the same conflagration. The fury soon became insuperable against the arts of men and power of engines; and beside the dismal scenes of flames, ruin and desolation, there appeared the most killing sight in the distracted looks of the citizens, the wailings of miserable women, the cries of poor children, and decripid old people; with all the marks of confusion and despair. No man that had the sense of human miseries could unconcernedly behold the dismal ravage and destruction made in one of the noblest cities in the world. The lord mayor of the city comes with his officers; what a confusion there is!--counsel is taken away; and London, so famous for wisdom and dexterity, can now find neither brains nor hands to prevent its ruin: the decree was gone forth, London must now fall: and who can prevent it? No wonder, when so many pillars are removed, the building tumbles. The fire gets the mastery, and burns dreadfully, by the force of the wind; it spreads quickly; and goes on with such force and rage, overturning all so furiously, that the whole city is brought into jeopardy and desolation. ----Fire commission'd by the winds, Begins on sheds, but, rolling in a round, On palaces returns. DRYDEN. That night most of the Londoners had taken their last sleep in their houses; they little thought it would be so when they went into their beds: they did not in the least expect, that when the doors of their ears were unlocked, and the casements of their eyes were opened in the morning, to hear of such an enemy invading the city, and that they should see him with such fury enter the doors of their houses, break into every room, and look out at their windows with such a threatening countenance. That which made the ruin more dismal was, that it began on the Lord's Day morning; never was there the like Sabbath in London; some churches were in flames that day; God seemed to come down and preach himself in them, as he did in Sinai when the mount burned with fire; such warm preaching those churches never had: in other churches ministers were preaching their farewell sermons; and people were hearing with quaking and astonishment: instead of a holy rest which Christians had taken that day, there was a tumultuous hurrying about the streets towards the place that burned, and more tumultuous hurrying upon the spirits of those that sat still, and had only the notice of the ear, of the strange and quick spreading of the fire.