Isaac Bickerstaff [27]
subjects are liable to from the horrible stench of so many corpses. Sir, we will not detain you; our case in short is this: Here are we embarked in this undertaking for the public good. Now, if people should be suffered to go on unburied at this rate, there is an end of the usefullest manufactures and handicrafts of the kingdom; for where will be your sextons, coffin-makers, and plumbers? What will become of your embalmers, epitaph-mongers, and chief-mourners? We are loth to drive this matter any farther, though we tremble at the consequences of it; for if it shall be left to every dead man's discretion not to be buried till he sees his time, no man can say where that will end; but thus much we will take upon us to affirm, that such a toleration will be intolerable. "What would make us easy in this matter is no more but that your Worship would be pleased to issue out your orders to ditto Dead to repair forthwith to our office, in order to their interment, where constant attendance shall be given to treat with all persons according to their quality, and the poor to be buried for nothing. And, for the convenience of such persons as are willing enough to be dead, but that they are afraid their friends and relations should know it, we have a back door into Warwick Street, from whence they may be interred with all secrecy imaginable, and without loss of time or hindrance of business. But in case of obstinacy, for we would gladly make a thorough riddance, we desire a farther power from your Worship, to take up such deceased as shall not have complied with your first orders wherever we meet them; and if, after that, there shall be complaints of any person so offending, let them lie at our doors. "We are your Worship's till death, "The MASTER and COMPANY of UPHOLDERS. "P.S. We are ready to give in our printed proposals at large, and if your Worship approves of our undertaking, we desire the following advertisement may be inserted in your next paper: "Whereas a commission of interment has been awarded against Doctor John Partridge, philomath, professor of physic and astrology, and whereas the said Partridge hath not surrendered himself, nor shown cause to the contrary: These are to certify that the Company of Upholders will proceed to bury him from Cordwainer's Hall, on Tuesday the twenty-ninth instant, where any six of his surviving friends, who still believe him to be alive, are desired to come prepared to hold up the pall. "Note. We shall light away at six in the evening, there being to be a sermon. "From our Office near the Haymarket, Nov. 23."
XIV.--THE WIFE DEAD.
Sheer Lane, December 30.
I was walking about my chamber this morning in a very gay humour, when I saw a coach stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen alighting out of it, who I perceived to be the eldest son of my bosom friend, that I gave some account of in a previous paper. I felt a sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my acquaintance having begun with his father when he was just such a stripling, and about that very age. When he came up to me, he took me by the hand, and burst into tears. I was extremely moved, and immediately said, "Child, how does your father do?" He began to reply, "My mother--" but could not go on for weeping. I went down with him into the coach, and gathered out of him, "That his mother was then dying; and that, while the holy man was doing the last offices to her, he had taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he said, would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort him." The child's discretion in coming to me of his own head, and the tenderness he showed for his parents would have quite overpowered me, had I not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable performances of those duties which I owed to my friend. As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the character of that excellent woman, and the greatness of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support to him under all
XIV.--THE WIFE DEAD.
Sheer Lane, December 30.
I was walking about my chamber this morning in a very gay humour, when I saw a coach stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen alighting out of it, who I perceived to be the eldest son of my bosom friend, that I gave some account of in a previous paper. I felt a sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my acquaintance having begun with his father when he was just such a stripling, and about that very age. When he came up to me, he took me by the hand, and burst into tears. I was extremely moved, and immediately said, "Child, how does your father do?" He began to reply, "My mother--" but could not go on for weeping. I went down with him into the coach, and gathered out of him, "That his mother was then dying; and that, while the holy man was doing the last offices to her, he had taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he said, would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort him." The child's discretion in coming to me of his own head, and the tenderness he showed for his parents would have quite overpowered me, had I not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable performances of those duties which I owed to my friend. As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the character of that excellent woman, and the greatness of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support to him under all