When the plague was at its height, perhaps nothing could have been more silently or solemnly conducted than the removal of the dead to the various pits round London, that were opened for their reception; and it was the business of Corpse Bearers, such as the one exhibited in the Fifth Plate, to give directions to the Car-men, who went through the City with bells, which they rang, at the same time crying “Bring out your Dead.” This melancholy description may be closed, by observing that many parts of London, particularly those leading to the Courts of Westminster, were so little trodden down, that the grass grew in the middle of the streets. Few persons would believe the truth of the following extract:
“A profligate wretch had taken up a new way of thieving (yet ’tis said too much practised in those times), of robbing the dead, notwithstanding the horror that is naturally concomitant. This trade he followed so long, till he furnished a warehouse with the spoils of the dead; and had gotten into his possession (some say) to the number of a thousand winding-sheets.” See Memoirs of the Life and Death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, published 1682.
It is remarkable, and shows the great advantage of our River Thames, that during the Plague of 1665, according to a remark made by Lord Clarendon, not one house standing upon London Bridge was visited by the plague.
Although the subject of Funerals has been so often treated of by various authors, yet the following extracts will not, it is hoped, be deemed irrelevant by the reader. They may serve too as a contrast to the confusion and mingling of dust which must have taken place during the plague, in the burial of so many thousands in so short a space of time, and they may show likewise the vanity of human nature.
In “Chamberlain’s Imitation of Holbein’s Drawings,” in his Majesty’s collection, is the following passage alluding to the great care Lady Hobye took as to the arrangement of her funeral.
“Her fondness for those pompous soothings, which it was usual at that time for grief to accept at the hands of pride, scarcely died with her; for, a letter is extant from her to Sir William Dethick, Garter King of Arms, desiring to know ‘what number of mourners were due to her calling; what number of waiting women, pages, and gentlemen ushers; of chief mourners, lords, and gentlemen; the manner of her hearse, of the heralds, and church?’ &c. This remarkable epistle concludes thus: ‘Good Mr. Garter, do it exactly, for I find forewarnings that bid me provide a pick-axe,’ &c. The time of her death is not exactly known, but it is supposed to have been about 1596. She is buried at Bisham, with her first husband.[12] It was this Lady’s daughter, Elizabeth Russell, that was said to have died with a pricked finger.”
It was usual at funerals to use rosemary, even to the time of Hogarth, who has introduced it in a pewter plate on the coffin-lid of the funeral scene in his Harlot’s Progress. Shakspeare notices it in Romeo and Juliet, “And stick your rosemary on this fair corse.” “This plant,” says Mr. Douce, in his “Illustrations of Shakspeare and Ancient Manners,” page 216, vol. i. “was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen, it was regarded as an emblem of the soul’s immortality.” Thus in Cartwright’s “Ordinary,” Act 5, scene 1:
“———————If there be
Any so kind as to accompany
My body to the earth, let them not want
For entertainment; pr’ythee see they have
A sprig of rosemary dip’d in common water,
To smell to as they walk along the streets.”
In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is the following entry: “Jan. 2, 1671, Mr. Cornelius Bee, Bookseller in Little Britain, died; buried Jan. 4, at Great St. Bartholomew’s, without a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and rosemary.” And Mr. Gay, when describing Blowselinda’s funeral, records that “Sprigg’d rosemary the lads and lasses bore.”
Suicides were buried on the north side of the church, in ground purposely unconsecrated.