was in that year feoffee collector for
twelve poor alms-people living in Clement-Dane's Church-Yard; whose
pensions I in his absence paid weekly, to his and the parish's great
satisfaction. My master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a
bass-viol, and got a master to instruct me; the intervals of time I
spent in bowling in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, with Wat the cobler, Dick the
blacksmith, and such like companions: We have sometimes been at our work
at six in the morning, and so continued till three or four in the
afternoon, many times without bread or drink all that while. Sometimes I
went to church and heard funeral sermons, of which there was then great
plenty. At other times I went early to St. Antholine's in London, where
there was every morning a sermon. The most able people of the whole city
and suburbs were out of town; if any remained, it were such as were
engaged by parish-officers to remain; no habit of a gentleman or woman
continued; the woeful calamity of that year was grievous, people dying
in the open fields and in open streets. At last, in August, the bills of
mortality so encreased, that very few people had thoughts of surviving
the contagion: the Sunday before the great bill came forth, which was of
five thousand and odd hundreds, there was appointed a sacrament at
Clement Dane's; during the destributing whereof I do very well remember
we sang thirteen parts of the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. One
Jacob, our minister (for we had three that day, the communion was so
great) fell sick as he was giving the sacrament, went home, and was
buried of the plague the Thursday following, Mr. James, another of the
ministers, fell sick ere he had quite finished, had the plague, and was
thirteen weeks ere he recovered. Mr. Whitacre, the last of the three,
escaped not only then, but all the contagion following, without any
sickness at all; though he officiated at every funeral, and buried all
manner of people, whether they died of the plague or not. He was given
to drink, seldom could preach more than one quarter of an hour at a
time, &c. In November my master came home. My fellow-servant's and my
diet came weekly to six shillings and sixpence, sometimes to seven
shillings, so cheap was diet at that time.

In February of that year, my master married again (one who after his
death became my wife.) In the same year he settled upon me, during my
life, twenty pounds per annum, which I have enjoyed ever since, even to