Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 152.djvu/747

blowing up (on Tuesday) a cluster of houses built along the edge of the Tower Ditch. Clothworkers’ Hall, close to Pepys’, was ablaze for three days and nights, its cellars being full of oil. By Tuesday night the fire had spread as far westwards as the Temple, where it was checked by the wind falling, and by the resistance which buildings of brick offered to it. By Wednesday night it had consumed the whole area (some 350 acres) from the Temple round by Fetter Lane, Holborn Bridge, Pye Corner (sparing Smithfield and St Bartholomew’s Hospital), Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and thence in a diagonal line across to Coleman Street, Leadenhall Street, Mark Lane, and Tower Dock, leaving untouched the streets around Moorgate, Bishopsgate, and Aldgate, and with them the quadrangle of Gresham College, Crosby Hall, the Leadenhall, and the churches of St Helen, St Ethelburgha, St Andrew Undershaft, and St Katherine Cree. Next day, however (Thursday), a separate fire broke out in Bishopsgate, which was soon put out. “It was pretty to see,” says Pepys, “how hard the women did work in the cannells, sweeping of water; but then they would scold for drink, and be as drunk as devils.” The fire had destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, 52 halls of companies, and 3 city gates (Ludgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate, or perhaps Cripplegate). St Paul’s was burned on the Tuesday: the ruinous steeple had been for some time covered with scaffolding; and as recently as the 27th of August, Evelyn, Wren Chichely, and some others, had met to consider what was to be done with it, Wren and Evelyn being of a mind to build it with a noble cupola—“a form of church-building not as yet known in England, but of wonderful grace.” The other great church-tower of London city, that of Christchurch within Newgate, was also destroyed, but was no longer a rival to St Paul’s when it was rebuilt.

On Friday the merchants met at Gresham College, which was assigned to them for an Exchange. On the 13th September, within a week of the extinction of the fire, Evelyn had made a survey of the ruins and a plan for a new City, which he brought to show the king; “whereupon after dinner his Majesty sent for me into the queen’s bedchamber, her Majesty and the duke only being present: they examined each particular, and discoursed on them for near an hour, seeming to be extremely pleased with what I had so early thought on. The queen was now in her cavalier riding-habit, hat and feather, and horseman’s coat, going out to take the air.” The same day the king issued a proclamation. The citizens were told that they must be prepared to conform to rules in their rebuilding, so that a much more beautiful city would arise than that which had been burned, the seat and situation of it being the most convenient and noble for the advantage of trade of any city of Europe. Coming to particulars, the king declared that Cheapside, Fleet Street, Cornhill, and the like main streets, should be of such breadth as may, by God’s blessing, prevent the mischief that one side may suffer if the other be on fire, which was the case lately in Cheapside. No street to be so narrow as to endanger the opposite side by fire, especially towards the water-side, “nor will we suffer any lanes or alleys to be erected but where, upon mature deliberation, the same shall be found absolutely