In this episode the author graphically describes the tenor of the moment, saying that death no longer seemed to be hovering overhead but was now entering into homes and staring directly into people’s faces, and he notes the spirit of repentance and confession its presence provoked. He also continues his diatribe against quacks, pretenders, and deceivers, here mentioning what he considers an even greater madness than those previously described, the resort to magic, in the form of things like charms, amulets, and exorcisms. “As if,” he says, “the plague was not the hand of God but a kind of possession of an evil spirit.” He concludes this portion of his narrative by describing how the Lord Mayor, seeing the way the poor, especially, were being victimized, appointed physicians and surgeons for their relief. Of course, there was little medically that could be done for them, given the level of understanding of the disease at that time. But there was another, deeper reason so little could be done, Defoe says again, for the plague is God’s judgment, “eminently armed from heaven from executing the errand it was sent about.”
[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]
Credits:
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting. Used by permission.
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