notice of her father’s resolutions to come over in the morning, and giving her an account of what had passed, advised her to be gone out of his way somewhere else. As the young lady had acquainted her aunt with the whole story, her aunt was so affected with it, and so abundantly justified her con- duct in it, that, upon this news, she told her, she would place her at a friend’s house a little way off, and she would undertake to talk to her father, when he came; and if she could not bring him to any reason, she would send her the next day into the country to her other aunt, the widow of Sir James ; so she sent her away in the meantime in her own coach to Hindon, a village beyond Hamp- stead, with a maid and a footman to attend her, till her father was gone. In the morning (as he said he would) her father came to Hamp- stead, and, as soon as he had saluted his sister, he asked for his daughter ; his sister told him she was gone alittle way to visit a friend of hers, but desired him to sit down. She saw he was disturbed and uneasy; come, brother, says she, be calm and moderate, and do not treat your child with so much warmth ; let you and me talk of this matter; my niece has given me a fall account of the whole story.] Bro. Has she so? but she shall give me another account of it, before she and I have done yet. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 19 Sist. I find, brother, you consult your passions only in all this matter, and I must tell you, they are base counsellors; I wish yuu would act in cool blood, and consult your reason a little too. Bro. So I think I do: and I won’t be instructed by my children. Sist. No, no, brother, it is evident you act too violently; if you consulted your reason, I am sure it would tell you, that you are all wrong: did ever a father hurry and terrify his children so with his fury and his passions, that they are afraid to see him, and ready to swoon when they hear he is coming to them; and then do you con- sider what a child this is, that you use thus? Bro. Tuse her! she uses me, I think! and abuses me too. Sist. Be patient, brother, be patient; passion, I tell you, is an ill counsellor; consider the circumstances of your child, and hear what she has to say. Bro. What do you mean by hearing? I think she han’t heard what I have to say, when she flies thus from place to place as if she was a thief. Sist. That is because you do not act like a Christian, brother; you make yourself a terror to your children; this dares not see you; those at home dare not speak to you: why, what do you mean, bro- ther? you did not treat them thus, when they were little: do you consider what they are now? that are women grown, and ought to be treated as such? and deserving women too they are, that the world sees ; and thus expose yourself most wretchedly to treat them thus: I am very free with you. Bro. How do I treat them? What, to provide a gentleman of £2000 a-year for the youngest, a handsome, complete young gentle- man as any the town can produce, and every way unexceptionable; nay, she owned herself he was one she could like very well; and to have her affront him and her father, and to dismiss him of her own head without consulting me, or staying till I came to town! and this after five weeks keeping him company, and when she knew the writings were drawing for her marriage-settlement; is this a decent way of treating a father? I think you are free with me, indeed, to take their parts in it. Sist. Well, brother, suppose all this to be just as you relate it; yet, if the young people could not hit it, do we not always, when we make proposals one to another for our children, make this enndi- 80 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. tion, viz. if the young people can agree? and do we not put them together to talk with one another, on purpose that they may be acquainted, and see whether they can like one another, or no? Bro. Well, and so did I: has he not waited upon her ladyship, I tell you, five weeks? was that not time enough to know whether she liked him or no? Sist. Time enough to like or dislike, I grant it; and she tells you plainly, she does not like, and cannot marry him: what would you have? And, as to putting him off in your absence, she says, she told you her mind positively, before you went out of town, and would have given you her reasons for it; but you treated her with so little temper, that she had no room to speak; and at last told her you would have none of her reasons, but expected she would have him. How do you answer that, pray? Bro. I knew what she had to say well enough: however, I gave her till my return to consider of it; what had she to do to turn him off without my knowledge, and affront a gentleman of his quality? it is an insult upon her father, and a scandal to the whole family. Sist, That’s all answered by what I said before, that she told you positively, before you went out of town, she would never have him, and indeed had resolved then to see him no more; for what should a@ young woman keep a man company for, when she resolves not to have him? whatever you may think, brother, it would not have been very handsome on her side; besides, I can assure you, your daughters are none of those women that do anything unbecoming. Bro. Why, she did keep him company after it, for all that. Sist. Never but once, that she might dismiss him civilly, and that was merely a force of your own upon her, because your passion with her obliged her to do that work herself, which you oueht to have done for her. Bro. Well, she is an undutiful, disrespectful creature to me; I han’t been an unkind father to her; but I'll let her know herself my own way. Sist. You'll consider of that, brother, when your passion is over. Bro. Not I; I am no more in a passion now than I was before. Sist. That may well be, indeed; because you were then in such a passion, it seems, as disordered all your family. Is passion a proper weapon to manage children with, brother? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 81 Bro. Tt is impossible for any man to be thus treated by his child- ren, and not be in a passion; ingratitude is a thing no man can bear with patience. Sist. But who shall be judge between you, brother? for it is pos- sible you may be in the wrong as well as your children; and take this with you as a rule in all such breaches, that generally those that are in the greatest passion, are most in the wrong. Bro. No, no; I am sure I am not in the wrong. Sist. That’s making yourself judge, brother; I think you should let some judicious, sober, impartial person hear your child, since you won’t hear her yourself. Bro. What! do you think I'll have arbitrators between me and my children? o Sist. I hope you will act the father with them, then, and not the madman, as (I must be plain with you) I think you do-now. Bro. Yes, yes, I'll act the father with them while they act the part of children with me, but no longer. Sist. If Gog should act so with us all, what would become of us? Think of that, brother, when you make resolutions against your own children; and without just cause too. Bro. Why you won't pretend this is without cause? Sist. Truly, brother, I do not see any cause you have to be of- fended with your child; ’tis true you brought a very fine young gentleman to court her, and I know you were pleased with the thoughts of such an alliance in your family; his estate, his person, his character were all pleasing; but here’s the case, your daughter has been religiously and virtuously educated by my sister. Bro. By your sister only, I suppose; you might have put in that too. * Sist. Truly, brother, I do not charge you with the crime of being any way concerned in the religious part of their education. Bro. Did I obstruct it, or blame her for it? Ileft them to her; jt was none of my business. Sist. That is a sad way of discharging your duty to your children, brother, in their education; but that’s none of my business: we will leave that now; they have been soberly and religiously educated, whoever did it; and they are very sober, religious young women, 4* 82 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. especially this youngest above them all; they are an honor to your family, and to the memory of my sister, their mother. Bro. But none to me, I confess that. Sist. They will be so to you in the end, if you know how to make yourself an honor to them. Bro. Well, I'll make them fear me, if they won’t honor me. Sist. You are hardly in temper enough to talk to; however, let me go on: I tell you they have been so bred, and they so well an- swer their education, that they are an honor to your family; their mother instilled principles of virtue, piety, and modesty in their minds, while they were very young. Bro, Well, I know all this. # (ist. Pray be patient; among the rest, this one, That a religious life was the only heaven upon earth; these were her very words; that honor, estate, relation, and all human pleasures, had no relish without it, and neither pointed to a future felicity, nor gave any pre- sent, at least that was solid and valuable; and on her death-bed, she cautioned them never to marry any man that did not at least pro- fess to own religion, and acknowledge the God that made him, what- ever fortunes or advantages might offer, as to this world. Bro. She might have found something else to do, when she was just at her end, I think, Sist. Brother, let me be free with you; she had two bad exam- ples to set before them, where a want of a religious husband had made two families very miserable, though they had everything else that the world could give; and one was your own sister. Bro, And the other herself; I understand you, sister. Sist. Be that as the sense of your own conduct directs you to think, brother; that’s none of my business; she was my sister, and therefore, I say no more of that—but these are all digressions; the young women, your daughters, thus instructed, and thus religiously inclined, are grown up; you bring a gentleman to court one of them, who with all the advantages his person and circumstances present, yet wants the main thing which she looks for in a husband, and without which she declares she will not marry, no, not if a peer of the realm courted her; pray, what have you to say to such resolu tion, that you should oppose it ? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 83 Bro. How does she know who is religious, and who not? Sho may be cheated soonest, where she expects it most. Sist. That’s true; and she has the more need to have her father’s assistance to judge with, and assist her in her choice. Bro. I don’t inquire into that part, not I. Sist. No, I perceive you don’t: she has therefore the more reason to look to herself. Bro. This gentleman may be as religious as anybody for aught she knows; how can she pretend to Ene I say, who is reli- gious? Mist. It is easier to know who is not religious, than who is; but this gentleman has been so kind to her, and so honest, as to put it out of all doubt, it seems; for he has frankly owned to her, that, as to religion, he never troubled his head about it: that is a road he never travelled ; he makes a jest of it all, as most young gentlemen now-a-days do; that his business is to choose a wife first, and then, perhaps, he may choose his religion, and the like: is this the gentle- man you would have your daughter marry ? brother! is this your care for your child? is it for refusing such a man as this, that you are in a passion with your child? I blush for you, brother! I entreat you consider what you are doing. Bro. { will never believe one word of all this, I am sure it can’t be true. Sist. I am satisfied every word of it is true, and you may inform yourself from your other children, if you think it worth your while. Bro. Tl believe none of them. Sist. Not while you are in this rage, I believe you will not; for passion is as deep as it is blind; but if you will cool your warmth, and let your reason return to its exercise, and to its just dominion in your soul, then you will hear, and believe too: for, when we are calm, and our passions laid, it is easy to judge by the very telling of a story, whether it be true or no; but it is not my argument whe- ther it be true or not. Bro. No! pray what is to your argument then? Sist. Why this, whether you are not in the wrong if it is true. Bro. Jn the wrong! in what pray? Sist. Why, to treat your child with such fury and ungoverned passions as you do! 84 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Bro. Why, how must children be treated when they are insolent and disobedient? Sist. Even then fot with passion and heat, brother: there is no cas. in the world that can possibly happen which ought to make a father act in a passion with his own children. Bro. No! how must he correct them, then, when they do evil things ? Sist. All with calmness and affection,brother; not with rage and fury; that is not correcting them; that is fighting with them: he must pity when he punishes, exhort when he corrects; he should have arod in his hand, and tears in his eyes; he is to be angry at their offences, but not with their persons: the nature of correction implies all this: it is for a child’s good that a parent corrects, not for his own pleasure; he must be a brute that can take pleasure in whip- ping a child. [He sat silent here a good while, and said not a word, his con- science convincing him that she was iu the right: at length he puts it off thus.] Bro. Well, Tam not correcting my children now, they are past that. Sist. Yes, yes, brother, you are correcting now, too; there are more ways of correction than the rod and the cane; when children are grown up, the father’s frowns are a part of correction; his just reproaches are worse than blows; and passions should be no more concerned in that part, than in the other, Bro. These are fine spun notions; but what is all this to the case in hand? Sist. Why, yes, it is all to the case in hand. Jam sorry there is so close an application to be made of it; for if we are not to bein a passion with our children, even when we have just reason to correct them, and see cause to be displeased with them, sure we must not be in a passion with them, when there is no cause for displeasure ; I say displeasure, for cause of passion with our children there can never be. All passion is a sin, and to sin, because our children sin, can never be our duty, nor any means to show them theirs. Bro. Does not the scripture say, “‘ Be angry, and sin not?” Sist. If you would read that scripture according to its genuine interpretation, it would help to convince you of all I have said: be angry, but be not in a passion ; to be angry may be just, as the occasion RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 85 for it may make it necessary; but be not immoderately angry, for that is to sin, and no cause of anger can make that necessary; and therefore, another text says, ‘‘Let all bitterness and wrath be put away from among you,” Eph. iv. 18. These are scriptures, brother, for our conduct even with strangers; but, when we come to talk of children, is it not ten thousand times more binding? We cannot be in a passion at anybody without sin: but, to be in a passion at our children, that is all distraction, and an abomination that tends to nothing but mischief. Bro. You are a healing preacher, sister; I confess, there is some weight in what you say; but what can I do, when children are thus provoking? Sist. Do! go home and consider the case maturely, and pray to God to direct you to your duty; if you did that seriously, you would soon see, that your child is not to blame, and that you are very much in the wrong to press her in a thing of this nature. Bro. Nay, nay, don’t say so, neither; you may say I am wrong in being angry, but you cannot say I am not very ill used; that Iam positive in. Sist. Let me hear you say so, when with temper and calmness you have heard the whole case. If you will not bear to hear it from your daughter yourself, hear it from her sister; and be com- posed and impartial, and then, I shall see, you will be of another mind. Bro. I can’t promise you I can have so much patience with them. Sist. Well, till you can, you can’t say you are doing the duty of a father. [Here the discourse ended, and he goes home again; the young lady, thinking she had some encouragement from, his discourse to hope that he would be calmer with her, went home too in the after- noon, and took care to let her father know it, and'see her in the house; however, he took little notice of it for some time. The next morning, he called his eldest daughter to him, and began another discourse with her upon the affair thus : Come, child, says the father, now passion is a little over, and I am disposed, however ill I am used, to bear it as well as I can; pray give me a true account of this foolish girl, your sister, and how she has managed herself since I have been gone.] 86 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Da. What, about Mr.— , sir? Fa. Ay, ay ; was ever any wench so mad, to affront such a gentle- man as he was? I wish he had pitched upon you, my dear. Da. ’Tis my mercy, sir, he did not ; and I desire to be thankful for it as long as I live. Fa. What do you mean by that, child? Da. Because I have not been forced to disoblige my father, or to marry against my mind, as my sister has been; two things I know not which are most terrible to me so much as to think of. Fa. Why, you would not have been such a fool to have run into these scruples too, would you? I have a better opinion of your sense. Da. I desire your good opinion of me may always continue; and therefore, sir, as I am not tried, I hope you will not put a question to me, that it is not so proper for me to answer. Fa, Well, well, be easy child, I have a religious man in my eye for you, I assure you; we will have no need of such foolish breaches on your accouut. Da. It is time enough, sir, to talk of that. Fa. Well, then, as to your sister: you know, when I left her I charged her to entertain him till my return, and you know what resolutions I made if she did not. Da. Dear father, you went away in a passion; she had declared positively she would not have him, and she could not think of enter- taining a gentleman, after she had resolved not to have him: it would not have been handsome: however, I did over persuade her to see him that night you went away; in hopes, truly, that she might have had some opportunity to be better satisfied in her main scruple about religion, and that she might have got over it: but, on the con- trary, he made such an open declaration of his contempt of all reli- gion, and his perfect ignorance of anything about it, that I could not but wonder at it; sure he must think we were a family of Atheists, or else he did it to affront her; for he could never think it could be agreeable to any of us: and upon this she made the same open de- claration to him that she could never think of joining herself to a man so perfectly void of principles: and so they parted, as it were by agreement. Fa. Was it so short between them, then ? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 87 Da. No, sir, there was a great deal more; they did not part with disgust at all; I am porsuaded he loves her entirely, and I am sure she loves him too? I wish she did not. Fa. And is she not a double fool, then, to thwart thus both her for- tune and her fancy, and all for she knows not what? Had he been a fawning hypocrite, that could have talked of religion, whether he had any or no, she would have taken him. Da. She would not have been easily deceived, sir, for she lays the whole stress of her life’s welfare upon it; it is a solid principle with her, which she cannot go from, and which she thinks her fancy and fortune, and all things in this world, ought to submit to. Fa. Well, but you say it was along discourse; I don’t doubt but you have heard it all, over and over. Pray give me as full an account of it, child, as you can. Da. Yes, sir. [Here she relates the whole night’s discourse between the gentle- man and her sister, as it is in the foregoing dialogue, except only that about staying for him till he was grown religious.] Fa, Well, I think they are both fools; he for being so open, and she for being so nice; it will be long enough before she has such ano- ther offer, I dare say. Da. Y believe that is none of her affliction, sir: she is only trou- bled at disobliging you, which she had no possibility to avoid, with- out oppressing her conscience, and making herself miserable. Fa. T do not see that is any of her concern, Da. Yes, indeed, sir,.it is; and I am afraid she will grieve herself to death about it. Fa. If that had been any grief to her, she would not have acted as she has done. Da. It is a terrible case, sir, to have so many powerful arguments press against conscience; I wonder she has been able to stand her ground against them, and I am sure it lies very heavy upon her mind. Fa. What do you mean by arguments pressing upon her con- science? Da. Why, sir, to name no more, here is a gentleman, who by his professed choice of her, and extraordinary proposals to her, has given undoubted testimony of his loving her very sincerely. In the 88 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. neat place, a splendid fortune, giving her a prospect of enjoying all that this world can offer. Thirdly, A very agreeable person, and one that has, by his engaging conduct, made some way into her affection: so, that it is easy to see, she not only has a respect for him, but really loves him: and, lastly, The displeasure of her father, whom she never disobeyed before, and to disoblige whom is effectually to ruin herself for this world. Are not these, sir, pressing things? Fa, And why do not they prevail with her, then; and why is she so willful? Da. Nothing but her conscience; a sense of her duty to God, and her own future peace, has upheld her resolution. He has professed himself to be a man of no religion, and such a one she dares not marry. fa, I understand nothing of it, nor do I see any need to pretend conscience in the case at all; there is nothing of weight in it. Da. I hope you cannot think but my sister would be very glad it had been otherwise. Fa. What need she trouble herself about his religion. Da. Jt is my business, sir, to give you an account of the fact, not to enter into the argument; it is enough that one daughter has dis- pleased you already. Fa, Well, well, I see she has come home again; I have nothing to say to her; I do not look upon her as any relation of mine. Da. If you do not abate something, sir, and show yourself a little tender of her, I believe you will soon have but two daughters to provide for; perhaps not that, for I think it will break our hearts to see her. i {All that his eldest daughter could say, or that either of his sisters in the country had said, had yet no effect upon him; but he carried it so reserved to his daughter, that she appeared in the family as if she had not belonged to him; and he continued it so long, that it began to be very probable he would never alter it; which so grieved the poor young lady, that she fell very sick with it; and it was feared she inclined to a consumption; and being very ill one day, her sister, who was her fast friend and only comforter, desired she would go.out a sittle and take the air: so they resolved to go to their aunt’s at Hampstead ; the sister’s design being to persuade her to stay two or three days with her aunt; in which short journey several strange- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 89 like adventures befell, them which will gradually introduce themselves in the following discourse, which began between them as they werein the coach going to Hampstead.] Dear sister, says the eldest sister, what will become of you? will you give way to this grief so much, as to let it destroy you. Yo. sist. What can I do, sister! I support it as well as I can, but it sinks my spirits; it istoo heavy for me: I believe it will destroy me, as you say. ld. sist. Shake it off, then, sister. Yo. sist. Shake it off! you talk of it as a thing in my power; no, no, sister, effects rarely cease till their causes are removed. Hild. sist. Nay, if you would talk philosophy, I am sure philosophy would cure you. Yo. sist. Ay, but Iam no philosopher, I hope; pray, how would that cure me? Hild. sist. How, what I mean by philosophy is reason: though wo- men are not philosophers, they are rational creatures: I think you might reason yourself out of it. Yo. sist. Ido talk reason, when I say grief having seized upon my spirits, and the cause being unmovable, while that remains so, the effect will be so too. Eld. sist. It is not in my power to remove the cause: but yet, I think, if you would hear reason, you might remove the grief which has the effect. Yo. sist. And you think reasoning would do it? pray, what kind of reasoning is that? Eid. sist. Why, to reason but upon the folly, the madness, the injus- tice, nay, the sin of immoderate grief. Yo. sist. You begin warmly; pray, let’s hear the folly of it. Lid. sist. Why, several things will convince you of its being the foolishest thing in the world: Grief is a senseless, useless passion ; it is useless, bacause it is perfectly incapable of doing any good, and only capable of doing evil: Grief is indeed no passion; but a quality, a disease of the mind, which must be cured; it is an evil spirit that must be cast out; besides, it is a senseless thing for it is a means to no end; it aims at nothing, seeks nothing, endeavors nothing, only corrodes the spirits, stagnates the very senses, and stupefies the soul; and therefore, grief was anciently represented as a viper, generated 90 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. in the liver, and preying upon the vitals of the man; and, when it came within a certain space of the heart, it had two ways to go; if it ascended, it quitted the hypochondriac vessels, and so possessing the brain, ended in madness; if it descended, it possessed the blood, and ended in death. Yo. sist. Pray end your reasoning; for I do not understand it; go back to the point proposed, what must Ido? You say, shake it off; I ask, what must I do to shake it off? How can I shake it off ? Eid. sist. Why, divert your mind, think no more of him; turn your thoughts to things that are in being, this is now a thing over ; you should only esteem it as history done in ages past. Yo. sist. You surprise me, sister. Eid. sist. Surprise you child! in what? Yo. sist. I am both grieved and astonished that you should have such mean thoughts of me, as to think my grief is founded upon the parting with Mr. : I protest to you, I am so far from having the least concern of that kind upon me, that it is the only comforta- ble reflection I have in the world, and I give God thanks from the bottom of my soul, as often as I think of it, that I am delivered from him. Eld. sist. I believe you are sensible, that it is better as it is; but I know it is a great struggle between principle and affection. Yo. sist. Not at all, sister, I am over all that; it did not hold me half an hour; when my conscience dictated to me my real danger, the future felicity of my life, the commands of God, and the dying instructions of my dear mother: do you think the little stirrings of an infant affection to the man, was able to struggle with such an army of convictions? God forbid! no, no; he is to me as the most contemptible fellow on earth. Eid. sist. No, no, sister, you never thought him a contemptible fellow, I am sure; nor is he so in himself. Yo. sist. No, as a gentleman he is not so; he is a lovely creature, and the only man in the world I could ever say I had any affection for. Eld. sist. I know you loved him; nay, and do love him still; your face betrays you, sister; while your tongue named him, your heart fluttered, and your color changed; I could see it plain enough. Yo. sist. How cruel is that now, sister! you prompt the affection RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 91 vo revive, you would recall the temptation, and assist it in a new attack upon me; I allow, I loved him, and as a fentleman so every way agreeable, I do so still; but, shall I yoke myself with one of God’s enemies; embrace one that God abhors! speak no more of it, I entreat you! Eid. sist. That’s carrying it too far ; you cannot say who God ab- hors. ; Yo. sist. Ill put it the other way, then, to stop your mouth: Shall I yoke myself with a practical Atheist? embrace one that re- jects God, love him that hates my Saviour? Hild. sist. Nay, that’s too far, too; he told you he did not hate re- ligion. Yo. sist. You cavil, sister, you don’t argue; I'll give it you in scripture words; is he not one of those who say to the Almighty, “Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways?” did he not openly say the same thing? is he not only void of the knowledge of religion, but of any desire to have any knowledge of it? id. sist. Do not take what I said ill, sister; I acknowledge he is indeed such a one; but you still love him, sister. Yo. sist. No, sister; as such I abhor him; the thoughts of having been but in danger of him, makes my blood run chill in my veins; shall I marry a profligate! a man of no religion! nay, that has the impudence to own it! no, sister, I rejoice that I am delivered from him, and I never desire to see him more as long as I live. ld. sist. And have you really got as far above it as you say you are? Yo. sist. Dear sister, have not you and I often lamented the loss of a religious family, even in our own father? the want of religious conversation, the want of a father to teach, instruct, inform and ex- plain religious things to us?) Have we not seen the dreadful life our aunt, my father’s sister, lived for want of a religious husband, and the heavenly life of my aunt here, our mother’s sister, lives, that has a pious, sober, religious husband and family? Andcan you think I ever would be a wife to such another as Sir James? besides, could I bear to be tied to a man that could not pray to God for me, and would not pray to God with me? God forbid! the greatest estate and the finest man in the world should never incline me to such a 92 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. thought! I thank God my soul abhors it; and it is the joy of my heart that the snare is broken. Eid. sist. Why, what is it then that oppresses your mind thus? Yo. sist. O sister! you cannot ask me such a question. [Just as she said those words, came a gentleman on horseback, and galloped by the coach-side, and looking into the coach, pulled off his hat to her; and having paid his compliments, he rode on. The very moment he looked in, her elder sister had dropped her fan in the chariot, and was stooping down to reach it, and so did not see him; but when she got up, looking at her sister, she found her look very pale.]} Hild. sist. What's the matter, sister (says she, being much fright- ened), an’t you well? , Yo. sist. No (says she), lend me your bottle. [She gives her a little bottle to smell to, and she began to come to herself.] Lid. sist. What was the matter, sister, was you frightened ? Yo. sist. I was a little disordered. Eid. sist. What was it? did those men that rode by say anything to affront you? Yo. sist. One of them did: did not you see them? Eid. sist. No; I heard somebody ride by, but my head was down, looking for my fan: why, who was it? it was not Mr. , was it? Yo. sist. Oh! yes, it was; let us go back, sister, I entreat you; I am very ill. Eild. sist. Why, we have a long way back, and we are almost at Hampstead now; we had better go tomy aunt’s; we shall be there presently. Yo. sist. Well, let us then bid him drive apace. Eid. sist. Alas! there he is, a little before us. [She calls to the coachman to drive apace, and looking out of the coach, she saw the gentleman riding softly with only two servants, a little way off the coach.] Yo. sist. If he come again to the coach-side, and offer to speak, I beg of you, sister, do you answer him, for I will not speak one word to him. ¥ Lid. sist. He is gone now a great way off. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 93 (She looks out of the coach again.] [They soon came to their aunt’s house, and went in, the coach standing at the door: after they had been there a quarter of an hour, the gentleman, who knew well enough where they were, came to the house, and sent in their footman to tell the eldest sister he was there, and desired the favor to speak two or three words with her. The servant had led him into a parlor, and the young lady came down to him in a few minutes; he told her, that before he entered into any discourse, he must assure her of two things: First, ’ That his overtaking them upon the road was purely accidental, and without the least design, as she might easily be satisfied by his servants and baggage; for he was just setting out on a journey of above a bundred miles, and should not return under three weeks at least. And, secondly, That he had no design in calling there, to move anything to her sister concerning the old affair, but only to have two or three words with her relating to himself. You know, sister, says he, for I must still give you that name of respect, upon what terms your sister and I parted; and, as I promised her I would wait on her again and did not, J have been very uneasy lest she might think I have showed her some disrespect, and that I took ill what she said to me; and truly for some time so I did. She an- swered, coldly, that she believed her sister had not at all been dissa- tisfied at his not coming again. No, madam, says he, I believe that, by the manner of the dismiss she had given me: but, however, I would not be rude to her, whatever she thought fit to say to me. She returned, and with a little more concern than before, that she hoped, however her sister had thought fit not to go on with what was proposed, yet that she had not been rude to him. No, madam, says he, not rude. Sir, says she, as you had offered nothing to my sister, but what was, like yourself, very honorable, I am sure she does not so ill understand herself as offer any thing unbecoming to you. He returned, with a very obliging way of speaking, that her sister understood herself perfectly well; and I assure you, says he, she understood my character better than I did myself. I do not rightly take your meaning, sir, said she; my sister could make no objection to your character. Madam, said he, you know very well upon what foundation your sister altered her mind, and absolutely refused any further treaty with me, viz. That I was a profane, 94 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. wicked, irreligious creature. The fact was true, I owned it to her, that I neither had any knowledge of religion, or desired any, for which I was a very great brute. I think you were very sincere, sir, said she. O madam, said he, I do not say I was a brute for owning it, but I was a brute for living in that horrid manner, and yet thinking that any sober woman could entertain a thought of having me. I am very sorry, said the lady, it happened so. Iam very glad, madam, that she treated me so, replied he, and shall love her ten thousand times better for it, if that be possible, than ever I did before. Says she to him again, sir, you are pleased to banter a little. No, sister, says he, I don’t banter ; and my stopping to speak with you was for this reason ; I do not ask to speak with your sister, but I beg you will tell her from me very seriously, that she has been a better instructor to me than my father or mother, or all the tutors and friends I have had in my life; she has convinced me that I was a monster, a scandalous fellow that ought to have been ashamed to pretend to a woman that had the least sense of her education, or of him that made her. I have reason to give thanks to God every day T live, that ever I saw her face, and that I had that repulse from her. Tell her I recommend it to her, to preserve that noble, heavenly resolution, which she said, she had taken up, viz. never to marry any but a religious man: she is undone if she break it; and though I am never able to deserve her, yet I will always think of her, as the mother of all that is or ever will be good in me, and value the memory of her accordingly! He waited no answer, but with all possible civility, took his leave, and his horses being at the door, took horse and went away. She waited on him to the door, and, as he was paying his respects to her, sitting on his horse, he said to her, Dear madam, I hope you wil] give your.sister a particular account of what I have said to you. She answered she would not fail to do it with all the exactness possible. en [As soon as he was gone, she ran up to her sister, but before she could speak to ber, her youngest sister cried out to her, Sister, before you speak, do not ask me to go down; for I will not see him.] Eld. sist. Don’t beso hasty, he did not desire to see you ; he’s gone. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 95 Yo. sist. Ig he gone? [She observed, for all she was so warm at first, that when she said he did not desire to see her, she changed her countenance a little, and more when she said he was gorie.] Eid. sist. Truly, sister, I don’t think it is fit you should see him; I see by you, if he was to talk one hour with you, you’d lose all your resolution. Yo. sist. Perhaps that’s the reason why I resolved not to see him; won't you allow me to know my own weakness? Is it not enough: that I have conquered myself once. Eild. sist. Yes, J allow it; and that you act a very prudent part; for I know you struggle with your own affections; I do not desire to press you, and never did. Yo. sist. I can better keep my resolution of not seeing him, than perhaps I might my resolution of not marrying him, if I saw him; though I know I am ruined if I have him. Eid. sist. As he is now, I don’t know whether you would or no; there’s a strange alteration in him. Yo. sist. What do you mean by an alteration? Hild. sist. Why he is quite another man; he talks like a man quite changed ; you would have been surprised at him. Yo. sist. Oh! has he a mind to put a trick upon me? No, no, ’tis too late now. Eid. sist. What trick do you mean ? Yo. sist. Oh! he told me he could play the hypocrite most nicely, and was sure he could deceive me; but it won’t do; I am prepared for that. : Eld. sist. J am sure he was no hypocrite before, he was too plain before: and I do not see why you should say he’s a hypocrite now. Yo. sist. Because he told me he would be so; he acknowledged he had shown more honesty than discretion before, and was sorry for it; and that if he was to begin again, he would take just the contrary course. Eld. sist. Well, I dare say, he is no hypocrite now, any more than he was before. Yo. sist. I won't trust him. Eld. sist. But you may give me leave to tell the substance of his discourse. 36 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Yo. sist. Dear sister, do not be drawn into lay snares for me? you would not be willing to have me deceived; why should you assist in it? £ desire to hear nothing of it. Lilld. sist. That’s very disobliging, sister, to me; would I assist any man to deceive you that have so much applauded your resolu- tion not to be deceived ? Yo. sist. Nay, and assisted me too in withstanding the importu- nities of my own affections, or else I believe I had not been able to have supported my sense of duty; and therefore, I wonder you should forsake me now. Aunt. Child, do not press your sister to hear anything; I must confess her case is wonderful nice; she loves the gentleman, she does not stick to acknowledge it; she has great scruples on her thoughts about her duty to her father, and they all sway on the same side: her father frights her with violent words, and hard usage, and threatenings of turning her out of doors; against all this she stands single in obedience to her conscience, I think we should assist her. Eid. sist. Dear madam, if my sister was not here, I would say a great deal more; I think she has acted the noblest part in its kind that any young body ever did; I wish I may be able to preserve such a resolution, if ever it should be my case; and I am sure I should be far from discouraging her; but what I was going to tell her was nothing to discourage her; I wish she would let me tell it you first. Yo. sist. With all my heart, tell it my aunt; I'll withdraw. [She goes out of the room, and the eldest sister tells her aunt what the gentleman had said.] Aunt. Well, niece, I do think of the two it may be still better not to tell it your sister; let us lay it up in our hearts; if it be true, and he is a reformed man, we shall perhaps hear more of him; if not, to persuade her he is really changed, is but to make her love him more, without knowing whether he thinks any more of her or no, and that can be of no service to her. Lild, sist. I submit, madam, to your directions, but then I break my promise. Aunt. You may find a time for that too. [The discourse broke off here, and her aunt finding the young lady RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 97 very ill and disturbed, desired her sister to leave her there for a few days, to tell her father how ill she was, and that she thought the country might divert her a little; but that if he desired her to come home, she would return whenever he pleased. Her eldest sister did so; but all the answer she got was, she might stay there for ever, if she would, he never desired to be troubled with her any more.] DIALOGUE IV. Tue former dialogue having put an end to the courtship between the gentleman and his mistress for the present, and there being some interval of time between those things and the remaining part of the story, that interval is filled up with another little affair in the same family of still a nicer nature than the other, though not carried so far. The father had frequently discoursed these things with his eldest daughter, in the case of her sister, as is to be seen in the last dialogue, and found, by her discourse, that she was pretty much of her sister’s mind, in the matter of choosing a husband: but having a gentleman in his thoughts for her, who had the character of a very sober, religious person, he made no question but he should dispose of his daughter both to her satisfaction and his own. It was with a view to this design, that he had jested with her in one of their last discourses, that he had a religious husband in store for her, and that he hoped he should give her no occasion to play the fool, as her sister had done. In consequence of this, he took occasion to tell her one evening after supper, that what he had spoken in a way of jest to her at such a time, was really no jest in his own thoughts; that he had been spoken to by a certain gentleman, a considerable merchant in the city, whose eldest son had an inclination to pay his respects to her; and I assure you, my dear, says the father, he has the character of a very sober, religious gentleman; and, I am sure, his father and mother are very good people: indeed the whole family are noted for a religious family, and I know no family in the whole city that have a better character. She made him no answer at all, till he began with her again. 5 98 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Why are you so silent, child, said her father ; have you nothing to say? Methinks when I look back on the disorder which the obsti- nacy of your sister has put us all in, I would be glad to have every difficulty removed beforehand with you, and therefore I speak early, that if you have any objections I may hear them, and not be driven afterwards to ask people pardon, for ill usage which I have had no hand in; and I would have you use your freedom now, that I may take nothing ill from you afterwards. And thus he pressed her to speak. Daughter. I am in no haste, sir, to marry; the times terrify me; the education, the manners, the conduct of gentlemen is now so uni- versally loose, that I think for a young woman to marry, is like a horse rushing into the battle; I have no courage so much as to think of it. Father. But there are a great many sober, civilized, young gentle- men in the world: it is hard to reproach them all, because many of them are wicked. Da. Sir, it is those civilized people which I speak of; for even those who now pass for sober, are not like what it was formerly. When you look narrowly among them as they are in the gross, there are ten rakes tu one sober man: so, among the sober men, that are called civilized men, and whose morals will bear any character, there are ten Atheists to one religious man; and which is worse than all the rest, if a woman finds a religious man, it is three to one again, whether he agrees with her in principles; and so she is in danger of being undone, even in’ the best. Fa, I never heard the like! Why, what are my daughters made of? What, is nothing good enough in the world for you? If youall go on such niceties J must never more think of marrying any of you. Da. You had rather, Sir, not think of it, I dare say, than think of seeing us miserable. fa, Why, there is not a man upon earth can please you, as you have stated it. Da. Providence will either settle me as I would be settled, Sir, or will, I hope, dispose you to be as well satisfied with my present con- dition as I am. Fa, Why, it seems, you are gone mad, farther than your distracted sister. Da. I hope, sir, I am in my senses, and shall be kept so. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 99 Fa, Why, it seems a religious husband won’t please? What is it you would have? Da. I desire, Sir, to live as I am, at least till something offers, which is fit for me to accept. fa. What do you call fit, child? What can be fit in your way of talking. Da. When my judgment and conscience are satisfied, sir, I believe my fancy will not be very troublesome to you. If I must marry, sir, I would have it be so, as I may expect God’s blessing and my father’s. fa. J tell you nothing in the nation will satisfy your jndgment and conscience, as you call it, if the notion you have of things be true. Da. Then I am very well satisfied to remain as I am. fa. That’s ungrateful to your father’s care for you. Da, T am sure, sir, I would not be ungrateful, nor undutiful to you; but I know not what you would have me do. Fa. I would have you see this gentleman that I have proposed to you. Da, I shall submit to anything you command me, Sir, that is not a breach of my duty to God; I hope you will desire nothing of me, that I cannot do with a quiet mind. Fa. Well, you may see him; I hope that can be no harm. Da. Tf you will please to let me know, then, how far you allow me to be in my own disposal, and how far not; and whether I have the liberty to refuse him if I do not like him. Fa. Yes, if you resolve to use your judgment, and not refuse him before you see him, but give good reasons for what you do. Da, I think, sir, I ought to have a negative voice, without being obliged to dispute my reasons with my father; for that is just bringing me into the same condition with my sister. Her reasons are good to her, but not to you, sir; and so you take her conscience of duty to God, to be a contempt of her duty to you; I would not be run into the same snare. Fa. You are mighty positive in your demanding a negative voice against your father. Da, But I had better know my case beforehand, that I may not insist upon more than is my right, and offend you, sir, in seeming to eucroach upon your government, 100 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Fa, Let me know, then, what your demand is. Da. Sir, I think, when you propose marrying to me, the discourse of portion and settlement is in your province, and I have nothing to do with it; but I think I ought not to be forced to like or dislike, receive or refuse the person, and that absolutely. Fa, What, without showing any reasons ? Da. No; I ought, without doubt, to tell my father my objections, and to give a due force to all the arguments my father may use to satisfy. my doubts, but I ought not to be forced to like, even though I could not maintain my reasons. Fa,. And you capitulate with me for this liberty, before you see this gentleman, do you? Da. No, sir, I do not capitulate with you; but I hope you will, of your own accord, grant me the liberty which the nature of the thing calls for; that if I must see the gentleman, I may have the freedom to take or refuse : if not, there is no need to see him; I may be given by contract, and marry by proxy, as the great people (fools, I should say) do, as well as by treaty. Fa, Well, well, I an’t a going to give you, nor to sell you; if you won’t have him, you may let him alone. Da, That’s all I desire, sir; with this addition only, viz. that my father will not be displeased or disobliged, whether I take or leave. fa. I can’t promise you that, indeed, daughter. Da, Then I beg of you, sir, I may never see him at all. Fa. Very well; then it shall be so, you shall never see him at all. I find you are all alike; you may look out for yourselves, if you will. [He rises up in a passion, and goes away, but comes in again presently.] But it may be, I-may not like your choosing any more than you like mine. [Her father returns.] Fa. I wonder what it is you would have me do in such a case as this: here is a match proposed to your sister; how she has treated me you know. Now I have a proposal te you, where the grand objection is removed ; what can you desire of a father ? Da. I desire only, that if you think fit to discourse such things as these with us, we might be able to speak for ourselves without discomposing you; we have not a mother to stand between, and make our objections, and to hear our reasons. Fa, Well, that’s true [she weeps, and that moves him, especially RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 101 speakiug of her mother]; it is my loss as well as yours; come let me hear, however, if you have any objection against the person J pro-. pose now, tell it me? I'll endeavor not to be warm. Da. I can have no objection to a man J never saw, or heard of; but I think we should have a liberty to refuse, sir, when we come to discourse of such a thing with the person; and that is all I ask, and that we may not disoblige you, if we use that liberty ; and with- out that liberty, I desire you will be pleased never to make any pro- posal at all to me; and if ever I make one myself, I will be content to be denied. Fa. You are very positive. Da. It seems to be so reasonable, sir, that I cannot think any children can ask less, or any father think it is too hard; it is the children that are to feel the consequences of the mistake if there be any. Fa. Well, that’s true; come then, if you will talk with this gen- tleman, you shall have your liberty to take him, or leave him; have you any objection to make beforehand? if you have, let me know it; that will prevent all occasions of disgust. Da. Willgyou please to hear me with patience, sir? Fa. Yes, I will, if I can. Da. You have heard so much said by me, sir, in my sister’s behalf, that you must necessarily believe I am of the same opinion; that is to say, that I would not marry a man that made no profession of re- ligion upon any account whatsoever, were his estate, his person, his sobriety, his qualifications ever so inviting. I need not give reasons for this, sir; what I have said, what my sister and my aunts have said on that account, is enough; but it is my misfortune, sir, to have another scruple beyond all this, and which the case of my sister gave no occasion to mention. Fa. Very well; then you intend to be more troublesome than your sister, I find. 2 Da. I hope not, sir, because I give my scruples in beforehand; and if anything offers to you abroad, that will shock the foundation I lay down, I hope you'll not hearken to it on any account, and then you will have no occasion to say I am troublesome. Fa. Well, let’s hear it, however. Da. Why, sir, as I will never marry any man, who does not make 102 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. some profession of religion, however rich or agreeable, handsome or sober he is; so, however serious or religious he is, I will never mar- ry any man, whose principles, opinion, and way of worship, shall not agree with my own. fa, And is that your resolution? Da. I hope it is well grounded, sir, and that you will not disap- prove my reasons for it when you please to hear them calmly, and to bear with my mean way of arguing them. Fa, I think I was much in the right to say you would be more troublesome than your sister; however, you do your sister some kindness in it, for this extravagant humor makes her’s look a thou- sand times more reasonable than it did before. Da. That’s what I foresaw, sir, viz. that I shall remove your dis- pleasure from my sister, and bring it down upon myself; but I can- not help it. Fa. Well, I shall relieve myself against all your humors; [ll talk no more of settling any of you, till your curiosity is abated. [Though her father seemed to give it over thus in discourse with his daughter, yet he had gone farther with the gentleman that had made the proposal, than he had told her; and had invited the father and mother to dinner the next day, with an intent that?they should see and be acquainted with his daughters; supposing at the same time, that they would bring the young gentleman with them. They came to dinner accordingly; but, as the father knew well enough that the education of their son was in a different way from that of his daughter, and that she had declared herself so positively in that part, he had desired them privately not to bring their son to dinner: when they were come, and before his daughter was called in, the father told them how the case stood between him and his eldest daughter, and that he saw no remedy but this, that, as he had not told her anything of the design of his invitation, or that they were the family he had designed her a husband out of; so, if they thought fit to turn their eyes to his second daughter, he was in hopes she would have more wit than to run into the ridiculous scruples of the eldest. They presently agreed, that it was not at all reasonable to force the inclination of the young lady ; that they saw no room to bring the opinions in religion together, in their children, their op- ions at that time differing extremely, and their son being as positive: RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 103 they believed, as his daughter ; so they said with all their hearts, if their son could fancy the second daughter as well, it should be the same thing to them; however, the mother of the young gentleman asked him, if he would give her leave to enter into discourse with his daughter upon the subject of her seruples? He told her, with all his heart, for he would be glad to have her change her mind : be- cause, as on the one hand, he should be very well satisfied to bring them together, so he really thought her notions were empty and simple, and should be glad she was made wiser; but then, madam, says he, you must not discover the real design, for, if you do, she will be backward to speak freely. She agreed to that, and so this private discourse ended; and his daughters being introduced, and the usual ceremonies passed, they went to dinner, the young ladies knowing nothing of the design of their being invited. The father and mother were charmed at the conduct of the young women, their person and manner, the modesty of their behavior, and above all the politeness and pertinence of their discourse; and some- thing happening to be said about marrying, the father falls te rally- ing his daughters upon their nicety in that point, that nothing would serve them but religious men. There is my daughter ——, says he, (pointing to his youngest) I think nothing will do for her but a par- son ; she refused a gentleman of £2,000 a-year the other day, beeause he was not religious enough for her. No, madam, says his daughter, my father means, because he had no religion at all; hardly so much as a coach horse; for a coach horse often knows the way to the church door. That alters the case quite, said madam; why, sir, says she, you would not have married your daughter to a brute! a man without religion is a worse brute than a horse! for the horse obeys the dic- tates of nature, but an Atheist acts against reason, nature, and com- mon sense. I would not marry a child of mine toa man of 0 religion, if he had ten thousand pounds a-year. Well, says he, there’s my daughter —— (pointing to his eldest), she goes farther; she is not satisfied with a religious husband, but she must have one of her own opinion in religion, that goes to the church where she goes to church, and worships just as she worships - I don’t think she will ever be pleased while she lives. Madam, says the eldest, I expected my father would be upon my 104 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. bones next: my father talks of my opinion, as if I was something that nobody else is; as if I was one of the new prophets, or of some strange, singular opinion, something monstrous in religion: all I say is, that as I profess nothing but what I think is right, and what thousands agree with me in, if ever I do marry, as I suppose I never shall, why should I not choose to have my husband and IJ of the same opinion, that we may serve God together. Madam, says the old lady, your father does but jest with you; he can never oppose so reasonable a thing as that: I must confess, I think it is much to be desired; I will not say but there is a possi- bility of doing well without it; it may not be sin; but I own, it is better, if it can be so. I am sure it would be asin in me, says the daughter, because it would be against my conscience. Nay, madam, says the other, that’s true; and you are very much in the right to insist upon it, if it be so; and, no doubt, your father will be far from offering anything that may seem to be a violence upon your conscience. I offer violence, madam! says the father, nay, they are above that; they take upon them to say I will and I won't to their father; I as- sure you they are past my offering violence to them. In nothing, madam, but this crabbed business of marrying, says the daughter, and there indeed we do take some liberty with my father. Well, sir, says the old lady, you must allow liberty there; marri- age is a case for life, and must be well considered; and the young ladies are to bear it, fall it how it will, you know, for better or worse: they had need be allowed some liberty there. Besides, madam, says the youngest, all the liberty we take is in negatives only; we don’t offer to take anybody that my father don’t like, only we don’t care to take such as we don’t like ourselves The old gentleman then put in: Upon my word, sir, says he, I think your daughters are in the right; for certainly, though we may refuse to let them marry where they may choose, yet I can’t think we should deny them the liberty to refuse what we may offer; or else we may as well give them in marriage, as was done in old days, and never let them see one another. The eldest sister turned her head towards her father at this, but said nothing. RELIG{OUS COURTSHIP. 105 I understand you, Betty, says her father; but she said nothing still, and the old lady, finding the discourse-pinched a little hard, be- +gan some other talk, and soon after, the men withdrawing, left the ladies together. When the men were gone; hark ye, says the old gentlewoman, I was willing to break off the discourse just now, because I thought it was offensive to your father; but pray let me talk a little more to you, madam: I fully approve the resolution of your youngest sister, but methinks yours is a little uncharitable, speaking to the eldest. Eid. sist. I was very much obliged to you, madam, for breaking oft the discourse, for my father is passionate, and is sometimes so out of temper with us upon these points, that we are greatly grieved at it, and particularly that he will not give us leave to speak. Yo. sist. J am sure it has almost broke my heart. Old Lady. I am sorry for it; for indeed I think yours is nothing but what every woman that is a Christian ought to think herself obliged to; what dreadful doings must there be, when a religious woman marries a wretch that is a despiser of God! a Christian to be linked to an infidel! one that serves God to be joined to one of God’s enemies! and then to love such a man, too! the very thought is enough to fill one with confusion! take it which way you will, it is equally dismal. First to be married to him, and not love him, that’s a hell upon earth! and to love him! one that we must reflect on as a limb of the devil! a son of perdition! to embrace one that God abhors! to have the affections bound to one that God hates! what contradictions are these! what horror must fill the soul while they live! and what dreadful thoughts must crowd in one’s mind, if such aman should come to die before us! Dear young lady, says she, you are happy that you could defend yourself against such a proposal. Eld. sist. But, madam, your charge upon me is a little hard; I think the arguments are as strong almost on my part as my sister’s, though they are of another nature. Old Lady. No, I can’t say so, madam; it is true, there is some- thing to be said in your case, but nothing so essential as in the other ; and as I said, methinks it looks as if you wanted charity; I hope, child, you do not think all opinions but your own are fatal to be professed ? Eld. sist. No, madam, not at all: I hope there are good people of 5* 106 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. all persuasions; but if I did not think my own best, how could I an; swer the cleaving to it myself? Old Lady. So far you are right. « Eid. sist. Then, madam, though in charity I ought to allow others to be good Christians, and that I should, and do keep up a friendly correspondence with many who dissent from my judgment in reli- gious matters, yet there is a great deal of difference between charity to them, and union with them. Old Lady. You have studied the point thoroughly, I perceive; I. understand you perfectly; pray go on. Fild. sist, Madam, in discourse with my father, I could never use any freedom, or obtain leave to propose my scruples, with the rea- sons of them; but I hope you will allow me liberty. Old Lady. With all my heart, for I am glad to enter into so curious a debate with you. Eid. sist. Religion, madam, without doors is one thing, religion within doors is another. In the town, among my acquaintance, and in the neighborhood, a due charity to every one is what I think the Christian principle calls for, dnd I converse freely with good people of every opinion, extending charity to all in lowliness of mind, esteeming every one better than myself; but within doors, the case alters; family religion is asociable thing, and God should be wor- shiped there with one heart, and with one voice; there can be no separation there, without a dreadful breach both of charity and duty. : Old Lady. You start a new thing to me, indeed, and it is some- what surprising. Eld. sist. It may be true, madam, that there may be divers opin- jons in the nation without breach of charity; but I believe it is impossible it should be so in a family without breach of affection ; what union, what openness of desires, what perfect agreement (with- outgwhich, a man and wife can never be said to discharge the duty of their relation) can there be where there is a diversity of worship, a clashing of opinions, and an opposition of principles ? Old Lady. But, child, you carry it too high; if they differ in prin- ciples, indeed, there is something to be said; but we are talking of a difference in opinion only, where the fundamentals may be the same. Eild, sist. Madam, I recall the word principles then, and join RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 107 with you to confine it to opinion only; but it is the same thing in its proportion; the union can never be perfect, while the differing sentiments of things leave room for disputes between them; for ex- ample, madam, the differing forms of worship; one will pray by a book only, the other without a book wholly; this is as light a differ- ence as can be spoken of. But how shall God be worshiped with the united voice and affections of the whole family even in this case? what helps will two such relations be to one another, in praying to _God either by themselves, or with their families? Old Lady. Upon my word, you sensibly affect me now with it. Hild sist. It is not enough, madam, that they being sincerely reli- gious apart, shall worship God in their own separate way, though better so than not at all; but the zeal, the affection, the uniting their hearts in their worship, their praying with and for one another: this, alas! is all lost. Then, say it be in the public worship, there they make a woful separation; God, that has made them one, is served by them as two; God has joined them together, and they part asunder in their serving him; God has made them one: how does this consist, madam? Old Lady. I see you are full in it. Eid sist. Jn their public worship, sacraments, etc. neither one heart er one voice goes with their worship; though they communicate in the same ordinance, they set up two altars; one worships here, and one there; and though their faces are both set heavenwards, per- haps they turn back to back as soon as they go out of their doors to the public worship of God. Old Lady. You are very clear in it, indeed, madam. Eld sist. This is not all, madam, there are several family circum- stances besides these, which make union of opinion absolutely neces- sary: as first, family worship is a thing, without which families, however privately and separately devout, are coupled with heathens, Jer. x. 25. Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen, and upon the fam- ilies which call not upon thy name: whatever there may be in pub- lic worship, there should always be an exact harmony in private: and how can this be, where either of them dissents from the manner ? If there is a discord in the manner, there can be no concord in the per- formance, no union in the affections; in a word, their prayers will be hindered ; and who would be thus unequally yoked. Old Lady. I expected you would name that scripture, though it 108 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. was certain that was spoken principally to those who married with unbelievers, which is a different case. ld. sist. Well, madam, we come to another case: suppose the husband and wife we are speaking of have children, what foundation of eternal schism is there in the family! some of the children adhere to the father, some to the mother; some worship in this mount, and some nowhere but at Jerusalem; some go with the father, some with the mother; some kneel down with the father, some with the mother ; till, as they grow up, they really learn not to kneel down at all : family education, united instruction, caution, example, they are all dreadfully mangled and divided, till in the end they come to mothing; and the children grow out of government, past instruction, and all lost. These, madam, are some of the reasons, I would have given my father (if he would have had patience with me), why, in his late proposal he had to make, I desired that I might be at liberty to choose by my own principles, and not at random, as too many do. Old Lady. But, madam, do you not allow, that if both parties are sincerely pious and religious, that they may make allowances to one another, and make conscience of hindering and pulling back one an- other in the duties of religion ? Elld. sist. Truly, madam, as to that, two things offer to my view, for I have often considered them both: First, the more sincere in religion either of them is, the more fixed in principle and opinion it’s likely they will be, and the farther from making abatements to one another: and especially, secondly, in the great article of educating and instructing their children; for what tender mother, that having fixed her opinion, as she thinks, in the best manner and way, could bear not to have their children brought up in the same sentiments of reli- gion, which she thinks most agreeable to the revealed will of God? And the more conscientious and religious she was, the more steadily she would cleave to it as her duty; and the like of the man: so that here would be a constant heart-burning and uneasiness, Old Lady. Truly, madam, I think your reasons good, and you guard them so well with self-evident conclusions, that I cannot think your father can desire you to break through them: if you think it will be for your service, Pll mention it again to him. Eld. sist. If you do, madam, I desire to be absent, he will not hear it from me. Old Lady. Let me alone for that, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 109 [When the old lady had done this conversation, she began to call for her husband and the father ; so the young ladies withdrew : when she was come to them, she applied herself to the father and the hus- band in a few words.] Wife. Upon my word, says she to her husband, this young lady has more religion in her than all of us, and a clearer sight into the particular parts of a religious life, than any that ever I met with before. Fa. Why, says the father, have you had a battle with my Betty? Wife. No, upon my word, we have had no battles; I have not been able to open my mouth against one word she says; she is able to run down a whole society of doctors in these points; I am a per- fect convert to all she says, and though J wish from my soul my son had such a wife, yet I would not for the world they should come together, at the price of putting the least violence upon such noble principles, so solidly established and so firmly men to: and I defy all mankind to confute her: Hus. You prompt my curiosity: I wish you could tell us a little of the story. Wife. A little! I can easily repeat it to you; it is impossible I should forget it: but it may be you, sir, turning to the father, may not care to hear it. ; Fa. Yes, yes; I would very willingly hear it, though I did not care to hear it from her. Wife. Well then——[Here she gives them a full account of all the discourse above.] Hus, I never heard anything more solid, and intimating a tho- rough sense of religion in my life; I wish my son and she were both of the same opinion, then: for a woman of such principles can never be fatally mistaken in opinion. Fa, I confess I would never give her an opportunity to explain her- self thus with me; but I assure youl am so moved with it that I never will offer to impose upon her again, Wife. Then, you see, sir, it was an error to be so angry with your child, as not to hear her ; I fear you have done so with both of them. Fa. Truly I have; but I say now I have been wrong to them both; and indeed more to my youngest daughter than to my eldest: for, she refused the gentleman because he really had no religion at all, and yet I was in a violent passion with her. 110 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Wife. Nay, that was hard indeed: for, if there be all this to be said, why a woman should not marry a man of a different opinion in religion, there must be much more to be said why she should not marry one that despises religion; and this indeed I said to your youngest daughter, applauding her conduct, though I did not know that you had used her hardly on that account. Fa. I would be obliged to you, madam, to let me know what dis- course you had with her too, for that affair is still depending. Wife. With all my heart; my discourse was not long [She repeats what she had said to the youngest daughter.] Fa, Indeed, madam, you are right; the thing is so indeed; but he was a pretty gentleman, and had avery noble estate, and I was mightily pleased with the thoughts of the match, and that made me the more passionate with the child than I should otherwise have been. Wife.. But how came she to know he was such a one? Fa. Truly, his own folly too; he told her so directly, in so many words; owned he had not troubled his head about religion, and did not intend it; made a banter and jest of religion in general: told her it was a road he had never travelled, and that he intended to choose a wife first, and then perhaps he might choose his religion. Wife. Nay, then either he had no conduct or no affection for her. Fa. As to the last, he not only professed a great deal of affection, but chose her out from the rest; and you know she is the youngest (for I designed my eldest for him), and made her the particular mis- tress of his choice; and I verily believe loved her very well; nay, the girl cannot. deny but she had a kindness for him; and indeed he is a most lovely gentleman. Wife. She has acted a noble part indeed, and the more affection she really had for him, the more of a Christian she has shown in her conduct. a. So you would say indeed, if you knew all her conduct, and knew the person too. Wife. If it be not improper, I should be glad to know the person. Fa. Madam, I should be loth to name him to his prejudice; and, if you think it will be so, I hope you will let it go no farther. Wife. I promise it shall never go out of my mouth without your leave. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 111 Fa. Why, it is young Mr. , a gentleman I believe you have heard of. Wife. Heard of him! we know him intimately well; but I am surprised at it, upon an account that I believe will surprise you too. Fa. What can that be? Wife. Why, it is true, that gentleman had no religion; poor gen- tleman! he came of a most unhappy stock; there never was any re- ligion in the family ; but yet this may be said of him, he was a mo- dest, sober, well-behaved gentleman; you never heard an ill word come out of his mouth, nor found any indecent action in his beha- vior. Fa, That’s true, and I thought that a great matter, as the youth go now. Wife. But I can tell you more news than that of him; he is be- come the most pious, serious, religious gentleman in all the country. Fa. You surprise me indeed, now. Wife. I assure you, it is no copy of his countenance; it is known, and he is valued and honored for it by all the gentlemen round him, and he behaves himself with so much humility, and so much serious gravity, that in short, it is the wonder and surprise of all that know him. as Fa, Pray, how long has this alteration appeared in him ?. Wife. About three months, I believe. Fa. 1 wish you had told my daughter this. Wife. It is impossible I should have brought such a thing in, that knew nothing of the circumstance. Fa. Nay, if you had, she would not have believed a word of it; on the contrary, she would have taken it all for a trick of mine, and that I had invited you hither on purpose to bring in such a story. Wife. Let me alone for that again another time. I hope you will give the young ladies leave to return this visit. I design to invite them to come and see me. [Upon this footing the discourse ended for a time; and all thoughts of the match for the eldest daughter with the son of that gentlewoman being laid aside for the present, the old lady, at parting, in a friendly manner invited the young ladies to her house, and they promised to come, and the father said aloud he would come and bring them. 112 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. It was not long before the young ladies put their father in mind of his appointment; for being mightily pleased with the old gentlewo- man, they had a great mind to pay the visit, that the acquaintance might be settled. Their father appointed the next day, but being in- terrupted just at the time he intended to go, he caused them to go without him, and send the coach back for him to come after them when his business was done. While they were here, the good old gentlewoman, who enter- tained them with great civility, diverted them with everthing she could think of; and, after abundance of other usual chat, they fell to talking the old stories over again about religious husbands, and the necessity there was to have both husband and wife join their endea- vors for propagating family religion. The youngest daughter re- peated her mother’s maxim: Madam, says she, it was a rule my mother gave us at her death, and which I see so much weight in, that I desire to make it the foundation upon which I would build all my prospects of happiness, viz. That a religious life is the only hea- ven upon earth. I have added some other things to it since, which my own observation directs me to, but which I believe you will allow to be in their degree just, such as these, viz. That a religious family is one of the greatest comforts of a religious life; that where hus- band and wife are not mutually, at least, if not ‘equally religious, there can never be truly a religious family : that, therefore, for a re- ligiously inclined woman to marry an irreligious husband, is to en- tail persecution upon herself as long as she lives. The old lady replied, I find, madam, as young as you are, you have studied this point very well. Indeed, madam, said the elder sister, my sister has had occasion for it; for she has been hard put to it, what with the of- fers of an extraordinary match, my father’s violent passion, and (among ourselves, madam), not a little the importunity of her own affec- tions, that, for my part, I must confess I wonder she has been able to stand her ground. They are three powerful arguments, I acknow- ledge, said the old lady. Pray, madam, as far as it may be proper, let me know something of the matter; you need not mention per- sons; I am not inquisitive on that score, I assure you. If my sister gives me leave, madam, says the eldest. The youngest said she left her at liberty. Why, then, madam, says she, my father——[Here she gives her an abridgment of the whole story, but without the RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 113 most extravagant part of her father’s passion, that it might not re- flect upon him.] Well, madam, says she, I will not say all my thoughts on this sur- prising story, because your sister is here; for it is a rule with me, never to praise any one to their face, or reproach any behind their backs, but it is an extraordinary story indeed; and, turning to the youngest sister, she said to her very seriously, I pray God fortify you, child, in such resolutions, and grant that you may have the true end of them fully answered; that, if ever you do marry, it may be to a man as uncommonly serious, pious, and sincere, as you have been inimitably resolute in refusing such great offers, for the want of it. Then, turning to her elder sister, says she, this surprising story puts me in mind of another story, which a very good man, an old acquaintance of ours, told me the other day, and which, they say, has just now happened to a young gentleman that‘he knows in the coun- try. It is a pretty way off, too, but he told us hisname. I believe my husband knows the name, and I tell you the story for your sis- ter’s encouragement. Who knows but she may be a means, by such unexampled conduct, as this of hers is, to bring the gentleman she has had upon her hands to some sense of his condition? There is a gentleman in that country, of a very good family, and of a very great estate, but young, and, I think he said, a ‘bachelor: he is not above six-and-twenty, and has between two and three thou- sand a-year; it seems he is a most accomplished, well-bred man, a handsome, charming person; and everything that could be said of a man to set him out, he said of him: he had, indeed, been of a family, he said, that had been eminently wicked, so that the very name of religion had scarce been heard of among them for some ages; and young master, said my friend, could not be said well to be worse than his father or grandfather who went before him. However, it happened, it seems, that he went to London; I think, says she, my friend said it was last winter, and when he came back, he was strangely melancholy and dejected, and quite altered in his conver- sation; instead of riding abroad and visiting the’ gentlemen, and receiving visits from them, he shunned all company, walked about his gardens and woods all alone till very late in the night, and all bis servants wondered what ailed him; that one night they were ix a great fright for him, knowing he was out on foot, and alone; wh .a 114 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. about ten o'clock at night, he came in with a poor, honest country fellow with him, that lived almost three miles off; that the next day he took that poor man home to his house, and sent for his wife and children, who all lived before in a poor cottage on the waste, and provided for them; gave the poor man a farm rent free for twelve years, which always went for £22 a-year, with a good house; lent him a stock for manuring it, too, and made him bailiff of the manor, and, in short, made a man of him. Whereupon everybody said, that the esquire had been in some great danger or other, and the poor man had saved his life. And when somebody happened to say as much to him one day, he answered, yes, that poor man had done more than saved his life, for he had saved his soul. It seems this poor laboring wretch, though miserable to the last degree as to the world, was yet known to be a most religious, serious Christian, and a very modest, humble, but knowing and sensible man, and he had been discoursing good things with him, and, from that time forward, the poor man was scarce ever from him; that it was observed by some of the servants, that the next morning after the poor man came home with him he came again, and brought a Bible with him, which was left in the young gentleman’s chamber, and that this poor man and he were often locked up an hour or two together, almost every day; the next market-day the poor man went to the next market-town, upon some business for the gentleman, and brought home a new Bible, and several other religious books, and that his master was continually reading them; in short, our friend tells us, said she, that he is become the most sober, religious Christ- ian, that, for a man of his fortune, and quality, bas ever been heard of, and that he is admired by all the country for it. I tell you this story, madam, turning to the youngest sister, to confirm you in your resolution, and to let you see, that there are some religious gentlemen in the world still, and that the gentlemen may be ashamed, when they pretend to say religion is below their quality ; for my friend says, that this gentleman is, with his religion, also the humblest, sweetest tempered creature in the world, ready to do good offices to the poorest in the country, and yet mannerly and agreeably pleasant with the greatest; and his little family is a pattern of virtue to all around them. Ay, madam, said the eldest, it is such a gentleman my sister would RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 115 have. But, says her sister, where are they to be found? I never expect it. Pray, madam, says the eldest sister, in what part of the world does this black swan, this unheard of, non-such thing of a gentleman live? I really forget the place, madam, says the old lady, but it is somewhere in Hampshire. She perceived, at that word, both the young ladies change a little, and looked at one another; so she turned her discourse off to some other subject, and left them in the dark, as to the name of the gen- tleman; for she perceived they both guessed at it, or suspected it. When they had taken their leave, and the two sisters were in the coach coming home, says the elder sister to the other, Did you observe Mrs. B——’s story of the gentleman in Hampshire? Yes, said the other, I did; and I believe you fancy it’s the same person we know of. It is very true, says the eldest, I did think so all the while she was telling the story; and I expected she would name him, but I was loath to ask her his name. I am glad you didn’t, says the other, for-I know no good it can be to me to hear it, one way or other, now he is gone. Why, would not you be glad to know that he was really such a one as she has described? says the eldest. Yes, truly, for his own sake I should, said the sister; but it is nothing to me now; I had rather never have. him mentioned at all to me, upon any occasion whatever. -* After they were come home, their father, who had been engaged all the while, had sent their coach back for them, with an excuse for his not coming, was very inquisitive to know of them, what dis- course they had had; and his eldest daughter telling him one story and another story, he would cry, Well, was that all? For he expected she had broke the thing to them. No, says the eldest, she told us a strange story in Hampshire; and with that repeated the passage word for word. Her father took no notice of it that time, but two or three days after, as they were at supper, he says to his eldest daughter, Betty, who do you think the gentleman in Hamp- shire is, that Mrs. B—— told you the story of? I cannot tell, says she; pray who was it? even as I thought when you told me of it, said the father, for I had heard something of it before; it 1s nobody else but Mr. , the same your wise sister there thought fit to treat with so much ill manners. Nay, sir, says the eldest, do not say my sister treated him with ill 116 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. manners; for he owns the contrary to that himself; but how are you sure of it, sir, that itishe? Why, I have had the story, says her father, from her husband, who is greatly affected at it, and he named his name to me, not knowing in the least that I know anything of him. Truly, said the eldest, I am very glad of it for his sake; but it does not signify a farthing to her now; for if he was to come to her again to-morrow, with all his sobriety and reformation about him, she would have nothing to say to him. : Why so, child, says the father, did you not own she loved him? Yes, says,the daughter, before she came to know what a creature he was. Well then, says the father, if that be removed, and he is become another man, she will love him again : and she had no other objection against him, had she? No, sir, says the daughter, she had no other objection; but she will never believe him, let his pretences to reli- gion be what they will. Why so? says the father. Because, sir, he told her that if he had known her mind, he would have pretended to a world of reformation and religion, and that he did not doubt but he could be hypocrite enough to cheat her. Nay, if he has been so foolish, 1 know not what to say to it, says the father; let it rest as it is; if she will not have him, whether he be religious or not religious, then the objection of his not being religious, was a sham and a cloak, and she stands out in mere obsti- nacy against her own interest, purely to affront her father; let her go on, till she comes to be convinced by her own misfortune; [ll meddle no more about it. The eldest sister failed not to relate this story very particularly to her sister: who, very gravely musing on the particulars, answered her sister thus, after several other sober and religious expressions. Dear sister, says she, this thing has been affliction enough to me; but my father’s conduct has always made it double; because he cannot talk of it without resentment and unkindness; if it be really so, that this isthe gentleman Mrs. —— told us the story of yester- day, I should rejoice; nay, though I am loath to be cheated, and what he said of playing the hypocrite with me, has made me the more backward to give credit to outsides; yet, were I sure it was a real work of God in him, and that he was become a religious gentle- man, you know I have affection enough to rejoice on my own account, and to entertain him after another manner than before: but RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 117 yet two things make it still remote for me, Firs, that I have no demonstration of the truth of the fact: and, Secondly, that, if it is so, he has made no step towards me, and perhaps never may; and you know, sister, continued she, it is no business of mine, till he does, Why, that’s true, says the eldest sister; but, what must be done then? Done! says she, let it alone; let it rest, till we hear something or other of it in the ordinary way of such things. But what must we do with my father? says the eldest, for he is always talking to me about it. Do! says the other, give the same answer to him from me as I do to you. Then, says the eldest, I am sure he never will rest till he brings it about again; for he is strangely intent upon it. Let that be as pleases God, I will be wholly neuter, says the youngest sister. Some time after this discourse, the father having some occasion for his health, went down to the bath, and taking all his daughters with him, he continued there some months; in which time they contracted an acquaintance with a lady and her two daughters, who came thither from Hampshire. The old lady had been a widow of a gentleman of quality, by whom she had two daughters, but was married to an eminent clergyman in the country where she lived; and they were all together at the bath, and lodged in the same apart- ments with these ladies. It happened one day after dinner, talking freely together about marrying religious husbands, and wives, the eldest daughter, as what is always much upon the mind will be in proportion much upon the tongue, insisted in discourse upon the misery of unequal matches, and how unhappy it was, either to husband or wife, when a religions, pious, sincere Christian, whether man or woman, was married to another, who had no sense of religion; and she gives a long account of arelation of her father’s, but without naming their aunt, how good a husband she had in all other respects, how comfortably and pleasantly they lived, but only for that one thing: and then she told them (still without naming anybody) how many odd tricks Sir James served his lady, and the like. 118 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Well, madam, says the old clergyman, I can tell you such a story of a lady in your country, as I believe you never heard the like. I do not know the woman, says the doctor, but I know the gentleman intimately well, and have had a great deal of religious conversation with him, upon the occasion I shall tell you of. He courted a young lady, says the doctor, but, whether she lived in our country or the city, or where, he is perfectly mute, only that he often tells her Christian name; and seeing he seems resolved to conceal her person, nobody will be so rude to press him on that head. The gentleman, says the doctor, is of a very good family, has a noble estate, a comely person, and a complete courtly education, and till this happened was almost always at London. His mistress must be little less than an angel in human shape, by his description; but that we give no heed to; for, madam, says the old doctor, you know, men in love give themselves a liberty that way: but, however, after all things were agreed, and the writings drawing, it seems she threw him off entirely, and refused him merely because she found he was a man of no religion. Says the eldest sister, how could she know that, sir; he was not so foolish to tell her so himself, I suppose. Yes, says the doctor, he did. Why, then, says the sister, I suppose he was indifferent whether he had her or no. Indeed, says the doc- tor, one would think so, and I said so to him: but he told me, that it was so far from that, that he had taken up his resolution never to have any other woman, if she were the richest, best, and most beau- tiful creature alive. Then, perhaps, the lady has a superior fortune to him, besides her other qualifications, says the sister? No, just the contrary, says the doctor. But, madam, says he, I’ll tell you the history of this gentle- man, if it is not too long for you; it is a story that cannot be unpro- fitable to any one to hear, especially to you, ladies, who have taken up such happy resolutions about marrying none but religious hus- bands. The ladies bowed, in token they desired him to go on with the story. So the doctor went on. Nothing touched this gentleman so near, says he, after he was gone from his mistress, as to reflect what kind of a wretch or mon- ster he was, that a virtuous young lady, and one who he had reason RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 119 to believe had no dislike of him, should be afraid to marry him for fear of being ruined, and that she should think, if she took him, she © declared war against heaven, and renounced all pretensions of duty to her Maker.—[Here he related the whole story, his talk with himself, the discourse at the chocolate-house, his retreat into the country, his happening to hear the poor countryman at prayer, his conversation with him upon the way, and his conduct afterwards, all in the manner as related before. ] We must suppose the sisters to have much less sense of religion than they were known to have, and particularly less sense of the case itself, in which it was easy to know they were nearly concerned, if they were not very much moved with the particulars of this story ; and no sooner had the doctor finished his relation, with some very handsome reflections upon it, than the sisters longed to withdraw, to compare their own thoughts together, where they could do it with freedom. But the eldest daughter went farther; for thougli perhaps her curiosity was not greater than her sister's, yet as her courage was greater, and her concerns in it less, she was resolved to get the name of this gentleman, if possible; accordingly, at length, she asked the doctor, if the name of this gentleman was a secret; No madam says the doctor, his name is no secret: it is Mr. ——, the eldest son of Sir Thomas ——, by whom he enjoys an estate of £2,000 a-year, and after his uncle, who is very old, he has near a thousand pounds a-year more entailed upon him. The two sisters had heard too much to continue any longer; the youngest especially, who pretending some indisposition, withdrew, and her sister soon after: when her sister came to her, she said, Well child, what do you say to this story? there’s no room to think there can be any design in this old gentleman, or any hypocrisy in the particulars if they are true. Her sister said never a word; but she found she had been crying, and that she was too full of it to speak; so she let her alone a while, till, after some time fetching a great sigh, which gave her passions some vent, says the youngest, Why, what do you say to it? I say toit! says the eldest sister, I can say neither less nor more to it than what - the two disciples said to one another going to Emmaus, about our Saviour’s discourse to them after he was gone, did not our hearts 120 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. burn within us when he talked to us? I am sure mine did, says she; “ay, and mine too, says the youngest. But it is all nothing to me now. Nay, says the eldest sister, if all the story be true it may be something to you still; for you see, the doctor says, he is resolved to have nobody else. I give no heed to that, says the youngest sis- ter, for the tables are quite turned now between us, and he ought to refuse me now, for the very reason that I refused him before; for I have no religion for such a convert as this, I am sure, any more than a man without any notionof a Deity had religion enough for me. Well, well, says her sister, let Providence, which brings all things to pass its own way, work as he sees fit; I dare say, as my aunt said, we shall hear more of it. They had very little discourse at that time but what ended thus; but the eldest sister had a great mind her father should hear the story too, if possible, before they left the place; and she resolved to take an opportunity to bring it about, if she could; but she was hap- pily prevented by the forwardness of her father to complain of his daughter’s nicety on all occasions: for, in discourse with the doctor and his lady, the young ladies on both sides being absent, he took a liberty to exclaim vehemently how foolish one of his daughters had been, and how she had obstinately cast off a gentleman of such and such qualifications, as before. My dear, says the doctor’s lady to him, pray tell Mr. —— the story you told the ladies yesterday. With all my heart, said the doctor; so he repeated the whole story. The father was exceedingly surprised at the particulars, but more when the doctor told him the name of the gentleman. However, he held his tongue, as it happened, and did not let the doctor know how near it related to his family; but in the evening, taking his opportunity, he calls his eldest daughter to him. Hark ye, Betty, says he, did the doctor tell you a story the other day of a gentleman in Hampshire? Yes, sir, says she. And was your sister by? says he. Yes, sir, says she. And do you know that this is the same Mr. —— that we know of? says her father. Yes, sir, says she, he told us.Ins name. Well, and what does your sister say to it, sayshe. She says little, sir, says ‘his daughter; but she cannot but be moved at it; for ’tis a surprising story. I dare say, says her father, I shall hear of him again; she won’t turn him off again, I hope; I am sure she does not deserve him now. She says so herself, says the daughter, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 121 that he ought to refuse her now for the same reason that she refused him. Well, says the father, we shall certainly hear of him again; I am fully persuaded he will have no rest till he comes to see her again. A few weeks after this they returned to London, and the eldest sister being impatient to see her aunt, and to give her some account of these things, they went both away to Hampstead: when they came thither, she failed not to give her aunt a particular account of all these passages, as well that which had happened at their visit to the merchant’s lady at’ London, as what had happened at the bath; all which, but especially the last, were wonderfully surprising and agreeable to their aunt. Well, niece, says the aunt to the youngest sister, what do you think of these things? I can say little to them, madam, says she; I am glad, for his sake, that God opened his eyes. But is it no satisfaction to you, child, says her aunt, that you have been so far the instrument of it? Alas! madam, says she, I have been none of the instrument, not I. Yes, yes, replies her aunt, you have, and he acknowledges it too: and turning to the eldest sis- ter, says she, I think, child, now you may perform your promise, and tell your sister what he said to you when he called here as he went out of town. Yes, madam, says she, so I think too. [Here she gives her sister a full account of what he had said as before.] [think you might have told me this before, says the youngest sis- ter. Nay, sister, replied she, did you not take me short, and forbid me telling you anything, and withdrew out of the room, and bid me tell it my aunt? Why, that’s true, I did so, says she again, and I have been so confused, that I know not when I do well, and when I do ill. Indeed, niece, says her aunt, I also obliged her not to tell you; for I concluded, if there was anything in it, we should hear of it again; and if we did not, it could do you no service. While they were talking thus,a coach stopt at the door, and a servant brought word, their father and another gentleman with him was below stairs. ? It will be necessary here to leave this part a while, and bring for- ward the story of the young gentleman as far as it is needful to the coherence of things; the story also will be very short. The young gentleman having, as has been said, taken his new tutor, the poor countryman, into the house with him, received so 6 122 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. much assistance trom his advice, and had daily such instruction in religious things, from the wholesome plain counsels of this humble, poor creature, that the benefit of them soon appeared in his conver- sation, and his reformation soon became visible in the general course of his life; he kept company with the sober, gravest, and most reli- gious persons that he could find; he kept a most sober, regular, reformed family; and seeming to resolve to reside pretty much there, for the better government of his family, he took in a young minister of an extraordinary good character to be his chaplain, and caused every servant who appeared disorderly or vicious to be put away out of his house. These were the natural consequences of a sincere work upon his own mind, were the visible product of that blessed change, and indeed an agreeable evidence of the sincerity of it; but they were far from being the sum of things; for, in a word, he proved to be a most pious, sincere Christian in all his ways; and as this was attended with a natural sweetness in his disposition, modesty and generosity in his manner, and an excellent temper, free from all manner of pride or hypocrisy, it made him perfectly agreeable to all sorts of people; those who were not like him valued and honored him, and the sober, religious part of men were delighted in him beyond expression. He went on thus for near two years, lived generally in the country ; especially because, he could not be long from his faithful assistant, the poor clergyman, who was upon all occasions, as we may say, clerk of the closet to him, and with whom he kept upa most religious, but secret conversation, and had retirements with him, which none were acquainted with but themselves. But in all this enjoyment of himself, and the retired life he had now placed his delight in, he found something still wanting, as well to complete his, happiness here, as to forward his progress in things of an eternal and durable nature; and he began to say to himself, that he had robbed himself of much of his comfort, in neglecting so long to have the assistance of that blessed creature whom God had made the first instrument to touch his mind with a sense of good things. These thoughts dwelt upon his heart a good while, and he found him- self very uneasy: it occurred to him that certainly, as it had pleased RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 123 God to make that young woman to give him the alarm, and strike his soul with the first sense of his wretched condition, he had cer- tainly furnished her for his farther assistance, and made her capable of giving him farther help, light, and directions in his duty; and that he stood in the way of his own comforts all the while he was without her; nay, that he seemed to reject the instrument by which God had done him so much good, without inquiring whether God had designed her for his farther benefit or no. He reflected, how suitable a disposition she was of in religious things, to the design he had of keeping up a religious family, and how admirable a wife, a mother, a mistress, such a lady must needs be to him, and his whole house; who now saw the truth of the excellent sentence she had often repeated to him, viz. That a reli- gious life was the only heaven upon earth. He discoursed all these things with his faithful counsellor, poor William, who persuaded him, by all the persuasions he could use, to go and make her his own; for it was the only fear William said he had for him, that he would marry some lady, who, having been brought up in the usual levity of the times, would pull him backward, rather than forward him in his religious resolutions, With these thoughts, he resolved to go to London, and apply him- self immediately to his former mistress and obtain her for his own, if possible: but was exceedingly disappointed, when the found she and her father, and all the family, were gone to Bath. Howéver, he waited, and hearing of her return, he went immedi- ately to make his visit, without any ceremony: when he found she was abroad, he fell to work seriously with her father; he told him, that the last time he was there, he had indeed promised to wait on her again, notwithstanding what had passed. Her father told him he had received an account how his daughter had used him; that he was in the country when it happened, otherwise he should have con- cerned himself to have secured him better treatment; that he had resented it so already to his daughter, that he had scarce been on speaking terms with her since; that as to his promise of coming again, he believed she was convinced that she had no reason to ex- pect it, seeing no gentleman would care to be ill used twice upon the same occasion. The young gentleman answered, that he was sorry he should resent anything from his daughter on his account ; that he 124 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. was surprised to hear him say she had ill used him; that, upon his word, she had not said or done the least unbecoming thing to him; that he was even then, when she did it, fully convinced of the reason- ableness of what she had said, and ten times as much, if that were possible ; and also of the just motives she had to say it to him: that if she had done less, she would have acted from meaner principles than he knew she was mistress of; and that her reasons were so good, and she so well maintained them, that he had neither then, nor now, the least thing to offer against them ; and that his business was not now to answer her arguments, but to see if he could comply better with the just demands that she then made, than he could before. The father answered with a great many compliments and excuses, and such like discourses; but the gentleman found that he neither relished the reason of his daughter’s refusal, or was affected at all with all he could say to convince him how he had taken it; and modesty forbidding him to go farther in any declaration about reli- gious matters, especially where he found there was no taste of it, he declined saying more about it; but he turned his discourse to desiring another interview with his daughter upon the terms of former pro- posals; which the father consenting to, they went together in the young gentleman’s chariot to Hampstead, where the young ladies were; and this was the gentleman, who, as I observed, was come to the door with their father, just as they were about talking of him with their aunt. I had given an account before, that they heard a coach stop at the gate, and that a servant brought up word, that their father and the gentlemen were below stairs; but they were surprised, you may be sure, when the eldest sister, going down first, comes running up stairs again, with the news, in short, that it was Mr.