for that purpose." Conduct like this was calculated to attract the popular favour, as it deserved; and the poets were not slow in commemorating it in verse sufficiently panegyrical, whatever other defects it might exhibit. Here is one specimen from The Conflagration of London Poetically Delineated, by Sir J. L., Knight and Baronet, 1667,' which must make the most serious smile, in spite of the awful nature of the subject:

'Here Cæsar comes, with buckets in his eyes,

And father in his heart. Come, come, he cries,
Let's make one onset more. The scatter'd troops
At his word rally and retrieve their hopes:
The rebel flames, they say, felt Charles was there,
And, sneaking back, grew tamer than they were:
So that, no doubt, were Fates to be defeated
By man, the city's fate had then retreated.
But loyalty befriends the flames. Their own
Dangers neglected, thine affrights. Alone!
Alone! dear Sir, let's fall, they cried aloud,
And hazard not three kingdoms in a crowd."

We return to more serious matters. The origin of so awful a calamity was of course the very first object that engaged the attention of the King and the Parliament after the lapse of the first few anxious days. A Committee was appointed on the 25th of the same month. The report was made on the 22d of January following, by Sir Richard Brook, chairman, who stated that they had received "many considerable informations from divers credible persons about the matter," which they now laid before the House. The first evidence was" a letter from Alanson," of the 23rd of August, 1666, New Style, written from one Dural to a gentleman lodging in the house of one of the ministers of the French Crown in London, called Monsieur Herault: these were the expressions: They acquaint me with the truth of certain news which is common in this country, that a fire from Heaven is fallen upon a city called Belke, situated on the side of the river of Thames, where a world of people have been killed and burnt, and houses also consumed: which seemed a word of cabal, cast out by some that were knowing, and others that might be ignorant of the signification of it." Mrs. Elizabeth Styles informed the Committee that a French servant of Sir Vere Fan had said to her in April last, " You English maids will like the Frenchmen better when there is not a house left between Temple Bar and London Bridge;" and, on her answering, "I hope your eyes will never sce that," he replied, "This will come to pass between June and October." William Tinsdale heard one Fitz-Harris, an Irish Papist, say, about the beginning of July," there would be a sad desolation in September, in November a worse; in December all would be united into one." Two other witnesses reported conversations of a very similar nature," Papists" in each case being the prophets. This was one line of evidence. The next, could it be depended on, was very much more to the purpose. This was the confession of "Robert Hubert, of Rouen in Normandy, who acknowledged that he was one of those that fired the house of Mr. Farryner, a baker, in Pudding Lane," at the instigation of one Stephen Piedloe, who came out of France with him, by putting a fire-ball at the end of a long pole, and lighting it with a piece of match which he put in at a window. He had also, he said, "Three-and-twenty complices, whereof

