A Life in the Margins

The good life is lived with an awareness of death. A good death will look back on the life that went before, measure the distance travelled from youth, and bring any unfinished business to completion. It is safe to say that Camden, early admitted to Christ's Church Hospital “newly founded for blue-coated children” (or orphans), and at age twelve infected with the plague, was as conscious of death's presence as one would want a youth to be: he probably learned early on in his life the stoic ethic reflected in the motto that he adopted for himself and that is reproduced on his portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts, “pondere non numero”.

With even greater confidence we can say that, nearing death, Camden looked back on his life, recalled who he had been and who he was, and set his house in order. Camden was not an unusually penetrating psychologist, nor was he of Jeremy Taylor's cast, and inclined to thoughts de contemptu mundi. He had been a schoolmaster, an author, a friend of Ben Jonson, a herald – all calculated (as we will see) to keep him alert to the often uncomfortable realities of this world.