——., and that their father had brought him. The aunt, unwilling her niece should appear in any disorder, says to her, Come, my child, you two shall stay a little, and let me go down first; which the younger sister was very glad of. It was easy to perceive, and the passages already related will allow us to suppose, that although it was some surprise to the young lady to have him come thus suddenly and abruptly upon her, having not prepared her thoughts, or resolved upon what reception to give him, and not having the least intimation from her father upon what account he RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 125 came, yet that she was not alarmed as she used to be: the scruples of her conscience were all answered; her jealousies of his hypocrisy were over, and her affection had little or nothing to struggle with now, unless she might doubt his resentment of things past, and whether he came upon the old account, or rather to perform his promise, and make a visit of'ceremony only; however she begged her sister to speak to her aunt, that they might stay at her house, and that she might receive his visits there, because then she would have her aunt to advise and consult with on every occasion, and then she would put off their being left together that night, that she might consider things a little, and know the better. how to receive him. Her sister went down, and sending for her aunt into another room, proposed the first to her; let me alone, niece, for that, says she. So the other went up to her sister, and soon after the father calling for his two daughters, they went down into the room. It was easy for her at first sight, to perceive that her lover was not at all altered in his affection to her; that he did not come to her with resentment, or with ceremony; for he flew to her, took her in his arms, and told her, he came to see if she had goodness enough to pardon his not keeping his word with her, in coming to wait on her again, and also to elaim her promise of staying for him. He spoke this so softly, as not to be heard by the company, and without expecting any answer, turned about to pay his respects to her aunt; in doing which he told her, he hoped she would give him leave to wait upon her neice at her house. The aunt took the hint, and turning to the father, Brother, says she, to him privately, I think if you would let my niece stay here for some time, and let the gentleman come to wait on her here, I would take care to prevent such little scruples as you know inter- rupted that affair before, and you will the sooner bring it to an end according to your mind. With all my heart, says the father; H we had done so before, I believe she had not played the fool as she did. Upon this, turning themselves to the company, she says aloud, Niece, I don’t intend to lose your company thus; I suppose, if this gentleman designs to visit you, he won’t think it a great way to come to Hampstead, which, now the roads are so good, is not above an hour’s driving ; and, I hope, we shall not make his entertainment so ill, as to make him weary of his coming hither. * x 126 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Her niece said, that must be as her father pleased to direct; I know that, said her aunt; and therefore I have got your father’s con- sent already. They bowed both to her in token of assent, and night coming on, her father talked of going away; so he told her, he would take another opportunity to wait on her, which was what she had de- sired. And thus ended their first meeting. They had scarce dined the next day, but, as he had said, he came to visit her, and they had the whole afternoon to themselves; and, from that day, they began to understand one another so well, that, in a few weeks, matters began to draw to a close. But, because some part of their discourse is necessary to finish the former account, and may be as useful as it is entertaining, I shall first give some of the particulars as they occurred in discourse between her and her aunt and sister, upon this occasion, As she had advised with her sister and aunt upon every particular, and especially with her sister, from the first of it; so she made no scruple to give them a full account of things as they passed. It was one morning, after the gentleman had been above a week in his new addresses, that, coming into her aunt’s dressing-room, she found her sister there drinking coffee with her aunt: and her sister began with her thus: Eld. sist. Well, sister, you used to be free with a body, and tell one now and then how things went with you; now we hear nothing from you; what, is it all to be a secret? Aunt. Nay, niece, you ought not to press your sister to give an account of such things. Eld. sist. When she wanted advice, madam, she was open enough. Aunt. For my part, I wish her as well as I do my own children ; but I cannot desire her to give an account of such things, unless she wants advice in anything; and then she’s a judge of that. Yo. sist. Indeed, madam, if Ihave not told anything or every- thing, both to you and my sister, it has not been by way of reserve; I am ready to give a full account of all you desire; for there is no- thing passes between us that need be concealed from you that are so near tome. As for my sister, I told her every passage before; and as for you, madam, did I not desire to be here, that I might consult and advise with you, and have your directions in every step; and I have wondered you never asked about it before. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 127 Hild. sist. The chief thing J want to know is, how you find him, as to the grand affair of religion; and, whether you think him a hypocrite, or no? Aunt. Ay, that’s what I am curious about. Yo. sist. Iam but an ill judge of sincerity, especially in a case where my inclinations, you know, are partial. ld. sist. Why, you were the nicest creature alive before, sister ; and yet, you know, your affections were the same way then. Aunt. Ay, niece, what can you say to that? Yo. sist. Madam, my sister takes it quite wrong. Eid. sist. How do I take you wrong, sister? did you not conclude him to be an Atheist? . Yo. sist. But I never said he was a hypocrite; if he had been no honester than he was polite, I had been effectually deceived ; for it was too true, as he said, if he had talked a little religiously, nay, if he had not openly professed his contempt of all religion, he- had cheated me, and I had never made any objection. Aunt. That’s true: you are right, neice; but how stands it now? are all the stories you told me you heard at the bath about him true, or no? 3 Yo. sist. Truly, I believe they are. id, sist. Are you but “I believe” still? I would have had the bot- tom of them all out by this time; what have you been about all this while? Yo. sist. Truly, we have spent all the time almost about the great difficulty of judging whether he is sincere, or a hypocrite; and we are scarce got through it yet, I assure you. Ed sist. Why, then, I think my sister is mad; what kind of con- fession of principles do you insist on, pray? I hope you don’t set up to examine the heart. Yo. sist. You run all upon mistakes with me, sister: the dispute lies just the other way; I am for allowing him to be sincere, but he will not grant that I have any reason to do so: he says, that I ought to believe he is a hypocrite. Aunt. Come, niece, let us have the whole story of it; we shall then know how to judge of it together. Yo. sist. With all my heart, madam: you know he come to me last Tuesday night, when you first left us together. After some com- 128 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. pliments, he repeated what he had said before, that he came to ask my pardon for not coming again; I told him, I did not expect him to come again, and, if I was to believe the opinion of other people, I had used him so rudely, that it was not reasonable to think, that any gentleman that was so treated, would ever have come again, unless it was to affront me. He wondered, he said, who could pretend to say so: for he assured me, he not only never said I used him ill, but never thought so, and certainly would not say so to anybody ; for he was persuaded, he said, that I did neither do it on purpose to use him ill, or believe it was ill usage. I told him he did me a deal of justice to say I did not act on purpose to affront him; but that I could not but say, I thought I had used him a little rudely, for all that; and that if he thought so too, I was very ready to take this opportunity to ask his pardon, without so much as naming the neces- sity I was in, on other accounts, for doing what IJ did. Aunt. You were very courtly in that particular, niece; pray what did he say to it? Yo. sist. He told me, I had nothing to ask him pardon for; and assured me he had not been gone half an hour from me before he was convinced of the justice of all I had said, and how much reason I had to refuse him, upon the nicety which I had refused him upon. He added, that he had a thousand times since reproached himself with the folly of his own conduct at that time, or that he could think it would recommend him to any woman of virtue and sense, to boast of having no thought or sense of religion: for madam, says he, had you taken no notice of it, I should of necessity have conclud- ed in a quarter of an hour after, that you had no sense of virtue or religion yourself. Why, what if | had not? saidI: I had been but the more suitable to you, and you must have liked me the better for that. He returned, no, madam, just the contrary; for, though I own I had not thought of religion myself, yet if any woman had told me so of herself, 1 should presently have said, she was no match for a gentle- man; for no man can be so void of sense, as well as of religion, as not to know, that a woman of no religion is no woman fit to make a wife of; and this; says he, convinced me, that you were in the right to refuse me on that account. Aunt. It was a very ingenuous acknowledgment, I confess; the truth of it is so convincing, that I wish all the young women, who RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 129 have their settlements in view, would reflect seriously on this point: That, however wicked men are, they are always willing to have so- ber, religious, and virtuous wives; and, ’tis very rarely, that the worst rake in nature, if his senses are in exercise, desires to have a wife loose like himself ;—but pray go on, niece. Yo. sist. He told me, he was not gone a quarter of an hour from me, but this reflection struck with horror upon his mind; what a dreadful creature am I? Sure I am a horrid frightful wretch! that @ woman of sobriety and religion was afraid to venture to take me, for fear of being ruined; and that she should think she declared war against Heaven, and joined herself to one of God’s enemies! He was going on but I found his speech stopped all of a sudden; at which I was a little surprised, and asked him, if he was not well? He said, Yes; and endeavored to hide the little disorder he was in, and went on. He then told me, that I had been really very just to him, and he had reason to thank me for it; and that he had desired my sister to express his mind fully on that account; which he hoped she bad done. I told him, I could not now enter upon an apology for what I had said to him so long ago; that, if I had treated him rudely, or severely, J was very sorry; but that what I did was oc- casioned, as he knew very well, by his making such open declara- tions, and such as I thought he really had no occasion for, concern- ing his aversion to, and ignorance of, all religion; and that it was really a dreadful thing to think of marrying upon such terms. He replied, that if I had said less than I did, he must necessarily, when he came to his senses, have had a meaner opinion of me than he had; and that it was really the reproaches that I had given him, and the excellent reasons I had given him for my resolutions of rejecting him, that had noy brought him back to me, and had made him resolve to have no woman upon earth but me, if I would but revoke the reso- lution I had taken against him; for nothing less, than so much reli- gion and virtue, could ever make him happy. Aunt. If he was sincere in this, I assure you, niece, it was a high compliment upon religion, as well as upon your conduct. Yo. sist. I told him, that, as the reason I had for using him so, was thus approved by himself, he bound me to preserve the same resolu- tion, on the hazard of his having-aless esteem for me. He confessed 6* 130 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. that was very true; unless he could convince me the cause was re- moved; which he saw no hopes of; and that was the reason that he came to visit me again, with so little encouragement, that he knew not what to think of it. Eld. sist. What could he mean by that? why, sure, then all we have heard must be false, and he is the same man as ever. Yo. sist. 1 was greatly startled at his words, and looked steadily at him, but could judge nothing from his countenance; but it grew late and he took his leave, falling in with some cursory talk, and left me, I confess, in the greatest confusion of thoughts imaginable; for ¢ was dreadfully afraid he would declare himself to have no sense of religion on his mind still: and then I was in a worse condition than at first, having thus admitted a second treaty with him. , Aunt. I thought, child, you were a little perplexed on Tuesday night, but I took it to be only a little thoughtfulness more than ordi- nary, which is usual on such occasions. Yo. sist. When be came again the next night, he made a kind of an apology for having left me in more disorder than he used to do; For, to tell you true, madam, says he, I was not able to go on with what I was saying to you, neither am I now, says he, seeing J am come to wait on you, and yet have effectually shut the door against myself. I told him, I did not perhaps rightly understand him, unless he would explain himself. Why, says he, I have first told you sincerely, how absolutely I approved of the resolution you took against me, and yet owned and do still, that I am no way able to convince you that the causeisremoved. I told him, that Ithought he was not just to himself; and that the same thing, whatever it was, that had power to convince him that I was under a necessity to re- fuse him on that occasion, would certainly assist him tqremove the cause. He turned short upon me. But, madam, says he, did not I make conditions, with you, that whenever I talked of it you should take me for a hypocrite? and did I not declare positively to you, that I would deceive you, if I could. ld, sist. Now I know what he meant. Yo, sist. Ay, so did I too; but he run it up so high against him- self, that I could not answer a word, unless I would have turned the tables, as it were, against myself, and courted him, by telling him RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 131 é how well I was. satistied of his sincerity ; so that, in short, I was quite puzzled: for what could I say to a man that did, as it were, bid me believe him to be a hypocrite? Aunt. You had a nice case before you, cousin: pray, what said you to it? Yo. sist. I told him very coldly, I was under a necessity of be- lieving everything he said, because he had.been so sincere with me all along; and I begged him, therefore, not to tell me seriously now that he was a hypocrite; and that the cause of my refusing to talk with him before was not removed; that I hoped it was otherwise, but should despair of it, if it came from his own mouth; and that if I were assured from his own mouth, that he came to deceive me, he must needs know I had nothing else to do. but to act as I did before, which he had owned I had reason for. No, madam, says he, I do " not say I desire to deceive you; but, I say, that having told you I would, you ought to believe I design it; and J see no room to con- vince you that I am not a hypocrite, seeing I promised you I would be so; and know not. whether I dare to tell you that I am not so, even in the best. of me. Eld. sist. I could have put an end to all this nicety in two words. Yo. sist. Then you will the more easily tell me how I shall do it. £ild. sist. Why, I would have told him, that though I had not so much concern for him to busy myself to inquire after his conduct, yet I had not so little, as not.to be glad to know, by other hands than his own, that he was no hypocrite, and that I rejoiced for his sake to hear that his eyes were opened to that which could alone make him the happiest man alive. Yo. sist. Then I must at the same time have told him, that my scruples were all over about him; which was as much as to tell him I would have him whenever he pleased to take me; but I han’t learned that way of talking yet. Aunt. Well, niece, and if you had, after so long acquaintance, and so much pressing, I do not think you could have charged yourself with being forward. Yo. sist. Well, then, you will the better like what has happened since, madam, Aunt. With all my heart—then pray go on, my dear. Yo. sist. Why, madam, this took up the first three or four mghts 132 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. e of our discourse; the night before last he began a little more seri- ously, and came closer to the thing itself; he told me, he had made himself very melancholy with me, the two last times he was with me; for he thought, that instead of courting me to have him, he had taken a great deal of pains to court me to refuse him again. I told him, I thought so too; and that I confessed I had been a little con- cerned about it, because I could by no means understand him. ‘He told me, it proceeded from the just reflection he made on his foolish discourse two years ago, viz. that he wished he had counterfeited re- ligious discourse, and he would certainly have cheated me if he could, and did not doubt but he could have done it effectually. Those words, he said, flew in his face, when he went to say anything serious to me, and persuaded him that I would believe he was only counterfeit- ing serious things on purpose to deceive me. I answered, he might reproach himself with those things, but.I did not lay any stress on © them ; for I believed he had too much honesty, whether it proceeded from religion or no, to offer to deceive me in a thing, in which he owned so ingenuously I was right. Then he told me, with the greatest affection in his discourse that ever I saw in my life, that he must confess, as he said before, that my rejecting him as I had done, had made impressions on his mind quite different from what he had before; but that he found it the hardest thing in the world to ex- press what had happened to him on that account, and the thoughts of those things which had taken up his mind since that; only this he would own to me, that I was in the right; that he had most notori- ously exposed himself to me, and that he had perfectly the same opinion now of those things which I had before, viz. that a religious life was the only heaven upon earth: but he could go no farther, he said, nor could he answer for himself, how far such thoughts might carry him, or express to me the particulars that had lain upon his mind about them; and how far what he had said would satisfy me, he did not know. I told him, I hoped he did not think I set up for a judge of the particulars; that my objections before lay against a general contempt of all religion; that it was my terror to think of marrying an enemy to God, one that had no sense of the common duties we all owe to him that made us; but that I never pretended to expect a confession of faith from him, or any man in such a case. He told me, he thought it required more assurance than he was mas- RELIGIOUS CHNURTSHIP. 133 od ter of, to talk anything of himself that way, at least till there was more intimacy between us; that he thought religious things (talked of in that manner) received an injury from the very discourse; and that it was next door to boasting of them, which was the worst kind of hypocrisy; and if he could say no more of himself but this, he hoped I would take it for a sufficient testimony of the alteration of his thoughts, viz. that he loved me for the honor I paid to religion, and for the steadiness which had made me refuse him before. I told him, I saw his difficulty, and that I would abate him of the trouble of entering into particulars, which I found he was too modest to re- late, and which, however, I was not quite a stranger to; and that I desired we might speak no more of a thing which I knew it was dif- ficult for him to be free in. He blushed as red as fire, when I said I was not a stranger to the particulars, which he declined to express, and said not one word for a good while. I told him, I knew it was a point that could not come easily from a man’s own mouth; that I did not desire it, and would make him easy, so far as to tell him, I was fully satisfied he was no hypocrite, and hoped he would give himself no more trouble about it. He took me in his arms, and told me very affectionately, that I had said that of him, that he would give all the world to be able to say of himself; that, however, he hoped to be beholden to me for more than that; and as I had given him the first view of the beauty of a religious life, he expected a great deal more from my assistance and example in pursuing the steps of it. I told him, that I begged of him we might avoid all religious compliments, for they were the oddest thing in nature ; that he quite mistook me; that it was not because I thought myself capable of guiding in religious matters, that I insisted on the necessity of not marrying a man void of religion, but from a due sense of just the contrary, viz. the want I should be in of being guided and assisted in religious things upon all occasions myself; that it would be a fatal mistake the other way, and greatly to my disadvantage, to have him expect more from me than he would find; and that, on the contrary, I thought I had now so much less religion than he, that he ought to refuse me now, for the same reason that I refused him before. This is the sum of our affair, and thus it stands, only with this ad- dition, that he told a very pleasant story which happened at a cho- 134 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. oe colate house near the court, which is so useful as well as diverting, that I cannot but relate it to you. (Here she tells them the story of the two beaux and the lord, dis- coursing of the suitableness of a religious life to the life of a gentle- man. ] Aunt. The story is fit to be read for a lecture of instruction to all the young gentlemen of this age. Well, niece, you are a happy girl. Yo. sist. Why, madam ? Aunt. Only in being courted by a gentleman of the greatest sin- cerity, modesty, and piety, that I ever met with in my life. Yo. sist. And would you advise me, madam, to have him, then ? Aunt. Ay, child, without any more difficulty, if you desire to be the happiest woman alive, and an example and encouragement to all young women in Britain, for rejecting profane and irreligious hus- bands. Thus far, I think, contains all the useful part of this story, only adding, that it was not long after this, both the father and all friends assenting, they were married, and lived afterwards the happiest cou- ple that could be imagined; having a sober, regular, well-governed. family, a most pleasant, comfortable, agreeable conversation with one another; suitable in temper, desires, delights, and, in a word, in everything else ; and which made them completely happy ; they were exemplary in piety and virtue to all that knew them. PART II. We have seen the happy conduct of the youngest of the three daughters of the gentleman, whose family this book began with, and the comfortable success of it. Thesecond daughter, from the begin- ning, acted upon other principles, or rather, indeed, upon no principles at all; yet her history may perhaps be no less fruitful of instruc- tion than the other, though more tragical, as to her own part of it. She had declared to her sister, as appears in the beginning of her story, that she would not trouble herself, when it came to her turn, what religion the gentleman was of, or whether he had any religion or n0, if she had but a good settlement; and now we shall see her be as good as her word. Her father, whose character I have sufficiently spoken of already, having had for many years, a considerable trade, in Italy, where he once lived, there came an Italian gentleman to visit him, who had been formerly contemporary with him, and long been his correspon- dent, or factor, there, viz. at Leghorn; and who being grown very rich, was come to England, resolving to settle here. There were some accompts, it seems, depending between them, which they had appointed a day to settle and balance, in order to exchange releases ; which being all finished in the morning, the father of these ladies takes his factor into his coach, and carries him home to dinner with him, where the old gentleman entertained him very handsomely, and where he had an opportunity to see the two maiden daughters; for the youngest, who had been married some time, was gone into Hamp- shire to her country-seat with her husband. This Leghorn merchant no sooner saw and conversed a little with the ladies, but he took a fancy to the youngest, and from that time resolved to make her his wife. It was not long before he let them know his mind; and having made very handsome proposals to her father, he (the father) received him with a frankness suitable to their long intimacy and acquaintance, and told him, With all his heart, if his daughter and he could agree. 185 136 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Before I bring them together, it is proper to the relish of the story to take a little notice of the characters of the two young persons, of whose story we ought to have a general idea, that we may not be left to gather it up slowly among the particulars. The young lady was very sober, virtuous to the nicest degree, extremely well-bred, and wonderfully good humored. She was like- wise a very lovely, beautiful person, the handsomest of the three sis- ters beyond all comparison. As to religion, she had a very good foundation of knowledge, and had done nothing to make it be sup- posed she was not truly religious in practice ; but she was not alto- gether so grave and serious as her eldest sister, much less was she so strict and devout as her younger sister that was married, as might be observed from what passed between them at first: her temper was sprightly and gay; and though she governed herself so, that she gave every one room to see that she was one that hada true sense of religion at bottom, and a fund of good principles and notions in her mind; yet she was young and merry, and did not tie herself up so severely in such things as her sisters had done; which, though it was no part of her happiness in the affair before her; yet it rendered her very agreeable to her father; and particularly, it made the affair with this gentleman much less trouble with her, than he had with her two sisters. The gentleman was, as I have observed, an Italian gentleman, a very handsome, agreeable person, perfectly well-bred, having lived abroad, and seen a great deal of the world. He was also a man of excellent parts and sense, talked admirably well, almost to every thing that came in his way, spoke several languages, and in short, was not only a complete, well-bred merchant, but much of a gentle- man; and all this to be added, that he was very sober, grave, and oftentimes, as occasion offered, his discourse upon religious affairs discovered him to be very serious and religious. As to his estate, it was not very well only, but extraordinary; he was indeed a little too old, having lived abroad twenty-two years, and was about so much above twenty, which was the age of the lady. However, as this was an advantage in many other ways, as in his judgment and experience in the world, the father made no scruple at all of it, nor did his daughter inquire much after it. In a word, having been introduced to the young lady, she must RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 137 have been a woman of much more nicety and scruple, than she pro- _ fessed herself to be, if she had disliked anything in his person or circumstances; and therefore having kept her company for some weeks, things began to draw near a close, when one evening, after the gentleman had been with her, and gone away, her eldest sister and she happened to meet; and the following dialogue between them may farther explain the case. DIALOGUE I. Lild. sist. Wut, sister, how do you go on? when are you to buy wedding clothes? Sist. Nay, I don’t know; even when you will, I think. I don’t know what we stay for, not I. Lid. sist. Prithee let’s have done with then. I want to call him brother ; then I can talk freely to him. Sist. Why, you may call him brother now, can’t you? you see he calls you sister already, as naturally as if you were all of a breed. Eld. sist. Ay, so did somebody else, you know; and yet made a two years’ piece of work of it afterwards for all that. . [She means the gentleman that courted the third sister.] Sist. Yes, yes, I remember it: but I'll assure you I am none of those; I'll either make an end of it one way, or make an end of it another way, in less than so many months, Eld. sist. Perhaps your objections are not so just as hers. Sist. I don’t enter into her scruples I assure you. Eld. sist. I hope you have not her occasion. Sist. Nay, I don’t know what occasion she had, not I. Eilld, sist. Nay, hold, sister; don’t say so, either’ without doubt her occasion was very just; and you have the same obligation upon you; but I hope you have not the same occasion. Sist. I know not what you mean by obligation: I have no obliga- tion at all upon me as I know of. Eld. sist. Why, do you say so, sister? I mean the obligation that 138 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. is upon us all from the charge my mother gave us upon her death- bed, about our marrying religious husbands. Sist.. I look upon what my mother said, to be good counsel, which we should give its due weight to; but I do not take it to be a com- mand that binds me absolutely in duty to my mother’s words. Duty certainly ends, when death separates. Eid. sist. I know not whether it does, or no, sister. Sist. I think you are too superstitious that way, sister. Eld. sist. Well, but suppose it to be but as advice, yet it has a double force with it. First, as it came from a tender, dear, and most affectionate mother, who not only most passionately loved us, but had an excellent judgment to direct her to give us the best counsel. And, Secondly, as our own judgment and consciences must testify with her, that what she enjoined us to observe, is the most reasonable thing for us to do, that can be imagined for our own advantage, and as well for our happiness here as hereafter. Sist. You lay a greater stress upon it than I do, I confess. If my mother had been alive indeed, I should have thought myself obliged to be guided by her directions, and her injunctions would have been positive commands; but then she would have been able to judge of particular circumstances, and would have given her advice accord- ingly. Eid. sist. But her advice to us was therefore suited to her present state of absence, and went no farther than to a case described by its own circumstances, and which nothing can alter; because the obliga- tion supposes the circumstance, and where the circumstance is not, the obligation ceases. Sist. You talk so learnedly, I want explanation. Lid. sist. No, sister, you don’t want an explanation, I am sure; but you are disposed to lay it all aside, as a thing you have no need of ; however, I'll explain myself in a word speaking. Our mother warned us against marrying men of no religion, that is, men that made no profession of a reverence to God and his worship; this want of a religious profession, is the circumstance which I speak of; if the circumstance does not appear, the advice ceases; for our mother knew we could not judge of sincerity. Sist. Well, so then if aman tells me he is religious, it is well enough, whether he speaks truth or no. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 139 Eid. sist. What need we talk of this, I hope we have an assurance of the contrary in Mr. ——. Sist. No, not I indeed; what assurance can I have? He seems to be a sober man, that’s all I know of. Eld. sist. Well, and I would know more of it, however, if I were you. Sist. Why, I do know something more of it too, now I think of it; for we were talking of such things one night, when we happened to mention one Sir Robert ——, and he spoke of him with a great deal of indignation; he said he was a horrid Atheistical wretch, and that he could not bear his company; for he was always making a jest of sacred things, bantering all religion in such a manner, that no sober mind could abide it without horror. Eid. sist. Well, there is something in that, I assure you. Sist. Why, I take it to be a plain declaration, that he has a just reverence for religion, as my sister took the contrary in her lover, for a declaration of his having no religion at all. ld. sist. Nay he told her he had not, in so many words, and that he had not troubled his head about it, and did not intend to do it. Sist. Well, then, and this gentleman has told me he has; for he owns he has so much regard for religion, that he cannot hear it ridi- culed and bantered without horror. Eld, sist. This is something, I confess, in general: But—— Sist. But what? What would you have me do? Must I examine his principles and opinions? Shall I ask him to say his catechism? IfI should talk on that fashion to him now, what kind of a catechet- ical wife will he think I shall make? He’ll think I shall be a schoolmistress rather than a wife. Eid. sist. No, no; though you are so pert with your sister, forsooth, you need not be so with him, I hope; nor need I tell you how to manage such a point: but I warrant youI would find it out, what his opinion was one way or another: why, he may be a Papist. for aught you know yet of him; some of them are very religious in their way, and speak very reverently and seriously of religion in general. Sist. Let him be a Papist and he will, I am sure I can never ask him such a question; but, however, I am pretty well satisfied of that too; for I heard him say once, he had been at church ; and ano 140 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. ther time, accidentally speaking about religion, he declared he was a member of the church of England, as by law established. Eid. sist. Well, you are an easy body ; a little matter satisfies you. I should presently have said I hope, sir, you mean the Protestant church of England. Why, do you not imagine the Roman Catholics think the Popish is the only church of England that is established by law? : Sist. Sure, sister, you take all the world to be hypocrites and cheats. I never can suspect any gentleman that bears the character of an honest man, would set up to impose upon me with such equi- vocal speeches; why, I never heard such a vile distinction in my life. ld. sist, Have you not? Why thenI have. I have heard that in King Charles the Second’s time, people in general were deluded with that very expression in all their public speeches, proclamations, declarations, etc., promising always to preserve and maintain the church of England, as established by law; and yet all that while they meant the popish church. Sist. These are remote things, sister; for my part, I have no mis- trust; I am honest myself, and I suspect nobody. Eid. sist. It is a thing of moment, sister, I would be sure. Sist. Not I; I have no room to suspect. Lid. sist. Then you do not answer the obligation you were under to my mother’s desire. Sist. YesI do; for I think I have good reason to believe him a very serious religious gentleman. Eid. sist. But you know my mother engaged us to examine parti- culars, and not to marry any man how religious soever he seemed also, unless he was of the same opinion in religion with ourselves. Sist. In that I think my mother went too far, sister. Eld. sist. My mother gave us a great many examples of the misery that has followed in the relation of husband and wife, by reason only of differences in opinion. Sist. It must be, then, where there was but little religion on either side. Eid. sist. I don’t know that, either; you and I know some fami- lies, more than one or two, where they are all at daggers drawn about opinion, and the families are ruined as to their peace; and yet RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 141 both are very religious too, nay, zealous in their way; and the more the zeal, the more the strife. Sist. There may be zeal, but there is no charity then; and what's any religion without charity? Eld. sist. Well, but because charity does not always keep pace with religion, and every one is apt to think themselves in the right, and to reproach the sincerity of those that differ from them; there- fore, our mother earnestly pressed us to make that point sure, before we fixed our choice for our lives. Sist. It is a fine thing to talk of, but hard to be followed. What have I to do with his opinion? and what can I say to him, if he tells me he is of one opinion and I should be of another? you, nor no young body alive can prevent being imposed upon, if a man finds it for his purpose to deceive us, Eid. sist. Well, sister, you trample upon all cantion; you are one of them that seem perfectly indifferent, whether you are deceived or no. Sist. No, sister, I am not willing to be deceived, you see; I have had a general discovery of his being a man religiously inclined, that he has a reverence for the worship of God, and the being of God; nay, you cannot but remember, how the other night at supper he discoursed very gravely; and I assure you, to me it was very agree- able, about the men of the town pretending to be Atheists, and to deny the being of a God, and the next minute profanely swearing by his name. Hid. sist. All this is true, and clears you from the first scruple; so far I may grant, you are within my mother’s first injunction, not to marry a man that does not profess to be religious in general; but that is but one part. What say you to the other, not to marry any man, however professing himself to be religious, that is not of the same opinion with yourself. Sist. You will carry everything up to the extremity; but how- ever, I have a way for that, too; and you shall not charge me with slighting my mother’s advice. Eid. sist. What way have you got? I doubt it is but an odd one. Sist. Why, if he will not be of my opinion, I'll be of his opinion and so we will agree one way if we can’t the other. 142 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eid. sist. That’s boldly said, and I must own to you, signifies, you are yet to choose in your own opinion. Pray, what if he should be a Roman Catholic? as I hinted before; you know he has lived in Italy. Sist. Well, if he should be a Christian Oatholic, I am a Oatholic Christian ; so we need not fall out for all that. Eid, sist. I persuade myself you are not so indifferent as you make yourself, or else (which I hope rather) you are jesting with me, or you talk thus upon a supposition that you are sure he is a Protes- tant. Sist. Well, you are in the right there too; I cannot entertain such thoughts of him; besides, my father told me he was a Protestant. Eld. sist. It is our misfortune, sister, that my father does not much concern himself about those things; he leaves us to our fate. Sist. And is that our misfortune, say you? I do not see it, I con- fess; for I think ’tis our business to choose for ourselves: and I observe, where fathers are so very straight-laced, and confine their children to such and such particulars in the husbands or wives they shall choose, their children generally choose without much regard to those injunctions, or else fly directly in the face of them, and go quite contrary. Eid. sist. You argue, sister, from the practice to the duty, as if because children do not regard the care and concern of their parents in their marriage, therefore they ought to do so; and it was not the duty of parents to direct them, or concern themselves about it. Sist. I don’t inquire what is the duty of parents; I am speaking what is the practice of children. , Elld, sist. But you do not justify that practice, I hope ? Sist. I think, take one time with another, children do as well, when they trust to their own directions, I mean when they choose with judgment; pray, what would become of us if we were just to follow our_father’s directions? you- know, he would direct us to take the first that comes, if he liked but the settlement. Eild, sist. That’s a wrong way of arguing, sister, that because our father neglects it, therefore children are not the better for such parents as do their duty, and that show a just concern for the reli- gious happiness of their children, in settling them in the world. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 143 Sist. I do not see much difference, I say: but sometimes the one do as well as the other. Hid. sist. Yes, there is this difference, sister, that where the parents act right, the children are seldom ruined, unless it be by their own willful obstinacy. Sist. And sometimes children are ruined, let the parents do their best; nay, sometimes the parents themselves know not what to direct. Hild. sist. You may as well say, that, because doctors die, nobody should take physic. Sist. Every one has eyes to choose for themselves; I do not think the proverb has any weight in this case, That love is blind; folks may easily see the difference between a religious man and an Atheist, without their parents. Eid. sist. But it is a matter of such weight, and so irrecoverable when done, that we ought to see with as many eyes as we can; and a careful religious parent is a good scout to look out for us, a good pilot to steer us, and a good counsellor to advise us. Sist. J don’t see the want of it, perhaps, so much as you do: I see, sometimes, the very mistake of the parent is the cause of the ruin of the children. Eid. sist. I must confess, I do see the want of it, and I think it is a sad thing to be left, so as we are, without the guide of our parents, for all that; and if we, in particular, should be ruined by it, our father would have small satisfaction in his own conduct; "tis such a management makes children slight their father’s directions, as they do. Sist. Well, our father does kind things for us another way how- ever. Eid, sist. I don’t desire to reflect: upon my father; but if his caro was as much employed in choosing religious husbands for us (since he will have us marry) as it is in getting portions for us, we should find the advantage of it much more to his future satisfaction, and our own. Sist. We must take the more care of it ourselves. Lild, sist: Why, that is the point I am upon; I wish you would do so then, sister; for it is your case I am upon. Sist. I have done it, I think; I see no room to object. 