“Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on the other, the carts, etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with movables of all sorts, and tents erected to shelter both people and what goods they could get away.... “(Sept. 7) At my return I was infinitely concerned to find that goodly Church (cathedral), St. Paul’s, now a sad ruin. It was astonishing to see what immense stones the heat had in a manner calcined, so that all the ornaments, columns, friezes, capitals, and projectures of massie Portland stone flew off, even to the very roof, where a sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than six acres by measure) was totally melted; the ruins of the vaulted roof falling broke into St. Faith’s, which being filled with the magazines of books belonging to the Stationers, and carried thither for safety, they were all consumed, burning for a week following.... Thus lay in ashes that most venerable Church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in the Christian world, besides near 100 more. The exquisitely wrought Mercers’ Chapel, the sumptuous Exchange, the august fabric of Christchurch, all the rest of the Companies’ Halls, splendid buildings, arches, entries, all in dust.... [Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL’S (A.D. 1500).] “The people who now walked about the ruins appeared like men in some dismal desert or rather in some great city laid waste by a cruel enemy....The by-lanes and narrower streets were quite filled up with rubbish, nor could one have possibly known where he was, but by the ruins of some Church or Hall, that had some remarkable tower or pinnacle remaining....” Just as the Plague was by no means the first plague which had visited the city, so there had been other serious outbreaks of fire, but those two visitations were by far the worst in the history of London. We can gather some idea of the scene of desolation which resulted when we read that the ruins covered an area of 436 acres—387 acres, or five-sixths of the entire city within the walls and 73 acres without; that the Fire wiped out four city gates, one cathedral, eighty-nine parish churches, the Royal Exchange, Sion College, and all sorts of hospitals, schools, etc. Yet gradually, not within three or four years, as is commonly stated in history books, but slowly, as the ruined citizens found money for the purpose, there rose from the débris another London—a London with broader, cleaner streets, with larger and better-built houses of stone and brick; with fine public buildings and a new Cathedral—a London more like the city which we know. So _modern_ London began its life.