“I like your motion mightily,” replied my companion, “and, once more, here’s your health. In speaking of the Great Fire of London, its consequences, and the new buildings to which it gave birth, I have brought forwards many fragments of our Bridge annals, and anticipated several events, because I wished to draw my information, as much as possible, into one focus. We next pass to the year 1669, though I should not mention to you the short notice of London Bridge by Lorenzo Magalotti, which occurs in ‘_The Travels of Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Tuscany, through England, during the reign of King Charles II. 1669_,’ London, 1821, quarto; but that it affords something like a proof that the destruction occasioned by the Fire of London was not extensive, so far as it regarded this building, which by that time seems to have been repaired. You will find the passage at page 317, and it runs thus. ‘On the morning of the 27th’--of May,--‘after hearing Mass, his Highness went through the City as far as London Bridge, on which are erected many large buildings, almost half of which escaped the fire there; and those which were consumed have been rebuilt of smaller size, the upper part being used as dwellings, and the lower part as Mercers’ shops, all of which are abundantly filled with goods of various sorts. We crossed the Bridge with some difficulty, owing to the number of carts which are constantly passing and repassing.’ He then proceeds to speak of the Marshalsea, the prisoners of which, he adds, have liberty to take a walk over the Bridge, their promise being first taken that they will not pass the limits, which they very rarely infringe.