144 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eld. sist. I can say no more, sister; you are resolved, I see, and must go on; but, you will buy your experience at a terrible price; and if, upon the trial, you should be mistaken, you will think of this discourse hereafter. Sist. What would you have me do? Eld. sist. Do! I would enter into a serious discourse of religious matters with him; I would know how we were to live together, whether as Heathens, or as Christians: I would find out his prin- ciples, if he has any, or find out that he has none: this is not cate- chising him, nor is there anything indecent in it. you are not ashamed to inquire into his estate, and make provision for yourself out of it by a good jointure; and will you be ashamed to inquire after that which is of ten thousand times the consequence! sure, you can never go on hood-winked at all hazards thus in that part that is for the happiness of your life, soul and body; besides, had not you your sister’s example before you? Sist. Why, I tell you, it is clear to me, that he is a man, that has a sense of religion upon his mind; I gave you an instance of it in his detestation of Sir Robert and his practices; if my sister could have had but so much satisfaction as that, she never would have refused my brother ——. Eld, sist. You wrong my sister, I assure you; she did not come so far indeed ; because she came to a clear discovery that he had no religion at all, which was the first point: but I can assure you, if she had’ got over that point, she would have inquired farther; for, ‘tis a poor satisfaction that is founded on negative religion only. Sist. If we expect to search into positives, as the world goes now, I think we put a hardship upon ourselves that we are not obliged to. Hild. sist. But certainly it is our business to do it, if we expect to live happily: for there are a great many men now-a-days that are not Atheists, and that abhor bantering of religion, or making a jest of sacred things; and yet have nothing at all in them that is fit to be called religion. Sist. Well, I am not to examine the inside: a small deal of hypo- crisy will conceal the heart; if he be not a religious man, the worst will be his own, I cannot find it out. Eld. sist. Dear sister, I should not say so much, but that methinks RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 145 you do not attempt to find it out; you do not inquire after it; I do not find you have exchanged six words upon the subject. * Sist. Why, I tell you, what he said about Sir Robert —— gave me a good impression of him. Eld. sist. O sister! you are soon satisfied: you would not be so easy in the matter of his estate; it seems you will trust your soul upon lighter security than you will your portion. Sist. How do you mean? Eild. sist. Why, sister, you won’t take it upon his word that he has an estate, or that you shall be provided for; but you must have his estate appear, your part be settled, and the land bound to yob; it is not enough for him to say, I have such and such a revenue by the year; and you shall have such a part of it if I die before you; but you will have it under hand and seal, so that he shall not be able to go back. Sist. Well, and should I not do so? Hid. sist. Yes, yes; but I allude only to it, and observe how less anxious you are, how much easier satisfiéd, how sooner secure, about the main article that constitutes the happiness. of your life, and of your family, if ever you have one, than about your estate. Sist. You run this matter up to a strange height, sister, as if all my felicity consisted in this one question, Whether my husband be areligious man or no? Nay, as if it consisted in his being of the same opinion in religion as I am of; asif I could not be religious, though my husband was not so; nor, in a word, as if I could not go to heaven without my husband. Eid. sist. No, sister; it is you that run it too high; I do not say you cannot go to heaven without your husband: or you cannot be religious without your husband; but I do say you cannot go com- fortably through the journey thither without him, nor he without you. A woman is to be a help-mete, and a man is to be the same; now a husband will be a sorry help to a wife, if he is not a help in the religious part of her life; and a sorry help indeed in the reli- gious part, if he has no sense of it himself. Sist. But I tell you he has a sense of it, and an affection to it. Eid. sist. Well, but it will hold in the other part of the question too: suppose he has, yet, if his sense of religion is not the same with, or agreeable to your sense of it; if he thinks you are going the 7 146 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. wrong way, and you think he is going the wrong way, one pulls this way, and the other pulls that way in religion; what will this come to in the family, sister? have you considered that? Sist. Yes, yes, I have considered it very well. Eid. sist. I doubt it, sister; I doubt you have only considered of it so as not to consider of it. Sist. [have considered it so far as to see that I can do nothing in it any farther; I cannot enter into a debate about principles; tell him what my opinion is, and ask him what his opinion is, and try beforehand whether they agree or no: I tell you, I don’t think ’tis my business, any more than the talking to him of our settlement; that’s the father’s part to do; sure my father won’t bring a Heathen to me! id. sist. Tt is true, and that is our misery, that, as Isaid before, we have not a father to concern himself in that part for us; but I do not think it is such an improper thing for you to do. Sure I could some way or other bring it in, that I would make some guess at him: why, you have never offered it in the least; neither has he shown you anything of it, I do not so much as find that he has ever gone to church with us, since he appeared so publicly. Sist. Why no, that’s true; and I wondered he did not indeed, es- pecially last Sunday, when he dined with us; but he made an excuse that I thought was sufficient. Hild. sist. Well, and would not I have laughed at him at night, and asked him if ever he used to go to church, or whether he went to church that Sunday, or no? Sist. Why so I did; and he told me he was obliged to go that day to wait upon the Marquis de Montelon, the Spanish ambas- sador. Eld. sist. The Spanish ambassador! why then he was obliged to go tothe Popish chapel with him too; for the ambassadors never fail at that time of day. I'll lay an hundred pounds he went to mass with him; there’s a clue for him, find out that now, and your busi- ness is done. Sist. Dear sister, you are strangely possessed with Mr. ——’s being 2 Papist ; have you any particular notion of it? you perfectly fright me about it. Eid, sist. No, indeed, I must confess I have not the least ground RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 144 for it; I won’t do him so much injustice; but if I were in your, case, I would be satisfied about it ; I would ask him downright in so many words. Sist. I would not ask him such a question for an hundred pounds. Eild. sist, And I would not marry him without asking him for ten thousand. Sist. Why if I should, and he were really a Papist, do you think he would be such a fool as to tell me ? ld. sist. Perhaps, he may beso honest as not to deny what he is not ashamed of. Sist. I should hate him the moment he confessed it, not for being a Papist, but for showing he had so little concern for me as to ven- ture to own it. Eid. sist. So that you think he ought rather to deny his religion, and disown all his principles, than venture your displeasure. Sist. I should think he was very indifferent, whether I was dis- pleased or-no, or that he presumed my being so engaged to him, that I could not go off; either of which I should take for an insufferable insolence. Eid. sist. No, you would have him conceal his principles, and dis- cover them when you could not help yourself: pray, which would be the greater insult? Sist. You strive to push me into a strait, but I have a medium again that delivers me from the necessity on either side, and that is, to shake off the suspicion; and, seeing you have no real ground for it, I cannot see why I should terrify myself with a mere jealousy. Eid. sist. I own I have no ground to suppose him a Papist; but I would never marry a man in the world without knowing what his principles are ; tis no satisfaction to me to say he is not an Atheist, he is not a profane despiser of religion; negatives are a poor founda- tion, sister, to go upon in case of such consequence: if he is of any religion, he should tell it me, or I would have nothing to say to him. Sist. Why, I told you, he said in particular, that he was of the church of England as by law established. Eid. sist. Why first, dear sister, I told you that’s nothing but. what any Papist may say, even without a dispensation; but. however it seems he did not that, but in way of discourse to other people; he 148 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. did not say so seriously, in answer to any inquiry of yours, or to give you satisfaction. Sist. No, that’s true; I have not desired any satisfaction of him; for I take those casual, occasional discoveries of himself, to have more of nature in them, and to be less liable to suspicion, than a formal, studied answer, to a jealous or doubting question ; and I have many reasons for my opinion too. Eld. sist. Why, that may be true: but I cannot think that such occasional cursory speeches can have solid foundation enough to satis- fy you in a thing of such moment: and I think I have the testimony of the fathers of our Reformation on my side, who, without doubt, saw init the great weight that lies on this part, viz. of the advantage and necessity that there is, that husband and wife should be of the same opinion in religion one with another; when they appointed with the office of matrimony, that the communion be given to the married couple at every wedding; that it might appear, not only that they both made a profession of the Christian religion, but that they both agreed in the profession of the same principles, and joined together in the same communion with the reformed Protestant churches, and with one another. And I think this is enough to con- vince you of the justice of our mother’s injunctions, that we should not marry any man, how religious soever he was, unless he was of the same opinion in religion with ourselves; or, as I observed above, that, as was the custom, the man and the wife might communicate together. Sist. I take that to be done ec aesaie to prevent Protestants marrying with Papists; and to discover the frand, if there was any ; you see the practice is left off now. Eld. sist. I know it is left off, since other and lesser differences among Protestants have made mutual communion more difficult; but I think the reason of the thing remains, viz. that every couple should know what communion they are of, and should be always if possible, sincere and without constraint of the same communion with one another. Sist. I rather think ’tis left off, because it is not thought to be of so much moment, as they thought of it then. Eld. sist. That is then because religion itself is less in fashion than it used to be, which indeed is too true; also marriages are now RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 149 wholly taken up with mirth and gay things; but in those days matri- mony seems to have been understood, as it really is in itself, a solemn and serious thing: not to be ventured on rashly, considered slightly, or performed with levity and looseness; ’tis a transaction of the greatest weight, attended with circumstances of the greatest import- ance, and consequences of the utmost concern to our welfare or misery ; the happiness of life, the prosperity of families, and indeed the interest of the soul, is exceedingly dependent on the good or bad - conduct of both parties in this affair: and to run headlong upon it, is rightly compared to a horse rushing into the battle, and argues a ‘ miserable thoughtlessness of what is before us. Sist. Dear sister, you terrify me with talking thus: what is it you would have me do? Lild. sist. I would have you take some measures, such an opportu- nity will not fail (in your conversation with this gentleman) to pre- sent you with, that you may know not only negatively, that he is no hater and despiser of God and religion, but positively what his prin- ciples in religion are; you may go as far farther as you see room for it, but less than this you can never be satisfied with; and can never answer it to God, to yourself, to your mother’s dying injunctions, nor to your children, if you should have any, to venture upon mar- tying him without it. Sist. If Mr. —— heard your discourse, he would think you were very much his enemy. Eid. sist. If he was in his senses, he would think me very much his friend. Sist. No, no, quite the contrary, I assure you. Ela. sist. Pray, my dear, let me ask you one question; for I must own to you this is one of my great suspicions; has he inquired nothing after your religion, the profession you make, or the opinion you are of? has he asked you no questions about it neither? Sist. No, not a word, he knows better; he knows I would give him but a short answer, if he would ask me anything about my reli- gion: what, do you think Ill be catechised already ? no, no; it is not come to that neither. Lid. sist. This is one of the strongest grounds of suspicion to me, and assures'me that he has very little regard to religion in general, that he can pretend to marry you, and know nothing whether you are 150 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. a Heathen or a Christian, an Atheist or a religious person, a Papist or a Protestant; the man can have no great value for religion, that is so little concerned whether his wife have any, or no; for I take the thing to weigh as much on the one side as on the other, where there is any serious consideration at bottom. Sist. We have had no discourse about it. Eid. sist, It seems you are pretty well agreed; that is to say, that neither of you trouble your heads about it: I must confess I think it will be a dreadful match. Sist. Why so! IJ tell you I have a way to prevent all the mischief you fear, and that is,as I told you before, I am resolved we will agree; for if he is not of my opinion I will be of his opinion, and so we will never have any strife. Hild. sist. But suppose you cannot do this; for I take all that for loose talk: for example suppose he should be a Papist? Sist. I won’t so much as suppose such a thing: J wonder you can suggest it of him. 2 Eld. sist. You seem to be very much in the fashion of our city ladies, sister; I am sorry for it. Sist. What fashion’s that, sister ? Eld. sist. Why of reserving their choice of principles till they see what principles their husbands shall be of. Sist. And is it not a very obliging custom, sister, in the young jadies? I think the gentlemen owe them a great deal for so much compliance. Eld. sist. There seems to be something of forecast in it, I con- fess, viz. that they may be in the posture to take anything that offers; but there is nothing of serious religion in it. Sist. Well there’s a great deal of good humor in it; and it takes off the occasions of religious disputes afterwards, which I take to be the worst kind of family breaches. Eld. sist. But ig not a concurrence of principles before-hand a much better way, especially considering that the inquiry is made during a state of distance, and while there is a power of. preventing the mischiefs of being unequally yoked? Sist. Well, I am persuaded there was never such a thing done, except by my stiff, formal sister; did ever a young gentleman, when he came to court his mistress, examine her, to know her prin- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 1 51 ciples, and ask her what religion she was of? or did ever a young lady, when she was courted by any gentleman, set: up to catechise him upon the articles of his creed, except, as I say, my surly sister? Eid. sist. Let me answer that question with a question, sister ; Did ever a young lady that had any regard to religion and the future happiness of her life, suffer herself to be courted two months by a strange person coming out of Italy, from the very bowels of superstition, and the very kingdom of Popery, and go on with him even to drawing of writings, and never know what religion he was of, or whether he had any religion or no, except that she had heard by accident that he was not an Atheist ? Sist. Well, I must take him for better and.for worse, you know; I'll make the best of him I can. ld. sist. I am very sorry that I can’t prevail with you to prevent your own misfortunes, when it is so easy to be done. Sist. You propose what I cannot so much as mention to him: I tell you it would be the rudest thing; I’m sure if he should do so to me, I should spit in his face, and bid him go and look for one that was religious enough for him’; sure, never any such thing was done in the world! Eld. sist. I wonder you can talk so, sister? do you not remember the passages about Mr. —— when he courted my cousin ——; did he not enter into a most serious, pretty discourse with her about religion when we were all at the table with them? and don’t you remember we all said ay, and you too, sister, when you heard it, that he did it with so much modesty, and so handsomely that nothing could be more becoming? and did not you, as well as I, call her a thousand fools for pretending to be disgusted at it. Sist. But she took ill his public manner of doing it, which I think was wrong too. Eid. sist. But I find you don’t know or don’t remember the rest of the story: she exposed herself to the last degree by resenting it. The case was this: the gentleman had courted her some weeks, and liked her, nay loved her very well; but was greatly perplexed to find out what taste of religion his mistress had; he was loth tv fall point blank upon her with the question, just as you say in your vase, yet he was not willing to be satisfied with a second hand relation neither; but one day when we were all together at my cousin’s the 152 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. young gentleman supped there, and after supper her mother and he and I entered into a discourse together of several matters, at last we began to talk of religion, and particularly of religious matches, when we were agreeably surprised to hear him talk for near half an hour wholly upon that subject; you were not there just when he talked of it, but we all gave you an account of it. Sist. I was not there; I supped at London that night and came to you the next day, I suppose. Eld sist, You did so! but it would have pleased you to have heard him talk. He began with the meaning and nature of religion, how -it consisted chiefly in natural duties, the effects of the knowledge and acknowledgment of God governing the world, to whom we owed the homage of our lives, and all we enjoyed, and must account for the use or abuse of them: then, he observed how plea- sant and agreeable a religious life was, how it was religion alone that made life happy, families pleasant, society agreeable, and relations comfortable; how miserable some families were brought up for the . want of it; how beautiful it was to see'an unity between relations in matters of that nature, and how dreadful the strife was in fami- lies where it was otherwise. Sist. Where was she all this while? Eld, sist. She sat by him, and he held her by the hand all the while; he went on then to tell us a great many pleasant stories of families that he had known ; how in some the husband was religious, and the wife Atheistic and profane; and in others, the wife was reli- gious, and the husband rakish, loose and profligate, and how miser- able the one made the life of the other. Then he gave himself a loose to talk of the constant, never fading felicity of families where was a harmony in religious things between husband and wife; and then, to try her, I suppose, or perhaps to prevent her thinking he pointed his discourse at her, he turned to her and smiling, My dear, says he, if there be any defect, on that account, between you and me, it will be on my side; but I hope to be helped forward by you. Sist. That was a kind of a wheedle, rather than a serious turn in his talk; and I suppose she took it so. Eld. sist. No, no, she took it otherwise, I assure you, for he might easily see she was not pleased. However, he went on, and told us a long story of a couple that were married, and were both very reli- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 153 gious, and yet, said he, they never had any happiness, any agreement, or any practical religion in the family ; this put me upon inquiry into the circumstances of it. Why, madam, says he, one was of one opinion in religion, and one was of another; both of them were tena- cious of their own opinion, and censorious of the other. One went to one place of worship, and another to another; one prayed to God in one part of the house, and one in another. Why, says I, they prayed to the same God, I hope; sure, charity might have taught them to have prayed together! so far from that, madam, says he, that they not only never prayed with one another, but I believe they scarce ever prayed for one another in their lives, but looked upon one another as heathens and publicans, and such as God himself would not hear. This was a sad family, sir, said I; but I hope there are very few such in this nation, where religion is so heartily espoused. Truly, madam, says he, it may teach us what occasion there is for us to seek out for religious wives, and to take care to be agreeable hus- bands to them, when we have them. And here he said a great many handsome things indeed of the little concern men generally took upon themselves, either to marry religious wives, or to see that the opinions of those they married were not too much shocking with their own; and especially that when men had religious wives, or women had religious husbands they did not study, as much as Jay in them, both sides, to bring their opinions to agree with one another, bearing with one another, yielding as much as possible to one another, and the like, that, as the scripture said, their prayers might not be hindered. Sist. Well, and was this the discourse that she did not like? Eflld, isst. I am sure her mother and I liked it; but she behaved herself so simple about it the next day, that it gave him a surfeit of her religion, and he declined her afterwards upon that very account; for, as he told me since, very seriously, she discovered such a temper at that time, such a general dislike of a religious life, and of a regu- lar family, that made him particularly afraid of her. Sist. Ay, ay, he should have gone; if he was so nice I should have liked his discourse no better than she did. Eld. sist. How can you say so, sister, when you cannot but re- member how you did like it when you heard of it. We 154 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Sist. I should have thought it was too public though, and that it was a kind of forcing me to a kind of necessity of giving an account of my opinions whether J would or no. Eld. sist. Well, what you would have done I know not, but I think no woman in her senses could have disliked such a principle as he went upon; it plainly showed her that he was aiuan that placed the principal felicity of his life upon having a religious wite, a religious conversation in his family, and a religious government of it as it increased. Sist. What was that to the purpose! She would have had him without it, and he might have talked of it afterwards. Eid. sist. Yes, yes, she would have. had him without it, that was her folly: but he was resolved he would not have her without it, and that was his wisdom; and there was an absolute necessity for him to try beforehand what he had to expect. Sist. Well, I would not have been tried by him; he should e’en have gone, I say, and taken a fool for his own finishing, where he could have found her. Fild. sist. Well, and he did go; and you know he married after- wards a very sensible, sober, and religious woman, and they are a very happy family as any I know; whereas, our foolish cousin, you see, has married a rake; a fellow of no religion; and is as miserable almost as it is possible for a woman that has a good estate to be made in this world. Sist. Well, sister, and how do you bring this story down to my case? Ihope I am not going to marry a rake, as she has done; if I thought it was so I would soon clear myself. Eid. sist. No, no, sister, I do not- say so; but there are many kinds of husbands to make a sober woman miserable, besides rakes, that I assure you: nor was it upon that account that I told you the story. Sist, What, differing in opinions, you mean? I must confess, I think, sister, you are too nice in that case, and run it up, I say, too high. I can give many instances where such matters do very well. Eid. sist, Pretty well, you should have said; and I know where you are going to name a family. I suppose you mean our cousin Martha —, and our friend James —— ; one a atrict church woman, and the other a Quaker. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 155 Sist. Well, suppose I did mean those ; they live very comfortably, and love one another very well. Eid. sist. I am glad you have named them, because I would argue from the best example you can give. I allow they live as well as it is possible for two of so wide and irreconcilable principles to do, and it is owing to a world of good humor, affection, and charity in both of them; but if you think there is not something wanting be- tween them, which ought to be between a man and his wife, some- thing essential to what we call happiness, something they would give half their estate to have, and the want of which robs them of the sweetest part of relation, and of the best and most solid comfort of a married life; or, if you think that they are not both sensible of it, you are greatly mistaken. Sist. Ido not converse much with them, not I, but I know they are a very loving couple, and everybody takes notice of it, and ad- mires them for it. Eid sist. Before I go on where I was speaking, let me take no- tice to you, that your very last words now are an argument on my side. It is true, they are admired for their kind and pleasant way of living one with another; and: why is it? but because it is so sel- dom, so rare, so wonderful indeed, to find two of different opinions agree so well, that all people wonder at these two: and shall any young woman, that values her peacé, and lays any stress upon the happiness of an agreement with which it must needs be next to a miracle, if she has any such happiness? Sist. You do not know but there may be many more such. Eid. sist. Well, but I'll keep to your own example, and I will convince you, sister, that even in these two who are happy toa miracle, yet there is an exception to their felicity ; and, though they love entirely, and that love covers a multitude of things, yet I say they find something wanting, which other people have, and some- thing that they would be glad to have, and I have had frequent oc- casions, in serious discourse with her, to hear her speak her mind freely to me, in this very case, particularly; I will give you one ex- ample of it, viz. One Sunday morning, when I went to church with her, Oh! said she to me, cousin, if I could but get this dear Jimmy of mine to go to church with me! Well, saysI, what then? What then! says she, why then I should be the happiest woman upon 156 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. earth ; methinks it 1s the melancholiest thing, continued she, to go alone to the worship of God, and the man that I love, that is to me as my own soul, won’t worship with me; it breaks my heart; it quite takes away all the comforts of my life. A while after this, as we walked along the streets to go to church, she fetched a heavy sigh: What's the matter with you, said I, cousin? The matter, cousin! says she, Look there, you'll’ see what's the matter; there’s Mrs. , with her husband and all her children, going hand in hand to serve God together: they live a heavenly life; while we, though we love one another better than they do a great deal, yet live like two strangers on the Sabbath day, whatever we do all the rest of the week. Now what think you of all their apparent affec- tion to one another, sister? Will that make up the loss? Sist. They live very comfortably, for all that: and their love makes up all those intervals in their satisfaction. ld. sist. Well, V'll tell you how comfortably they live; I assure you, though they are patterns to the whole world, for extraordinary affection, and their love is so uninterrupted, that it does make up abundance of other things; yet here, I say, it makes up no intervals, I can assure you of it; nay, I think verily, that affection, which it is confessed they have for one another, and for which they are both so admired, makes it worse; at least it makes it the more griev- ous to bear: and the part I am telling you will prove it; pray let me go on with it. I came back with her and dined; and after din- ner, honest James takes up his gloves and his cane, and came and kissed her, and prepares to go to the Quaker-meeting. She could hold no longer then, but burst out into tears; he was extremely anx- ious to know what ailed her, but she could not speak; she was un- willing to grieve him, and unwilling to say anything that was un- kind; he pressed her a long time, and said a thousand tender, kind things, that I hardly expected from him; but that made her cry the more. At last, I said to him, smiling, I know what troubles her, but you won't relieve her. Won't], says he, a little moved, Why dost thou say so? I would let out my blood to do her any good; and she knows I will stick at nothing todo for her. Why, says I, you won't serve God with her. Won’t I, says he ? yes, I would with all my heart, if she would let me. This I found laid a foundation for some dispute about their principles: but she wisely avoided that, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 157 and I perceived it, so I put it off. I dare say, says I, she would give all she has in the world, if you would but go to church with her now. At that she burst out, though full of tears, Ay, says she, I would give him back my jointure with all my heart. He took her in his arms, and with the tenderest and kindest expressions that he was capable of, endeavored to pacify her, and put an end to it, a thing they could not dispute about without unkindness, and there- fore better to be avoided: but it took up the whole afternoon to res- tore them to one another, and she neither went to the church, nor he to the meeting; and yet here was nothing but kindness and affec- tion between them all this while. Sist. I never heard anything of this before.. Eid. sist. But I have heard a great deal more trom her, and from him too; though she loves him to an extremity, and, to give him his due, he merits all her affection; yet as she is a very sober religious woman, that is ready to break her heart to think sometimes what a life she lives; she can scarce talk to me of anything else. I having been something more intimate with her on those occasions than ordinary. Sist. What has she to complain of? Has she not a kind husband? And does he not give her all the liberty and freedom in the world? Does she not go as fine, and dress as well as she pleases? Does he not keep her a coach, and give her leave to give her own liveries, and go where, and do what she will? Does she not live like a queen? What can she complain of ? Eld. sist. Her case, in a word, sister, is the very case our dear mother warned us of; and it is not hard to tell you what she has to complain of ; she is a very sober, religious woman, that serves God night and day, with a sincerity and devotion not easy to be found among women, as the world goes now; and I'll tell you what grieves her, and what she complains of. Her husband is as religious too in his way as she is in hers: but, as there is no harmony or concurrence in their several principles and ways of worship, so there can be no public stated family worship. He does not join with her, nor she cannot join with him; so all the thing called family religion, the glory of a married state, and the comfort of family society is entirely lost : the servants are left ungoverned, the children are unguided; and there again is her grief doubled, she has four little young children. 158 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. It is true he 1s a man of too good a humor to deny or restrain her in the education of her children; but it is a sad thing to her to be obliged to instruct and caution her children against the practice of their father, whose life ought to be their pattern, and. his practice their example. O sister! if ever you come to look into such a con- dition, with a feeling sense of it as your own, you will find it is not all the tenderness of the most affectionate husband in the world, can make up the loss of these things. On the other hand, he has his dissatisfactions too, he is as sad on the account of her difference from him, as she is for his difference from her; so that, in short, the un- happiness is mutual. : Sist. They should have considered and prevented these things before hand. , Eid. sist. That’s true, sister; and that’s the reason of all my dis- course to you: that’s my proposal to you, and the reason why I press you so much to come to a certainty in these things. You will have sad reflections hereafter, when it is past remedy. Sist. I am not so nice in that point; I told you my remedy for it; if he can’t come up to me, I can come up to him. I am sure he is no Quaker. Eld, sist. I hear you, sister; you make light of it now, I believe he is né Quaker, but he may be worse; and you are not sure he will equal that Quaker in goodness of humor, kindness and affection, the want of ‘which, I must tell you, will make thé want of the other be so much the worse to bear. Sist. Well, I must run the venture of it, I think; it is gone too far to break it off now. Eid. sist. I have not been persuading you to break it off, sister ; you mistake me; I am only arguing, or rather persuading you to inform yourself of things, and know beforehand what you are going to do, that you may not run into misery blindfold, and make your marriage be as old Hobbes said of his death, aleapinthe dark. | Sist. I think all marriage is a leap in the dark, in one respect or another. Ed. sist. Well, sister, if it be so, it should not be so in matters of religion, in whatever other case it is so; that should be clear, what- ever is doubtful; that should be examined into, and perfectly dis- covered, whatever is omitted; the mistakes in this are fatal to RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 159 both sides, and often irretrievable, and the consequences dis- mal. Sist. It is all a hazard, and that among the rest. Eid. sist. No, no, sister; I am firm in my opinion ; you and I have often argued it when you seemed to be of my mind. Itis true, there is a hazzard in every part of the change of life; we risk our peace, our affection, our liberty, our fortunes; but we ought never to risk eur religion. Sist. Why, I am not running the risk of my own religion, though I do not know his. Eid. sist. Yes, truly in some measure, sister, you do, and your own words acknowledged it just now. Did not you say, that if he would not be of your opinion, you would be of his? And is it not often that we see young women change their opinions, nay, change the very principles of their religion, in compliance with their hus- bands’? Sist. Well, and is it not very well to do so? id, sist. If their principles were ill-founded before, they do well to change them, to be sure; but is it not oftener that they rather abandon principle than exchange it; lose their religion than increase it? for you cannot suggest, that all the women who have changed their opinions, in compliance with their husband, were wrong before, “~ and have changed for the better. Sist. It is better so far, that it takes away the foundation of family breaches, of which you speak. , Eid. sist. But it is a sad exchange, if it be wrong; for the woman then exchanges the peace of her conscience for peace with her hus- band; loses her religion, and gives up her principles, instead of exchanging them for better. Sist. There may be some compliance sure without entirely aban- doning principles ; you propose no medium between right and wrong. Eid. sist. Why, take our cousin we are speaking of, or her hus- band the Quaker, let them stand for the example; suppose she, in compliance with him, for you know she has affection enough to do any possible thing to oblige him, should turn Quaker, would she not retain a sting in her soul, that would destroy all her inward peace? Sist. I don’t know what to say to that; Quakers are Ohristians, I hope? ‘ 160 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eld. sist. 1 won't enter into that; I’ll allow them to be Christians too; but take it of him as well as of her; suppose him to change then, and come over to her, then it would be the same with him; which is all one to the case in hand. Pray where is the felicity of such a match, where one or other is supposed to act without con- science, or against conscience, all their days for conjugal peace, and. to sacrifice principle to affection? are not these still invincible argu- ments for what I am persuading to? Sist. I scarce know what you are persuading to, not I. Eld. sist. Yes you do, sister, very well; however I'll repeat it as often as you say so; I am arguing the absolute necessity of young people comparing their religious principles and opinions before mar- riage; and seeing that they agree, at least so far as to lay no founda- tion of a religious breach in the family after marnage ; that they may worship God together; join in family precepts, and support family religion ; that they may agree in their instructions to their children, join in family precepts and examples; that there may be no disput- ings or dividings against one another, but a mutual harmony in the propagating their own eternal interests, and that they may go hand in hand in the true way to heaven. Sist. And cannot this happen to them without settlement of cir- cumstances beforehand, that we must capitulate about religion as we do about jointures, and settle principles as we do fortunes, always beforehand. Eld. sist. That it may not or cannot happen so, I will not say; but if you will take the world at large, as it is now stated, between those who have no religion at all, and those who differ from others, you must allow, sister, it is a lottery of a thousand blanks to one prize ; and who that values their own peace, would venture the odds? * ist. I believe I shall venture for all that. Eld. sist. Then either you have no principle now, sister, or, ‘tis ten to one but you give it up when you are married. Sist. Perhaps you may be mistaken in both. Eid. sist. If I am, there is a third, which I was going to add, but restrained it in respect to you, in which I believe I shall not be mistaken. Sist. Let us have it, however. Hild. sist. If you will have it then, it is this; that (to repeat the RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 161 former) either, as I said, you have no principle now, or will give up your principles when you are married, or will be very miserable in a continual family strife to maintain them. Sist. It must all be ventured, sister; I see no remedy now; there is no going back at this time of the day. [After this discourse, the eldest sister, seeing her resolute, gave over, and the young lady was as good as her word: for she put it all to the venture, as will appear in the following dialogue.] DIALOGUE II. Tue young lady mentioned in the foregoing dialogue is now to be viewed in another station of life; she was not altogether so thought- less of her circumstances, or so unconcerned as she seemed to be by her discourse to her sister about what was before her: but she had not the conduct or resolution of her sisters to carry her through; however she did take one step sufficient to leave a sad example of a father perfectly unconcerned about the religious settlement of his children, and making the good of their souls no part of his care. It was but a few days after the discourse which she had held with her sister, that her father and she had the following dialogue one evening, after the gentleman who courted her was gone away; her father being in a parlor all alone, called her to him, and began with her thus: Fa, Well, child, I suppose your ceremonies begin to be pretty well over now ; when are we to bring this business to a conclusion ? Da, J am in no haste, sir. ; fa. Well, but Mr. —— is in haste; you may be sure he would be willing that the inconveniences of coming and going thus late be over; and as long as both sides are satisfied, why would. we keep him in suspense ? ‘ Da. J do not keep him in suspense, sir. Fa. Well then, if-you are agreed, let us put an end to it, my dear, 162 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. and tell me what day you will be married, and I'll make the appoint- ment. , Da. Agreed, sir! I have agreed to nothing, it is all between him and you, Fa. How do you mean, child? he has now waited on you these six or seven weeks; I hope you know one another’s mind before now. Da. We have spent six or seven weeks indeed in his visits, talking and prattling of things in general, but I am not much the wiser of it. Fa. Why, you are a little better acquainted I hope, than you were at first, child; do you like the gentleman, or have you anything to object? Da. Sir, I don’t trouble myself much about objections; sir, 1 leave it all to you; I resolve to do as you will have me to do: I won't do as my sister did. Fa. Well, you are in the right there; but I hope there is no occa- sion neither: this gentleman is a man of sobriety, and of a good character. Da. T hope, sir, you have informed yourself fully of that; for I leave it all to you, sir; and about his religion too. Fa. I have known him a great many years, child: he is a very honest, good sort of a gentleman, I assure you. Da. Thope you have good grounds to be satisfied, sir, for I depend upon you, sir, for everything; I know you would not propose him to me, if he was not a very sober, good man. Fa. I am fully satisfied of that, my dear. Da, And of his being a religious person, sir? you know what my mother obliged us to on her death-bed; I hope, sir, you have a good account of his being a sober, religious man, I leave it all to you, sir. Fa. Yes, yes, my dear, he is a very religious, good man, for aught 1 know, I assure you. Da. He is a Protestant, sir, is not he? Fa. A Protestant, child !*yes, yes, he was always a Protestant, all the while I traded with him; I have had an account of it from seve- ral people. A Protestant! yes, yes, you may be sure he is a Pro- testant, I dare say he is. Da, Well, sir, if you are satisfied, I have no more to say. Fa. Nay, child, why dost thou put it so all upon me? I believe he is a good man, and religious enough; I did not bring him up, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 163 and I have not asked him how religious he is; I do not enter into these things with folks; every one’s religion is to himself. Da. Well, sir, if you are satisfied, I must be satisfied, to be sure. Fa. Nay, I would have you to be satisfied, too, child; cannot you ask him what religion he is of? [Here the father seemed a little unwilling to have it all lay upon him.] Da. I cannot ask him such a question, not I; besides, sir, if you are satisfied, I shall look no farther. Fa. I know not what occasion there is to be so scrupulous: you see what ridiculous work your sister made of it, and yet married the same man two years after. Da. Sir, I do not make any scruples, not I, if you are satisfied ; I shall do as you would have me; I do not suppose you would have me have him, if he was not a very sober man. [She has nothing in her but the same dull story of doing every- thing her father would have her do.] Fa, J tell thee, child, I dare say he is a very sober, good man, and will make a very kind husband; I can say no more to thee. Da, ANI desire to know is, that he is a Protestant. I hope you are sure of that, sir. Fa. Dear child, what makes thee talk so? Da. He has lived a long while in Italy, sir, where they say, they are all Papists. Fa. Why so did I, child, when I was a young man, but never turned Papist; I dare say Mr. —— is a Protestant: I never heard any one suspect him before. It may be seen by this dull and empty discourse on both sides, that this poor young lady went on tanguam boves, like the ox to the slaughter, not knowing or considering, that it was for her life. She resolved all her scruples into that weak way of answering, I leave it all to you, sir, I hope you are satisfied, sir! and I'll do as you would have me, sir, and the like; not considering, that she had a father that laid no stress upon anything, but the money; his whole care was for the settlement, and the estate, not inquiring into the princi- ples of the person, and therefore his answers are as silly for a father, as her’s were for a wife, viz. That he dare say the gentleman was 4 very good, sober man; that he has known him a long time; and did 164 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. not question put he was a Protestant, and the like. In a word, the girl left it all to her father, and ‘the father, perfectly indifferent as to matters of religion, left it out of his inquiry. And thus they were married in a few weeks after, and abundance of mirth and jollity they had; which covered all the appearances of other things for a great while. At length, the lady went home to her house in the city, which was magnificently furnished. Among other rich furniture, the rooms were exceedingly stored with a noble collection of very fine paintings, done by the best masters in Italy ; the part of Italy where this gentleman had lived, viz. the Duke of Tuscany’s country, being particularly eminent for choice pictures. It happened after she had been some time at home, had settled her house, and finished the decorations of her rooms, that her husband bringing some pictures home, which were newly arrived from Italy, had among others, three very choice pieces hung up in their bed-chamber; whereof one being a picture of the crucifixion, and extremely valuable and fine, he contrived to have hanged up by the bed side. His wife, not used to such things, perfectly ignorant of the design, not at all acquainted with the use made of them in Popish countries, took no manner of notice of it-at first, taking it only to be brought in there, as it was a most noble piece of painting; and that her hus- pand thought it was the best thing he could grace her chamber with, It happened her two sisters came together some time after, as is usu- al, to see her house, and to see the fine collection of paintings which they had been told so much of. And after some time, their sister and their new brother led them through all the apartments, which were indeed extremely fine. The brother-in-law, as what he took great delight in, made it his business to tell them the design of the several pictures, what places or fine houses such and,such represent- ed, what stories and what faces others were drawn for; and the like. And, being his wife’s sisters, he treated them with all the freedom and kindness imaginable. When they came to the crucifixion which hung by the bed side, he told them there was one of the finest pieces of painting in England; told them the name of the painter that had drawn it, who, he said, was one of the best masters in Italy; and, I'll assure you, sister, says he, this is counted a fine thing in Italy. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 165 But why must it hang in your bed-chamber, brother? says the other married sister, not suspecting anything; for her eldest sister had not told her anything of what she had said to her sister. Ob, madam, says he, they always have these things in their bed-chambers in Italy on a religious account. Well, says the sister, but as we do not make use of them that way, methinks they are better anywhere else. Why sister, says he, our bed-chambers are places where we are, or ought to be most serious. Why, says she again, but we that are Protestants do not make a religious use of them. Not so’'much perhaps, says he, as the Romans do; but I cannot say but they may be useful to assist devotion. Not at all, says the sister. At least, madam, says he, they can be no disadvantage to us; we want all possible helps in our adorations. We have the promise of the spirit of God to assist us, says the sister, very warmly, and need no idola- trous pictures. He saw she was tart, and seemed to be forward to dispute, which he- avoided; so he called them to look on another picture, and that passed off the discourse. After they had gone through several apartments, and had admired the fine paintings, as indeed they well deserved, they came to his closet. He would have avoided going in, and told them it was in confusion, and not worth their seeing; but his wife having told them it was her husband’s closet, they would not be denied. When they went in, they were surprised with the most charming pictures that their eyes had ever beheld, with abundance of rarities, which their new brother, being very curious, had picked up in his travels; and, in a little room, on one side of his closet, upon a table covered with carpet of the finest work. they had ever seen, stood a pix or reposi- tory of the host, all of gold, and above them an altar-piece of most exquisite painting. He was -indeed jealous of being betrayed by those things, but there being none but the ladies, who had never seen such things before, and knew nothing by the form, they retired with- out so much as discovering what it was; and as for his wife, she was so perfectly ignorant, that she was easily imposed upon. They passed from this place to the other side of the closet, where were abundance of very fine pieces; ‘but here the elder could not forbear observing, that all the pictures on that whole side of the room were religious pieces, and, though still without much suspicion, she said to him, I observe brother, you gentlemen that have lived in 166 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Italy, are so in love with popish customs, that you are always full of these church paintings: here’s nothing but representations of Christ and the Virgin Mary, in one shape or another, in every room in your house. She went on jestingly for some time, till she came to the upper end of the room, toa picture which hung just over an easy chair, and which had a curtain drawn over it; he thought she would not have let her curiosity outrun her good manners, and so did not apprehend her opening it; but she made no scruple of offer- ing to fling back the curtain; but soon found it would not run back, being, as she found afterwards, to draw up in festoons with pullies: however, she discovered by what she had done, that the picture was the same with that in the bed-chamber, viz. a large crucifix, or pic- ture of the crucifixion. She said no more, but hastened to view what was farther to be seen, yet so, as that it was easy to discover she was in no little dis- order. Her sister, that came with her, discovered it first, and asked what ailed her? Then the new married sister, whose house she was in, came to her with the same question: she owned to them she was not very well, and that presently gave her an excuse to withdraw into the woman’s apartment, where she had some room to recollect herself. However, she took care not to give the least cause to suspect what ailed her, till she got an opportunity, when nobody was in the room with her but her youngest sister (she who was first married) and then burst out into tears, and taking her sister about the neck, with the greatest passion imaginable, O! my dear sister, says she, this poor child is utterly undone. Undone! says her sister, what do you mean? I think she is nobly married. O, sister! I tell you she’s undone! the man’s a Papist! Somebody came into the room just as she had said this, so that her sister had no time to ask her any further; and she to prevent it, added I'll tell you more by and by: so they passed it over. You may be sure it was after this a very uneasy hour the two sisters spent in the ceremonies of their visit, both longing earnestly to be at liberty to talk together, one to disburden her mind which was oppressed with what she had formerly suspected, and now found confirmed, and the other to hear the particulars of what she was so much surprised at. It was not long before they. got away, and as soon as ever they RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 167 were in the coach, the married sister said, Dear sister, you have so surprised me with what you told me just now, that I thought every minute an hour till I got away, that I might talk about it; I entreat you what makes you talk as you do? Eid. sist. O sister ! I am too well satisfied of it ; I am sure it is so. I suspected it all along before they were married, but now I am con- vinced of it; I am as sure of it as if I had seen him at high mass. [Here she tells her what she had observed upon his pictures and crucifixes. | Married sist. Now you surprise me again; you say you suspected it all along. : Hid. sist. Indeed I did; though I own I know no reason why I did so. Mar. sist. But why did not you warn her of it: she ought to have known it; certainly she would never have married him if she had known it. That was very unkind not to warn her of it. £ild. sist. I did very plainly tell her my suspicions; but as I had no ground to fasten it upon him, it made very little impression upon her; nor could I really say it was so. Mar. sist. Well, I would have pressed her to a solemn inquiry into it; you might have prevented her ruin, if you had done it in time; now she is undone indeed, if it be as you say, and there is no room to prevent it. Lid, sist. You cannot think I had so little concern for her, as not to tell her my suspicions, and to use all the arguments I was capable of, to persuade and prevail with her to inquire into his principles; for I know too well what the dwelling twenty years in Italy might do. [Here she recites to her the particulars of the whole foregoing dialogue, between her and her younger sister.] Mar. sist. Poor child! She is ruined indeed. She has leapen headlong into it, in spite of good abvice, and her ruin is of her own procuring. But what will you do now, sister? will you let her know? Eid. sist. No, no, I won't be the messenger of her scrrows, she'll find it out soon ehough; the thing will discover itself too soon. Har, sist. Dear sister, what does my father say to it: does he know it? 168 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eld, sist. You know, sister, my father gives himself very little trouble about.such things. I dare say he never inquired into it, or concerned himself about it. Mar. sist. Does he know anything of it now ? Eld. sist. Truly, Ido not know: but I know that after I had pressed her earnestly about it, she did mention to my father once at a distance in their discourse, as that she did not question but he was a good, sober, man, or else he [her father] would not have recom- mended him ; and added, I hope he is a Protestant, sir? Mar. sist. Well, what said my father to that part? Eld. sist. He answered after the same slight way as those do who make the main part none of their care. ‘Yes, yes, child, a Protest- ant! I dare say he is; he was always a Protestant when I was in Italy with him, and everybody knows he is a Protestant; you need not question that, I dare say. Mar, sist. Poor child! she had no sincere concern upon her about it; if she had, she would not have been put off in a matter of so much moment, with a bare position: taking it for granted; or I dare say, it is so: without inquiring into it. £ild. sist. It is too true; she has not made it much her concern, and I am so much the more afraid for her now. Mar. sist. Afraid for her, say you; what, are you afraid of her turning papist ? Eid. sist. Why, yes,I am. You know I told you what an answer she gave me to that very point several times, viz. That if he would not be of her opinion, she would be of his; that if he was a Christian Catholic, she was a Catholic Christian, and they would have no strife about that, and the like; and yet that is not all my concern, neither. Mar. sist. What is it then? Eid. sist. Why, I fear more of the insinuations and subtility of his tongue, his unwearied solicitation, the powerful motives of a man perfectly master of the art of persuasion: and that the more sweet- ness he has in his temper (for he is really of a most engaging disposi- tion) the more influence his words will have on her, to win her over to error, not merely by complaisance to him, as her husband, but by her not being able to answer his reasonings. Mar. sist. I confess it ishard to resist the force of those persua- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 169 sions, the reasons for which we cannot rid our hands of by argument. And one is apt to think, one ought to comply with what we cannot confute, otherwise the Papists will tell us, we are Protestants, we know not why; a Jew may tell us we are Christians, we know not why; and an Atheist may tell us we are religious, we know not why, and so on. ld. sist. And that which is worse is, there is no breaking the thing to her: to talk to her of it, is to anticipate her misfortunes. Perhaps he designs to conceal it from her for good and all, and at least it may be a great while before she discovers it; and all that time she will be happy, in not thinking herself so miserable as he is. Mar, sist. I allow you, it is not fit to mention it to her first; and yet Iam afraid if she finds it out she will endeavor to conceal it from us. Eid. sist. I doubt so: and by that means we are perfectly deprived of all opportunity of assisting her, or endeavoring to fortify her against the insinuations of any to turn her to Popery. Mar. sist. But I think we should break it to my father. Eld. sist. I know not what to say to that. Iam afraid his indif- ference in the thing should be a means to discover it to her, and bring some inconvenience or other with it. Mar. sist. I do not see any danger of that; but I think it is fit he should know it on many accounts. Eld. sist. I acknowledge I think he should know it, if it were possible to engage him not to disclose it; but unless it can be done so, I would not have any hand in telling it him, upon any account whatever. , [While they were in this dilemma, and doubtful what to do in it, as to telling their father, they were delivered from it, by their father himself, as will appear in the following discourse. As soon as they came home, their father began with them; for he was more impa- tient to open his mind to them, than they were on the other hand doubtful about consulting with him upon this unhappy case; both sides being therefore willing to talk of it, they could not want an opportunity ; and the father, after supper, began with his married daughter thus :] Fa. Well, Betty, you have been to visit your sister in her new house, I find. How do you like things? 8 170 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Mar. sist. Sir, she is nobly married to be sure, she has a house like a palace. Eld. sist. I think there are the finest paintings that ever I saw in my life. He has laid out vast sums sure in pictures. Fa. He always had the finest collection of paintings of any mer- chant in Leghorn. He is a great lover of art and has a nice judg- ment, which are the two only things that can make buying so many pictures rational; for his pieces are so well chosen, that he may sell them when he pleases, for above a thousand pounds more than they cost. Hild, sist, I like his fancy pictures very well; but methinks I don’t admire his having.so many crucifixes and church pieces among them. Fa. It is the custom in Italy, child; all people have them. Eid. sist. That is, because they make a religious use of them. But I think Protestants should not be so fond of them, who make no such use of them. It looks so like Popery, that if the mind was not furnished against them, it seems to give a lift that way; and then I observe he hangs them all just as they do. His crucifixes and pas- sion pictures hang all by the bedside. His altar pieces, just at the upper end of the room, or on the east side. I cannot imagine why Protestants, if they will have the pictures, should just hang them in the same places, and mimic the Catholics in the appearances, as long as they do not make the same use of them. . [This discourse touched their father to the heart, and, as he said afterwards, he could hardly forbear tears; but held it in a little longer, and replied, that it was only the custom of the country, and they might think no harm in it; and so being willing to put by the discourse, he turns again to his married daughter thus :] Fa, Well, but child, how do you like your new brother? for you never saw him before, or at least never to converse with him? Mar, sist. He is a very fine gentleman, sir. I was going to wish you joy, sir, and to say I was very glad to see my sister so well married; but something prevented me. {Now the father could contain himself no longer.] Fa, I know not what prevented you, but I believe it was the same that forces me to tell you both, I have no joy in it at all; your sister is undone, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 171 Mur. sist. Undone, sir? What do you mean? What can be the matter ? fa, She is undone, indeed, child? and-more than that, I have un- done her; the man’s a Papist.- [The father burst out into tears as soon as he had spoken the words, and the daughters stood as it were speechless for some time, looking at one another; at last the married daughter spoke.] Mar. sist. Are you sure of it, sir? Fu, Ay, ay, 1 om too sure of it; I have lived in Italy, and know something of the manner of such things, I presently discovered it, Eild. sist. Will you please to tell us how you discovered it? for we have had the same thoughts, but we durst not speak our minds about it. Fa, Child, it is impossible for any one that haa lived in-Italy not to discover it, as soon as he sees his house. ld. sist. What, from the crucifixes and church pictures I spoke of? Fa. No, no, child; but was you in his closet? Eid. sist. Yes, sir. Fa, And was you in an inner room that you went to through his closet, and through another room beyond it? Eld. sist. Yes, sir, we were both there, but we saw nothing there more than ordinary, only still more church pieces, as that of the Pas- sion, the Salutation, the Ascension, and the like. Fa. Tt is because you have not been used to such things child; why, it is his oratory; it is a little consecrated chapel, and there stands an altar and an altar-piece over it, with a crucifix, and the as- cension painting above that; on either side there are fine rich paint- ings, one of the Baptism, and another of the Assembly at the Feast of Pentecost, and the Holy Ghost descending in flaming tongues, and the like. But that is not all, for, upon the altar isa pix of pure gold, covered with a piece of crimson velvet, which is the repository, as they call it, of the host. Eld. sist. I wonder, sir, he'would let you see these things, if he designed to conceal his profession. Fa. It was all by accident ; for, when I was in his closet, he was called hastily down, and his wife let me into these two rooms: but alas! she knows nothing of the meaning of them, she only takes them, to be fine Italian rarities. 172 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eld. sist. Indeed, I do not wonder at that, for I understood them no more than she does: and yet, my sister knows, I presently enter- tained the same opinion of his religion as you do now; but it was from the picture of the crucifixion that hung by his bedside with a curtain over it. Fa. Well, child, yours are suspicions, mine is a certainty. When I charged him with it, he could not deny it: but seemed surprised when he found I had been in his chapel. Mar. sist. Nay, it is then out of doubt, it seems, if he owns it; but what will become of my sister! Now she will have reason to see how just my mother’s injunctions were to us all; I fear she will re- proach herself with the neglect of them. Fa. My dear, she must reproach me with it; it is I have ruined her; I have given her up. War. sist. No, sir; I think it lay upon her to have inquired into his principles in religion, before she had given herself out of her own power, Fa, My dear, she came to me, and questioned with me upon this very point. She asked me if he was a Protestant, and I encouraged her ; told her he was a Protestant, and a very good man. ' Mar. sist. I suppose, sir, you did not say positively that you were sure he was a Protestant, but that you believed so. Fa. I assured her so much of its being my opinion, that I told her she need not fear it; and she again left it all to me, and depended upon me: And it is I that have betrayed and deluded her. In short, I have sold my child, and the peace of her life, for the toys and fine things of Italy. J have undone her; it is all owing to my being un- concerned for the better part. Lid. sist. Dear father, do not take the weight of it so much upon yourself. My sister knows it was her duty to have made a further search into it, and I pressed her to it in time, and with all possible importunity. Fa, Ohild, you did right; and I believe she designed to follow your directions. But what assistance did I give to her? how did I damp that resolution, when I stopped her mouth by telling her, that I dare say he was a Protestant? She trusted to my assurance, -nay, she told me, that she did so. [Here the father repeats to her the discourse between him and hig RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 173 daughter, mentioned at the beginning of this dialogue, continuing to reproach himself with betraying his child.] Eid. sist. But, sir, notwithstanding this discourse (for she told me every word from time to time) I urged her a great many times, and told her my thoughts; for I suspected him from the beginning, and I labored to convince her, that she ought to see with her own eyes, and to talk plainly and openly to him of it. Fa, Did she not tell you that her father had assured her he was a Protestant, and that she trusted to that? id. sist. She was more just to you, sir, than to say that you as- sured. her of it; but she repeated your very words, that you said, you believed it, and dare say he was, and I told her plainly, that it was evident from your words, that you only spoke your opinion, and that she ought not therefore to call that a positive assurance to be depended upon. Indeed, sir, I was very plain with her; she has no- body to blame but herself, I told her. [Here she repeats all her former discourse with her sister.] Fa, She has herself indeed been to blame for want of reflection upon your seasonable persuasions, my dear, and you acted a faithful part with her. But had I been as faithful to her, who was obliged in duty to have done it, and on whom she depended, as you were, who had no obligation but from your affections, I had delivered my child from ruin. Eilld. sist. I cannot say, sir, you had delivered her; she seemed resolved to have him; her eyes were dazzled with the gay things she expected, and unless you had positively refused your consent, I fear religion had not hold enough on her thoughts, to have balanced her love of vanity. Fa. But» I have been perfectly careless of it, and have not done the duty of my place; I ought to have inquired into the circum- stances of the person myself, and have restrained her. Eid. sist. J am sorry for her, but I think you reflect on yourself too severely, sir; to be sure you did not know that he was a Papist, neither had you any suspicion of it; but she had; for I put the sus- picion into her head, and earnestly pressed her to satisfy herself about it from himself. Fa. My dear, I have been always too careless in these things. 1 remember the case of your sister here, and cannot but reflect how, 174 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. when in 2 passion, J told her it was none of my business, my own heart struck me with reproach; for I knew it was my duty. I wish this poor child had been as strict and as nice in that matter as her sis- ter was, though I took it ill then, I see now she was in the right of it. Eid. sist. You afflict yourself, sir, for a case that issued well; and where, if you were in the wrong, there were no bad consequences: whereas in this case, were the bad consequences have happened, you are no way the cause, it is all her own doing. Fa, But as it is an affliction to me, and that you may be sure it is, Providence seems to show me my sin by my punishment. I acknow- ledge I was in the wrong before, and it is not owing to my prudence or concern, that your sister was not ruined. Besides, every father that has a due concern for the souls of his children, will certainly inquire narrowly into the principles, as well as morals of the persons they match them to. In a word, their father afflicted himself so much and so long upon this matter, that his two daughters were obliged to drop their con- cern for their sister, and apply all the skill they had to comfort their father. He was so overwhelmed with it that it threw him into a deep melancholy, and that into a fit of sickness; which though he recovered, yethe did not in a long time thoroughly enjoy himself; always charging and reproaching himself with having ruined his child, having regarded nothing but the outside of things, and referring all her happiness to a plentiful fortune, and a gay extravagant way of living. This went on some time.. The eldest daughter who was left with the father managed things so prudently, that no notice of these things was taken in the family, and her father readily agreed with both his daughters that it was by no means proper to let their sister know what they had discovered; concluding that whenever she discovered it herself, she would come with a sad heart, and make her complaint to them fast enough. But they were all mistaken in their sister; for though she disco- vered the thing, and lived a melancholy life with her husband upon that occasion; yet, in eight years that she lived with him, she never complained, or made her sorrows known to any of her relations; but carried it with an even, steady temper, and bore all her griefs in her own breast; as shall be seen at large in the next dialogue. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 175 DIALOGUE III. THE new married couple, of whom we have been speaking, lived in all the splendor and greatness that the highest degree of private per- sons admits of, and which a family possessed of an immense wealth, could be supposed to do. He was not only very rich when he mar- ried her, as might be supposed by the noble furniture of his house, and his very valuable collection of pictures and rarities, and the like, of which mention has been made; but as he fell privately into a great affair of remitting money by way of England to Genoa, for supply of the French armies in Italy, he got that way a prodigious sum of money; and yet acting only by correspondents at Amsterdam, he was liable to no resentment or objections from the government here. After he had lived thus about eight years, and in that time had six children by this young lady, he died; she had four of her six child- ren living. But their father after having in vain tried all the per- suasions, arguments, and entreaties (for he was too good a husband, and too much a gentleman, to use any other method) to bring his wife over to the Romish church, left her, however, under this ter- rible affliction, that having disposed of his vast estate in a very hon- orable manner, as well to her as to her children, yet -he took the education of her children from her, leaving them to the tuition of guardians, to bring them up in the Romish religion. Nor was this the effect of his unkindness to her; for, except in disputes about these things, they never had any difference worth the name of a dis- pute in their lives; and, at his death, he left to her own disposal above six times the fortune she brought him; but this of his child- ren was a mere point of conscience to him, which he could not dis- pense with. This was an inexpressible griéf to her, and that such, and so heavy, as it is impossible to represent it in this narrow tract, so as to say how far it afflicted her, or what ill consequences attend- ed it; the drift and design of this work also lying quite another way, viz. To show the manner of life, which naturally attends the best matches..where the religious principles of the husband and wife are not the same. 176 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. The eldest sister was now married also, and married very happily and comfortably ; the principles as well as practice of her husband, not only concurred entirely with her own, but answered in a most agreeable manner to the character which was given to her of him, viz. That he was a person truly religious. Their father, now grown old, had been a true penitent for his mis- takes in the past conduct to his children, and had fully made up his want of care in his middle daughter’s match, by his difficulty in being pleased for his eldest, She needed no concern for, or to show any nicety in examining into the person; for the father was so very nice for her that scarce anything could please him; he rejected sev- eral very good offers, merely on account of religious principles, and put them off without so much as naming them to his daughter, till at last, fixing upon a merchant in the city, who both for sobriety, piety, opinion in religion, and estate, suited every way both his desires and his daughter’s judgment: the match, under such circumstances, was soon made. The uninterrupted felicity this young lady enjoyed, in having the best husband, the best Christian, and the best tempered man in the world, all in one, made her the happiest woman alive ; and indeed recommended the caution she had always used in her choice, by its success. Her father lived with this daughter, when he was in town, but otherwise lived in Oxfordshire, with his own sister, the Lady ; widow of Sir James ——, of whom mention is made in the first part of this work; he lived very easy, having thus seen his family all settled; for his two sons were very well fixed abroad, the one at Leghorn, and the other at Cadiz; and he might really be said to have no affliction in the world but that of his middle daughter, who though, by far the richest and most prosperous in circumstances, and living in the most splendor of all the rest, yet he esteemed really. miserable; and so indeed in one sense she was. He was at dinner one day at the eldest daughter's house, his youngest daughter being casually there also, when, while they were at table, letters came from the Bath, where his middle daughter was gone with her husband, to acquaint them, that her husband, after an in- disposition of no more than five days, was dead. It surprised them all; for he had not so much as heard that he was ill; and his dis- temper being a pleurisy, it was exceeding violent, and carried him RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 17 off very quickly. When their father read the letter, he was extreme- ly surprised, and rising up from the table hastily, Poor child! said he, God has delivered her; but it is by a sad stroke. His daughters got up from table terribly frighted, when they saw the disorder their father was in, not knowing what the matter was; but he per- ceiving it, turned about suddenly, and said, Your sister —— is a wid- ow, and threw them the letter; at this they sat down again all sur- prised, and indeed sensibly afflicted; for, excepting their religion, which was not all that while made public, he was a most obliging relation to them all. I purposely pass over here the incidents that may be supposed to happen in the family on so sad an occasion; such as the lady’s com- ing up from the Bath; the concern of the father and sisters to com- fort her; the disposal of herself, and the management of her affairs; hastening to the main story, viz. the account she gave of her life past, and of what she had gone through in the eight years of her married state, upon the particular occasion of her husband’s being of a different religion. It was some months after her husband’s death, and when all her affairs were in a settled posture, that she went to divert her thoughts a little, and unbend her mind from the sorrows she had been under, for she was a sincere mourner for her husband; I say, it was some months after his death, that her younger sister, having invited her down to her seat in Hampshire, she went thither, and her father and eldest sister, at her request went all with her. Here, upon a casual discoursing of things past, her father who was almost ever bemoaning his neglect in exposing his children, threw out some words, which first gave her to understand that both he and her sisters knew her husband was not a Protestant, at which she seemed very much surprised: but as she found it was known, and that however it was still so far « secret, as that it had gone no farther than their own breasts, she was soon made easy; she then made a confidence of it, earnestly entreating them that it might go no farther, which they willingly promised for her satisfaction. But this opened the door for variety of conferences among them ; as particularly her sister told her, how they discovered it first, and afterwards their father; and repeated all the discourses they had had about it, and how, and for what reason, they had resolved never to 8* 178 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. mention it to her, unless she spoke first of it; concluding, that, per- haps, he might conceal it from her, and they would be very loath to discover a thing to her, which they knew could have no other con- sequences at that time, but to ruin and afflict her: alas, sister! says she, I discovered it within a fortnight after I came home. Ay! says her youngest sister, you had a good government of your- self to refrain unbosoming to some of us: especially considering my sister here (meaning her eldest sister) had been so serious with you upon that very thing before you were married. Dear sister, says the widow, to what purpose can it be to any woman, when she is married, to complain of her disappointments, which she knows she cannot mend. Yo. sist. That’s true, my dear; but who is there can deny them- selves that ease to their grief? Wid. Alas! complaining is but a poor ease to such sorrows; it is like sighing, which relieves the heart one moment, and doubly loads it the next. Yo. sist. Well, sister, seeing you had so entire a mastery over your- self in that part, and you brought the dominion of your reason over your passions to so perfect an exercise, which is what I confess I must admire you for; I say, seeing you mastered yourself so well that way, I am obliged to think you mastered yourself as well within doors; and with good conduct perhaps you made it no incon- venience to you. I wish you would let us hear how you managed, that we may see, perhaps, difference of opinion may be so managed as to make no breaches in a family, and it might be as well as if it had been otherwise. Wid. No, no, sister, do not fancy so: our dear mother was wiser than I, and you were all wiser than I, to lay so much stress upon it as you did: I am a convert now to my mother’s instructions, though it be too late to help it. Yo. sist. Why, Mr. —— and you lived mighty easy: you were always mighty well with one another, I thought. Wid. It was impossible to be ill with him, he was of so excellent a temper; but this makes my case perfectly instructing to others, and proves effectually, that no goodness of the disposition, no excess of affection, no prudent compliances, though they make the case rather better than worse, can yet make it up, no, not in the least, or RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 119 any way balance the inexpressible deficiency that such a breach in religious matters makes in a family. Fa. Ay, ay, my dear; I see it now, with asad heart, but it was far from any of my thoughts then: you owe all the misery of it to my neglect. Wid. Sir, I dare say you did not mistrust it ; I remember you said, he had always been a Protestant when you was at Leghorn, and that you knew he was bred so, Fa. Ay, my dear; but it was my business to have inquired farther into it; I might easily have known it if I had inquired; for several merchants told me afterwards of it; but J laid no stress upon it; in short, I did not consider the consequences. Yo. sist. There is no need to afflict yourself now, sir, about it: my sister is delivered another way, sir, and the thing is over. Fa. But I am a warning to all parents, that have the good of their children at heart, never to make light of such things, but search them to the bottom; and the more their chidren depend upon them the greater is their obligation to be very careful. Yo. sist. Well, my sister is delivered from it all now. Wid. It is a sad deliverance, sister, and it is a dreadful case to be so married, as that the death of a husband should be courted asa deliverance; and especially a good husband too. Yo. sist. I do believe he was a good husband, indeed, that one particular excepted; but that was a terrible circumstance, and would have made the best husband in the world a bad husband to me. Wid. Ay, child, and so it did to me in some cases, though he was otherwise the best humored man, and the best husband imaginable. Yo. sist. No question, there was some uneasiness at first: but it seems you got over it. I wish you would tell us, sister, how you managed the first discovery between you. Wid. Truly, sister, the uneasiness was not so much at first as at last, and had we lived longer together, it must of necessity have grown worse especially as the children grew up. Yo. sist. Indeed there you might have come to clash in matters very essential to your peace. Wid. Might have clashed, do-you say! indeed, sister, we must have clashed, it was unavoidable; it could not be, that I could be 180 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. easy to have the children bred Papists, or that he could have been easy to have them bred, as he called it, heretics. Yo. sist. It was impossible indeed; and the more you were both settled and serious in your opinions, the more impossible it would be for you to yield that point to one another. Wid. Why, you know, sister, Mr. —— was a very serious, grave man; and I assure you in his way, he was very devout; and this made his yielding to me sometimes to be very difficult to him. He had very strong struggles between his principle and his affec- tion. ld. sist. Dear sister, it is always so where there are differing opinions between a man and his wife; the more zealous and consci- entious they are in their several ways, the more difficult it is for them to yield those points up to one another, which kindness and . affection may incline them to give up. But pray give us a little account of your first disputes about these things. Wid. It is a sad story, sister, and will bring many grievous thingy to remembrance. Eid. sist. I should be very unwilling to impose so irksome a task upon you; but I think it will be very instructing to us all. Wid. Why it was not much above a fortnight after we came home, as I observed to you, before I discovered it; and the manner was thus. I wondered that every Sabbath day my spouse contrived some excuse or other to avoid going to church with me. I had taken some notice of it before we went home; but the second Sab- bathday I took upon me to desire him to go. He seemed not to deny me, and went into the coach with me, but pretended a sudden thought, he was obliged to go up to St. James’s; and having very civilly handed me out of the coach, and gone with me into the very place, made a light bow, when I could not stand to persuade, and went back. Sist. What did he take the coach too, and leave you to come home on foot ? Wid. No, no; he never showed me so little respect as that. He went but as far as Temple-Bar in the coach, and sent it back charg- ing the coachman to go and wait for his mistress, which he did. This however troubled me a little, and I began to be uneasy, though I knew not for what. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 181 Sist. Why, my dear, did nothing occur to your thoughts, as it did to ours, about his pictures, his crucifixes, altar-pieces, and such things ? Wid. No, not at all. I heard my father say it was the fashion in Italy ; and it being so remote from my thoughts to imagine any thing of what was the real case, I had indeed no thoughts at all about it, till the following affair alarmed me. I was with him one day in his closet, and viewing his fine things, the pictures, the ima- gery, and other rarities, of which he had abundance, and some pieces of antiquity, that are of very great value: he was mighty busy, and pleased in showing me things, and telling me what they were ; for then they were as new to me almost as they were to you. At last I went into the little room within his closet, and looked upon all the fine things there, where you know, sister, there are abun- dance of valuable pieces of paintings. Sist. Yes, indeed, it is a charming place. Wid. Upon the table there stood two fine silver candlesticks gild- ed, with large wax candles in them, My dear, says J, like an inno- cent fool, these candlesticks are very fine, I think, they are much finer than any we have about the house. My dear, says he, if you had rather have them in your closet, than to let them stand here, they shall be removed. No, my dear, said IJ, if we should want them upon an extraordinary occasion, it is but borrowing them of you. We said no more of that then, but the next day he sent me in from a goldsmith’s in Drury Lane two pair of very curious workmanship, and all the high embossed work double gilt. Yo. sist. So you had no ‘need to grudge him those he used in his closet any more. Wid. No, indeed. But to go on: after I had done speaking of the candlesticks, I laid my hands upon a large piece of crimson damask, which seemed to cover something that stood upon the table, and standing up about seven or eight inches high in the middle, looked as if there were several things together: and going to turn it up, I said, what is under here, my dear? But added with a smile, and thinking nothing of the matter, may I look? He smiled a little, but laying his hand upon it too, I had rather not, my dear; they are things I brought from Italy, but nothing of ornament. Well, well, says I, let it lie; I don’t desire to look, not J, and immediately 182 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. turned to look at a picture that hung near me; and all this while I was so dull as to perceive nothing. Eid. sist. Your curiosity was not much, it seems, Wid. Innocence suspects nobody: but a strange turn in his coun- tenance gave me an alarm, which I was not aware of: there was a visible hurry and confusion in his face when he laid his hands upon the piece of damask to prevent my taking it up; and on a sudden, I so easily and unconcernedly passed it off, all that chagrin went off his countenance in a moment, and he was as bright and as good hu- mored again as ever; and this made me think again afterwards that there was something in it more than usual. £ild. sist. You must have been very dull, if you had not, seeing you perceived such ‘a double alteration; and this would have heightened my desire to inquire further into it. Wid. Perhaps it did so too in me; but I saw evidently he was concerned; and why should I keep him uneasy? I could have passed an hundred such things by, and have restrained my curiosity while I had no suspicion. Eid. sist. Well, but what was this to the case? it seems here was no discovery then. Wid. Yes, here was a discovery too, as it prepared for farther ob- servation; I told you that the next day he sent me home two pair of candlesticks, which were indeed very fine: and as I was admir- ing them, I desired to have the other fetched down to compare them with: upon which he made some difficulty, and said, he could not trust a servant to go into the closet alone, where things of conse- quence lay about; but, my dear; says he, we will go up and match them. Eid. sist. Well, that reason was just enough. Wid. It was so; and I went up with him to his closet, but not into the inner room: but I observed just when he stept in, he made an extraordinary low bow towards that place where the candlesticks stood. Indeed I took no notice of it at first, for I verily thought he had stooped for something; but when he carried the candlesticks in again, he did the same, and that gave me some thought. Yo. sist. That was a discovery indeed. Wid. No, really it was not yet; for I was a perfect stranger to any of their Popish ceremonies; I scarce understood it when I was RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 183 told; but, however, it gave me some idea of this being an extraor- dinary place, though I did not know what; and I very innocently asked him this foolish, laughing question; My dear, you are mighty mannerly to your empty rooms, you bow as if the king was there. He put it off with a smile, and an answer that was indeed according to Solomon, answer a fool in his folly; my dear, says he, it was our custom in Italy. Eid. sist. He was no fool; what he said was very true. Wid. Well, even all this while, and farther, I was still blind; for, a little while after, I pushed into the same place with him, not out of curiosity, but merely by chance; but though the piece of crimson damask lay upon the table, yet there was nothing under it, nor did he make any bows as before. Yo sist. My dear, there was no need of it theft; for to be sure the idol was removed. Wid. Well, however, as that was more than] knew, it caused all my former hesitations and observations to vanish, till they were renewed again upon the following occasion: He was taken ill one evening, in a manner that alarmed me very much, and we were obliged to get him to bed with all speed: but just as he was undress- ing by the bed-side, he started up in a kind of rapture, and pulling a string which drew back a curtain, he cast up his eyes towards a pic- ture that hung there, and said some words which I did not under- stand, and I perceived he crossed himself two or three times on the breast, and then stepped into bed. _ Fa. To one that had lived in Italy, this had been no novelty at all. Wid. No, sir, I understand it well enough now, but I did not then; however, it was so plain then that it needed no explanation to me; but it was such a surprise to me, that I thought I should have faint- ed; my heart sunk within me, and with a sigh, said I to myself, O Lord! I am undone! I thought I had spoke so softly, that nothing could have overheard me: but yet so unhappy was my passion that he heard the last words, and raising his voice, My dear, said he, hastily, what’s the matter? what art thou undone for? I made him no answer, which increased his eagerness to know what ailed me; but I declined it. At last, pressing me still, I answered, My dear, excuse me for the present, I am alittle frighted; with which he rings a little bell, that I used to ring for my woman, and she being 184 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. but in the next room, came running in. I bade her fetch a little bot- tle out of my closet, and taking a few drops rather by a counterfeit illness than a real, put an end to this inquiry, and got him to sleep. Eld. sist, I should even have charged him with it downright, and have raved at him for a rogue, that had cheated and deluded me. Wid. Indeed, sister, I did not do so; I was oppressed with the terror of it, and the disappointment, but my affection stept in the way of all resentment; I loved him tenderly ; and besides, it was not atime for it; for he was really very ill, and I thought he should have died; it was aspice or taste of the same distemper that did at last kill him, for it was pleurisy; and after he had slept alittle he waked again in such a condition, that frighted all the house, and we were forced to fetch a surgeon out of his bed to let him blood. Sist. Well, that relieved him, I hope. Wid. Yes, it did; but I name it to tell you a circumstance which attended it: we had in the house an old man, an Italian, whom he always kept in the comptinghouse to copy his letters, and translate his Italian accounts, and for such other business as he employed him in; and they called him doctor; the surgeon we had sent for being in bed, did not come time enough, and he grew black and desperately ill, which frightened me exceedingly ; and when he saw I was under a surprise he made signs (for he could not speak to be understood, he was so bad) to call up the old Italian. When he came into the room, he held out his arm, and pointing at it with his finger, every one might understand that he meant he should let him blood; upon which, immediately the old man called for things proper, and I found he had a lancet in his pocket. I asked him if he had been used to it; he said, Yes, madam, I have let him blood several times before now. In a word, he opened a vein, and it gave him ease, and he recovered soon after. Fa, VN lay a hundred pounds, then, that doctor is a priest. Wid. Yes, sir, he is so; and I knew it quickly after. 4a, And after he knew that you understood it, did he not besiege you with his discourses and importunities, my dear, to turn. Wid. No really ; at least not so, as I believe is usual; he frequently let fall some words about it, but with great modesty ;-for he was really a very good sort of man, exceeding retired and devout; very mannerly and respectful: he spoke once at table (for sometimes my RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 185 spouse would ask me to let him sup with us) and we had been talk- ing very cheerfully, when the doctor said something in Italian to his master, that gave me plain reasons to know, that he desired I should know what he said; upon which my spouse said to me, my dear, what do you think the doctor says? I do not know, but I am sure it is about me. Yes, says he, so it is: and he says I must tell you what it is, or else you will think he is unmannerly, to speak anything in a language you do not understand. Well, pray, said I, what is it he says? What pity is it, said my spouse, such a fine genius as my lady, your wife is, should not be within the pale of the Catholic church! While my spouse was telling me this, he looked very earnestly at him to observe when he repeated the words, and just as he repeated them, the good old father lifted up his eyes, and said some words softly, but with great appearance of seriousness, which it seems was to pray to Christ to convert me; and my spouse looking very seriously too, crossed himself, and said Amen. Yo. sist. This was dangerous work, indeed, sister; for the more serious they were in it, the more it would have affected me. Wid. Indeed so it did me; I answered my husband, My dear, I hope I am; and if I thought I was not, I would not sleep till I was. At which the doctor, my spouse repeating the words to him, shook his head, and said, No, no! signifying that to be sure I was not; and added, he hoped God would hear his prayers for me; but this was the most that ever he offered that way. Fa, Well, that was nothing but what any man who thought him- self in the right, might do, and very modestly too. Wid. Indeed he always kept himself rather at a greater distance than we desired. Yo. sist. Well but pray go back to the story. Wid. Why, I told you my husband recovered from his illness; but it was otherwise with me; for being now fully satisfied that my spouse was a Papist, it cast me down to that degree, and over- whelmed my spirits, that I was scarce able to bear it, and especially for want of somebody to lodge my thoughts with, and open my soul'to. Eld. sist. Why did not you charge him with it point: blank? did he not perceive your disorder. Wid. He did to be sure, and pressed me with the utmost tender- ness and importunity, to let him know what grieved moe, 186 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Eid. sist. Ay, and I should have told him of it in his ears. Wid. Dear sister, you are too tender a wife yourself not to know that where there is a sincere affection, even the highest resentment expresses itself in the softest terms. I could afflict myself freely, but I could not think of afflicting him; and though I do acknow- ledge I thought myself illtreated, yet I could not use him ill in return. Sist. Come, tell us what you said to him. Wid. Why, when he pressed me to let him know what disturbed me, I told him, I had rather bear my grief than complain to him; that I was too sensible he knew what I meant, when I said I was undone; and I begged him not to oblige me to blame him, for having been unjust tome. Why, my dear, says he, why are you undone; if your opinion in religion and mine may differ, must it affect our love? cannot we bear with one another without entering into any disputes ; but I did reckon myself undone for all that. Tears stopt my very breath for a while, for this was an open acknowledgment of his pro- fession ; and I would fain have flattered myself so much, as to hope there was yet some room to have thought myself mistaken. When he saw me so overwhelmed, he came to me, and took me in his arms, an said all the kind things it is possible to think of, to pacify me: My dear, says he, though you may think this a grief to you, expect to have it made up to you abundantly, by all that is possible for man to do to oblige you: and indeed if all the affectionate things a man could say or do, could make it up, it was made up to me; if it was possible for a man to do anything to make a woman forget her dis- appointment, he did it; and this from a man too, who had a perfect understandimg of everything that could oblige and engage the affec- tions: in a word, no man could do more, or woman desire more, to make up the Joss. Eld. sist. Well, sister, and pray tell me did it do? was it fully madeup to you? is it possible that two can be happy in the condi- tion of man and wife, where two opinions in religion differ? you have had the experience of it to be sure in its best fortune, with all the advantages imaginable: now be plain, and tell us, is it possible the conjugal felicity can be complete? was our dear mother in tho right or no, sister ? Wid. Indeed, sister, you put hard upon me, because I know I too RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 187 much slighted my mother’s injunctions; and I remember I jested with you about it; but I paid for the experiment. Eld. sist. Dear sister, those things are forgotten long ago, I did not intend to reflect upon them; but I ask upon a serious account, I assure you. ° Wid. Why truly, sister, I must acknowledge, it is impossible. I say again, I find by sad experience, it is impossible; no kindness, no tenderness, no affection, can make it up; the condition can never be happy, God faithfully served, children rightly educated, the mind perfectly easy, or the duty of the relation faithfully performed, where the opinions in religion differ. Eid. sist. I am of opinion also, that it would have been the same, though your differences had not been so great as that of a Papist and Protestant. Wid. Ay, ay, all one! for we never entered into the question about our principles. I resolved it from the beginning to avoid bringing on anything that might be unkind or disobliging between us, and he approved it, and did the same for the same reason; so that I never, after the first discourse, so much as inquired what his opinion was; it was sufficient to have the grief that we could not worship God together, either abroad or at home; we could not think of one another with charity, but as deceived persons, out of the way of eternal felicity, out of God’s blessing and protection; we could not look upon one another but with sighs and sad hearts. Again, we could never converse with one another upon religious subjects, for we could not enter upon the least serious thing, but it led us into contradictions and wild distracted notions, which we were immedi- ately forced to take the help of our affections to suppress, that we might not break out into indecencies to one another. Yo. sist. Well, sister, what became of your smart answer to my sister ——, when she and you talked of these things, viz. That if he was not of your opinion, you would be of his; that if he was a Christian Catholic, you was a Catholic Christian; and so you would have no difference about that ? Wid. Why, truly sister, I was young, and did not consider what I said! and besides, I did not in the least suspect what my sister sug- gested ; and yet so far have J] kept up to it, we have by the help of abundance of good humor on his side, and a great deal of love on both sides, avoided differences and disputes upon that subject; but, 188 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. alas!. sister, that is but a negative, and it can only be said we did not quarrel, which is a great deal to say too; but what is this to a happy life? how was our family guided, our children educated, and how would they have been educated, if he had lived? and how was God worshiped? he and his priest at their mass in the oratory or chapel; J, and my little unhappy babies in my chamber and closet, where I mourned over them continually (rather than prayed over them) to think that some time or other they should be snatched from me, and brought up in Popery: nor would it have been much otherwise, if he had been of any other irreconcilable opinion; for, as I told you before, though I knew his opinion, I never asked it; for any opinion where there is not a harmony in worshiping, and joining in public prayer to God, and in joint serving him in our families, is the same thing, only not in the same extreme. Yo. sist. Well, but you had no private breaches about it? Wid. No, never; we carefully avoided it; but this is but an evi- dence of the dreadful consequences of such marriages in general; for, where is there a couple that can say as we could, that they have had no jars about it? And what breaches have religious differences made in families! But, if the happiness is so little, and the evil con- sequences sO many, even with a husband so exquisitely kind and obliging, and where a woman cannot say she has any other thing to complain of, what must be the case in other families. Yo. sist. But, sister, you hint that the longer you lived the worse those differences grew. Wid. Why, it was impossible, sister, but as we grew forward, these things must have come more in our way? We have four chil- dren, and Mr. was not aman so indifferent in his religion, as to be more careless about the souls of his children, that I assure you; and though he left them entirely to my management, when they were little; yet he would hint sometimes that he hopéd I would leave them free, when they grew up, to choose for themselves, as God should enlighten them; and that at least we should both stand neuter. Yo. sist. What could you say to that? Wid. I told him I could not tell how far I could promise that; for if I thought myself in the right way to heaven, I could but ill answer it to him that gave me my children, to stand still and see them go wrong, and not endeavor to persuade them (at least) to choose bet- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 189 ter for themselves. He told me, that was an argument just as strong on his side, as it was on mine: and he added, smiling, How shall we “do to agree, my dear, when it comes to that? I hope we shall not love less than we do now. I told him I had a great many melan- choly thoughts about it; and thus at last we were always-fain to drop the discourse; but to this hour I cannot conceive how we should have done to have divided our children’s instructions between us if he had lived to see them grow up. Fa, Well, my dear, God has otherwise ordered it; and I hope the children will have the benefit of a good instruction now without that interruption. Wid. Alas! sir, I perceive you do not know their case yet; and this is a remaining grief to me that I have not mentioned. fa. What's that, child ? Wid. Why, sir, by his will he has appointed the old priest, whom I named above, to be tutor to my two sons, and has settled his estate so, that unless the trustees bring them up Roman Catholics, a great deal of his estate goes from them ; so that J am robbed of my children. Fa. Tam surprised at that; why, I never heard a word of it! And what has he done with his two daughters? Wid. He has left them to me. Fa. Did you know this before, child? had you any discourse about it before he died? Wid. Yes, sir, as much as the violence of his distemper would ad- mit. I entreated, I persuaded, I argued, as much as tears and my oppressed thoughts would allow me; for I thought my heart would have burst while I talked to him, to see his condition, whom I loved as my soul, and to think what was to befall my children; you can hardly conceive what a time it was to me; it wounds my very spirit to look back upon it. Eid. sist. It was a very bitter thing, no doubt; but what said he to you? Wid. He begged of me not to importune him; he told me it was far from being an unkindness to me, but his conscience obliged him to it, and he could not die in peace, if he did not, as far as in him lay, provide for the souls of his children. Fa. Why, if it was his conscience, how came it to pass he did not do the like by his daughters? 190 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Wid. Why, he said, he thought I had a right to their government, as a half of the family ; for my dear, says he, we are partners; but, says he, I entreat you, and as far as I am able to do it, enjoin you to it, let the poor innocent babes be reconciled to the church, and brought up in the Catholic faith; and I hope you will, in God’s due time, embrace it yourself. Yo. sist. What was you able to say to him? Wid. I bless God I made no promise about my children; nor in- deed was I able to speak to him for grief: for he was in such agonies, that my heart could not hold to stay by him; and the next morning he died; and now I am a dreadful example of the miserable condi- tion of a married state, where principles of religion differ, though with the best husband in the world. Fa. But my dear, do not afflict yourself now about your sons. Wid. Affiict myself, sir! Is that possible? Fa. Yes, yes, they shall not be bred up Papists, I'll assure you, for all that he has done to bring it to pass. Wid. Alas! sir, they shall be taken away from me. Fa. No, no; nor shall they be taken away from you either; our law gives you a right to the bringing up your own children; and as for the doctor, I’ll engage he shall give you no disturbance ; he knows his own circumstances; and I’ll take care he shall take it for a favor to be concealed here, and leave all to you. Wid. But then the estate will go from my children too. Fa, Perhaps not either; but if it should, you have enough for them. : Wid. Well, that’s none of my care, let me but keep them from a wrong education, 'll willingly leave that part to fall as it will. Yo. sist. But, dear sister, did Mr. —— never try you by arguments, to bring you over to him? Wid. Only by all that he could ever advise; except as I said before, for I must do that justice to his memory, that he never offered anything that was rough, or threatening, or limiting, or un- kind; but all the contrary to the highest extreme. Yo. sist. That was the effect of his extraordinary good breeding, and his being so much a gentleman. Wid. Not that altogether, sister, though that might join: but it was the effect of an excellent disposition, and of an inexpressible RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 191 affection to me in particular; for otherwise he was the most zeal- ous man in his way that ever was heard of, and thought everybody an enemy to him, that would not be of his own opinion. Hid. sist. Did he never go about to bribe you to it? Wid. Oh, sister! very frequently ; and that with all the subtilty of invention in the world; for he was always giving me presents upon that very account. Fa. Presents to a wife! What do they signify? It is but tak- ing his money out of one pocket, and putting it into the other ; they must all be appraised, child, in the personal estate. Wid. It has been quite otherwise with him indeed, sir; for he has made it a clause in his will, that all the presents he gave me shall be my own, to bestow how I please; besides all the rest that he has left me more than he was obliged to do. Eld. sist. I suppose that is your diamond cross. Wid. It is so, he brought it home in a little case, and coming into my room one morning before I was dressed, hearing I was alone, he told me, smiling and very pleasant, he was come to say his prayers to me. I confess, I had been a little out of humor just at that time, having been full of sad thoughts all the morn- ing, about the grand point, and I was going to have given him a very unkind answer; but his looks had so much goodness and ten- derness always in them, that when I looked up at him I could re- tain no resentment: indeed, sister, it was impossible to be angry with him. Eld. sist. You might well be in humor indeed, when he brought you a present worth about six hundred pounds. Wid. But I had not seen the present, when what I am telling you passed between us. Eld sist. Well, I ask pardon for interrupting you: pray go on where you left off when he told you he was come to say his prayers to you. Wid. I told him, I hoped he would not make an idol of his wife. Eld. sist. Was this the ill-natured answer you was about to give him? Wid. No, indeed; I was going to tell him, he need not worship me, he had idols enough in the house. 192 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Lid. sist. That had been bitter and unkind indeed, I hope you did not say so! Wid. Indeed I did not; nor would I have said so for a thousand pounds; it would have grieved me every time I had reflected on it afterwards, as long as I had lived. Hild, sist, It isso very apt a return, I-dare say I should not have brought my prudence to have mastered the pleasures of such a repartee. Wid. Dear sister, it is a sorry pleasure that is taken in grieving a kind husband; besides, sister, as it was my great mercy that my hus- band strove constantly to make his difference in religion as little troublesome and offensive to me as possibe, it would very ill have become me to make it my jest; it had been a kind of bespeaking the uneasiness which it was my happiness to avoid. : Eid. sist. Well, you had more temper than I should have had, I dare say; but I must own you were in the right. Come, pray, how did you go on? Wid. Why, he answered, he hoped he worshiped no idols but me; and if he erred in that point, whoever reproved him he hoped I would not. Hild. sist. Why, that is too true; besides, it is not so often that men make idols of their wives. Wid. Well, while he was saying this, he pulls out the jewel, and opening the cases, takes a small crimson string that it hung to, and put it about my neck, but kept the jewel in his hand, so that I could not see it: and then taking me in his arms, sit down, my dear, says he, which I did upon a little stool. Then he kneeled down just before me, and kissing the jewel, let it go, saying something in Italian, which I did not understand, and then looked up in my face, now, my dear, says he, you are my idol. Eid sist. Well, sister, it is well he is dead. Wid. Dear sister, how can you say such a word to me? Eid sist. He would certainly have conquered you at last, Wid. If the tenderest and most engaging temper, the sincerest and warmest affection in nature could have done it, he would have done it, that’s certain. Eid sist. And I make no doubt but they are the most dangerous weapons to attack a woman’s principles. I cannot but think them RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 193 impossible to resist. Passion, unkindness, and all sorts of conjugal violence, of which there is great variety in the married life, are all nothing to them. You remember, sister, some lines on another oceasion, but very much to the case: Force may, indeed, the heart invade, But kindness only can persuade. Wid. I grant that it is difficult to resist the influence of so much affection: and everything that came from so sincere a principle, and to a mind prepossessed with all the sentiments of tenderness and kindness possible to be expressed, make a deep impression; but I thank God I stood my ground. Hid. sist. Well, well, you would not have stood it long, I am per- suaded; and this is one of the great hazards a woman runs in mar- rying a man of a different religion, or a different opinion from her- self, viz. that her affection to her husband is her worst snare; and so that which is her duty and her greatest happiness, is made the most dangerous gulf she can fall into. Well might our dear mother warn us from marrying men of different opinions. Wid. It is very true, I acknowledge it; my love was my tempta- tion; my affection to my husband went always nearest to stagger my resolution; I was in no danger upon any other account. Yo. sist. Well, but pray go on about the jewel; what said you to him? Wid. Dear sister, let me confess to you, fine presents, flattering words, and the affectionate looks of so obliging, so dear, and so near arelation, are dreadful things, when they assault principles: the glittering jewel had a strange influence, and my affections began to be too partial on his side: O! let no woman that values her soul, venture into the arms of a husband of a different religion! The kinder he is, the more likely to undo her; everything that endears him to her, doubles her danger ; the more she loves him, the more she inclines to yield to him: the more he loves her, the stronger are the bonds by which he draws her; and her only mercy will be, to have him barbarous and unkind to her. Yo. sist. Ii is indeed a sad case, where to be miserable is the only safety ; but so it is, no doubt; and such is the case of every woman that is thug unsuitably matched, If her husband is kind, he isa 9 194 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. snare to her; if unkind, he is a terror to her; his love, which is his duty, is her ruin; and his slighting her, which is his scandal, is her protection. Wid. It is my case, dear sister; such a jewel! such a husband! how could I speak an unkind word; everything he did was so engaging, everything he said was so moving, what could I say or do? ld. sist. Very true; and that makes’ me say, he would have con- quered you at last. Wid. Indeed I can’t tell what he might have done, if he had lived. : Yo. sist. Well, but to the jewel; what said you to him. Wid. I stood up and thanked him with a kind of ceremony, but told him, I wished it had been rather in any other form. Why, my dear, says he, should not the two most valuable forms in the world be placed together? I told him that as he placed a religious value upon it, he should have it rather in another place. He told me, my breast should be his altar: and so he might adore with a double delight. I told him, I thought he was a little profane; and since I did not place the same value upon it, or make the same use of it as he did, I might give him offence by mere necessity, and make that difference which we had both avoided with so much care, break in upon us in a case not to be resisted. He answered, no my dear, I am not going to bribe your principles, much less force them; put you what value you think fit upon it, and give me the liberty. I told him, I hoped I should not undervalue it as his present, if he did not overvalue it upon any other account. He returned warmly, my dear, the last is impossible; and for the first, it is a trifle: give it but leave to hang where I have placed it, that is all the respect I ask you to show it on my account. Yo. sist. Well, that was a favor you would not deny, if a stranger had given it you. Wid. Dear sister, you are a stranger to the case; if you had seen what was the consequence of it, you would have been frighted, or perhaps have fallen quite out with him. Yo. sist. I cannot imagine what consequences you mean. Wid. Why, first of all, he told me, that now he would be per- fectly easy about my salvation, and would cease to pursue me witb arguments or entreaties in religious matters, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 195 Yo. sist. What could he mean by that? Wid. Why, he said, he was sure that blessed form that hung so near my heart, would have a miraculous influence some time or other, and I should be brought home into the bosom of the Catholic church. Yo. sist. Well I should have ventured all that, and have slighted the very thoughts of it. Wid. You cannot imagine what stress he laid on it; now, he said, every good Catholic that saw me but pass by them, would pray for me; and every one in particular would exorcise me by the passion of Christ out of the chains of heresy. Yo. sist. What said you to him? Wid. I put it off with a smile, but my heart was full, I scarce knew how to hold; and he perceived it easily, and broke off the talk a little; but he fell to it again, till he saw the tears stood in my eyes, when he took me in his arms, and kissed me again; kissed my neck where the cross hung, and then kissed the jewel, repéating the word Jesu two or three times, and left me. Eld. sist. This was all superstition, sister, I should not have borne it; I would have thrown the jewel in his face or on the ground, and have set my foot on it. Wid. No, sister, you would not have done so, I am sure; neither was it my business to do so; my business was not to quarrel with my husband about his religion, which it was now too late to help, but to keep him from being uneasy about mine. Eld. sist. I should not have had so much patience: I would not have lived with him: I do not think it had been my duty. Wid. Nay, sister, that’s expressly contrary to the Scripture, where this very case is stated in the plainest manner imaginable, ‘The woman that hath a husband which believeth not, if he will dwell with her, let her not leave him,” 1 Cor. vi. 1, 3. Eld. sist. That is true indeed; I spoke rashly, sister, in that; but it was a case, I confess, I do not know what I should have done in it; I would not have borne it then. Wid. That had been very disobliging. Eld. sist. I would have obliged him to have forborne his little jdolatrous tricks then, and used them on other occasions. Wid. That had been to desire him not to be a Roman Catholic; 196 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. why, in foreign countries, that are popish, as I understand, they never go by a cross, whether it be on the road, or on a building, but they pull off their hats. Fa, So they do, my dear, and often kneel down though it be in the dirt, and say over their prayers. Wid. It is impossible to tell you how many attacks I had of that kind when I wore this jewel. Fa, I do not doubt it; especially if he brought any strangers into the room: how did you do, child, when the Venetian ambassador dined at your house? had you it on then? Wid. Yes, sir, my spouse desired me to put it on, and I could not well deny him; but I did not know how to behave; for the ambas- sador and all his retinue paid so many bows and homages to me, or to the cross, that I scarce knew what to do with myself, nor was 1 able to distinguish their good manners from their religion; and it was well I did not then understand Italian; for, as my dear told me afterwards, they said a great many religious things that would have given me offence. Fa. Those things are so frequent in Italy, that the Protestant ladies take no notice of them, and yet they all wear crosses, but sometimes put them out of sight. Wid. I did so afterwards, I lengthened the string it hung to, that it might hang a little lower, but it was too big, if it went within my stays it would hurt me; nor was it much odds to him; for, if he saw the string, he knew the cross was there, and it was all one. Yo. sist. Did he use any ceremony to it after the first time? Wid. Always when he first came into any room where I was, he was sure to give me his knee with his bow, and kiss the cross as well as his wife. ld. sist. J should never have borne it. Wid. You could never have resisted it any more than I, for I did what I could; but his answer was clear? My dear, says he, take no notice of me, let my civilities be to you; take them all to yourself, I cannot show you too much respect; believe it is all your own; and be easy with me. Eid. sist. How could he bid you believe, what you knew to be otherwise? Why did you not leave it off, and reproach him with the difference? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 197 Wid. Dear, I did so for months together; but then he doubled his ceremonies, and told me I only mortified him then by obliging him to reverence the place where once the blessed figure had been lodged, as the holy pilgrims worshiped the sepulchre. Eid. sist. He was too hard for you every way, sister. Wid. Ay, and would have been too hard for you too, if you had had him. Eid, sist. It was my mercy that I had him not, Wid. Well, it was my mercy too, that I hadhim. I had less incon- venience with the unhappy circumstance, than I must have had per- haps with any other man of his principles in the world. ld. sist. That’s true: only this I must add, viz. that those engag- ing ways would certainly, first or last, have brought you to Popery. Wid. I hope not, sister; but I cannot say, when I seriously reflect on it, how far I might have been left. Fa. My dear, let me ask you a question or two about that: I know the first method they take in such cases, is to let you see that you have been mistaken in your notions about Popery; that the differ- ence is not so great as has been suggested to you: that we are all Christians; that we worship the same God; believe the same creed ; expect eternal life by the merits of the same Saviour, and the like; and by this method they bring us at first not to have such frightfal ideas of the Roman Catholic religion as we had before. Wid. That is true; and this I had frequently in discourse; and I confess, such discourse had some effect on me. Yo. sist. It lessened the aversion you had to them, no doubt. Wid. It is true, they became not so frightful to me as before ; but they had another argument which my dear often used to me, and it was this: My dear, says he, all your own divines, and all that have written on these subjects, own that a Papist, as you call us, may be saved; that it is possible for us to go to heaven. Our church have no reason to believe so of the Protestants, why, if you may go to heaven among us, should you not join with us? Eld. sist. I know not what answer I should have given to that. Wid. ¥ know not what your answer would have been, but I'll tell you what mine was; I told him I did not know but it might be so; and I was willing to have as much charity as I had affection for him; 198 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. but as for myself, I was sure I could not go to heaven that way, be- cause I must act against my own light. Yo. sist. That was the true answer indeed. What could he say to it? Wid. Then he told me, he would pray for me that I might be far- ther enlightened; and he did not doubt but to prevail. I thanked him, and told him, I would do the same for him: and that though perhaps it might not be with so strong a faith, I was sure it would be with as earnest a desire. Yo. sist. Well you stood your ground nobly, sister: but ’tis a mer- cy to you, that your perseverance was tried no farther: ‘tis a dread- ful thing to have so dangerous an enemy so near one. Wid. It is true, there lay my danger; for I must own, words spok- en with so much tenderness have a singular effect, and sink deeper on the mind than others, especially where the affection is so mutual as it was with us. Elld. sist. Why, sister, do you think in time his tenderness, and his affectionate way of treating you would not have abated. Wid. I often feared it, but indeed I never found it. Sometimes I suggested it to him, that I feared it; and one day I told him that if I did not turn, I was afraid he would. He guessed what I meant, but would have me explain myself. Why, my dear, says I, when I reflect what your thoughts are about Protestants, that they are out of the pale of the church, and in a condition that they cannot be saved, I cannot but apprehend, that if I do not come over to your opinion, your love to me will abate, and at last turn into a stated aversion and hatred; how can you love an object whom you think God hates? My dear, says he, taking me very affectionately in his arms, I will prevent all your fears, by telling you, that, were what you mention possible, it could not be till I utterly despaired of your ever being brought over to the church; and I shall never be brought to believe but God will open your eyes first or last; and, besides, my earnest desire to persuade you, and win you to embrace the true re- ligion, will teach me to do it by all the tenderness and love that it is possible for me to show you; for, to be unkind to you, would be the way to drive you farther off: but, be it as it will, I can never abate my affection to you; and, my dear, says he, (with the most obliging, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 199 passionate air of concern that it was possible to show) that I hope, to love you tenderly and violently, is not the way to keep you ata distance from the church, but rather to draw you, to engage you, and let you see, that peace, love, joy, charity, and all the virtues of a Christian, are to be found among us, and not that we are fu- ries and tyrants, as we have been represented. And when he had said this, holding me still in his arms, he kissed me several times, and went on: My dear, says he, let God alone change your heart his own way: [ll never take any method, but that of loving you sincerely and most passionately while I live, and praying for you even after J am in heaven. While he said this I saw such an inex- pressible tenderness in his countenance, and every word came from him with such passion, that I could not hold from tears: but he had not done with me yet; for, while he held me with one arm, he put his other into his pocket, and taking out his pocket-book, he bid me open it, and there dropt a loose paper, doubled pretty thick, which I took up; says he, put it up, you shall have a pledge for the continu- ance of my affection to you, whether you change your opinion or no. I opened it, but could read very little of it, for I had but newly be- gun to learn Italian. What is it, my dear? said I. It is, said he, an assignment on the Bank of Genoa for 2000 ducats a-year, and it shall be made over to your father in trust for you, and to whoever you will bestow it after you. Eld. sist. Well, sister, I would never tell this story to any Protest- ant lady, that was in the least danger of marrying a Roman. Fa, Why, child, if her story be told with it, I think it may be- told to advantage. Eld. sist. It may teach them, indeed to pray, Lead us not into temptation. Well, sister, I must repeat what I have said before to you, though it does grieve you; ‘tis your great mercy that he is dead. Wid. Oh, do not speak such a word, sister, it wounds my very soul. Eld. sist. Pray answer me this short question then: Would you marry such another Papist? Wid. There is not such another upon earth, sister; and besides, how can you name the word? that’s the unkindest thing you could think of ; I must break off the discourse. Eld. sist. Do not call it unkind; I do not mean it the way you 200 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. take it; suppose things at the remotest distance you can, or suppose it to be any other body’s case, would you advise any other person that had such an offer, I say would you advise them to marry such another? Wid. No, uot to be a princess! Eid. sist. I am answered; and I must own, I should take them for distracted, if they did. Wid. Unless the lady resolved to turn Papist; and if that, she had best to do it beforehand, openly and avowedly, that she might not be under the reflection of doing it on a worse account, viz. by com- pulsion. Yo. sist. But after you have said so many things of him, that are enough to recommend him, not to the affection, but even to the admiration of any one, what can you say to persuade any young woman not to think that you were very happy in him, and that, consequently, they would be so with such another? Wid.. Oh, sister! do not suggest that I was happy with him; I had. as few happy hours as it was possible for any one to have that ever had a good husband. Yo. sist. How can you convince any one of that. Wid. Why, sister, it is plain to any one that knows wherein the happiness of life consists. It is true, I wanted nothing; I: lived in the abundance of all things; I had the best humored husband on earth, and one that loved me to an extreme; which had not our case indeed called for so much affection another way, would have been a -sin; for, in a word, he summed up all his earthly felicity in his wife. Eid, sist. If you were to give an account of it to the gentlemen of this age, they would say you were writing the character of a fool. Wid. It is no matter for that; it was his mercy and mine too; for, if it had been otherwise, we had been the miserablest creatures alive; it was bad enough as it was; and all that knew him, will grant that he was no fool. ; Yo. sist. But what do you think then would have been the conse- quence, if, as you say, he had loved you less? Wherein must you have been miserable? Wid. Why, sister, if his abun@ant affection had not closed every debate with kindness, whither must we have run? If he had not checked all the forwardness of his religious zeal for converting me, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 201 by his love to me, to what severity in our mutual reproaches should we have gone on! In a word, sister, I must have turned, or turned out of doors; I must have been a Papist, or we must have parted. Yo. sist. Why, sister, you know there’s Mr. P —— and his wife are in the very same case, and yet they agree well enough. Wid. Dear sister, how can you name them! He is a Papist, and she is a Protestant, and when the name is taken away, it is hard to tell whether either of them have any religion or no, nor do they care one farthing which way either goes. People that can live easy without religion, may live easy without any religion; that is not the case we are speaking of. : Lid. sist. There is a difference there I confess. Wid. But if, sister, a religious life be the only heaven upon earth, as we have been taught to believe, tell me, if you represent such a case to yourself, what must it be for two to live together, who place their happiness really in such a life as we call religious, but differ so extremely about what religion to build it upon; that aim mutually at the end, viz. going to heaven, but turn back to back as to the way thither? Can a religious life be formed between such as these! and if not, then they are mutually deprived of that heaven upon earth which, as you and I agree, is alone to be found in a religious life. Lid. sist. That is true; but then in such acase the enjoyment must be reserved and singular, and a woman must keep her religion to herself. Wid. But you will allow her then to be deprived at once of all social religion, of all family religion, and by consequence of all the comfort of a religious husband. Eid. sist. Nay, that is true, and IJ am not speaking for it: but ask- ing your experience, whether with so tender a husband, as you had, it might not be otherwise? Wid. Dear sister, his tenderness, as I said before, was my great mercy, as it made him bear with my obstinacy, as he called it. Had he had the same tenderness, and been indifferent in his principles, I might have turned him; but had he wanted that tenderness, and yet been as zealous in his religion as he was, he must have turned me, or I must have lived a dreadful life with him. Yo. sist. I find he was a mighty religious man in his way. g* 202 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Wid. To the greatest degree imaginable devout, and very serious, I assure you. Yo. sist, Well, though he was mistaken in his principles, yet he was the more sober, the more honest, and every way the better pre- pared to be a good man, Wid. His devotion made him, without doubt, the better man; but if it had not been for the restraints of his affections, it had certainly made him the worse husband. Yo. sist. So that in this question of marrying a man of a different opinion in religion, you suppose thatthe more devout and serious the person is in his way, the worse husband. - Wid. Without any question it isso: The zeal in their own opin- ions makes them always uneasy and impatient with their wives, teasing and baiting them with impertinent disputes, and even driv- ing them by force of restless importunities (which, by the way, is the worst sort of persecution) into a compliance. Yo. sist: I agree with you in that part. But, sister, you say, that even when your husband’s love was your protection from these im- portunities, you were yet unhappy, and could not be able to lead a religious life. Wid. No, sister, I did not say so; I said we could not have a re- ligious family ; all social religion was ldst; mutual help and assist- ance in religion were wanting; public worshiping God in the family as a house, could not be set up; education and instruction of child- ren was all destroyed; example to servants and inferiors all spoiled ; nothing could be of religion, but what was merely personal and retired. Aunt. There indeed you are right, niece. Wid. I assure you, madam, from my experience, that next to the having the husband and wife being religious, or at least religiously inclined, they that would have a religious family, should take as much care as possible to have religious servants. Aunt. I agree with you in that, my dear, with all my heart. Wid. It is impossible to observe the necessary rules of a religious family without it, or to have a due regard shown to the orders which must be given on that account. Aunt. Nay, child, I go farther than that; I insist, that our ser- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 2038 vants ought to be chosen, as to be of the same opinions too in reli- ‘gion as ourselves. Wid. I have not’ sp much cpnsidered that part indeed; but I be- lieve, madam, the reasouis for’ ‘ity are'véry” good. Aunt. I have a great deal to’ ‘say to"that from my own experience. Eid. sist. And so have I too, madam,’ from what I have seen in some families of my acquaintance. Wid. I have seen enough of it in my little” family, to make me resolve, that while I have a family, and can, keep my ‘Servants, I will entertain none but such as worship God the same way as 1 wor- ship him. “a Eld. sist. And did so béfore’ you tdbk them, I hope, you mean so, sister. pe Wid. Yes, indeed, I do mean so too. Aunt. I must put in an, exception, niéce, there, in behalf of poor ignorant creatures, fat may come intoa family untaught, and are willing to be instructed in things that are good. Wid. I know not what to say to that part, because I am but ill qualified for’a’ schoolmistress. Aunt. Well, we will discourse of ‘this by itself, niece, for I have a great deal to say upon that subject?) Wid. With alkmy heart, madain. Aunt. But inthe meantime, child, let us go now where we left 0 ff, “t - " fgg ® : Wid. There was as’‘much religion in our house, as it was possible there could be, ii our circumstances ; for both of us desired it in gen- eral, and purstied it in particular, only we could not join in the man- ner; and it was a perfect scene of confusion, to see how religion was carried on among us; the servants were some Papists, some Protes- tants, come Pagans; for we had three East India blacks and one negro among our people.. The (Christian sérvants were every now and then together by the ears, about’ persuading the negro to turn Christian, and be baptized, but gould'not bear to think what sort of a Christian the poor creature should be: one of our men, an Italian, would have him be a Papist, and the other would have him to bea Protestant; and the poor negro was so confounded between them, that he could not tell what to do. The negro was a sensible, inquis 204 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. itive fellow, and had by mere asking questions on both sides gotten a great deal of knowledge of religion; but was nearly stopt in his search after further particulars by the impertinent quarrels of those servants who pretended to instruct him: both told him he must. believe a God, a future state, a heaven, a hell, a resurrection to life, or to death, and that he must be saved by a Redeemer. They agreed exactly in their description of the joys of eternal life, the torments of hell, and particularly they had joined in giving the poor negro a frightful apprehension of hell, as the reward of his doing wickedly, and of the devil as a tempter, an enemy, and tormentor; so that the poor fellow would pray to God very heartily to save him from hell, and to keep hig from the devil. But when these poor ignorant fellows began to instruct him how to worship God, and who to look to as his Redeemer and Saviour ; to talk to him about reading the Scriptures, and such things, they fell out to the last degree; the English footman told the Italian he was an idolater, and he was worse than a heathen; that Negum (for so the poor negro was called) was as good a Christain ashe; for though he did not worship in the name of Christ, yet as he (the Italian foot- man) worshiped a piece of wood for a Saviour, Christ would not accept him; and it was as bad as Negum’s worshiping a hobgoblin, or anything else. The Italian told him he was a heretic, and his religion was no religion at all, that he was an enemy to God, and to the church; and told Negum, that if he believed what the fellow said, the devil would take him away alive. They had many quarrels about it; but one day above the rest they came to that height, that they fell to fighting; it seems the rest of the servants had parted them before their master or I heard of it; but as we were both walking together in the evening in our garden, we, by mere chance, saw the negro in the kitchen-garden, crying: his master saw him first and called him to us; and the fellow came with a book in his hand, but terribly afraid his master should be angry. What is the matter Negum? says his master, and so they began to talk. Neg. No muche matter, no muche. Ma. Why, you were crying, Negum: what did you cry about? Has anybody beat you? Neg. No muche cry, no beate me. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 205 Ma. What then, Negum? What book have you got there? Neg. Indeede me no go away [kneels down], sir; me no go be a Christian, no indeede. [The fellow, it seems, was afraid his master would think, if he turned Christian, he would be baptized, and so think himself free ; and he kneeled down to his master to beg him not to be angry.] Ma, Well, well, thou shalt be a Christian, Negum, if thou hast a mind for it; God forbid anybody should hinder thee. What book is that ? Neg. Bible-book, me read this book to be a Christian ! Ma. Who gave you that book to read ? Neg. Augustino. Ma. Let me see it. [He looked in the book, and saw it was an Italian missal or psalter.] Neg. Me have other Bible-book [he pulls another book out] too. Ma. Let’s see that too. [His master looked in that too, and found it was an English Bible.] Ma. Who gave you this too? Neg. William. Ma. Well, you understand the languages; read them both: but, poor fellow, thou hast got but two sorry teachers. [When he gave the book back to him, and bid him read them both, he turned to me; my dear, says he, these fellows pretend to instruct this poor negro in the Christian religion, when they cannot agree about it themselves, I am sure. [Upon which Negum makes his master a bow, and puts in his word.] Neg. No, indeede they no agree: they fight just now about teache me. Ma. What, did they fight? Neg. Yes, indeede, they fight just now; they no teach me; one say, me go to the devil; the other say, me go to the devil; they no teach me to go away from the devil; they make me no know what I do. Ma. And was that it you cried about, Negum? Neg. Yes, indeede, me cry to go to the devil! me would go away from the devil. Ma. You must pray to God to keep you from the devil. 206 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Neg. Yes, indeede, me do pray God keep away the devil. Ma. You must pray God to teach you too. Neg. God teache me! No, Augustino teache me? No, William teache me! God teache me, how that? [Here my spouse found how the case stood, and turning to me, my dear, said he, these fellows quarrel continually about this poor man, and so in the end he will be brought rather to abhor the Christ- tian religion in general, than to turn Christian at all; while one pulls him one way, and one another; now, what course must you and I take? I cannot pretend to desire him to be made a Catholic; and so the poor fellow must be lost. I told him it was a critical case in which I knew not how to act; but as they were his servants in par- ticular, and that he brought his negro out of Italy with him, I thought they were to be at his disposal and direction, rather than mine. My dear, says he, there is nothing mine but what is yours; do not shift it off so, but tell me what I shall do? I confess I trembled when he said so; for I was afraid some debate would fall in between us, in consequence of the case; however I answered him thus: My dear, you determined before for me, what you might be sure would be my thoughts; but what can I determine about your servants? Well, my dear, says he, I will do as Solomon did in the case of dividing the child, I will show you that I am the truest lover of his soul, I mean of us two; for rather than he should not be taught to worship God at all, let him be taught the way of the country where we are; if we divide as our two men have done, he will not be taught at all. Upon this principle he acted, and consented I should act in it as I saw cause; upon which I sent the negro down to a country tenant we have in Essex, upon pretence to learn to plough and sow, and do country work, and there I kept him near a twelvemonth; at the same time, the farmer being a very sober, religious man, and having @ hint from me what to do, this poor negro is become a very sensi- ble, religious fellow, has been baptized now about two years ago, and I think verily is an excellent Christian. Sist. And did he run away, or claim his freedom upon his being baptized ? Wid. No, not he; but I gave him his freedom when his master died, and gave him wages, and he is an extraordinary servant, I assure you. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 207 Sist, Your husband strained a point of religion there, I assure you. Wid. Why you see what principle he did it from; he saw the fel- low was in a Protestant country, and would either be a Protestant at last, or nothing at all; and he rather chose he should be a Protestant, than, remain a heathen, or lose all desire of being a Christian: for, says he, God can enlighten him farther by a miracle, when he pleases; and the having been taught the general notions of religion, he would be the easier brought to embrace the true church; but if he continues a heathen he will have no knowledge at all. ld. sist. I believe you would not have shown the same charity for his church. Wid. I confess I did not show so much zeal for the soul of the poor negro, as I think I ought to have done, or so much charity as he did; but had other thoughts at that time to take me up: however, sister, to bring this back to the first discourse, you see by this how fatal in a family, difference in principles is within the same house; and had he not been biased by an extraordinary temper, as well as by an uncommon charity, we had been the most miserable couple on earth; go that, in short, there is not one part of a woman’s life, in such a circumstance, that is not dreadfully embarrassed, if she has any sense of her own principles, or her husband any sense of his. Yo. sist. But do you think, then, that there may be a case of some kind or other, in which a man and a woman may be happy together, though there be a difference in opinion. , Wid. No, indeed, I do not,think there is. I do not think you can name 2 case, in which it is possible to say with truth, that they can be happy: that is, that there is not some interruption to their happi- ness on that very account. Yo. sist. That is supposing them to be both religiously inclined. Wid. Nay, that need not be supposed; for we go upon our mother’s principle, that without a religious family there can be no happiness of life: if they are, as I said before, indifferent about reli- gion, then there is no happiness at all, in our sense of felicity ; and if they place their happiness in pursuing their duty, as every true Christ- ian must, there must be some of that happiness wanting, where they cannot worship God together, and go hand in hand to heaven. Yo. sist. You know, sister, I was always of that mind; but I am exceedingly confirmed in it by your experience. 208 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Wid. You were happy in your early cleaving to this principle, and I miserable in neglecting it; may both our examples be directing to those who come after us. Fa, Come, children, blessed be God for the experience of both. Let us end this discourse, for it makes me melancholy, that have had a very unhappy part in both your cases. In yours, my dear, speak- ing to the youngest, I violently endeavored to force you to be miserable; and in yours, my dear, speaking to the other, I entirely omitted the concern I ought to have had upon me, to prevent your making yourself so. Sist. Do not afflict yourself, sir, about that now; blessed be God, we have both got it over. Fa. But it does afflict me for all that: and let all fathers learn from me, how much it concerns them, if they wish well to their chil- dren, either to their souls or bodies, to establish religious families in their posterity, and to prevent their children marrying, if possible, either where there is no religion, or no agreement in opinion about it; for in either case they are sure to be made miserable. THE APPENDIX. PART III. In the latter part of the discourse we left the awat and the widow sister, who had married the Roman Catholic gentleman, entering into a discourse about the inconveniencies of entertaining irreligious servants; and also of entertaining servants of different persuasions and opinions in religion, one from another, or of different opinions from the family they serve in. The ladies put off the discourse of that affair for another time, the aunt being willing to enter into a more particular conversation about it. This caused several entertaining discourses among them at several times, some of which, I hope, may be useful to be made public for the direction of other families, and for the encouragement of a]l masters and mistresses of families, who disire to promote good government and religious things among their children and servants; and particularly in such a time as this, when it is known that servants are less apt to submit to family regulations, and good household government, than ever. The two ladies being at their aunt’s house, which was at Hampstead, as I have observed, the aunt had a little squabble with one of her maids upon the following occasion. The maid had, it seems, been out in the afternoon of a Sabbath day, and stayed longer than the usual time of being at church: and her lady, who otherwise had known nothing of it, happened, unluckily for the wench, to be just in the way when she came in; that is to say, the lady chancing to go down the back stairs, which was not ordinary for her to do, mee*s 209 210 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. her maid, dressed in her best clothes, and just going up to undress herself; and this rencounter between the mistress and the maid pro- duced the following dialogue. DIALOGUE I. Lady. Ha! Mary, says the lady, not undressed yet. Mary. I shall be ready presently, madam. La. But how come you to be so fine at this time of day—I sup- pose you are just come in, Mary? Ma. Yes, madam, I have come in a good while. La. What do you call a good while, Mary ? Ma. A great while, madam. La. Must not I know how long, Mary? Ma. Yes, madam, if you please; but you do not use to inquire into such trifles ; I hope I have not been wanted. La. It would have been a trifle, Mary, if it had been on another day; but it being on the Sabbath day, Mary, makes the case differ extremely. I hope you were at church, Mary? Ma. Yes, madam, to be sure. La. At our church, Mary? I think I did not see you there. Ma. No, madam, indeed I was not there: I hope it is all one if I was at another church. La. No, Mary, it is not all one, because I cannot be sure that you were at any church at all. Ma. You may take my word, madam, for that, for once I hope. La. I cannot say, Mary, that it is so much to my satisfaction to take your word for it, as it would have been to see you at church myself. Ma. J am sorry, madam, you should be so uneasy at those things; I hope I do your business to your content ; and as to going to church, Thope I may be at liberty to go to what church I like best. La. Why, yes, Mary, I am willing to allow liberty of conscience, but then it is upon condition that it is really a conscientious liberty ; RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 211 it is not my question, what church you go to, if I am satisfied you were at church at all: but how shall I be sure of that, Mary? Ma, It isnot worth your inquiry, madam; these things are trifles below a mistress to trouble herself with. La. No, Mary, you are much mistaken there; I think I am obliged to inquire whether my servants go to church or no; and how they spend their time on Sabbath days: besides, Mary, it is a great while since church was done, and I find you are but just come home: I desire to have some little account where you have been. Ma. 1 am not ashamed to tell where I have been, madam; I have been doing no harm; I have been taking a walk, madam; I work hard enough all the week, I think I may take a little pleasure on Sundays. La, Well, Mary, so you have been walking in the fields, and tak- ing your pleasure to-day ? Ma, Yes, madam, I hope there is no offence in it; I think you said T have not been wanted. La. Well, but just now you said you had been at church, Mary ? Ma. Why, that is true, madam; I was at Highgate church, door, but I did not go in, that is true; I did not think you would have troubled yourself to examine such trifles so very particularly. La. You and I differ very much about the thing itself; I do not think it is a trifling thing at all, Mary, whether my servants spend the Sabbath day at church, or in taking their pleasure. Ma. I work very hard, madam, all the week. La. What is that to keeping the Sabbath day, Mary? Ma, Why, madam, sure I may take a little pleasure on Sundays, I have no other.time; I am sure you give your servants no other time for diversion. La. Did I ever refuse you, Mary, when you asked me for a day for yourself? Ma. Y never troubled you much with asking. La. I had rather you had, Mary, than take God’s time for yourself? Ma. God’s time, madam, all our time is God’s time, I think. Ia. Yes, Mary, but some time he has appointed for religion, Mary. Ma. Religion! Oh, dear! indeed, madam; I do not trouble my self about religion, not I. La. So I find, Mary, and am very sorry for it. 212 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Ma, Oh, madam, you have religion enough for us all: what can Ido? La. Do not make a jest of it, Mary; I am not jesting with you. Ma. T think you are, madam, when you talk to me of religion; I do not understand it: what can I say to it? La. You can go to church, Mary, can’t you? Ma. Yes, madam, so I do sometimes. La. And do not you go every Sunday ? Ma. No indeed, madam, not I; it is a folly to lie. La. I am sorry for it, Mary ; I assure you, they that live with me shall go to church every Sunday, or I shall not desire their ser- vice. Ma. You never made that bargain, madam, when you hired me. La. Well, Mary, then I make it now; for they shall not serve me all the week, that make my work an excuse for not serving God on Sunday ; I should think it would bring a curse upon my work, and upon my whole family. Ma. As you please for that, madam. La. No, Mary, it must be as you please, it seems; for you know my conditions now, and I expect you will observe them, or remove them. [Here her mistress left her, seeing she began to talk a little sauci- ly, and she had no mind to vex herself, or put herself in a passion with her. The wench, a little heated with the reproof her lady had given her, and vexed that she was caught, for she did not expect to see her mistress on the back stairs, went up and undressed herself, and hear- ing another of the maids in the next room, she goes to her, and there gives a full vent to her passion; railing heartily at her mistress and at religion, and at everything that came in her way. The following discourse will give some part of their talk: she knocks at the door, and calls to her fellow servant thus: Betty, open the door, I want to speak with you: so Betty let her in, and she begins.] Ma. I suppose you have heard what a lecture I have had, have you not, Betty? Betty. No, not I; who have you had a lecture from? Ma. Nay, nobody but my mistress: J wonder what business she had upon the back stairs. