“Oft on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound” Milton, Il Penseroso

My Lords and Gentlemen, I pray that you will forgive me but I must again postpone the commencement of my Treatise.  This morning, I received a letter from Sir Richard Steele who has been staying at his late wife’s house in Carmarthen. The news contained in this missive is such that I consider it should be imparted to you forthwith.

Sir Richard informs me that the Mayor of Carmarthen is so affright by the Foul Pestilence that he has purported to forbid for 17 days the Town’s inhabitants to leave their homes save on pressing business. To compound his insolence the Mayor of Carmarthen has declared that the tradesmen of the Town may not sell any goods and victuals save those that he deems “essential”. In his Zeal the Mayor has decreed that the people of Carmarthen may buy the necessary ingredients to make their meagre soup (or cawl as it is called) but not any pot in which to cook it. It is, Sir Richard observes, “as if a man may be permitted to relieve himself but be forbidden a pot to piss in.”

The Mayor has been much mocked by the people of Carmarthen wherefore the Town Clerk, Mr Waters, has threatened the inhabitants. He has announced that should they not comply themselves to the Mayor’s edicts they will be subject to another curfeu. Indeed, Sir Richards quotes him thus: “This is not the last lockdown we are likely to see. The projections we published in a worst case scenario show it’s likely we are going to need another firebreak in January or February.”  I take this barbarous and ungainly way of speaking to be Welsh – a language of which I have no familiarity.

Sir Richard’s late wife, Mary, did once vouchsafe to me, while she was in London (Sir Richard being in Carmarthen as was his latter custom when she was in Town), that Welsh is a language of rare beauty. To which, forsooth, I did most wittily reply “but not so rare a beauty as your ladyship”. The ugliness of the speech of Mr Waters, however, now gives me reason to believe that she was jesting with me.

But I must return to the news which Sir Richard imparted. He wrote that the Mayor and his retinue have not only forbidden the people the wherewithal to cook their cawl but a new Chapel of Wakefulness has been established in the Town. The Bishop of St David’s has condemned this schismatic establishment. He has delivered himself of a sermon in which he has told his flock that “There is no aspect of life in which God has no interest” – by which I take him to mean that God loves those who sleep as well as those who are awoke.

Sir Richard commended to me the Bishop. Not only has he restored the episcopal palace in Carmarthenshire but Bishop Ottley has also done much to stamp out itinerant preaching by “Awakened” Clergymen. Indeed, he has shewed how a cleric should behave by his own seemly example and with admirable restraint he has visited his Diocese only twice (and then, I suspect, with considerable reluctance).

The shameful behaviour of itinerant preachers is something to which I will return at greater length in my Treatise, which – with your leave – I will presently commence.

I remain your humble and obedient servant,

The Somnambulist