Piedloe was the chief." Mr. Graves, a French merchant, living in St. Mary Axe, declared he knew Hubert to be "fit for any villanous enterprise," and that, having visited him in gaol, the latter had confessed himself guilty, remarking he had not done it "out of any malice to the English nation, but from a desire of reward," which Piedloe had promised him on his return to France. "It is observable," remarks the report, "that this miserable creature, who confessed himself before the Committee to be a Protestant, was a Papist and died so." The well-informed Mr. Graves was also acquainted with Piedloe, who was "a very deboist (debauched) person, and apt to any wicked design." The baker, Farryner, being examined, said it was impossible any fire could happen in his house by accident; for he had, as before mentioned, after twelve of the clock that night, gone through every room thereof, and found no fire but in one chimney, where the room was paved with bricks, which fire he diligently raked up in embers. Lastly, Hubert was sent under guard to "see if he could find out the place where he threw the fireball," which he did with perfect accuracy. The third species of evidence related to the fireballs and other combustible matter said to be thrown into various houses during the days: Daniel Weymanset, Esq., "saw a man apprehended near the Temple, with his pockets stuffed with combustible matter." Dr. John Parker saw some combustible matter" thrown into a shop in the Old Bailey; "thereupon he saw a great smoke and smelt a smell of brimstone." Three witnesses all agreed that they saw a person flinging something into a house near St. Antholine's church, and that thereupon the house was on fire .... and when this was done there was no fire near the place. Testimony of a somewhat similar nature was offered by other persons. Lastly, Mr. Freeman, of Southwark, brewer, found in his house, which had been lately burnt, about a quarter of an hour before that happened, a paper with a ball of wild-fire in the nave of a wheel; and Mr. Richard Harwood, being near the Feathers tavern, by St. Paul's, on the 4th of September, "saw something through a grate in a cellar, like wild-fire; by the sparkling and spitting of it he could judge it to be no other; whereupon he gave notice of it to some soldiers that were near the place, who caused it to be quenched." Thus far the first report. Additions were subsequently made of a similar, but certainly not more trustworthy, character. Then follows the report of the "Committee appointed to certify information touching the insolency of Popish priests and Jesuits, and the increase of Popery." The very heading of this last report shows the animus of the then Parliament; yet the Committee of that House, in making the report before mentioned, offer no decided opinion of their own. This is surely a significant fact. Hubert may have fired the house; there may have been wicked, mischievous, and discontented individuals who endeavoured to increase the horrors of the time in the modes described in the evidence; yet how much of this evidence might not be explained by the general excitement of mind in which all the witnesses must have participated, and by the important remark of Pepys already transcribed concerning the "shower of fire-drops," which he expressly says set fire to houses which the conflagration had not reached! But, at all events, that no large body of people, whether foreigners or Papists, were concerned in the affair, seems to us to be partly proved by the very absence of such a charge in the Committee's report; but still more by the facts that, first, it is impossible to discover how "Papists," the body chiefly suspected, could have been benefited by

the destruction of the metropolis of their country; and secondly, that no attempt of any kind appears to have been made by any party, when- on the hypothesis of their guilt-success had rewarded their atrocious efforts, and they had only to reap the harvest they desired. As to Hubert, although, according to Clarendon, neither the judge nor any person present at his trial believed his story, but all saw that he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and anxious to part with it, yet the jury found him guilty, and the King and the judges, notwithstanding their conviction of his insanity, allowed him to be executed!" It was soon after complained of," says Bishop Kennet, in his History of England,' "that Hubert was not sufficiently examined who set him to work, or who joined with him." And Mr. Hawles, in his remarks upon Fitz-Harris's trial, is bold to say that," the Commons resolving to examine Hubert upon that matter next day, Hubert was hanged before the house sate, and so could tell no further tales." We must add one still more important piece of evidence. Maitland * says that "Lawrence Peterson, the master of the ship that brought Hubert over, upon his examination some time after, declared that the said Hubert did not land till two days after the fire." The truth appears to be that Hubert was insane; and yet the poor creature was executed! This is dreadful work to have taken place in England only one hundred and seventy-five years ago. Nor does it seem to have been done as a sacrifice to the popular frenzy. It is stated in the Pictorial England,' and we find no evidence to the contrary, that "to the lasting honour of the London populace, desperate and bewildered as they were, and mad with excitement, they shed no blood, leaving such iniquities to be perpetrated by the fabricators of Popish plots, the Parliament, and the judges." It is gratifying to be able to add, from the same authority, that during this unhappy period "acts of Christian charity were performed on all sides, old animosities were mutually forgotten, nothing was remembered but the present desolation, all kinds of people expressing a marvellous charity towards those who appeared to be undone."

In addition to the distress and alarm felt by all during the fire, and the loss and physical privations it entailed for some time on the greater part of the population, it left an immense amount of difficulty and trouble behind in connexion with the arrangements necessary for the rebuilding. The King and the Government had now a painful duty to perform. On the one hand, they saw the necessity of preventing a new London from arising on the ruins of the old, liable to all the same dangers and inconveniences; and, in an affair of such magnitude, some little time for consideration was indispensable:-on the other, they beheld two hundred thousand persons bivouacking without the ruins of their late homes, all clamorous for the re-erection of their dwellings, shops, and warehouses, and who, in their extremity, were unwilling to listen to any schemes of amelioration which should cause a single day's delay. There was also the very delicate task to perform of carefully restoring to each person his own land or situation, for the general destruction had erased so many of the ordinary marks that official supervision and control were indispensable. This part of the business was intrusted to a court of judicature, consisting of the principal judges, who fortunately gave such general satisfaction that the City caused all their portraits to be painted. As to the rebuilding, the man was at hand who could have enabled the King without delay to devise

whatever measures were required for the safety and splendour of the new metropolis. When Evelyn, who formed a plan for the rebuilding, took it to Charles a few days after the fire, he found Sir Christopher Wren had been before him; and we cannot but observe that there was something more than ordinarily remarkable in the fact that an architect of Wren's genius should have appeared at the precise moment that he was so much wanted, and when such a