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 213 Bet. Back stairs! Why did you meet my mistress upon the back stairs ? Ma. Ay, ay, I met her there: or rather she met me there, as ill- Inck would have it: for I was but just come in, and was coming up to undress me, but she caught me; I would I had been a mile off. Bet. Why what did she say to you, was she angry ? Ma, Ay, ay, angry! I never had such a rattle from her since I came into the house. Bet. What was the matter, what was it for ? Ma. For! for nothing, I think; but forsooth she would needs know where I had been, and whether I had been at church or no: what has she to do with it whether I go to church or no? it is no- thing to her. Bet. Oh, that was only — you was but just come in, and it was so long past church time, I suppose, that made her suspect “you. Ma, Suspect me! what do you mean by that? I do nothing to be suspected, not I. Bet. I do not say you do: I say that made her suspect you had not been at church. Ma, Well, she need not trouble her head with her suspicions of me; T told her I had not been at church; I told her I had been to take a walk with a friend as far as Highgate. Bet. Did you? that is more than I dare do; if I make a slip now and then, I am in such a hurry to get back just as church is done, that it takes away the pleasure of it. Ma. I do not trouble my head with it: if I have a mind to take a walk, as long as she does not want me what need she trouble herself? I shall not be so much afraid of her, not T; aslong as it is on Sunday and my work is done too. Bet. But then, I can assure you, my mistress and you will not agree long together; for if she knows it, she will not keep you a hour. Ma. Nay, she may do as she will for that; I told her plainly where I went, and that I thought she had nothing to do with it. Bet. Did you so, Mary? Then I suppose she told you her mind. Ma. Ay, ay, and I told her my mind too ; I will not be tied up tn 214 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. her religious trumpery, not I; if I do her work, what has she to do with what religion I am of, or whether I have any religion or no? it is no business of hers. Bet. No, Mary, I cannot go that length, either; I think my mis- tress may concern herself with that; for, if she is religious herself, she may desire to have her servants beso too; and therefore, if I do make a breach sometimes, I always do it so as not to be found out; and I have had such good luck, that my mistress has never caught me yet. Ma. Well, she has caught me: and, if it be a fine day next Sunday, she shall catch me again, if she has a mind to it; I won't be tied to go to church but when I please; is not that liberty of con- science? Bet. No, Mary, I think that is liberty without conscience; for, tis a liberty in what we would not do; that can never be liberty of conscience, Mary. Ma. Well, well; then let it be liberty without conscience; ‘tis the liberty I love, and I see no harm in it; why, you acknowledge you do so yourself, don’t you? Bet. That’s true, so Ido sometimes; but I cannot say ’tis as it should be: I cannot say, as you do, that there is no harm in it; ’tis a fault, I know that; and I don’t.do it very often; and when I do, as I told you, I take care not to have it known. Ma, Very well, then you are worse than 1; for you believe it is a fault and yet you do it: now I don’t think it is a fault at all; if I did, it may be I would not do it. Bet. I don’t believe you can say with a safe conscience, that there is no harm in it; you only are hardened a little more than I. Ma. It may be so; and you are even with me; for you are little more of a hypocrite than I, and for aught I see, that’s all the differ- ence between us. , Bet. Truly, Mary, your reproof is bitter; but perhaps it is too true; and I shall learn so much from you, that I shall take more care how I do again what my own conscience convinces me is a fault. Ma. Well, and I may go on then, -because I have more impudence than you: I suppose that’s what you mean. Bet. I did not say so; I believe you know ’tis a fault as well as I RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 215 do, but you are a little more used to those things, it may be, than I have been. 5 Ma. I am as I was bred, and so, it may be, are you; I was never taught to lay much stress upon these things, and so I never trouble myself about them. Bet. Well, Mary, I am glad you think I have been taught better. Ma, Why, as well as you have been taught, I find you can take a walk on Sunday as well as I. : Bet, But I tell you again, I don’t do it, and think there’s no harm in it, as you do; and I think you have touched me so home with your reproof, that I resolve never to do so again while I live. Ma. But what's all this to my mistress and me; what has she to do with it? Bet. Why, Mary, my mistress is a very pious, religious lady, and she thinks herself bound to call her servants to an account how they spend their time. Ma, Ay, so she may for all the week-days, for that’s her time; but Sunday is my own, she has nothing to do with that. Bet. Tassure you my mistress will not allow that doctrine; she thinks she has as much to do with you on Sunday as any other day. Ma. You talk of my mistress being a religious lady, why so she may be, for aught I know; and I think we have so much religion at home, we need not go abroad for it: does not the chaplain tease us twice a-day with his long prayers, and reading of chapters? I am sure he has made me neglect my business many times to come in to prayers: but I give him the slip sometimes, and if I did not, they would have many a good dish of meat spoiled, so they would. Bet. You are a merry girl, Mary, when you talk of religion. Ma. Nay, I don’t understand it; I know nothing of the matter; I come to do my business and mind the kitchen: if their dinners are not dished up, they may find fault, and I should take some care to mend it; but, to talk to me about religion, ’tis time enough hereafter ; let them let me alone to myself. * Bet. But my mistress will satisfy you, that she is obliged, while she keeps you for a servant, to see that you serve God as well as you serve her. Ma. Oh dear! let them serve God themselves better first: I don’t see that any of them have any more regard to their prayers and their 216 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP, chapters than I have that stay away, but only for form’s sake and it may be for the credit of employing a chaplain. Bet. Nay, do not say so either: I can assure you my mistress is a very pious, religious lady, and you cannot say otherwise, I am sure, and so are all the young ladies too, they are like her. Ma, It may be so; and yet I have seen them all asleep at prayers many atime, when I am sure they had not much more need to be sleepy than I had, that work hard, nor so much either. Bet. Sometimes they may be heavy, but that is not often; and I suppose you cannot say they were ever all asleep together. Ma, Tis no matter for that, they do the same at church; and pray what is the difference between my going into the fields to take my pleasure on Sundays, and their going to church to take their ease ? between my washing my dishes, while the chaplain is at prayers, and their being fast asleep at prayers? Bet. Why, Moll, thou art very malicious to take notice of such things; and they are faults, to be sure; but there is a vast difference in them too. Ma. As how, pray? Bet. Why, thus: That though they may sometimes drop asleep, ’tis not always; and they do it but seldom. You, it seems, make the other a practice, and do it always. Then, if they do sleep sometimes at church or at prayers, they don’t pretend to say there is no harm in it, they must acknowledge they ought not to do so; but you have the impudence to say, when you spend your time in the fields or perhaps worse, there is no harm in it. Now there’s a great deal of difference between doing a thing which they acknowledge to be wrong, and doing what is really wrong, and justifying it as if it was right. Ma. Well, let them do what they will, and let me do what I will; I don’t meddle with them, let them let me alone, can’t they ? Bet. But it may be, my mistress thinks she ought to govern her servants in religious things, as well as in her house affairs. Ma. Why, let her think what she will, and do what she will, I wilt have my own way, I shall mind nothing they say to me. Bet. That’s none of my business, Mary ; you may do as you will. Ma. No; and 'tis none of her business either, I think. Bet. I can’t say that, Mary; I think if you were a mistress, and RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 217 kept a great many servants, as our mistress does, you would talk otherwise and do otherwise too, or else you would soon have a house full of whores and rogues. ; Ma. I don’t know what I would do then, nor do I trouble my head with it, for Iam never like to be tried with it; but if I wasa housekeeper, and kept maids, I would take care they should do my business, and that would keep them from making such a disorderly house as you speak of; as for their religion I should not trouble myself about it. Bet. Well, but I would trouble myself about that too, I assure you, if I were a mistress. Ma. Why, what would you do? Bet. Why, if I had a chaplain or husband that kept up good order in his house, I would take care my servants should always attend at prayers; and on Sundays I would take care they.should all go to church, and come home again too when church was done. Ma. You would! And ifI was your maid, you would make me come into prayers every night and morning, would you? Bet. Yes, I would, or you should not live with me. Ma. Well, and if I did come in, F should only laugh at you all when I did, and make a jest of your chaplain or your husband, and so would other servants too; don’t you see me do so here? ain’t we always making a sport of our poor dull thing called a chaplain ? Bet. Yes, I can’t say but I see it, but I never join with you in it; for I think there is no jest at all in it: and as for the poor, good man himself, I know he sees it and ’tis a great trouble and discouragement to him. Ma. Why, what is such a fellow good for, but to be gamed and made sport with? does he think we take him for anything but a re- ligious Merry-andrew ? Bet. You must think, however, my mistress takes him otherwise, and thinks it her duty to keep him, and to have good order in her house; and it does not become us that are servants to mock at such things; no master or mistress that knew that their servants mocked at God’s worship in their house, ought to keep those servants an hour longer in their families. Ma. And you would make me come to church if I were your cook, would you, Betty? 10 218 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Bet. No, I don’t say I would make you go to church; you should either go to God’s worship or go about your business. Ma. Well, but what if I were a Dissenter, and did not like your way, or did not care to go to your church? Or what if you werea Dissenter, and I did not like to go to the meeting-house. Bet. Why, truly, Mary, in general, I say ifthat were the real case, I would not restrain you, provided I were satisfied you went but somewhere; but your dispute with my mistress is between going somewhere and nowhere, not between serving God in this manner or that manner, but between serving God some manner or other, and serving him noway at all; and that alters the case mightily. Ma. But as to the matter of coming to prayers at home, it would be the same thing: for, if 1 were a Church woman, and my mistress a Dissenter; or I a Dissenter, and my mistress of the Church; or I a Quaker and my mistress 4 Roman Catholic, or my mistress a Qua- ker, and I a Catholic,’ it would be all the same thing; there would be the same dislike and contempt of what was done in the house; I should ‘no more like the crosses and the masses of the Pa- pists, the yea and nay of thé Quakers, and reading prayers of the Church, or extempore prayers of the Presbyterians, if I was of the other opinion, than I now like any of them, while I declare I un- derstand none of them: and so all their family doings would be but a jest to me; and I'll niake a jest of them. Bet. Why, this is too true; :and therefore I must own, that if I were mistress of a house, I would always have my servants to go to the same place, to serve God as I did myself, or I would not keep them; whether I went to the church, or to the meceting- house ; or to the Quakers’ meeting, or to the mass-house. Ma. And what would you be the better? They would but make a jest of you still; they would be not the more of your opinion for forcing them to go where you went. Bet. You mistake me much: I mean they should be such as by choice went to worship so before they came tome, and that declared their opinion to be so when I hired them: for otherwise, I grant, that compelling them afterwards would be nothing at all, or perhaps worse than the other. Ma. And what if an honest plain wench like me came to be hired, that knows nothing at all of religion, and troubled not herself about +t? RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 219 Bet. Why, such an one, when I asked her whether she went to this, or that place, should say yes to any of them, as Thappened to be my- self; and so I might be deceived. Ma, Well, and what would you do then, when you found her out, and met her on the back stairs, Bess, as my mistress has done by me? Bet. Why, Ishould do just as my mistress has done, with you; inquire about it, and when I found you a reprobate, profane wench, and a saucy one too, as it seems you acknowledge you have shown yourself to-day, I should e’en give you warning to mend your manners, or provide yourself, as it seems my mistress has done too. Ma. A pretty story! So I am to come to make my complaint to you to a fine purpose; it seems you think me in the wrong all the way. Bet. Indeed so I do. Ma. And what if I had come to you to be hired, and you had asked me my opinion about religion, and I had answered you, that I had not many thoughts about it: that all opinions were alike to me: that when I did go anywhere, I would go where you would have me go, and the like? Bet. Why, Mary, I must own I should not like it at all; neither, I believe should I hire you at all. Ishould be afraid to take such a stupid despiser of God and religion into my house; you shoulde’en go without a mistress for me. Ma. Well, and you might go without a servant, too, for me; for I can tell you there are mistresses enough in the world that never ask a question either before or after, nor care whether their servants serve God or the devil. Bet. Ay, Mary, and that is the reason why so many of us servants are of the same kind. Ma. Well, well, I don’t doubt, however, but I shall get a place among them, and not be questioned about going to church. I go to service to work, not to learn my catechism; I understand my cook- ery—what is it to them whether I understand religion or no? Bet. Why, look you, Mary, I don’t learn my catechism any more than you, and yet I do not like my mistress the worse, I assure you, for taking care that her servants should go to church, and not caring 220 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. to keep those that are despisers of religion; I think ’tis a pity any lady that is religious should not have religious servants about her. [They had another dialogue upon this subject afterwards; but it had too much passion in it to merit a place in this account; for the case was this: Betty gave her lady an account of some part of Mary’s discourse, particularly that of making a jest of her chaplain, and of calling the family to prayers: upon which her mistress turned her out of her house, giving her-a month’s wages instead of a month’s warn- ing, as one not fit to be allowed to stay in her family; and Mary fell upon her fellow-servant for that part in a greatrage, Betty told her in so many words, she thought herself obliged to mention it, though it was not till her mistress, having heard that they had discoursed together, made her promise to give her a full account of all that had passed between them, and if she had not done it faithfully, her mis- tress would have put them both away together. These two short dialogues or disputes about the maid’s rambling on the Sabbath day, was the reason why the young lady’s aunt was willing to discourse again with her neice upon. that subject; and accordingly meeting together some time after, they renewed their discourse about servants in the following manner.] Aunt. I think, niece, when you and I talked last, we were upon the subject of taking religious servants: I want to hear what you have to say upon that head; for I think there is really much more in it than most people imagine. Niece. Pray, madam, it is what I lay a great stress upon; and though I have not had much occasion to complain in the first years Ihave kept house; yet I have seen so much of it in my mother’s time, and since that in other families, and a little in my own, that I am resolved, whatever shift I make, I will have no servants, but such as, at least, have a common reverence for religion, and for reli- gious persons in a family. To be sure I will never have any scoffers and mockers of religion, if I can help it. Aunt. As the world goes now, child, it will be very hard to find such; for religion is so much made a jest of among masters, that it is hard to find any servants that do not jest at it too, and mock and slight all those that have any regard to it. Niece. That is my case, madani, exactly ; but there is another mis- chief in it too. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 221 Aunt. Another mischief, child! There are innumerable family mischiefs in it. Niece. I believe so, madam. But this is one particular case, and which I have the greater reason to take notice of, because a certain lady, an acquaintance and neighbor of mine, has had a great deal of that kind; and indeed in a particular manner with her servants. Aunt. What lady is that; pray, do I know her? Niece. You had some discourse with her, madam, if I remember right, the last time you did me the favor to dine with me. Aunt. I remember it very well; and we talked a little upon that very subject; I mean, how rude and insolent servants were grown at this time: but I think we had not much talk of their being irreli- _ gious and profane. Niece. Madam, she had a servant, whom they called her woman; for she was one to whom she intrusted everything, and was like a housekeeper; and all the servants were, as it were, under her: she was a very good sort of a body indeed in the house; and as that lady, if you remember, was very lame, she could not stir about to look much after her servants herself, but trusted all to this woman. She. was a sensible woman, had the knowledge of almost every- thing in the world, and talked admirably well; had a world of wit and humor, very mannerly and well behaved, sober and modest enough: in short, she was an excellent servant. Aunt. You give her an extraordinary character, niece, I assure you. Niece. In a word, madam, she had everything about her that could be desired in a servant, but religion; and of that she was as entirely empty as you can imagine it possible for any creature in the world to be, that had ever heard of God or the devil, or had lived among Christians, Aunt. Nay, niece, you say she was not an ignorant body. Niece. No, indeed, madam, she was so far from being ignorant, that she was able to-deceive anybody: she would talk of religious things as well, and argue upon them strongly enough to delude any- body: and this made it the worse, for she was such a human devil, that she made use of a fluent tongue, and of an uncommon wit, not to talk irreligiously only, but to mock and make a jest at religion in general, and of all those that had any regard for it. 222 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Aunt. She was a dangerous body indeed? Pray, was she a maid or a wife? for she is not very young it seems. Wiece. She had never been married, madam, but I think was en- gaged to a man whom my spouse sent to Italy: and they are to be married when he comes back. Aunt. You say she is a sober woman ? Niece. Yes, madam, I dare say she is. But her wicked, profane, and atheistical behavior is enough to poison a whole family. Aunt. But why does the lady, your friend, entertain such an one in her house? Niece. She has such a subtlety in her conduct, and behaves so cunningly, that her mistress does not perceive it; at least she does not think her so bad as she is. Aunt. But what says her husband to it? does he know it? Niece. Yes, madam, he knows more of it than she does; for the men servants tell him of it, and give him a particular account some- times of passages which they observe. Aunt. Perhaps he does not trouble himself about it; for the men do not often value these things. Niece. Indeed, madam, just the contrary; for he is a very sober, religious gentleman, and keeps very good order in his house, and it is avery great disturbance to him. Aunt. And has he spoken of it to his wife? Niece. Yes, madam, he has very often, and told her such particu- lars as are very essential to the good of the family ; and such too as almost carry their own evidence with them. Aunt. And what does she say? Niece.I know not indeed how she manages; but I know that her husband and she have had more words about it, than about all other matters put together, since they were married; and sometimes it grows high, and they are very warm, and even angry about it. Aunt. Why, she seems to be a good, sensible, religious lady : how can she take such a creature’s part, especially against her hus- band ? Niece. Why, first of all, she pretends that she does not believe it; that the other servants rival her in the favors she receives, and her mistress’ particular kindnesses, and do it out of a malicious design : then she says she has examined her, and she finds she clears herself RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 223 of much of the charge, and makes the rest appear to be trifling, and not worth a notice. Aunt. But perhaps, niece, it really may be so too, and the other servants may make things worse than they are, for the reasons you mention. Niece. But, madam, it is otherwise in fact; for the truth is, the wench, or woman, manages all the servants so effectually, that, in short, if any of them are religiously inclined when they come, she makes them ashamed to be so, when they come to her; for she makes such a mock of religion, and such a jest of going to church, or going to prayers in the family, that she laughs them out of their religion, and in a word, they all turn reprobates like herself. Aunt. But can this be, and her lady not know or hear of it. Niece. Yes, very well, madam; for, as I told you, she is an excel- lent servant, and the more her mistress is loath to part with her, the harder she is to believe these things of her. Aunt. But, niece, her husband, you say, knows it; sure she will believe him. Niece. But she alleges, he knows it but by hearsay from the rest of the servants, who, she says, hate her, and therefore falsely accuse her. Aunt. But does he know nothing from his own knowledge. Niece, Yes, madam, he knows too much: for the unwary creature let him overhear her one evening, making her jeers, and flout at him to some of the servants, but behind his back, for his calling them all to prayers; and not only so, but at some expressions which he had used some time or other, which she pretended were nonsense, and others trifling, and the like, as the redundancy of her wit gave her room to banter. Aunt. That was very unhappy indeed, and the worse that he should know it too. Niece. So it was, madam ; for it made the poor gentleman decline performing his duty for some time, and made a very great breach between him and his lady, which is hardly quite made up yet. Aunt. How so, pray? Niece. Why, madam, she wanted to have him continue to go on with his duty, and to pray in his family as he used to do; he declared he could not do it while that creature was to be there; that it was a 224 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. restraint to him, and he could not perform when he knew there was one in the place who made a scoff and jeer at him for it. She alleged, he ought to perform his duty for all that; and that it was a piece of the devil’s craft, contrived to interrupt the worship of God in his family, and that he ought to disregard it entirely. Aunt. Well, I think he was very much in the wrong in that part; for he certainly ought not to have omitted his duty upon so mean an objection as that. Niece. That is true, and he owned it; but said it was a difficulty upon him, a restraint to him in the performance of his duty, and that she ought to remove it from him. Aunt. He ought to have considered, that the less of religion was to be found in his servants, the more reason he had to pray for them, and with them; that he might perhaps be the occasion of good to them; and of bringing them to the knowledge and love of religion, which would be an advantage he ought to be thankful for, and think it a blessing to his house if it happened so. Niece. She did not argue just so to him, madam: but here turned it so strong upon her, that she ought, as far as lay in her, to remove every difficulty that lay in the way of his duty, that it was much more forcible as to her; for he told her, that if she granted, that the difficulty was a snare laid in his way by the devil, she ought, at the same time, that she told him it was his duty to resist it, do all she could possibly, or that lay in her power, to remove the occasion; otherwise she made herself accessory to the temptation, and assistant to the devil. in laying a snare, for her husband, and much of the sin would lie at her door. Aunt. There was a great deal in that, I confess: and I think she ought to have yielded immediately. Pray, what did she say to it? Niece. She insisted that the charge was false; that her woman denied it, and, as I said before, that it was a malicious design of the other servants; but, in short, the business was, that she was very loath to part with her woman, who, as I said before, was a very good servant, and useful to her divers ways. Aunt. But you said, that he heard something of it himself, Surely she would believe him then. Niece. Why, she could say nothing to that, indeed; but she put it RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 225 off as well as she could, with telling him she would tell .her woman of it, and take care she should do so no more. Aunt. That seemed to be trifling, because it was in a matter of such consequence, as ought not to be trifled with. Wiece. It was so: but he went yet farther; he entreated her, he begged of her to take away a thing so irksome from him, and which was so much a hinderance to his duty. He told her, that had a ser- vant been a mere ignorant, untaught creature, he should have no difficulty upon him, but rather it would be an encouragement to do his duty in hopes of being an instrnment of opening their eyes; but, for amocker at religion, and one that not only despised religion, itself, but mocked at others for it; this made the case differ exceedingly, and he knew not how to get over it. Aunt. And would not such arguments as these move her ? Niece. Truly, not so much as they should have done. Aunt. And pray what was the consequence of it. Niece. Truly, madam, the consequences were bad many ways. For, first, it kept the lady and her husband on very ill terms with one another for near two years. And, secondly, that unhappy crea- ture bantered all the other servants of the family out of the little re- ligion they had, and indeed made them all like herself. Aunt, And where did it end? Niece. Why, madam, besides this, it broke and put an end to all good order, and to the worship of God in the family. I mean, to all family worship. Aunt. What dreadful work was that? What! and does it con- tinue so still? Niece. No, madam. Her husband, who is a very religious gentle- man, could not content himself with living in that manner with his family, and not being able to prevail with his wife to part with her woman, he took so much upon himself as to force her out of the house, that is to say, he put away the whole set of servants in the family ; for they were all made alike at last, and took all new peo- ple at once. Aunt. And: how did the lady take it? Niece. Truly, madam, I cannot say she took it so well as I wish, for her sake, she had: for though her husband and she are very re ligious, sober, and good people, yet I cannot but say, it has brekep 10* 226 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. . very much in upon their tempers and affection one to another, and there is not all the harmony between them that there used to be. Aunt. And all along for one graceless, irreligious servant. Niece. It is very true, madam. Aunt. Besides, as you say, ruining the morals of the rest of the servants. Niece. Yes, madam. Aunt. Pray, how did that appear among them ? Niece. Why, madam, in the first place, she made all religious things, her jest; turned all that was said to them at church, or in the family that had anything serious in it, into banter and ridicule, and laughed them out of everything that looked like religion. She represented religion to be a mere piece of state policy and priestcraft, contrived between the clergy and the statesmen, only to subject the world to their management. The ministers and servants of Jesus Christ set apart for the altar, and whose business it is to preach salvation to a lost world, by a glorious but crucified Redeemer, she despised with the lowest or last degree of contempt, calling them mercenaries and tradesmen, the church their idol, and the pulpit their shop, where they sold the word of God to who bid most; and such-like horrid and blasphemous stuff. When the honest servants would have gone to church with their master and mistress, she would carry them away into the fields, or to make some visit or other, and continually turn them off from what was religious to something of levity and diver- sion, as a more suitable work for the Sabbath day; and still when she had brought them to break in upon conscience, and to profane the Sabbath day, she would fall foul of religion for laying the burden of rules upon the liberties of the world; and all she did or said was with a great deal of wit, and by way of sarcasm, as sharp and keen as if she had been a philosopher, or a doctor in theology. Aunt. She was the more dangerous. Niece. She was so, indeed, for she had the tongue of a Siren; it was neatly hung, but hellishly employed; for she delighted in mak- ing everybody as bad as herself. Aunt. Your story is so very good, let me tell you another. Niece. I should be glad to hear it, madam. But if you please to put it off till by and by ; for I see your (she whispers her maid) ser- vant wants to speak with you. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 227 Aunt. She does so, indeed ; it is to callus todinner. Well, we will talk again of this part; for I am very much of your opinion, niece, about taking no profane, irreligious servants, if we can help it. DIALOGUE II. In the evening, the lady and her niece taking a walk in the garden, had a farther conversation upon the same subject, and the niece said to her aunt, which began the dialogue, Madam, when we left off our discourse in the morning, you were pleased to say, at the end of my story of an irreligious, profane wench, that my neighbor Mrs. —— had been troubled with, that you would tell me a story of another. Aunt. I did so, child; it is of a family that lives at (she points to a house that could be seen over the garden wall) that house just over the way, in the back lane. The people are Dissenters; the gentle- woman is a very sober, religious, good sort of a person indeed; and her husband is a very grave, religions man also. They endeavor to take servants of their own persuasion as much as they can; but that is sometimes very difficult to do; and she has indeed had very. bad luck that way. However, this gentlewoman, as she told me her- self, having occasion to hire a maid-servant, I forget whether she was a cook or chambermaid, or what else, for they kept three or four: but after she had agreed in everything else, she asked her maid (that was to be) what religion she was of? Madam, said the maid, blushing (for she looked mighty sober), that is a question I do not understand very well. Why, says the mistress, I hope you are a Protestant; I do not mean, whether you are a Papist or no. Yes, madam, says the maid, I think I am a Protestant. Nay, says the mistress, do you think so? but then, I doubt you do not think much about it. Not so much as I should do, madam, says the maid, and looked very simply and innocently at the discourse. Niece. Not expecting, it may be, to be asked such questions, 228 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Aunt. No, I believe not; for they are questions that I think none of us ask so much as we should do when we hire servants. Niece. Servants value themselves so much now, that they would take it as out of the way to be asked about these things. Aunt. Well, if I have any servants, they shall all be asked such questions, and answer them too, or they shall be no servants to me. Niece. I am of the same mind, madam, if I can possibly find ser- vants that will submit to it. Aunt. Child, if they will not submit, before they are hired, to tell me what religion they are of, what are they like to submit to, after they are hired, about religion, or anything else? Niece. Why, really, madam, I have had two or three that made a great deal of difficulty.to do it, and thought it very much out of the way to have me ask them about it. Aunt, And did you take them after that? Niece. Why truly, yes, I did take two of them. Aunt. And were they good for anything when you had them? Niece. Indeed, they were good for very little, I must confess. Aunt. It may be possible indeed that a wench may be a good ser- vant, that is not a good Christian; but I must acknowledge it is but very seldom that it proves so; but when a good servant is a good Christian too, such a one is ten timesthe more valuable for a servant, as well as for her religion. Niece. It is trae, madam. But what shall we say, that some that are good Christians, are nevertheless not good servants; nay there is a kind of scandal upon those we call religious servants, that they are generally saucy, reserved, and value themselves too upon it, always: making conditions with you, and claiming times and liberties on account of religious affairs, which are neither proper for the work of religion, nor perhaps employed so when granted. Aunt. That brings me back to the story I was telling you, at least to one part of it. Niece. J am sorry J interrupted it, then. Pray, Madam, go on with it. Aunt. I told you the gentlewoman, my neighbor, asked the wench about her religion, and how modestly she answered. However, her mistress put an end to that kind of discourse, and said, Look ye, sweetheart, I shall not catechise you too far ; the question is whether RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 229 you have been bred to the church or the meeting-house; for I tell yuu beforehand, we are all Dissenters, and go to the meeting. Niece. That was too open, she might have first heard what the maid said of herself. Aunt. No, no; she was willing to let her know first, and see what answer she would give to it, not doubting but that if she gave an answer not founded upon principle, she should find it out. Niece. Well, madam, perhaps she would be anything to get a good place. Aunt. As to that, she made herself judge of it from her answer, which was very honest indeed, though not to her mistress’ satisfac- tion at all. ; Niece. Why, madam, if it was honest, why should it not satisfy _gher mistress ? Aunt. ’Twas an answer which discovered the unhappy consequen- ces of divided families, and shows much of the necessity of what we have had so many dialogues about in the case of yourself and your sisters. Niece, What, about husbands and wives being of the same opinion, madam ? Aunt. Yes; she told her mistress, that her father went to the meet- ings, and her mother went to the church. Niece. What was that to the question, of what religion or opinion she was? Aunt. Yes, my dear, she asked her what she was bred to, and it was @ proper answer. Niece. That’s true; and so between both, I suppose, she was bred to be indifferent to either. Aunt. No, wy dear, ’twas worse than that; and her mistress took it immediately; for she turned pretty quick upon the wench; and so, sweetheart, says she, I suppose you were bred between them, and go neither to one nor the other. : Yes, madam, says the maid, sometimes I went to one, and some- times to the other. And sometimes to neither, says the mistress. My father and mother were poor people, madam, says she. Poor people! says the mistress, what then, child? They might 230 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. have carried you to serve God with them, one way or other: their poverty did not hinder that. That’s true, madam, says the maid: but they could not agree about it. Niece. So that, in short, the poor girl was left between them with- out any government or instruction ; I suppose that must be the case. A sad example of a family, where the husband goes one way, and the wife another. , Aunt. Ay, so it was; however, she answered upon the whole, that she was willing to go to the meeting, since her mistress de- sired it. Niece. That was to say she was perfectly indifferent in the matter, and it would have been the same thing to her, if her mistress had been a Church-woman, or a Roman Catholic, or a Jew, or anything or nothing Aunt. But her mistress did not take it so; but seemed satisfied, that she agreed to go to the meeting, and so took her into the house. Niece. And pray, madam, what came of it? how did she prove? Aunt. Why, just as a poor, uneducated, ignorant creature would prove. She went with them to the meeting, but pretended to the servants she did not like it, and she had rather go to the church. So her mistress, taking an opportunity of talking with her again one day, told her what she had heard in the house of her, and asked her, if she had said, that she did not like going to the meetings, but had rather go to church; and she said, that indeed she did say so, but she meant nothing of harm. Well, says her mistress, I never desire to offer violence to any ser- vant’s conscience; if you had rather go to church, you shall go to church, though you know what you said to me, when I hired you, that you were very willing to go to the meeting. That was very true, she said, and she had not said otherwise now ; -but she said only, that she had rather go to church; however, if she pleased she would stay at home. No, no, says the mistress, I'll have no staying at home; I will have all my servants go to the public worship of God somewhere; stay- ing at home may be as much misspending the Sabbath day, as going abroad for pleasure: therefore go to church, Betty, says her mis- RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 231 tress, by all means; 1 am not so much against going to church, as to think that they do not serve and worship God there. By all means, if you do not care to go to the meeting, go to church; "tis certainly your duty to go somewhere, and mine to oblige you to it. Niece. That was spoken like a woman of very good principles. Aunt. She is a very good sort of person, I assure you, and gener- ally governs herself upon good principles, principles of justice and of charity, which is a great part of religion. Niece. Well, pray what followed? Aunt. Why, she went to church, as she said: but in a little while her mistress began to suspect her: and once or twice she betrayed herself, and discovered among the servants that she had been ramb- ling about, but had not been at church at all. Upon this suspicion her mistress told her one day very calmly, that she had some reason to suspect, that her saying she had rather go to church than to the meeting, was not asincere dislike, or approving of the one more than of the other, but really a project of her own to have the liber- ty of spending the Sabbath day nowhere: that is to say, in running about, as she had been suffered to do, when she was at home with her father and mother. She replied with some confidence, that indeed it was not so, and began to be more positive about her having been at church than her mistress desired she should be, because she knew she told her what was false. However, she ran on, told her mistress a lie or two, which she knew to be so; and insisted that she desired to go to church, because she liked to serve God in that way, better than the other. So her mistress let it pass for that time, and she went to church as usual, that is to say, went where she pleased for some time. At last she was trapped accidentally, and could not get off any manner of way. For, going rambling for her pleasure with some of the neighboring servants, men and maids together (for by this time she had got a gang like herself), and going to cross the road about a mile from the town, a citizen that was spending the Sabbath day on horseback, as she was spending it on foot, I mean in pleasure, com- ing just up at that minute, his horse started at something, I know not what, and giving a spring forward, and against the poor wench, beat her down, and threw him off a little farther and hurt him too very much. 232 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Niece. And what became of the poor girl? Aunt. Why, she was more frighted than anything else; but she had a kick or bruise by.the horse on her knee, or the horse trod on her knee, she could not tell which. But by that means she was lamed, and could not get homie till about eight o’clock at night, when her mistress, coming to the knowledge of it, sent the coach for her, and brought her home. Niece. Then there was a full discovery, indeed. Aunt. Ay, so there was; for the neighbor’s servants that were with her, owned where they had been, and with whom: and told honestly that they had been at a cake-house to be merry. Niece. It was no crime, perhaps, in the families where they lived. Aunt. No, none at all: or at least no notice was taken of it, espe- cially since they were only with neighbors, and as they called it, were in no bad company. Niece. But what did she do with her maid? Aunt. Why her maid was the same; she was sorry for a while, and pretended she would never go abroad for pleasure again on a Sabbath day. But that held but a little while; she was the same again a little while after; so her mistress resolved to part with her, for she two or three times enticed the other servants to go abroad with her, and still when they had been missed, the answer was, they went to church with Betty; and then if Betty was asked, she would lie very readily, too, and say yes. At last this came out too, and Betty was called to an account for it, and when she could deny it no longer, then she would own it, but promise to alter it, and do sono more. At length her mistress, who was in a little strait still, and loath to put any force upon the wench about going to the meet- ing, told her she could not bear these things, and gave her warning. Niece. It was time to part with her, when she found she spoiled the rest of the servants. Aunt. Well, but the wench, very loath to leave a good place, came to her mistress, and begged her to let her stay, and she would go to the meeting, and then she should be sure she did not ramble any 1oore on the Sabbath day. Niece. So that twas plain she would serve God any way for a good place; and that was what I.said of her as soon as I heard her first answer. