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burie. I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all. And thus my Thoughts rattled on like the Coach in which they were carryed, and that Coach was my poor Flesh.
    The Crush of the Carriages was so great when we were got up into Fenchurch-Street that I was forc'd to step out at Billiter Lane and mobb it on foot along Leaden-Hall-Street; at last I managed to shoot myself thro' a Vacancy between two Coaches and cross'd the Street that went up into Grace-Church-Street. I walk'd into Lime Street, for I knew my path now and passed thro' many ways and turnings until I was got into Moor-Fields; then just past the Apothecary whose sign is the Ram I found the narrow lane, as dark as a Burying vault, which stank of stale sprats, Piss and Sir-Reverence. And there was the Door with the Mark upon it, and I knocked softly. It was time to even the Account, and then they shall see what fine Things I will do.
    For when I trace back the years I have liv'd, gathering them up in my Memory, I see what a chequer'd Work of Nature my Life has been. If I were now to inscribe my own History with its unparalleled Sufferings and surprizing Adventures (as the Booksellers might indite it), I know that the great Part of the World would not believe the Passages there related, by reason of the Strangeness of them, but I cannot help their Unbelief: and if the Reader considers them to be but dark Conceits, then let him bethink himself that Humane life is quite out of the Light and that we are all Creatures of Darknesse.
    I came crying into the World in the Year 1654. My Father was a Baker of Sea-Bisket and was born a Citizen of London, his Father being one before him, and my Mother was of honest Parents. I was born in Black-Eagle-Street in the Parish of Stepney, close by Monmouth Street and adjoining Brick Lane, in a wooden house which was tottering to the last degree and would have been pull'd down but for the vast Quantity of wooden dwellings on either side. There are those like me seiz'd with Feaver upon that day when they first came into the World, and I have good reason to Sweat on each fifth day of December for my first Entrance upon the Stage was attended with all the Symptoms of Death, as if I had been sensible of my future Works. My Mother gave me birth (or hatch'd her Egg, as they say), all bloody and Pissburnt in the hour before Dawn: I could see the grey Bars of Light rolling towards me, and I could heare the winde which gives signal of the end of Night. In the corner of the narrow mean Chamber, my Father stood with bow'd head since his Dame seemed about to leave this World presently, having endur'd many painful Hours during my Birth. The sunne rose up before the House: I could see it burning, and the shape of my Father crossing and crossing againe in front of it so that he seemed a meer Shaddowe. Truly this was a vale of Tears I had come upon, and thus was I like Adam who on hearing the voice of God in the Garden wept in a state of Primal Terrour. Had Nature design'd me to take up only some insignificant and obscure Corner of the Universe this would be but a meer prattling Relation but those who see my Work will wish to be acquainted with my first Appearance in the World: it is a matter of Certainty that, by a narrow Observation of the Temper and Constitution of the Child, we will see in very Embrio those Qualities which afterwards make it remarkable in all Eyes.
    My Mother recover'd very soon, and raised me as a sprightly Infant who could turn as nimbly as a dry leaf in a whirle-wind; and yet even then I was possess'd by strange Fancies: altho' other Boys would hunt for butter-flyes and bumble-bees, or whip their Tops in the Dust, I was full of Fears and Bugbears. Where now in the Spittle-Fields my Church rises, there would I weep for no