Thus fell great London, that ancient and populous city! London! which was the queen city of the land; and as famous as most cities in the world! and yet how is London departed like smoke, and her glory laid in the dust! How is her destruction come, which no man thought of, and her desolation in a moment! How do the nations about gaze and wonder! How doth the whole land tremble at her fall! How do her citizens droop and hang down their heads, her women and virgins weep, and sit in the dust! Oh! the paleness that now sits upon the cheeks! the astonishment and confusion that covers the face, the dismal apprehensions that arise in the minds of most, concerning the dreadful consequences which are likely to be of this fall of London! How is the pride of London stained, her beauty spoiled; her arm broken, and her strength departed! her riches almost gone, and her treasures so much consumed!--every one is sensible of the stroke. Never was England in greater danger of being made a prey to a foreign power, than after the firing and fall of the city, which had the strength and treasure of the nation in it. How is London ceased, that rich, that joyous city! One corner, indeed, is left; but more than as many houses as were within the walls, are turned into ashes. The merchants now have left the Royal Exchange; the buyers and sellers have now forsaken the streets: Gracechurch-street, Cornhill, Cheapside, Newgate-market, and the like places, which used to have throngs of traffickers, now are become empty of inhabitants; and instead of the stately houses which stood there last summer, they lie this winter in ruinous heaps. The glory of London is fled away like a bird; the trade of London is shattered and broken to pieces: her delights also are vanished, and pleasant things laid waste: now there is no chanting to the sound of the viol, nor dancing to the sweet music of instruments; no drinking wine in bowls, and stretching upon beds of lust; no excess of wine and banqueting; no feasts in halls; no amorous looks and wanton dalliances; no rustling silks and costly dresses; these things at that place are at an end. The houses for God's worship (which formerly were bulwarks against fire, partly through the walls about them, partly through the fervent prayers within them) now are devoured by the flames; the habitations of many who truly feared God have not escaped: the fire makes no discrimination between the houses of the godly and the houses of the ungodly; they are all made of the same combustible matter, and are kindled, as bodies are infected, by one another.