And when he had overwhelm'd himself with other Work so that he could do no more in the Office, I devised my own Planns for the City edifices on which he was engaged; I toild for every Line till I sweated and then when I asked him how he liked it, he said very well as far as he looked but that he was so full of Business that he had but little Time to spare. But then he repented of his Briskness, and guided me forward until I became a proper Master.
It was in these early Years that Sir Chris, his Endeavours were all for St Pauls, but lately reduc'd to Ruines: there was scarce a course of Stones laid, over which he did not walk during the great Construction, and I would follow him with a bundle of Planns tucked beneath my Arm. See here, Nick, he would say, unless we take care these Compass arches will not press uniformly. He would bite his under-lip at this but then, when any thing pleased him well, he would cry Hum! and clap me upon the Shoulder. He would allwaies climb to the uppermost heights of the Scaffolding and when I held my self back (for it is a dreadfull thing to look down Praecipices) he would beckon me onward and laugh; then quite fresh still he would descend to the Ground and jump down into the Foundations, to emerge bespattered all over with Dust like a Postillion.
He was alwaies agreeable with the work men, and minded me to note their Business for my own Instruction. And so I watched the Carpenters setting up Scaffolds, or makeing Sheds and Fences; the Sawyers cutting Timber; the Labourers clearing away Stones and Rubbidge, or wheeling up Baggs of Lime to the Mortar Heaps; the Masons sawing off Stones or working and setting them; the Plumbers laying Pipes. Very soon I was constantly attending the Work without Sir Chris.: I alone was giving directions to the Men, measuring all the Masons' work (my old Master, Mr Creed, used to welcome me with a sally), keeping account of what Stores were delivered to the Storekeeper, taking care that the Carpenters and Labourers who worked by the Day were imployed as directed and kept to their Business. For it was very usual to see ten men in a Corner very busie about two men's work, taking much Care that every one should have due Proportion of the Labour. One wonderful piece of Difficulty, for which the whole Number had to perform, was to drag along a Stone of about Three Hundred Weight in a Carriage in order to be hoisted upon the Moldings of the Cuppola. And yet I dared not speak harshly to them, for if you find never so just a Fault with an English workman he will reply, Sir I do not come hither to be taught my Trade: I have served an Apprenticeship and have wrought before now with Gentlemen who have been satisfied with my Work. And then unless you soothed him, he would cast down his Tools in a Pother. I would instruct Sir Chris, in what had passed, still glowing with Rage and Indignation, and he would say Poh! Poh! all will be well, all will be well.
And all Manner of Things shall be well for now my Gout is abated, and I am return'd to the Office where Walter is saying, Why do you Sigh? I did not Sigh, I told him. But then this Thought presents itself to me: do I make Noises that I do not hear, and do I sigh, when I look back on the Years that have passed and which are so much like a Dreame?
For when I was first with Sir Chris. I could not but wonder at the strange Alteration in my Life, from being a meer Itinerant Mendicant of a Boy: it had all fallen out as Mirabilis had prophesied, and I doubted not but that he had in some way determined it. So I did not leave off my Visitings to Black Step Lane, tho' without Mirabilis the Assembly were in a very poor State and it fell to me to decipher his Books: which I did willingly enough, now that I was come (as I suppos'd) to Man's Estate. In the mean time I said nothing of these Matters to Sir Chris, who would have reviled me at a hard Rate and treated me as a meer Merry-Andrew. He liked to destroy Antient things: sad and wretched Stuff, he called it, and he us'd to say that Men are weary of the Reliques of Antiquity. He spoke in their stead of Sensible Knowledge, of the Experimentall Learning and of real Truths: but I took these for nothing but Fopperies. This is our Time, said he, and we must lay its Foundacions with our own Hands; but when he used such Words I was seiz'd with this Reflection: and how do we conclude what Time is our own?
As it turned out, Sir Chris, his own Perswasions were hurled against him, when it came to his Notice that he was building St Pauls Church upon an ancient Ruine. For when we open'd the Ground next to the Seite of the North Porticoe, some Stones were found which on further Inspection, after digging down sufficiently and removing what Earth lay in the way, appeared to be the Walls and Pavement of a Temple: close by was found a little Altar, on hearing of which Sir Chris, laughed and whisper'd to me, Let us make a Pilgrimage to the Pitte!
On our Arrival he heaved himself into the Foundacions and there Rummaging among a great many old Stones he found an earthern Lamp -a very mean work, says he, and throws it back among the Rubbidge. Then the next Morning the Image of a God was dug out of the Ground, being girt about with a Serpent and bearing a Wand in his Hand (the Head and Feet being broken off). It brings to mind, Sir Chris told me, an Observation which Erasmus made: that on the day of St Pauls conversion it was the custom in London to bring in procession to the Church a wooden Staff in which was cunningly wrought a Snake or a Serpent; what think you of that, Nick, since you allwaies have your Head stuck in old Books? And I said nothing, for who can speak of the Mazes of the Serpent to those who are not lost in them? But that some may see and understand an Object, others meerly neglecting it, you have an Instance in Mr John Barber who would not stir from his bed at the Black Boy in Pater-Noster-Row: he thought all the superficies of this terrestrial Globe was made of thin and transparent Glass, and that underneath there lay a Multitude of Serpents; he died laughing, at the Ignorance and Folly of those who could not see the true Foundacions of the World. Thus I also dismiss the narrow Conceptions of this Generation of Writers who speak with Sir Chris, of a new Restauration of Learning, and who prattle something too idly on the new Philosophy of Experiment and Demonstration: these are but poor Particles of Dust which will not burie the Serpents.
And so while others were mouthing such fantastical! and perishable Trash, I kept to my studdy of the antient Architects, for the greatness of the Antients is infinitely superior to the Moderns. It was my good Fortune that in Sir Chris, his Library there was a great Jumble of Books which he had taken up and then tossed aside, so it was here that I examined Cambden's Remains and Lisle his Saxon Monuments, Nicholas Caussin's De Symbolica Aegyptiorum Sapientia and the universall Kircher his Oedipus aegyptiacus in which he concludes that the Obelisks are the tables of esoterick knowledge. And as I write this Walter Pyne takes an exact Account, from my Direction, of my Historicall Pillar beside Limehouse Church: you may hear his Pen scratch. In Kircher, also I discover'd planns of the Pyramiddes, which gave Demonstration of how the Shaddowe is thrown by the Obelisk across the Desart land, and now Walter drops Inke across his Paper. Thus the Subjects of my Thought were the miraculous Memphitic pyrramides which the Aegyptians erected to the memory of their Gods who were Kings also: the Summities of these artificial Mountains were so high that from them, as from some august and terrible Throne, they seemed to the People to be reigning after their Death. This Plan is Ruined from the Staine, says Walter but I make no Answer to him. Thus in Sir Chris, his Library I reflected upon these stupendious Works, vast and of a manner Colossale, and of the curious Signs cut upon their Stone. I gaz'd upon the Shaddowes of fallen Collumnes until my Spirit itself became a very Ruine and so, as I proceeded further in my Books, it was a surety that I studdied part of my self. And Walter leaves the Office now, muttering to himself and walking to the River in order to dear his beating Mind and as I watch him I see my self once more in my youthful Dayes when Sir Chris, found me in his Library: Those who hasten to be wise, Nick, said he looking in on me, have some times lost their own Wits.