[Footnote 14: Old. Hist. of the Church of Scotland, i. 207. [Transcriber's Note: The marker for this footnote is missing in the original; its location has been guessed.]] This inscription was erased by King James upon his succession to the crown; but reinscribed presently after the revolution, in such deep characters as are not easily to be blotted out. The latter part of the inscription on the north side (_Sed furor papisticus, qui tam dira patravit, nondum restinguitur_) containing an offensive truth, was erased at King James's accession, and reinscribed soon after the revolution. Mr. Pope differs much in his opinion concerning these inscriptions, when he says-- Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, rears its head, and lies. It seems wonderful (says the author of the Craftsman) that the plague was not as peremptorily imputed to the Papists as the fire.[15] [Footnote 15: Seymour, i. 454. [Transcriber's Note: The marker for this footnote is missing in the original; its location has been guessed.]] There was a general suspicion of incendiaries laying combustible stuff in many places, having observed several houses to be on fire at the same time: but we are told, God with his great bellows did blow upon it, and made it spread quickly, and horrible flakes of fire mounted to the skies. There was a strange concurrence of several natural causes which occasioned the fire so vigorously to spread and increase. There was a great supineness and negligence in the people of the house where it began: it began between one and two o'clock after midnight, when all were in a dead sleep: on a Saturday night, when many of the eminent citizens, merchants, and others, were retired into the country, and left servants to look to their city houses: it happened in the long vacation, at a time of year when many wealthy citizens are wont to be in the country at fairs, or getting in debts, and making up accounts with their chapmen. The houses where it began were mostly built of timber, and those very old: the closeness and narrowness of the streets did much facilitate the progress of the fire, and prevented the bringing in engines. The wares and commodities stowed and vended in those parts were most combustible of any other, as oil, pitch, tar, cordage, hemp, flax, rosin, wax, butter, cheese, wine, brandy, sugar, and such like. The warmth of the preceding season had so dried the timber, that it was never more apt to take fire; and an easterly wind (which is the driest of all) had blown for several days together before, and at that time very strongly. The unexpected failing of the water from the New River; the engine at London-bridge called the Thames water-tower was out of order, and in a few hours was itself burnt down, so that the pipes which conveyed the water from thence through the streets, were soon empty.