These were the main features of Christopher Wren's scheme, and had he been allowed to accomplish it, we can imagine what the effect of London might have been without its noisome smells, without its dark crooked lanes, without its worst smoke, its river honoured not only with the handsome quay it has at length obtained, but with a line of beautiful buildings and fair spires, and above all S. Paul's, with an ample space around it, giving free play to its grand proportions. Wren, with a perfect knowledge of his own powers, which he considered as dispassionately, and knew as accurately as any matter of mathematical science, was ready to undertake and perform his scheme to the uttermost. [_PREOCCUPIED GROUND._] The difficulties were however considerable: there were the endless quarrels about property, the reluctance to part with an old site, and, chief difficulty of all, the utmost hurry of rebuilding in order to house the people before the approaching winter. Pepys[117] says that in April 1667:-- 'Moorefields have houses two stories high in them, and paved streets, the city having let leases for seven years, which will be very much to the hindering of the building of the city; but it was considered that the streets cannot be passable in London till the whole street be built; and several that had got ground of the city for charity to build sheds on, had got the trick presently to sell that for 60_l._ which did not cost them 20_l._ to put up; and so the city being very poor in stock, thought it as good to do it themselves and therefore let leases for seven years of the ground in Moorefields.' Thus Wren had by no means clear ground on which to work, and an opportunity was forfeited, which, _absit omen_, may never recur, of making London one of the beautiful cities of the world. Important sanitary improvements were, however, made: the houses were not built of wood; the principal streets were less narrow; and, above all, the lingering contagion was burnt away. Nothing less would probably have availed; but the fire was a cleansing one, and left behind it this blessing, that though more than two hundred years have elapsed the plague has not, as yet, reappeared. The Custom House of London was one of the first buildings to be restored, and Wren began it in 1668. It was a stately stone edifice, built in three sides of a square, with an open court in front. The same fate befell this building which had overtaken its predecessor; in 1719 it was burnt down. [_FAITH COGHILL._]