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 233 Aunt. But her mistress acted upon another principle still, and she refused her: No, says she, Betty, you declared in the house that you used to go to church; that you did not like the meeting, and that you had rather go tochurch. Now, I will not have anybody forced from going to church to please me; if you had been one that was bred to go to the meeting, I had been better pleased, because I have been so brought up myself; but if you choose to go to church, because you like to serve God after that manner, better than in the way I go, God forbid I should put any force upon you. I doubt not, but you may serve and worship’God very acceptably either way: but if you go to the meeting, which you do not like, ’tis only to keep your place which you do like, ’tis plain to me you will wor- ship God nowhere; for you cannot be said to worship God in a way you do not like. Niece. She was too nice, I think, and talked to an ignorant wench in language that she did not understand; she might even have let her gone anywhere: for ‘twas plain she would serve God nowhere. Aunt. Well, she acted on her principles, however. Niece. But what did she do with the maid then? Aunt. Why, she made her a new proposal. Look-ye, Bett, says her mistress, if you will go to church honestly, and satisfy me that you do so, and that you do not, under a pretence of going to church, go abroad and spend your time idly, I shall be easy; for this was all the reason why at first I asked you where you went, and told youl expected you should go with me; not that I am against anybody’s going to the church, but because I desire they should serve God, and not ramble abroad. Betty promised heartily; ay, but says her mis- tress, how shall I be satisfied of the performance? Betty stood hard to have her word to be taken for it; but that would not do, because she had broke her promise before, and had told some lies too about the other’ servants going to church with her, as above. Well, Betty, says her mistress, I'll put you in a way to satisfy me effectually: you know the clerk of the parish lives just by, and in your way to the church; his wife is a very good, sober woman, and I know never fails of going to church, if she be well. Now, if you will go every Sunday with her, I'll answer for it, that if you are not there she will be true to me, and so kind to you as to tell me of it; and this shall satisfy me. 234 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Niece. If the clerk’s wife was so faithful to be trusted, it was right; but that was a doubtful thing; for she would be loath, I reckon, to ruin the poor wench for failing now and then. Aunt. Well, the short of the story was this; Betty was Betty still: an ill habit, and want of principle, led her away; she seldom came to church, and the clerk’s wife would lie for her, and so at last her mistress turned her away: and thus I think all servants, men and maids, should be served, would the masters and mistresses do their duty; and if this was universally practised, servants would serve God and their mistresses too, better than they do. Niece. They would so, indeed, and for want of it, they serve neither God nor their mistress. ’Tis a want of a religious regard to the well ordering of servants that makes them as they are. Aunt. Well, but I have another story to tell you, of the same gentlewoman: for after this she took a servant that she thought must necessarily be religious ; for she was bred to the meetings from her infancy: but she told her where she used to go, and capitulated for liberty to go to the same meeting still. This her mistress readily consented to, not’ doubting, but that one, that was under such obli- gations, would certainly be careful to do her duty; and when she mentioned to the maid that she was very ready to yield to her going where she said she went, that she only desired to be satisfied that her servants did really go where they said. they went; the maid seemed a little surprised, that she should be thought capable of so wicked a thing as that, and so stopped her mistress’ mouth with her character. Niece. Well, madam, then I hope she had one to her.mind. Aunt. At the same time her husband had a man-servant who was a very religious, devout fellow, and he was a Churchman: -he truly conditioned, that he would be at liberty to go to church, which, upon their being satisfied that he was really a well-meaning, sober, and serious fellow, they easily consented to. Niece. I thought you said they insisted on their servants going tu worship God where they did. Aunt. I told you they desired it, but that it was chiefly that they might be sure to have orderly servants; and that they did observe the Lord’s day, and worshiped God in some place or other, not misspending the Sabbath; otherwise they were persons of large RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 235 charity, and of a true Christian temper to those from whom they differed. Niece. Well, but to return to their servants, how did they prove ? Aunt. Only the worst that ever were heard of. Niece. What, both of them ? Aunt. Ay, ay, both of them. The wench was saucy, rigid, cen- sorious: took upon her to find fault, that her master and mistress, who were cheerful and good-tempered people, were not serious enough ; she would not come into their family-worship, because, she said, tis sorrily performed, and she did not like it: when her mis- tress entertained any friends she did not like it, twas wicked, and it was loose and extravagant, and had too much luxury in it, and the like. . Niece. She would have been mistress, and not maid. Aunt. Her mistress told her so indeed, one day, when overhearing some of her talk by an accident, she called her to her, and speaking something angrily to her, Jane, says she, answer me one question: What did I hire you for? Jane was a little surprised at first, not understanding the question, and said nothing, till her mistress re- peated the question by way of explanation thus, Jane, pray, did I hire you to do my work and to be my servant ? Yes, madam, says Jane. Well, then, says her mistress, pray do your business, and behave ike a servant, as becomes you, or remove and provide yourself; and, ‘when I want a schoolmistress to teach me how to behave in my family, I’ send for you. Niece. That was right; that was acting like a mistress: pray, what said Jane to it? Aunt. She was confounded and struck dumb at first ; but her mis- tress explained it to her afterwards. Niece. But, pray, what was she for a servant? Aunt. Oh! a most extraordinary accomplished slattern, and a surly, heavy, unmannerly creature, that looked always as if she thought herself fitter to be mistress, than her that was so: did every- thing with reluctance, awkward and disrespectful, and yet willful and above being taught, dull to the last degree, but scorned reproof. Niece. Certainly she had more of the pretence to religion than of the reality; for Christianity teaches us to fill up every relative duty 236 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. with equal exactness, and with a suitable diligence and applica- tion. ; Aunt. Why, to bring my story to a point, she had the outside of religion only. Whether she took it up with a design to deceive, or whether she deceived herself, and fell from what she at first profess- ed, I know not, but she fell quite off trom religion itself at last; and adding to that some follies, which I choose to say nothing of, my good neighbor turned her off, and got rid of her. Niece, There she was cheated in her own way. Aunt. She was so, and I told her of it; but she answered me with a saying which I have often made use of before, and that with rela- tion to myself; I am never, said she, in so much danger to be cheated, as when people pretend to be religious; for then I think they dare not do such things as I am afraid if. [Here the second sister came into the room, and finding what dis- course they were engaged in, after her respects paid to her aunt, and to her sister, she desired they would go on with their discourse, for that she knew the subject, and it was what she came on purpose to have a share in.] Aunt. I was telling your sister, how a lady of my acquaintance was cheated with two religious servants. Sec. Niece. I heard the last part: and she was a nice one indeed. Aunt. Oh! I have not told you one half of her behaviour. Sec. Niece. Well, but madam, how did it fare with the man-servant; how did he behave? Aunt. Why, every jot as ill another way: When he should be at hand to be called, and when his master wanted him upon any occa- sion, he was gone to church to prayers; and when prayers were done, he would often fall in as he came home, at a certain alehouse that unhappily stood in the way home, and I think, once or twice came home drunk. Sec. Niece. Fine things, indeed, for a conscientious wretch? these were religious servants, it seems, Aunt. Hold, niece! religion, no nor any profession or opinion in religion, is not altered one way or other, by the mistakes or miscar- riages of those that make a profession of it. The eleven blessed apostles were not at all the worse, nor is the memory of them to be the less reverenced, for the twelfth being a devil; nor must we expect that RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 237 al] our servants shall be saints, when they are what we call religious: All people have failings, religion does not always change natural tempers. Sec. Niece. But we should expect they should be Christians, and servants too. Religion never takes away good manners, or privi- leges servants from observing the due space which nature hath put between the person to be served, and the person serving. First Niece. The great thing I insist upon taking religious ser- vants for, is, that they may be examples in a family, of sobriety, quietness, submission, diligence and seriousness, to their fellow ser- vants; that they may be encouragers, not hinderers of God’s wor- ship in the house, that the whole family may cheerfully unite in serving God, and in all religious rules and orders ; that if an ignorant and untaught creature is taken into the house, they may be instruct- ed and led by the hand into the proper duties of a Christian: that all the house may be a class of Christians, doing their duty in their respective places, both from a principle of justice and charity. Aunt. But ’tis very rare, niece, to find what you speak of. First Niece. It is so, madam ; but then, since it is not probable we should always find such, all that I insist on in the mean time is, that we should take care, as near as possible, to take those who are well inclined, and well educated: not enemies to all religion, nor such as make a mock of worshiping their Maker, or observing his rules; such I would not entertain at all, on any account whatsoever; they would be a continual offence in a sober family. Sec. Niece. But there are some that may be in the middle way, no enemies to religion, no mockers at all sober things, and yet not much stored with serious thoughts, not void of principle, nor void of modesty. Aunt. Why it is true, there are some such, and I know not what to say to such, I would rather have them than the other. First Niece. I like those but a little better, I would have neither of them if I could help it. Aunt. It is true, that they always discover a coldness and back- wardness to every good thing, and secretly despise the most serious things as well as the other: But good manners restrain them a little from insulting the family. I do not like such, I confess. 238 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Sec. Niece. But they may be better borne with, madam, than the first sort. Aunt. Well, but your sister here is so far from approving that sort, that even, if they were seriously religious, she would not entertain them, if they were of a different opinion; she is of the same notion with a cook-maid, that I told you the story of, that all differing opinions in religion, will in such creatures as these, despise and con- temn those that differ from them, and either hate or make a jest of one another. Sec, Niece. My sister, it may be, is grown rigid that way, from the disaster of her family, with respect to her husband and herself; but in carrying it so far, then, she will make it always impossible to have any servants at all, but such as we bring up ourselves. First. Niece. It is no matter for that, I am positive in it, with res- pect to a family’s peace, and the harmony of religious worship in any family, it is all destroyed and lost by these little difficulties: as long as there are servants to be had, and I could pay wages, I would change five hundred servants, till I found one to my purpose, nor should any fitness for my business, or any goodness of humor in a servant, prevail with me to keep her, if she wanted the main article of religion, and the same opinion of religion too with my own. Aunt. I am afraid, child, you would change five hundred indeed, then, before you would be fitted. First Niece. Why, madam, I hope I am not of such strange princi- ples and opinions, that nobody can be found of those opinions but me. Aunt. No, my dear: but servants have rarely any notion of those things, or enter far into them. First. Niece. Well, madam, I would venture it; for I would no more entertain those who differed from my opinion in religion, than I would entertain those that had none at all; for the difference in opinion in servants, has more mischief in it sometimes, than tho other. Aunt. I grant it would be very well to have servants of the same opinion in religion with ourselves; but it cannot be always so; the first and main point that I have made my rule, has been, to have ser- vants that are religiously inclined in general, and that are willing te be instructed; these having a modest, sober behavior in the main, RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 239 are more easily brought to comply with religious things in the fam- ily, whether they are the same way that they were first inclined to, or not: such as these are often brought by good examples in the house to be of the same opinion with ourselves. Sec. Niece. Such are, indeed, a great tie upon masters and mis- tresses of families to take care that we recommend the profession we make of religion by a good example: for servants are not likely to turn to our opinion, or embrace with us the part which we take in religion, when they see us not practising the things we pretend to teach, and not winning them to our opinion by a conversation becom- ing religion. ° Aunt. It is very true, niece; and would masters and mistresses keep upon their minds a sense of what influence their conduct may have upon their servants; how they may be the means of bringing them to a serious embracing of religion, or to a greater levity and indifference, than it may be they had before, as they see a good or ill example in those they serve, we would have much better masters and mistresses than we have ; and more religious servants too. First Niece. That’s very true, and it were to be wished it were well observed. But since it is not always so, I cannot reconcile it to common reasoning, that we should take servants of any principles or opinion of religion, but such as we profess ourselves. Aunt. If it can be avoided. First Niece. Certainly it may be avoided if we will. Sec. Niece. You would except such as being ignorant and untaught, profess themselves willing to come into religious families, that they may be guided into good things by teaching and example. First Niece. Yes, 1 do except such: For such are to be moulded this way or that, as Providence casts them into religious or irreli- gious families. Aunt. We agree in that part exactly; and indeed, were I to choose, I would rather take a servant who, being ignorant in reli- gious matters, was yet sober and willing to be instructed: I say, much rather than take one fixed in his or her religious opinions, and that opinion differing from my own. First Niece. Indeed, madam, I am positive in that point; I cannot go from it. I would not take one that differed from me in opinion in religion by any means; no, upon no account at all; it is attended 240 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. with nothing but confusion in the family. I would almost as soon take a loose, profane wench, that owned no religion at all; I have seen so much of it, and found such inconveniences in having reli- gious quarrels and differences in the family by it, that I think ’tis insufferable. I told you the story of our poor negro, that would turn Christian. We had one servant a Papist, and he would have the boy a Roman Catholic; another would have him to be a Church of England Protestant, and another would have had him to bea Presbyterian. ’ITwas a reproach even to the name of Christian, to hear one how he told him he would be damn’d if he was this; another told him he would be damn’d if he was that: and the other told him he would be damn’d if he was either of them, and so of the rest; so that the poor boy was almost distracted among them, as I told you at large before. Aunt. Without entering into examples, I grant ’tis very perni- cious, and a great obstruction to family religion, and that many ways. Sec. Niece. Were there a spirit of peace and charity always to be found where there was an outward appearance of religion, it would be quite otherwise; but that is not the case, in this age. You see, madam, what was the case in your neighbor’s family, where the religious servants, I mean appearingly religious, were the worst ser- vants, and the worst Christians, they could have met with. Aunt, I did not bring these examples to lessen the value of good, * serious, religious servants: but to hint to you the danger there is (among those that call themselves such) to find hypocrites, and also to note, that religion does not always make a good servant. Sec. Niece. It ought to do so; and would do so, if the rules of Christianity were faithfully observed. , Aunt. But it isnot always so, and therefore I say I would not take a servant that was not religious or religiously inclined: so I do not say, that I would not, for the sake of their being serious and religiously inclined, take a bad servant; for religion does not always qualify a servant. Sec. Niece. No, madam, religion does not make them good humor- ed, cleanly, active, diligent, and mannerly, and the like; it will make them faithful and honest, that is inseparable; but there is many & good Ohristian that makes a bad servant. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 241 Auzt. But I know some of them expect we should bear with all the rest, for what they call religious. First Niece. And perhaps are not so at bottom neither. Aunt. Nay, that sort of them are generally otherwise, and put on an appearance of religion only to disguise themselves the more dex- terously, and these are the religious servants that I am aptest to be deceived by; but there are some of the other too. Sec. Niece. "Tis one of the worst parts of a hypocrite, I think, when they study to cover a vicious life with the mask of religion. Aunt. But I think too, that it is soonest discovered. Sec. Niece. It may indeed be sooner discovered than other disguises, because the levity is apt to break out at proper intervals, in spite of the utmost caution: but the mischief is often done first, when the discovery is too late to prevent it; and therefore, upon the whole, there is a great risk in taking servants that we are not very well as- sured of, one way or another. First Niece. But I hope you do not argue for being indifferent in this case. Sec. Niece. No, no, very far from it; but I own ’tis a critical case. First Niece. Let it be as critical as it will, ‘tis absolutely necessary to be taken care of, if we will have religious servants. "Tis a sad thing to have the master and mistress praying in one part of the house, and the man and maids swearing or railing, laughing or jeer- ing, in another part of it. Next to having the master and mistress religious, it is essential to a religious family to have the servants religious too. Sec. Niece. If it be possible to find such. First Niece. They must be found religious or be made so. Sec. Niece. "Tis but coarse work to new mould a servant. As you find them, you have them generally. Most of the servants of this age are incapable enough to be meddled with. I mean as to instruction. Aunt. I cannot say so: I am thankful that I can say, that I have had a loose, wicked, irreligious servant or two, who, by taking some pains with them, have been brought to be very serious and very religious. , Sec. Niece. Then they have thanked God for your bettering them by your instruction. Aunt. So they have, I assure you, niece. ll 242 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. First Niece. But they were originally of a docile, tractable temper then, which is very rare among servants. But, madam, allow you could take that task upon you, and your application had success, you would not expect that every mistress, like you, should set up for an instructor of servants. Auut. No, no; but it is not so hopeless a thing, however, as you may imagine: for, if a girl has any modesty, she cannot but listen a little to the instruction of those that wish her so well, and that have so little obligation upon them to do it. First Niece. Why, madam, an untaught wench, that is modest and willing to be instructed, I take, asI said before, to be among the number that are fit to be taken: the very example of a religious family will make her religious also. Aunt. My dear, you touch us all there, and that upon a nice point too; it must be confessed that it is because there are so few religious families, that there are so few religious servants. First Niece. That is true, madam; but, on the other hand, loose profane, irreligious servants are a great hinderance to the setting up a religious family. Those I am utterly against. Aunt. And that is the reason, child, that I say they should not be taken into our families. First. Niece. And should be turned out again as soon as discovered, and that without any certificate given them of their good behavior, or without giving them what we call a good character. * Aunt. We cannot deny them a certificate, child, when they have not wronged or robbed us; the law requires that of us. First Niece. But then, madam, the certificate should mention that I dismiss such a man, or such a maid, for being a profane, irreligious person, or for breaking the Sabbath day, or for not going to church when ordered to go there, or for going abroad to be merry, when they should have been at church, and such like, as the case may hap- pen to be. Aunt. I own there is a great deal of reason to do so; but we are apt to think it hard to do so, and that it is taking a poor servant’s live- lihood from them. First Niece. But we should consider too, how much harder it is to push a profigate wretch into a sober family, under the recommenda- tion of a false character, We cannot say we do justice to our RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 243 neighbor, to do as we would bedone by : For still I go back to what we both said before, that irreligious servants are a great hinderance to masters and mistresses in setting up religious rules and exercises in their families. Aunt. Ay, and a great discouragement in carrying them on, when they are set up; and for both these reasons, I would advise all my friends to take no servants that had not some sense of religion upon them. Sec. Niece. I join heartily with my sister in her opinion, if such servants can be had, but what then must be done when we get irre- ligious and profané creatures into our houses, and cannot help it; or find them so when we expected the contrary ? Aunt. No! my dear! The case is plain; we must not let servants langh us out of our religion; we must go on in the way of our duty, and set up the worship of God in the house; and as often as we find the servants flout at it, or contemn it, return the contempt upon themselves, and turn them out, but go on to perform the duty. Turn them all away that pretend to behave irreverently, or pretend to mock or scoff at it; I say, turn them all away, and let it be the stand- ing, known rule in the family, that all the servants that come may hear of it as soon as they converse in the house; then they will know what they will have to trust to, and will behave accordingly. ‘Tis omitting our duty in our families, not our performing it, that makes servants mock. When they see us religious to-day and wick- ed to-morrow, they may well scoff: but where serious religion is steadily maintained in a family, it commands that awe and reverence of servants, that they grow religious of course. Thus one good fom- ily breeds good servants for another, and the good example of a sober family makes the servants all sober. Sec. Niece. I acknowledge all that; but I have not practised that part indeed, of turning them away for their irreligious profane car- riage when discovered. I have endeavored to get religious servants ; but when I have found them otherwise, I have not turned them off, which indeed I should have done. ; Aunt. So far you are wrong, my dear; for why not put away a coachman, or a chambermaid, as well for being wicked, as idle, for being an offender against Heaven, as well as for being an offender against ourselves? I think the reasoning is every way a8 good. 244 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Sec. Niece. It may hold in many cases. Aunt. Indeed, niece, I think it will hold in all cases; and I can give some instances, where servants knowing it before, have behaved much the better on that account: but ’tis late now, we will talk of that part another time. DIALOGUE III. A Few days after this lady and her two nieces had discoursed this point about servants, the aunt and both her nieces, that is to say, the eldest of the sisters and the widow, had another dialogue upon the subject of giving a character to servants, and the justice that was to be done in it on one side, and on the other, on the following occasion. The eldest sister had taken a very scoundrel, idle jade of a servant, and that, too, after having received a very good character of her from a gentlewoman with whom she had lived before; and she com- plained heavily of the injustice of it, and that she had been abused by the said gentlewoman, and was telling her tale to her aunt which introduced the following dialogue. Aunt. I find, child, you lay all the fault of your being disappoint- ed upon the wench’s former mistress; you don’t seem to say the maid herself had deceived you. First Niece. Indeed, madam, I am deceived both ways; but I blame the maid’s former mistress most. Aunt. Why so? did not the maid pretend to be otherwise than you found her? First Niece. Yes, madam, that is true; but I did not expect so much from a maid, when she came to be hired: I did not expect she would tell me her own faults. Aunt. Well, but on the other hand, you did not expect she would tell you she was able to do what she did not understand, or should undertake what she was noways qualified to perform. First Niece. No, that’s true, madam; but she was willing to get into a good place. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 245 Aunt. And to do it, she must be allowed to introduce herself by a parcel of lies and shams, and pretend to be what she has no pre- tence to; I think that as bad as any of the rest. Sec. Niece. I join with my aunt in that part. I think the law should have provided some punishment for servants that give them- selves characters they do not deserve, as well as for other pieces of dishonesty ; for, in short, it is a downright fraud, a cheat and apiece of dishonesty, intolerable. For example, a cook comes and hires her- self to me, to serve as such; and when she has undertaken the busi- ness, it appears she understands nothing of cookery, and has never been anything but a middle-maid, to wash and scrub the rooms, and the like: or, a chambermaid offers herself, and tells me she knows how to make mantuas, cut hair, clear starch, and the like; and, when. it comes to the trial, acknowledges she does not understand any of them, or only this, and not that, as it happens. Why should not this maid be punished, as well as she that, pretending to be honest, proves a thief? Aunt. No, child; she does deserve to be ill used: but the case differs as to a thief; for she is punished not for pretending honesty, and deceiving me in the character, but for her actual theft, and rob- bing me of my goods. Sec. Niece. Well, madam, then the punishment should differ too. I do not say she should be hanged, but I think she should be punish- ed, however, some way or other. First Niece. We have ways to punish such a servant, and all ser- vants too, if all mistresses would be just to themselves, and to one another. We might make up the deficiency of the law in that case to ourselves very easily, and the want of doing ourselves justice is ° the thing I complain of. Aunt. How would you make it up? First Niece. Why, madam, whenever any such servant came to me, I would be sure to turn her away again, with all the resentment that her behavior required; and when she sent any future mistress to me for a character, I would do her justice. Sec. Niece. You should say, sister, that you would do the gentle- woman justice, who came to inquire of you about her. Aunt. Why, truly, you put it right there, niece. Sec, Niece. Indeed, madam, that is the foundation of all the griev- 246 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. ances we are under about servants, that we make no conscience of doing one another justice, when we make inquiries after the charac- ters of another’s servants. First Niece. Why, we are loath to hinder poor servants, for to take away their characters, is to take away their bread. Sec. Niece. We may say the same of a thief, or a house-breaker, when we find them in our houses or gardens, and take them even in the very fact: We are loath to ruin them for it; that it was neces- sity forced them to do what they did; and if we have them com- mitted, they will be hanged or transported ; nay, the argument is stronger, because the injury done may have been trifling, and the punishment there is loss of life, which we may be loath to be con- cerned in. First Niece. You carry the case a great deal too high, sister ; I can- not think that they are alike. Sec. Niece. Truly, sister, I think "tis much the same; but of the two here is the greater obligation. Aunt. I believe I take your notion right, niece; the obligation is this: If I take the thief and give him up to the law, he is undone, and his life must pay for it: and ’tis a sad thing for me to let a poor fellow be put to death, or transported, for robbing me of a trifle: But, on the other hand, I am to consider,—1. I am obliged by the law to do it; that it is not I that put him to death, but the laws of his country, and his own crime is the cause of it; and I am an offen- der against that very law, and in some sense a confederate with him, at least an encourager of him in his crime, if J omit it. But which is more than that,—2. By my, perhaps, unseasonable and, indeed, unjust compassion, become accessory to all the robberies he shall be guilty of after it; because if I had done as the law directed mel had put him out of a condition to robor injure any other person. Sec. Niece. You have fully explained my meaning, madam, and ] take the case to be the same; I by no means do asI ought, or as the law directs, if when my neighbor, taking a servant after me, and coming to me for a character of her, I decline speaking the truth of her, ay, and the whole truth too. First Niece. Then no servant would get a place, as servants are now. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 247 Aunt. Then, niece, they would be more humble, and careful how they behave. First Niece. It is a nice case, and we ought to take a great care then, that we do not injure them. Sec. Niece. That’s true, we ought to do them no wrung; but we do the person that is to take them an irreparable wrong, if we recom- mend an ill servant to them. Aunt. Nay, we break another law, that you have not thought of yet; for we do not do in it as we would be done by, which is the great Christian rule. See. Niece. Not only so, madam, but we do as we would not be done by ; for would any of us, if we go to inquire of a servant, be told she was honest, when she was a thief; that she was neat, when she was nasty; tidy, when she was a slattern; diligent, when she was idle; quiet, when she was saucy; and modest, when she was, it may be, a bold hussy and the like. Aunt. I observe, indeed, there is a general backwardness in peo- ple whenever we go to inquire about a servant. A mistress cannot be supposed to recommend earnestly, because it is to be granted that she parted with the servant for something or other. But she is .therefore, on the other hand, shy and backward, and will say nothing or but little of the real character of the servant, because, forsooth, she would not hinder her of a place; and indeed I would be very loath myself to ruin a poor girl, because I did not like her: but Ido think, as you say, niece, we mistresses are too backward to be free with one another in such cases. Sec. Niece. It would not only answer the end, madam, as to the law part, but it would bring servants back to be servants again, as they used to be, and as they ought to be; for really they can hardly be called servants now. First Niece. I wish it was with us in the case of our maids, as it is with the gentlemen in the case of their men servants, viz. that we should be obliged to give certificates to our maids when they went. away. Sec. Niece. Why even then the case would be the same; for, if the form of the certificate was not settled too by the act of parlia ment, we should sign anything they desired us. First Niece. Nay, sister, that would be our faults, 248 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Aunt. Why, so it is our faults now, child, if we give them wrong characters. a a a First Niece. I do not say we should give wrong characters; but I should be loath to say the utmost of a poor servant, and so prejudice everybody against her; perhaps what she did amiss with me, she might mend with sarothien, and perhaps what might not please me, another might bear with. Sec. Niece. I will put an end to all that immediately, sister: I do not mean that I should enter into a long accusation of a servant, and give the history of her life; or that I would blast her for trifles, or give her an ill name, for not suiting exactly to my temper. ButI speak in capital essential articles, such as denominate a wench, a good or a bad servant; and I'll tell you a case, when I went toa lady myself to inquire about a chambermaid who had been sent to me by another person. Aunt. But what was the person that sent or recommended her? Did she know her? See. Niece. She was an honest, well-meaning, poor woman, that used-to help me to maids when I wanted. Aunt. But then, I suppose, did not know much of her own knowledge ? Sec. Niece. No, madam, but the maid gave me an account where she had lived last, and I went to the lady, and I told her I came to inquire of such a maijdservant, who, as she had said, had lived with her. ‘Yes, she told me, she had lived with her. Pray, how long did she live with you, madam, said I? Pray, madam, how long does she say she lived with me? says she. Almost a year, madam, says I; I think it wanted but a month or thereabouts: at which she made a kind of a hum, and said nothing for a while. Now I did not like the way of answering my question with a ques- tion; for I thought she might have told me positively how long the aid had lived with her, and left me to judge whether she had spok- en truth: whereas, by returning the question upon me, she kept it in her own breast to accuse or excuse her. So I turned it short up- on her. I hope, madam, says I, you will be so plain with ‘me, as to let me know whether she says true or not. Yes, yes, madam, says she. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 249 This surprised me again; for this had a double meaning as plain as could be, and it was impossible to know whether she meant, yes, that it was as the maid had said, or yes, that she should let me know whether the maid had said true or not. So I stopped a while to give her time to go on, and explain herself; but finding she did not, I repeated my question. Pray, madam, says I, be pleased to let me know exactly how long she lived with you. _ Why, madam, says she, not quite a year: the maid says true in that. I was far from being satisfied with that kind of answer, the manner of drawing out her words showing me plainly that the wench had lied. However, lest I should quarrel with her too soon, and so have no more out of her, I dropped it, and asked her some other questions. Pray, madam, says I, is she a good work-woman ? Yes, yes, says she, she does her work well enough. This was all equivocation again. Anybody would have under- stood by my question, that I inquired if she was good at her needle; but she would not take it as I meant it, and put it off with an answer which might be true, if the wench knew but how to make _ a bed, or sweep a room; so I explained myself, and said, madam, by a good work-woman, I mean at her needle, I hope you understand me. Truly, madam, says she, I think she is well enough, I never put her to much of that kind, having other hands in the house. Well, there she came better off with me a little than’ before; but still all this gave me no character of the maid; so I went on. Pray, madam, says I, what do you say to her honesty? She is honest, I hope. I have no reason to tax her honesty, says she, she never wronged me of anything that I ‘know of; I charge her with nothing. Even this was bnt a very indifferent way of vouching for a girl’s honesty, and if she was really honest, she was not just to her. Well, madam, says I, may I ‘ask you what was the occasion of your parting with her? O, madam, says he, we parted indeed ; she and I could not agree; I am passionate and pretty troublesome, and my maid and I could not hit it; but she may do very well with another. Perhaps other wiiletbenben: may not be so troublesome and difficult as I am; she may do very well; I assure you she knows how to please aaibody but me; she told me so herself. 11* 250 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. I was indeed provoked now, and answered, Madam, you are pleased to give yourself some hard words; but I beg you will allow me to say, I did not come for a character of the maid’s mistress, but a character of the maid; and I doubt, by your discourse, you are wil- ling to recommend your maid’s character at the expense of your own. She only smiled at me, when I said this, and said again, she was very difficult and ill to please: but Betty might do very well with another. I pressed her again to let me know what she parted with her maid for: but still she shuffled me off, and gave me the cunningest, evasive answers. Betty herself could not have put me off with half the dexterity as her mistress did; so I made my honors as if I was going away. Madam, says I, you are exceeding tender of your maid: but I cannot say you are equally just to a stranger, that you see resolved to depend upon your word for the character of a servant. However, I shall take it the way I hope you intend it, namely, that though it may not be for the girl’s advantage to have the particulars of her behavior told; yet you would have me understand by it, that her conduct will not bear a character, and that you would not have me venture upon her; and I shall take your advice. At this she seemed concerned, as if she had expected that her awkward way of talking of the wench had satisfied me, and that I did not understand her; and as IJ offered to go, Pray, madam, says she, don’t say so; Betty may make you a very good servant; I am sorry you should take me so; the maid may do very well in another place, though she might not suit me. ae As I was talking, I observed, that in the drawing-room to the room we sat in, there sat a gentleman, reading in a great book, and every now and then he looked off his book, when his wife (for it was her husband) spoke, as if he was surprised at what she said; and as the folding doors stood wide open, so that the rooms were as it were let both into one, he heard all we said, and I perceived that as he looked off his book when his wife spoke, so he almost laughed outright when I spoke. At last, as if he was not able to hold any longer, he clapped up the book pretty hard, and threw it by, and came forward into the room we were in, and making me a very low bow as he passed, he . RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 251 offered to go out; when his lady stept up to him, and said something softly, which he answered softly, and with abundance of good humor in his face, said to his wife, My dear, I will not interrupt you; upon which I offered to go away. By no means, madam, says he, my business is of no moment. So taking hold of his wife’s hand, he as it were turned her towards me, and at going away, my dear, says he, don’t hold the lady in suspense about your maid, for I hear that is the business: Let her have a true character of her; you would be glad to be dealt plainly with yourself. His wife smiled, but said nothing at first, but presently turning to him, and all in a pleasant good humor, she gave him a little tap on the arm with her hand: Do you give a character of her, if you think I havn’t done it well. Must I? says he: Why then, madam, says he to me, with my wife’s leave, she is a damn’d jade, a horrid scold, a liar, and though she has, I believe, stolen nothing from us, was a thief in the place she came last from, which we heard of since, and for that very thing my wife turned her away. I made him a courtesy, and told him I was greatly obliged to him for so much sincerity, and found his lady had been only tender of her maid’s character, but had not at all recommended her. Why, madam, says he, my wife was cheated in this wench, only by the people she lived with before giving her ambiguous answers, and speaking as favorably of her as they could; and that is the ruin of us all, adds he, in taking servants. But sir, said J, the lady she lived with before, did your lady a great deal of wrong, if she knew her to be what you say she was in her service. I don’t know, madam, how it was for that: I never meddle with these things, says he, but I believe my wife was not so nice in her inquiries as you are; or, if she was, she was easier to be cheated in their answers; and ’tis the ladies being thus backward to give just and plain accounts to one another, that is the reason that such awretched gang of wenches run from house to house and get places, and behave in them as they do. Would the ladies, says he, be just to one another, speak plainly and honestly, and give the creatures such characters as they deserve, they would take care to deserve better characters, and not behave so insolently, and so saucily as . they do. This jade, madam, says he, that you come to inquire of, 252 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. has insulted and taunted her mistress, two or three times, at such a rate, that I have been forced to send a footman into the room to bring her out by the head and shoulders, for fear her mistresss should be frighted; and yet she is so good to -hat slut, that she cannot find in her heart to speak the truth of her. My dear, says the lady, I have not said anything but truth of her. Well, my dear, says she again, I was not upon my oath. Why, that is true too, child, said he, but you are upon your honor, and that is equivalent to an oath: and it would be hard to have this lady left to take such a devil into her house, merely for fear of injuring the wench; why, you would injure the family you suffer to take her, much more than the maid. Let her go seek her fortune where nobody knows her, and there she may have time to mend her manners, and come to town again. Aunt. Why niece, this gentleman was your instructor. I think tis just his language that you speak; only I think you did not talk so moderately quite as he does. Sec. Niece. And very good language too, madam; ‘tis for want of this gentleman’s rule that we have any saucy, insolent, idle servants in the world. First Niece. It would make servants more cautious of their beha- vior, I confess: but then, sister, it would put it into the power of mistresses to ruin poor servants when they pleased, and even when there was no good cause; the bread of a servant would depend upon the breath of a mistress. See, Niece. There is no good in this world without a mixture of evil; no convenience without its inconvenience; but the damage that way, if it should be so at any time, is infinitely less than the mischief to families which comes by the insolence and wickedness of servants. ‘ Aunt. Nay, by the universal degeneracy of servants you might have said; for even those we call good servants at this time, are quite different things from what they were in former times, ay, even since I can remember. Sec. Niece. Well, madam, but I could propose a remedy even against that part which my sister objects against, of doing servants, wrong: for I do not deny that some mistresses may injure their ser- vants, and there ought to be no wrong on either hand. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 253 First Niece. I have known a mistress refuse to give a poor ser- vant a character, only because she was unwilling to part with her, and yet, at the same time, use her ill too. See. Niece. Such things may happen, I do not deny that. First Niece. I have also known a mistress injure a servant by her partiality in favor of other servants, and give a maid an iJl character when she has not deserved it, by the mere reproaches raised on her by others. Sec. Niece. It is not possible to reckon up all the cases in which a mistress may injure a servant, ’tis true, and there can no rule be set so exact, as that nobody shall be oppressed. But I have two things to say: 1. All the injustice that can be supposed to happen that way, is not equal to that which mistresses and families now suffer from the insolence and baseness of servants, and therefore the remedy i is to be embraced, and the lesser evil chosen. 2. There may be methods directed by the law, that in such cases, .where mistresses have nothing capital to charge upon a servant, they shall be obliged to give them certificates of their behavior. Aunt. Ihave often thought of that; but unless the form of that certificate be settled and adjusted by that very act of parliament, the mistresses will just write what they please, and when they are pro- duced against a servant, will say nothing in their certificates that shall do them any service, or recommend them at all to any one else. Sec, Niece. Those must be very malicious people that will go that length with a servant. = First Niece. But such people there are, and such perhaps “—e will be. Sec. Niece. Well, there may be a remedy for that too, for there may be two or three several forms of certificates directed by the law; one volunteer, and full to all the behavior of a servant, and the other to her honesty and sobriety only. Aunt. Why, then, child, nobody would take a servant that had only your second-rate certificate ; they would presently say, her mis- tress had given no character but what she could not help. Sec. Niece. 1 had rather think, madam, that all servants would content themselves with what you are pleased to call my second-rate certificate. é 254 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Aunt. Come, let us hear what kind of certificate it is, if you are lawyer enough to draw it up. Sec. Niece. I am not lawyer effough to draw it up in form; but it should be to this purpose, madam. THE CERTIFIOATE. I, A. B. do hereby certify, that the bearer hereof, M. B. lived with me as a chambermaid, one year and a quarter, ending the day of last: during which time she behaved herself honestly, modestly, and dutifubly, as becoming @ servant. Witness my hand, A. B. Aunt. Why truly niece, a servant that could not deserve so much character as that, nobody ought to take. Sec. Niece. Well, madam, and a servant that did deserve so much character as that, no mistress ought to deny. First Niece. But suppose, sister, a mistress would maliciously deny it, as I said before, Sec, Niece. Why then the maid should have the same remedy as she has for her wages, viz. complain to a justice of peace, that in case upon the mistress being heard, if she could not give sufficient reasons and proof of the fact, for which she refused such a certificate, the justice should sign the certificate to the maid, intimating that having heard all that could be alleged, he did not find there was sufficient cause for refusing it. Aunt. Well, niece, and what was your first-rate certificate, pray, that you call this the second ? Sec. Niece. Why, madam, when a mistress may have a kindness for a servant, and is willing to give her an extraordinary recommen- dation, she may add, she is a very good needle-woman, or that she is a very good cook, that she was not only faithful, but diligent, and so in other cases. But, as I said, I believe any servant will be con- tented with the second, which ig sufficient. First Niece. I agree, that the giving such certificates, would put an end to these inquiries, Sec. Niece. Which oftentimes leaves us in the dark as much as we were before they are made; nay, a4 sometimes more a great deal. RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. 255 Aunt, That is our fault indeed, that we will not with freedom and plainuess acquaint one another, what we are to expect from the maids we hire; and ’tis presuming upon this charitable disposition of mis- tresses, that maids behave so saucily as they do. Sec. Niece. Well, if any of my maids go from me, I tell them plainly beforehand what they are to expect of me, and what kind of character I shall give them, if they send anybody to me. First. Niece. And what effect has it upon them? Are they the better for it? Sec. Niece. Why, I'll tell you what effect it had upon one of my maids. I had told her my mind very roundly one day, upon occa- sion of something I did not -like, and truly my maid turned very short upon me, and told me she was sorry she could not please me, . and hoped I would provide myself then. I told her that she should not say she could not please me, but that she would not please me. She answered very pertly, that it was as I would, I might take it which way I pleased. Very well, says I, Mary, you are very tart with me, I hope when you send your next mistress to me for a character, you will expect to hear these very words again. Why, would I be so barbarous, said she, to rip up words that passed in anger, and give them for the character of any servant? No, Mary, says I, you should not say, will I be so barbarous; you should say, would I be so honest as to give a character of you from your own mouth. Depend upon it, Mary, says I, I should not be so unjust to any mistress to conceal a thing of that moment from them ; why it would be doing them the greatest injury in the world. She stood still a good while, and said nothing; but as she saw me looking at her, as if I expected an answer, the girl fell a crying, ran to me, and offering to kneel to me, begged my pardon, and told me, she hoped I would allow her to recall her warning, for she was resolved she would live with me till she deserved a better character. Aunt. Poor girl! I should have told her she might go when she would, then, for she had deserved a better character just then. Seo. Niece. I did not say so to her, but I would not let her kneel; and I told her I would not insist upon her warning; for as long as she behaved so to me, I believed I should never put her away. Aunt. Well, but did she mend afterwards? 4 256 RELIGIOUS COURTSHIP. Sec, Niece. Indeed she was a very good servant before, only a little hasty, and impatient of reproof; but she proved the best ser- vant after it that anybody ever had. She is with me still. Aunt. It is certainly so, if we give fair, bold, and just characters of them, and if it once came to be the custom or general usage among mistresses, servants would quickly carry it after another manner; at least they would take care to part upon as good terms as they could with their mistresses. Sec. Niece. And we should not cheat one another as we do now in giving characters to the vilest creatures that fall in our way. aracmeae oe Se if + “Sabai : Bed as rebeets titel eT Shs tests gage ys Sena. icpetoiae fe ante ne Oey set aides 1 "3 ape ee ie Fierce oye a Nd ih os SAGs for Serene hea ce Pec jie Wee “ Sula an sane eure ree eo iz oi