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burning, as pitch and tar, in Thames Street; and warehouses of oil, and wines, and brandy, and other things." Soon after he "met with the King and Duke of York in their barge, and with them to Queenhithe... "River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and goods swimming in the water; and I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginals in it." Pepys's observing eye noticed also that the "poor pigeons were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they burned their wings and fell down."

In the afternoon Pepys is on the "water again, and to the fire, up and down, it still increasing, and the wind great. So near the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one's faces in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true; so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside (Southwark), over against the Three Cranes, and there staid till it was almost dark, and saw the fire grow, and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. . . . .

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We staid till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long it made me weep to see it." The peculiar form of the great body of flame is also referred to by the Rev. T. Vincent, in his tract called God's terrible Advice to the City by Plague and Fire,' who says finely, "The burning was then in fashion of a bow; a dreadful bow it was, such as mine eyes never before had seen; a bow which had God's arrow in it with a flaming point." Evelyn, who, like Pepys, was an eye-witness, and described only what he saw,

was also at the Bankside, Southwark, but later in the evening, when he beheld an awful picture. "I saw," he says, "the whole south part of the City burning, from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along Cornhill (for it likewise kindled back against the wind as well as forward), Tower Street, Fenchurch Street, Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and so along to Baynard's Castle, and was taking hold of St. Paul's church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it; so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned, both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, Exchange, hospitals, monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house and street to street, at great distances from one to the other; for the heat, with a long set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the air and prepared the materials to conceive the fire, which devoured after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and everything. Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save; as on the other, the carts, &c., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universal conflagration of it. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen for above forty miles round about for many nights: God grant mine eyes may never see the like! who now saw above ten thousand houses all in one flame: the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflamed that at last one was not able to approach it; so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds also of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation, near fifty miles in length." Mr. Vincent also says," The cloud of smoke was so great that travellers did ride at noonday some six miles together in the shadow thereof, though there were no other cloud besides to be seen in the sky." From the same authority we obtain one or two other interesting glimpses of the splendid horrors of this the first night:-" Amongst other things, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood the whole body of it together in view for several hours together after the fire had taken it, without flames, (I suppose because the timber was such solid oak), in a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass.”

During Monday, the 4th, the fire extended as far as the Middle Temple westwards, and Tower Street eastwards, including, besides the streets already mentioned, all Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Street, Thames Street, and Billingsgate; the stones of Paul's flying, says Evelyn, "like grenadoes," its melting lead flowing through the streets in a stream, the pavements everywhere "glowing with fiery redness, so as

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no horse or man was able to tread on them," and the east wind all the time still driving the flames impetuously forward. "But," writes the reverend gentleman before mentioned, "the great fury of the fire was in the broader streets; in the midst of the night it was come down to Cornhill, and laid it in the dust, and runs along by the Stocks, and there meets with another fire, which came down Threadneedle Street; a little further with another, which came up from Walbrook; a little further with another, which came up from Bucklersbury: and all these four, joining together, break into one great flame at the corner of Cheapside, with such a dazzling light and burning heat, and roaring noise by the fall of so many houses together, that was very amazing."

By Tuesday, the 5th, the fire had reached the end of Fetter Lane in Holborn, and the entrance of Smithfield. But now the wind somewhat abated, and the spirits of the people rose in a still greater proportion. Instead of pulling down houses by "engines," as they had before done, gunpowder was used, which soon produced gaps too wide to be overleaped by the fire; a measure that, according to Evelyn, "some stout seamen proposed early enough to have saved near the whole city; but this some tenacious and avaricious men, aldermen, &c., would not permit, because their houses must have been of the first." About noon the fury of the flames began sensibly to abate in most parts, although they burned as fiercely as ever towards Cripplegate and the Tower. But the fire was gradually checked here also by the same means.

On the 6th Pepys was once more waked by "new cries of fire," a species of alarm that continued for some days to distract the attention of the miserable population when the great conflagration was dying away among the ruins it had made. He was, however, able to walk through some of the principal streets; and on the 7th his fellow diarist took a still longer and more careful survey The description of the scene which met his eye appears to us one of the most painfully interesting pictures of desolation we ever read. "I went this morning on foot from Whitehall as far as London Bridge, through the late Fleet Street, Ludgate

Hill, by St. Paul's, Cheapside, Exchange, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and out to Moorfields, thence through Cornhill, &c., with extraordinary difficulty, clambering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was. The ground under my feet so hot that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. At my return I was infinitely concerned to find that goodly church, St. Paul's, now a sad ruin, and that beautiful portico (for structure comparable to any in Europe, as not long before repaired by the late King) now rent in pieces, flakes of vast stone split asunder, and nothing remaining entire but the inscription in the architrave, showing by whom it was built, which had not one letter of it defaced. It was astonishing to see what immense stones the heat had in a manner calcined, so that all the ornaments, columns, friezes, capitals, and projectures of massy Portland stone flew off, even to the very roof, where sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than six acres by measure) was totally melted; the ruins of the vaulted roof falling broke into St. Faith's, which being filled with the magazines of books belonging to the stationers, and carried thither for safety, they were all consumed, burning for a week following. There lay in ashes

