Part 14

The constable hereupon bade them take no further care, I should lie at his house that night; and accordingly took me home with him, where I had as good accommodation as the house did afford. Before I went to bed he told me that there was to be a visitation, or Spiritual Court, as he called it, holden next day at Amersham, about four miles from Beaconsfield, and that I was to be carried thither.

This was a new thing to me, and it brought a fresh exercise upon my mind. But being given up in the will of God to suffer what he should permit to be laid on me, I endeavoured to keep my mind quiet and still.

In the morning, as soon as I was up, my spirit was exercised towards the Lord in strong cries to him, that he would stand by me and preserve me, and not suffer me to be taken in the snare of the wicked. While I was thus crying to the Lord the other constable came, and I was called down.

This was a budge fellow, and talked high. He was a shoemaker by trade, and his name was Clark. He threatened me with the Spiritual Court. But when he saw I did not regard it, he stopped, and left the matter to his partner, who pretended more kindness for me, and therefore went about to persuade Clark to let me go out at the back-door, so slip away.

The plot, I suppose, was so laid that Clark should seem averse, but at length yield, which he did, but would have me take it for a favour. But I was so far from taking it so, that I would not take it at all, but told them plainly, that as I came in at the fore-door, so I would go out at the fore-door. When therefore they saw they could not bow me to their will, they brought me out at the fore-door into the street, and wished me a good journey. Yet before I went, calling for the woman of the house, I paid her for my supper and lodging, for I had now got a little money in my pocket again.

After this I got home, as I thought, very well, but I had not been long at home before an illness seized on me, which proved to be the small-pox; of which, so soon as Friends had notice, I had a nurse sent me, and in a while Isaac Penington and his wife’s daughter, Gulielma Maria Springett, to whom I had been playfellow in our infancy, came to visit me, bringing with them our dear friend Edward Burrough, by whose ministry I was called to the knowledge of the truth.

It pleased the Lord to deal favourably with me in this illness, both inwardly and outwardly; for His supporting presence was with me, which kept my spirit near unto Him; and though the distemper was strong upon me, yet I was preserved through it, and my countenance was not much altered by it. But after I was got up again, and while I kept my chamber, wanting some employment for entertainment’s sake to spend the time with, and there being at hand a pretty good library of books, amongst which were the works of Augustine and others of those ancient writers who were by many called the fathers, I betook myself to reading. And these books being printed in the old black letter, with abbreviations of the words difficult to be read, I spent too much time therein, and thereby much impaired my sight, which was not strong before, and was now weaker than usual by reason of the illness I had so newly had, which proved an injury to me afterwards, for which reason I here mention it.

After I was well enough to go abroad with respect to my own health and the safety of others, I went up, in the beginning of the twelfth month, 1661, to my friend Isaac Penington’s at Chalfont, and abode there some time, for the airing myself more fully, that I might be more fit for conversation.

I mentioned before, that when I was a boy I had made some good progress in learning, and lost it all again before I came to be a man; nor was I rightly sensible of my loss therein until I came amongst the Quakers. But then I both saw my loss and lamented it; and applied myself with utmost diligence, at all leisure times, to recover it; so false I found that charge to be which in those times was cast as a reproach upon the Quakers, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they denied it to be essentially necessary to a gospel ministry, which was one of the controversies of those times.

But though I toiled hard and spared no pains to regain what once I had been master of, yet I found it a matter of so great difficulty that I was ready to say as the noble eunuch to Philip in another case, “How can I, unless I had some man to guide me?”

This I had formerly complained of to my especial friend Isaac Penington, but now more earnestly, which put him upon considering and contriving a means for my assistance.

He had an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a physician of note in London, and he, with John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning throughout the learned world, for the accurate pieces he had written on various subjects and occasions.

This person, having filled a public station in the former times, lived now a private and retired life in London, and having wholly lost his sight, kept always a man to read to him, which usually was the son of some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve in his learning.

