It was also in 1677 that Sir Christopher completed the column generally known to Londoners as 'the Monument.' He began it in 1671; but the work had been much hindered by the difficulty of getting blocks of Portland stone of sufficient size. There had been great debate about the ornament for the summit. Wren wished it to be a large statue, as 'carrying much dignity with it, and being more valluable in the eyes of forreigners and strangers.' It was to be fifteen feet high, cast in brass, at a cost of 1,000_l._ The expense was one reason why this was given up, and the present ornament, a flaming vase of gilt bronze, substituted. Cibber[152] carved a basso-relievo on one side, representing King Charles in a Roman costume, protecting the ruined city. The four dragons at the base were carved by Edward Pierce,[153] a sculptor and architect who frequently worked for Wren. The other three sides have Latin inscriptions, of which one is an account of the fire, accusing the _furor Papisticus_ as its cause; a brief inscription in English, lower down on the pedestal, repeats the same charge against the 'treachery and malice of the Popish faction.' Sir Christopher had written a Latin one for the column, which spoke of the fire as originating in a humble house, and briefly recounted its ravages; he added, as he was well entitled to add, that the city was rebuilt 'not with wood and mud as before, but with edifices, some brick and some stone, and adorned with such works that it was seen to rise fairer from its ruins far than before.' As he wrote, he must have given a sigh of regret to the perfection of his unused plan. The accusation against the Romanists appealed powerfully to the inveterate prejudices of the multitude. It was accordingly insisted upon and ordered to be put up. James II. had the inscription effaced, but in William III.'s reign it was re-cut deeper than before, and so remained to justify Pope's well-known lines:-- ----London's column pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies.[154] It is a curious retribution that the Monument designed by so great an architect as Wren, to commemorate such an event as the burning of London, and the singular courage and energy of its citizens, is now more generally connected in men's mind with falsehood and calumny than with a great historical event. The column was at first used, as Wren had intended it should be, as a place for certain experiments of the Royal Society; but the vibration of the column during the ceaseless traffic of London proved too great to allow of the experiments being successfully carried on. Evelyn, with much sense, wished that the column had been placed where the fire ended, and a 'plain lugubrious marble' where it began; and says:--