[148] The following interesting anecdote was related to one of the Honorary Secretaries (Mr. Wright) by a member of the Society (Mr. Fytche):--'Walking one fine summer morning in June 1872 down to the Mansion House, on reaching the Poultry I was surprised to see a man on the top of the tower of S. Mildred's Church hammering away at the stones with a crowbar; so, finding the door open, I went up the stairs of the tower and said to my friend of the crowbar, "Why, you are pulling the church down!" "Ay," says he, "it's all to be down and carted away by the end of July." "I suppose it's going to be rebuilt elsewhere!" "_Built_ anywhere? No; my master has _bought_ it." "Who is your master?" "Don't you know him? Mr. So-and-So, the great contractor." "What's he going to do with it?" "Do with it? Why, he's twenty carts and forty horses to lead it away to his stoneyard, and he's going to grind it up to make Portland cement!" So I asked him of the crowbar to show me round the church. "Would your master sell the stones instead of grinding 'em up?" I asked. "Sell 'em? Yes, he'll sell his soul for money!" So I made an appointment for his master to come up to the Langham Hotel next morning, and we agreed about the purchase--he to deliver the stones at a wharf on the Thames, and they were brought down in barges and landed at the head of a canal on the east coast of Lincolnshire, and are now lying in a green field near my house, called S. Katherine's Garth, from an old Priory of S. Katherine, which formerly stood there, and which I hope some day to rebuild as my domestic chapel.'--_Report of the City Church and Churchyard Protection Society_, 1880. [149] _Vide supra_, p. 186-7. [150] Evelyn's _Diary_, May 28, 1682. [151] Nicholas Hawksmoor, born the year of the fire, became Wren's pupil in 1683 and helped him in many of his works. Hawksmoor built several churches under Queen Anne's Act; they are original, but heavy, and not always in good taste. He died 1736. [152] Caius Cibber, born 1630. The statues of Melancholy and Madness at Bedlam were his greatest works: died about 1700. [153] He did much of the work of S. Clement Danes under Wren's directions, and made a bust of Sir Christopher, now at All Souls: died 1698. [154] _Moral Essays_, Ep. iii. [155] _Of Medals_, p. 162, ed. 1697. Evelyn. [156] For an interesting account of these see _The Tower of London_, by Lord de Ros, p. 417. CHAPTER IX. 1677-1682.