In the summary account of this vast devastation, given in one of the inscriptions on the Monument, and which was drawn up from the reports of the surveyors appointed after the fire, it is stated, that "The ruins of the city were 436 acres, [viz. 333 acres within the walls, and 63 in the liberties of the city;] that, of the six-and-twenty wards, it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt; and that it consumed 400 streets, 13,200 dwelling-houses, 89 churches [besides chapels; 4 of] the city gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, and a vast number of stately edifices." The immense property destroyed in this dreadful time cannot be estimated at less than _ten millions_ sterling. Amid all the confusion and multiplied dangers that arose from the fire, it does not appear that more than _six_ persons lost their lives. Calamitous as were the immediate consequences of this dreadful fire, its _remote effects_ have proved an incalculable blessing to subsequent generations. To this conflagration may be attributed the complete destruction of the _plague_, which, the year before only, swept off 68,590 persons!! To this tremendous fire we owe most of our grand public structures--the regularity and beauty of our streets--and, finally, the great salubrity and extreme cleanliness of a large part of the city of London. In relation to this awful calamity we add the following remarks:--Heaven be praised (says Mr. Malcolm[6]) old London _was burnt_. Good reader, turn to the ancient prints, in order to see what it has been; observe those hovels convulsed; imagine the chambers within them, and wonder why the plague, the leprosy, and the sweating-sickness raged. Turn then to the prints illustrative of our present dwellings, and be happy. The misery of 1665 must have operated on the minds of the legislature and the citizens, when they rebuilt and inhabited their houses. The former enacted many salutary clauses for the preservation of health, and would have done more, had not the public rejected that which was for their benefit; those who preferred high habitations and narrow dark streets had them. It is only to be lamented that we are compelled to suffer for their folly. These errors are now frequently partially removed by the exertion of the Corporation of London; but a complete reformation is impossible. It is to the improved dwellings composed of brick, the wainscot or papered walls, the high ceilings, the boarded floors, and large windows, and cleanliness, that we are indebted for the general preservation of health since 1666. From that auspicious year the very existence of the natives of London improved; their bodies moved in a large space of pure air; and, finding every thing clean and new around them, they determined to keep them so. Previously-unknown luxuries and improvements in furniture were suggested; and a man of moderate fortune