I say, they continued this dreadful course three or four days--I think it was no more--when one of them, particularly he who asked the poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck with the plague and died in a most deplorable manner; and in a word, they were every one of them carried into the great pit which I have mentioned above, before it was quite filled up, which was not above a fortnight or thereabout. %GREAT FIRE IN LONDON% A.D. 1666 JOHN EVELYN In the reign of Charles II--the "Merry Monarch," of whom one of his ministers observed that "he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one"--the calamities which happened eclipsed the merriment of his people, if not that of the sovereign himself. In 1666 England had not fully recovered from the civil wars of 1642-1651. She was now at war with the allied Dutch and French, and was suffering from the terrible effects of the "Great Plague" which ravaged London in 1665. During September 2-5, 1666, occurred a catastrophe of almost equal horror. A fire, which broke out in a baker's house near the bridge, spread on all sides so rapidly that the people were unable to extinguish it until two-thirds of the city had been destroyed. Evelyn's account, from his famous _Diary_, is that of an eye-witness who took a prominent part in dealing with the conflagration, during which the inhabitants of London--like those of some of our cities in recent times--"were reduced to be spectators of their own ruin." Besides suspecting the French and Dutch of having landed and, as Evelyn records, of "firing the town," people assigned various other possible origins for the disaster, charging it upon the republicans, the Catholics, etc. It was obviously due, as Hume thought it worth while to note, to the narrow streets, the houses built entirely of wood, the dry season, and a strong east wind. "But the fire," says a later writer, "though destroying so much, was most beneficial in thoroughly eradicating the plague. The fever dens in which it continually lurked were burned, and the new houses which were erected were far more healthy and better arranged." In the year of our Lord 1666. 2d Sept. This fatal night, about ten, began that deplorable fire near Fish Street, in London. 3. The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and son, and went to the Bankside in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole city in dreadful flames near the water-side; all the houses from the bridge, all Thames Street, and upward toward Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consumed.