7. 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, Bishopgate, 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 was so hot, that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. In the mean time his majesty got to the Tower by water, to demolish the houses about the graff, which being built entirely about it, had they taken fire and attacked the White Tower where the magazine of powder lay, would undoubtedly not only have beaten down and destroyed all the bridge, but sunk and torn the vessels in the river, and rendered the demolition beyond all expression for several miles about the country.

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 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, and projectures of massy Portland stone flew off, even to the very roof, where a sheet of lead covering a great space 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. It is also observable that the lead over the altar at the east end was untouched, and among the divers monuments, the body of one bishop remained entire. Thus lay in ashes 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, sumptuous buildings, arches, all in dust; the fountains dried up and ruined, whilst the very waters remained boiling; the voragoes of 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 a dismal desert, or rather in some great city laid waste by a cruel enemy: to which was added the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies, beds, &c. 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. I was not able to pass through any of the narrow 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 insufferably surheated. The bye lanes and narrower streets were quite filled up with rubbish, nor could one have 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 200,000 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 I 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, an alarm begun that the French and Dutch, with whom we are now 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. Their spirits thus a little calmed, and the affright abated, they now began to repair into the suburbs about the city, where such as had friends or opportunity got shelter for the present, to which his majesty's proclamation also invited them.

37.-THE RED FISHERMAN.

·

PRAED.

[WINTHROP MACKWORTII PRAED was the son of Mr. Sergeant Praed. In 1820, while at Eton College, he prepared and brought out, with the aid of other young men, a periodical work entitled 'The Etonian,' which went through four editions. He was subsequently, while at Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the principal contributors to Knight's Quarterly Magazine.' Mr. Praed's university career was one of almost unequalled brilliancy. In 1831, having previously been called to the bar, he was returned to Parliament for a Cornish borough. His health was always somewhat feeble; and the promises of his youth were closed by his early death in 1840.]

The Abbot arose, and closed his book,
And donned his sandal shoon,
And wandered forth alone to look
Upon the summer moon:
A starlight sky was o'er his head,
A quiet breeze around;

And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed,

And the waves a soothing sound :

It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught
But love and calm delight;

Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought
On his wrinkled brow that night.
He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds ;
He clasped his gilded rosary,

But he did not tell the beads:

Companionless, for a mile or more,
He traced the windings of the shore.
Oh, beauteous is that river still,
As it winds by many a sloping hill,
And many a dim o'er-arching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove,
And terraced lawns whose bright arcades
The honey-suckle sweetly shades,
And rocks whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers.
But the Abbot was thinking of scenery,
About as much, in sooth,

As a lover thinks of constancy,
Or an advocate of truth.

He did not mark how the skies in wrath
Grew dark above his head;

If he looked to the Heaven, 't was not to He did not mark how the mossy path

invoke

The Spirit that dwelleth there ;

If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.

A pious Priest might the Abbot seem,
He had swayed the crosier well;
But what was the theme of the Abbot
dream,

The Abbot were loth to tell,

Grew damp beneath his tread;

And nearer he came, and still more near,

To a pool, in whose recess

The water had slept for many a year,

Unchanged, and motionless;

From the river stream it spread away,

The space of half a rood;
The surface had the hue of clay,

And the scent of human blood;

The trees and the herbs that round it grew The line the Abbot saw him throw
Were venomous and foul;

And the birds that through the bushes flew

Were the vulture and the owl;

The water was as dark and rank

As ever a company pumped ;

And the perch that was netted and laid You would have sworn, as you looked on

For the place was cursed with an evil There was turning of keys, and creaking

There was turning of keys, and creaking As ever was heard in the House of Peers

of locks,

As he stalked away with his iron box. 'Oh ho! Oh ho!

The cock doth crow;

It is time for the Fisher to rise and go. Fair luck to the Abbot, fair luck to the shrine;

He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line; Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south,

The Abbot will carry my hook in his
mouth;

The Abbot had preached for many years,
With as clear articulation

Against Emancipation:

His words had made battalions quake,
Had roused the zeal of martyrs;
Had kept the Court an hour awake,
And the king himself three-quarters:
But ever, from that hour, 'tis said,

He stammered and he stuttered
As if an axe went through his head,
With every word he uttered.
He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered
o'er ban,

He stuttered, drunk or dry,
And none but he and the Fisherman
Could tell the reason why!

38.-SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.-II.

[The 113th number of the 'Spectator' describes Sir Roger de Coverley falling in love with a beautiful widow. The paper is by Steele; and to a reader of the present day it may appear somewhat trite and mawkish. The good old knight looks back upon his unrequited youthful affection with a half-ludicrous solemnity. His mistress was a learned lady, who only gave him the encouragement of declaring that "Sir Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most humane of all the brutes in the country." It is scarcely necessary to follow the disconsolate bachelor's relation of his disappointment. The following description, however, of the sheriff riding in state to the assizes will serve, with a little variation of costume, for a picture of the same scene in our own day: for who amongst our country readers has not heard the barbarous dissonance of the sheriff's trumpets, and smiled at the awkward pomp of his mighty javelin-men?]

"I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbourhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twentythird year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behaviour to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But, when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in the court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature (who was born for the destruction of all who beheld her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, until she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great surprised booby; and knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf as I was, "Make way for the defendant's witnesses." This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon