On the other hand, Charles the Second and his brother kept their heads. They were about from morning till night. Westminster Abbey, the Tower although its outer precincts caught fire, Temple Bar, Lincoln’s Inn Gateway, Gresham College, Smithfield, Bishopsgate Street and Aldgate were saved. The river was crowded with the boats of fugitives; the heights of Hampstead were covered with tents and such rough huts as could be speedily set up. Volumes of black suffocating smoke hung over the burning city like a pall. Of the four hundred and fifty acres within the City walls from Ludgate to the Tower and from the river to Cripplegate, only seventy-five were left with houses still standing upon them, while of the liberties beyond the walls, sixty-three acres were consumed. Houses, however, could be rebuilt, even wonderful churches could be replaced if there were an architect with the genius to design them--and such an architect England had the good fortune at that hour to possess. But some irreparable losses were sustained, and amongst them none more grievous than the losses of the manuscripts of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists. It seems that a great many of these were taken from Paternoster Row, and placed for security in the crypt of St. Paul’s, where indeed they were safe from the actual touch of flame, even in such a fire as that which had raged during this first week of September, but so great was the heat that the manuscripts were all reduced to ashes. On the afternoon of September 6th the fire was finally stopped at Temple Bar; and it must be reckoned an astounding example of the courage of the race that the houseless population set itself at once methodically to work to rebuild their city. Within a week, three plans for a new London were presented to Charles the Second; one made by John Evelyn, famous for his diary; the second by Robert Hook, the philosopher; the third by Sir Christopher Wren. This last was accepted. Had it been carried out, we should have had a London made beautiful by straight broad streets and central “Piazzes,” as he called them. But it would have been a London a little too formal perhaps to suit the English independence. As a matter of fact, the citizens did not wait for any plans, but returning to the sites of their old houses which must have been still smouldering and hot to the foot, they began forthwith to rebuild. Amongst the first of such undertakings was the Royal Exchange. [Illustration: THE SECOND ROYAL EXCHANGE.]