Thus, by the mediation of my friend Isaac Penington with Dr. Paget, and of Dr. Paget with John Milton, was I admitted to come to him, not as a servant to him (which at that time he needed not), nor to be in the house with him, but only to have the liberty of coming to his house at certain hours when I would, and to read to him what books he should appoint me, which was all the favour I desired.

But this being a matter which would require some time to bring about, I in the meanwhile returned to my father’s house in Oxfordshire.

I had before received direction by letters from my eldest sister (written by my father’s command) to put off what cattle he had left about his house, and to discharge his servants; which I had done at the time called Michaelmas before. So that all that winter, when I was at home, I lived like a hermit, all alone, having a pretty large house, and nobody in it but myself, at nights especially; but an elderly woman, whose father had been an old servant to the family, came every morning and made my bed, and did what else I had occasion for her to do, till I fell ill of the small-pox, and then I had her with me and the nurse. But now, understanding by letter from my sister that my father did not intend to return to settle there, I made off those provisions which were in the house, that they might not be spoiled when I was gone; and because they were what I should have spent if I had tarried there, I took the money made of them to myself for my support at London, if the project succeeded for my going thither.

This done, I committed the care of the house to a tenant of my father’s who lived in the town, and taking my leave of Crowell, went up to my sure friend Isaac Penington again; where understanding that the mediation used for my admittance to John Milton had succeeded so well that I might come when I would, I hastened to London, and in the first place went to wait upon him.

He received me courteously, as well for the sake of Dr. Paget, who introduced me, as of Isaac Penington, who recommended me; to both whom he bore a good respect. And having inquired divers things of me with respect to my former progression in learning, he dismissed me, to provide myself with such accommodation as might be most suitable to my future studies.

I went therefore and took myself a lodging as near to his house (which was then in Jewyn-street) as conveniently as I could, and from thenceforward went every day in the afternoon, except on the first days of the week, and sitting by him in his dining-room read to him in such books in the Latin tongue as he pleased to hear me read.

At my first sitting to read to him, observing that I used the English pronunciation, he told me, if I would have the benefit of the Latin tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converse with foreigners, either abroad or at home, I must learn the foreign pronunciation. To this I consenting, he instructed me how to sound the vowels; so different from the common pronunciation used by the English, who speak Anglice their Latin, that—with some few other variations in sounding some consonants in particular cases, as c before e or i like ch, sc before i like sh, &c.—the Latin thus spoken seemed as different from that which was delivered, as the English generally speak it, as if it were another language.

I had before, during my retired life at my father’s, by unwearied diligence and industry, so far recovered the rules of grammar, in which I had once been very ready, that I could both read a Latin author and after a sort hammer out his meaning. But this change of pronunciation proved a new difficulty to me. It was now harder to me to read than it was before to understand when read. But

Labor omnia vincit Improbus.

Incessant pains, The end obtains.

And so did I. Which made my reading the more acceptable to my master. He, on the other hand, perceiving with what earnest desire I pursued learning, gave me not only all the encouragement but all the help he could; for, having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read and when I did not; and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me.

Thus went I on for about six weeks’ time, reading to him in the afternoons; and exercising myself with my own books in my chamber in the forenoons, I was sensible of an improvement.

But, alas! I had fixed my studies in a wrong place. London and I could never agree for health; my lungs, as I suppose, were too tender to bear the sulphurous air of that city, so that I soon began to droop; and in less than two months’ time I was fain to leave both my studies and the city, and return into the country to preserve life; and much ado I had to get thither.

I chose to go down to Wycombe, and to John Rance’s house there; both as he was a physician, and his wife an honest, hearty, discreet, and grave matron, whom I had a very good esteem of, and who I knew had a good regard for me.

There I lay ill a considerable time, and to that degree of weakness that scarce any who saw me expected my life. But the Lord was both gracious to me in my illness, and was pleased to raise me up again, that I might serve him in my generation.