“Independently of these views, we have another very strong evidence that this part was not built upon even in the year 1665, contained in that most interesting and curious work, the ‘_Memoirs and Diary of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S. and Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II_.’ Edited by Richard, Lord Braybrooke, London, 1825, 4to. volume 1., page 388: where, under the date of January 24th, 1665-66, that observant journalist has the following entry. ‘My Lord,’--Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich,--‘and I, the weather being a little fairer, went by water to Deptford; and the wind being again very furious, so as we durst not go by water, walked to London round the Bridge, no boat being able to stirre; and, Lord! what a dirty walk we had, and so strong the wind, that in the fields we many times could not carry our bodies against it, but were driven backwards. It was dangerous to walk the streets, the bricks and tiles falling from the houses, that the whole streets were covered with them; and whole chimneys, nay, whole houses, in two or three places, blowed down. But above all, _the pales on London Bridge, on both sides, were blown away_;’--almost the very words, you observe, which I have quoted you from Richard Bloome,--‘so that we were forced to stoop very low, for fear of blowing off the Bridge. We could see no boats in the Thames afloat, but what were broke loose, and carried through the Bridge, it being ebbing water. And the greatest sight of all was, among other parcels of ships driven here and there in clusters together, one was quite overset, and lay with her masts all along in the water, and her keel above water.’ The desolation, and wintry chillness of this picture, is enough to make one shiver even in the Dog-days.”