death: October 2007 Archives

If you should find yourself in Talbot Court, a gloomy alley off Eastcheap, you'll be rewarded if you crouch down and peer through your microscope. For it's here that you'll find a curious sculpture - a 1:1 brass replica of a germ. It was commissioned to commemorate the estimated 100,000 Londoners who perished in the Great Plague of 1665, and indeed beneath the tiny sculpture lies one of the world's largest plague pits. For a flavour of those harrowing times, an extract of Daniel Defoe's diary is instructive:

11th December 1665
Dinner; one tries to be lively, but all talk was of the raging of the Plague. Lord Sacheverell did boast that he had barely escaped it himself that very morning; having discovered an Animalcule in his bedchamber upon waking, he punched it soundly in its hideous Face until it moved not; but it transpired that he spake too soon, for he dropped dead as he acted out his Adventure, and Tomkin was obliged to remove him.

Ireton declared that it was an ill wind &c. and that he had made his way to my House by hitching a ride on a handy Death-cart, thus saving himself the cab fare and gaining a Pocket-watch and smart silken kerchief from the cart's Grisly Cargo to boot; all were agreed that their prior owner would miss them not, God save his Soul. A most vigorous Sneeze then compelled Ireton to make use of the kerchief, and after doing so he fell straight away face-first into the Soup, and he was quite dead, and Tomkin was obliged to remove him, which he did with exceeding good Humour.

The Party's conversing was subdued for some time, until Dr. Latymer remembered that he had passed some street-urchins that day, and they had been skipping and singing a most charming Rhyme, which he tried to recall, and indeed he did recite as far as "Nine green buboes, oozing in my Groyne" before, alas, he did expire, and Tomkin was obliged to remove him, which duty he performed with the greatest Efficiency.

Whereupon, Tomkin fetched the Mutton, and my remaining guests all died, and Tomkin did begin to remove them; but I stayed him and bade him move them not, and did invite him to share the Mutton with me, and it was the finest Mutton I ever did eat, and the finer for being all the more for us.