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that most venerable church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in the Christian world, besides near 100 more; the lead, iron-work, bells, plate, &c., melted; the exquisitely wrought Mercers' Chapel, the sumptuous Exchange, the august fabric of Christ Church, all the rest of the Companies' Halls, splendid buildings, arches, entries, all in dust; the fountains dried up and ruined, whilst the very water remained boiling; subterranean cellars, wells, and dungeons, formerly warehouses, still burning in stench and dark clouds of smoke, so that in five or six miles traversing about I did not see one load of timber unconsumed, nor many stones but what were calcined white as snow. The people who now walked about the ruins appeared like men in some dismal desert, or rather in some great city wasted by a cruel enemy; to which was added the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies, beds, and other combustible goods. Sir Thomas Gresham's statue, though fallen from its niche in the Royal Exchange, remained entire when all those of the Kings since the Conquest were broken to pieces; also the Standard in Cornhill and Queen Elizabeth's effigies, with some arms on Ludgate, continued with but little detriment, whilst the vast iron chains of the city streets, hinges, bars, and gates of prisons were many of them melted and reduced to cinders by the vehement heat. Nor was I yet able to pass through any of the narrower streets, but kept the widest: the ground and air, smoke, and fiery vapour continued so intense that my hair was almost singed, and my feet unsufferably surbated. The by lanes and narrower streets were quite filled up with rubbish, nor could any one have possibly known where he was but by the ruins of some church or hall that had some remarkable tower or pinnacle remaining. I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one might have seen two hundred thousand people of all ranks and degrees dispersed and lying along by their heaps of what they could save from the fire, deploring their loss, and, though ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for relief, which to me appeared a stranger sight than any 1 had yet beheld. His Majesty and council, indeed, took all imaginable care for their relief by proclamation for the country to come in and refresh them with provisions. In the midst of all this calamity and confusion there was, I know not how,

*Surbated-battered, bruised, sore.

an alarm begun that the French and Dutch, with whom we were in hostility, were not only landed, but even entering the city. There was in truth some days before great suspicion of those two nations joining, and now that they had been the occasion of firing the town. This report did so terrify, that on a sudden there was such an uproar and tumult that they ran from their goods, and, taking what weapons they could come at, they could not be stopped from falling on some of those nations whom they casually met, without sense or reason. The clamour and peril grew so excessive that it made the whole court amazed, and they did with infinite pains and great difficulty reduce and appease the people, sending troops of soldiers and guards to cause them to retire into the fields again, where they were watched all this night. I left them pretty quiet, and came home sufficiently weary and broken." From the inscription on the north side of the Monument it appears that the total amount of destruction was "eighty-nine churches, the City gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling-houses, four hundred streets; of twenty-six wards it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt. The ruins of the City were four hundred and thirty-six acres from the Tower by the Thames side to the Temple Church, and from the north-east gate along the City Wall to Holborn Bridge. To the estates and fortunes of the citizens it was merciless, but to their lives very favourable (only eight being lost), that it might in all things resemble the last conflagration of the world."* The limits of the fire may be thus traced:-Temple Church, Holborn Bridge, Pye Corner, Smithfield, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, near the end of Coleman Street, at the end of Basinghall Street by the Postern, at the upper end of Bishopsgate Street, in Leadenhall Street, by the Standard in Cornhill, at the Church in Fenchurch Street, by the Clothworkers' Hall, at the middle of Mark Lane, and at the Tower Dock. The part of the City left standing within the walls contained eleven parishes, occupying an area of seventy-five acres. And this was all that the Great Fire had left of London! A table of estimates of the loss is given in Maitland's 'History,' which amounts to nearly eleven millions.

We have seen from the preceding extracts that the King and his brother exerted themselves greatly in endeavouring to check the progress of the fire, to preserve as far as possible something like order in the midst of so much inevitable confusion, and to ameliorate the unhappy condition of the inhabitants thus suddenly deprived of their homes, and dispersed through the open country, "several miles in circle, some under tents, some under miserable huts and hovels; many without a rag or any necessary utensils, bed or board; who, from delicateness, riches, and every accommodation in stately and well-furnished houses, were now reduced to extremest poverty and misery."† In a manuscript from the secretary's office, quoted by Dr. Echard in his History of England,' we have a picture of the "merry monarch" which places him in a very favourable light. "All own the immediate hand of God, and bless the goodness of the King, who made the round of the fire usually twice every day, and for many hours together, on horseback and on foot, gave orders for pursuing the work by threatenings, desires, example, and good store of money, which he himself distributed to the workers out of a hundred-pound bag, which he carried with him

* From the translation of the Latin inscription given in Maitland.

+ Evelyn.

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