Prior to the

stupendous work offered for the development of his powers. time of the Fire he was employed upon the restoration of St. Paul's, (which he had of course afterwards entirely to rebuild,) and in the erection of some other public edifices; but as yet he had completed nothing; and this is pretty well all we know, except by inference, of his architectural reputation in 1666. From the account published by his son in the 'Parentalia,' it appears that he was now "appointed surveyor-general and principal architect for rebuilding the whole City; the cathedral church of St. Paul, all the parochial churches (in number fifty-one, enacted by Parliament, in lieu of those that were burnt and demolished), with other public structures; and for the disposition of the streets.... He took to assist him Mr. Robert Hook, professor of geometry in Gresham College, to whom he assigned the business of measuring, adjusting, and setting out the ground of the private street houses to the several proprietors, reserving all the public works to his own peculiar care and direction. . . . . In order therefore to a proper reformation, Wren (pursuant to the royal command), immediately after the fire, took an exact survey of the whole area and confines of the burning, having traced over with great trouble and hazard the great plain of ashes and ruins; and designed a plan or model of a new city, in which the deformity and inconveniences of the old town were remedied, by the

enlarging the streets and lanes, and carrying them as near parallel to one another as might be; avoiding, if compatible with greater conveniences, all acute angles; by seating all the parochial churches conspicuous and insular; by forming the most public places into large piazzas, the centre of (six or) eight ways; by uniting the halls of the twelve chief companies into one regular square annexed to Guildhall; by making a quay on the whole bank of the river, from Blackfriars to the Tower. . . . The streets to be of three magnitudes; the three principal leading straight through the City, and one or two cross streets, to be at least ninety feet wide; others sixty feet; and lanes about thirty feet, excluding all narrow dark alleys without thoroughfares and courts." Evelyn's plan, we may here observe, also included several piazzas of various forms, one of which would have formed an oval, with St. Paul's in the centre. It differed from Wren's chiefly in proposing a street from the church of St. Dunstan's in the East to the cathedral, and in having no quay or terrace along the river.

"The practicability of this scheme," continues the author of the 'Parentalia,' "without loss to any man or infringement of any property, was at that time demonstrated, and all material objections fully weighed and answered. The only, and as it happened insurmountable, difficulty remaining, was the obstinate averseness of great part of the citizens to alter their old properties, and to recede from building their houses again on the old ground and foundations; as also the distrust in many, and unwillingness to give up their properties, though for a time only, into the hands of public trustees or commissioners, till they might be dispensed to them again, with more advantage to themselves than otherwise was possible to be effected." Thus "the opportunity in a great degree was lost of making the new city the most magnificent, as well as commodious for health and trade, of any upon earth."* The best, however, was done under the circumstances that could be done; and the result was that, when London was rebuilt, which was accomplished in an almost incredibly short space of time (ten thousand houses being erected in the first four years), it was found little more convenient than before, but a good deal more magnificent as far as the public buildings were concerned, and, being built of brick and stone, altogether infinitely more safe. It appears also to have become in the transformation more healthy; the plague, which the year before had carried off one hundred thousand persons, disappeared from that time.

Instead of the present Monument, which was commenced in 1671 and completed in 1677, one after the design here shown was proposed by Sir Christopher, and it is unfortunate that the authorities could not be convinced of its superior fitness for the object desired. It was of somewhat less proportion than the existing Monument, namely, "fourteen feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device; for, as the Romans expressed in relievo on the pedestals and round the shafts of their columns the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated, so this monument of the conflagration and restoration of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames; the flames blazing from the loop-holes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within) were figured in brass-work gilt; and on the top was a phoenix rising from her ashes, in brass gilt likewise." Not only was this most happy, because most appropriate, design rejected, but in that which followed an alteration was made, *Wren's Parentalia, p. 269.