Within The Shadow Of The Shaft.

contemporary chronicler , a bitter personal opponent it is true ; but then , he was the opponent of a man who we all know could look on with composure , if not with curiosity aud enjoyment , while , his fellow man ' s legs were being crushed with wedges driven in by powerful mallets between the flesh and the steel boots in which the sufferer ' s limbs were encased . Charles seems to have taken some care that the fugitives from the fire shouldn't starveat all

, events . He ordered a supply of seamen ' s biscuits to be sent to them in the suburban fields from the stores at Chatham , but the poor famishing creatures rejected them , according to Mr . Pepys , which , from what we gather of the composition of these comestibles in a later generation , from the works of Smollett and Fielding , was perhaps not much to be wondered at . One Mr . Valentine Knight was laid by the heels " for having presumed to publish

in print certain Propositions for the rebuilding of the City of London with considerable advantages to His Majesties revenue by it" ( what these advantages were to be nowhere appears ) , " as if His Majesty would draw a benefit to himself from so Publick a Calamity of his people , of which His Majesty is known to have so deep a sence " ( sic ) " as that he is pleased to seek , rather by all means to give them ease under it . " * This affected indignation is

indescribably comic . Fancy Old Rowley , in his chronic state of impeouniosity , rejecting " considerable advantages to His Majesties revenue ! " All know how the "Bes / ar / am" prophesy was aided in its splendid fulfilment by the transcendent abilities of our Grand Master , Sir Christopher Wren ; but I have often thought that the magnificently eloquent exhortation , inscribed in letters of gold , appropriate to its simple , yet grandly impressive , dignity ,

over the inner door of the northern porch of the great architect ' s masterpiece , "Lector , Si Monamentiim reqwiris , Gircumspice ! " is too generally limited in its application to the superb pile containing the designer ' s tomb . As I read it I feel enjoined to look around , piercing with the eye of imagination and memory the splendid walls encompassing me about , and beholding the true monument of the mighty Craftsman in the forest of spires and towers with which his genius , during a score of years , enriched and adorned his beloved Augusta , whom , Phconix-like , he lived , to behold arise in new beauty from the ashes of dread 1666 .

Two or three scraps relating to the fire remain to be gathered up , one not without a trace of the humorous . The poor feeble Lord Mayor , Sir Thomas Bludwoi-th , who hesitated to blow up houses in order to arrest the progress of the flames , was borne in countenance by those barristers of the Inner Temple who remained in town—very few , of course , for it was about the middle of the long vacation—who declined to invade the rooms of their absent learned brethrenand endeavour to save a lawyer ' s tools—his books—because an

, unauthorised entrance into a man ' s tenement was a trespass , and exposed the intruder to an action ijiwre clauswm fregit ! Resolute James of York was undeterred by any such scruples when he exploded his powder barrels in the cellars of the houses that stood between the advancing flames and the palace of the Queen Dowager , at Somerset House , in the Strand . It is probably not so generall y known or remembered as it ought to be

that Wren ' s broad design for rebuilding the city was of an enlightened and even grand character . An idea of its general outlines may be obtained by remembering that New Cannon , Victoria , Moorgate , and King William streets , the Thames Enbankment , and the Holborn Viaduct—great public improvements effected in our own time—were all essentially parts of Sir Christopher ' s scheme , propounded two hundred years before , and declined to be adopted by

the bigoted citizens with a non possmnus , based upon an ignorant resolution—Stare super vias antiquas . But one innovation—in the shape of the introduction of a new form of commercial enterprise—did find favour with the inhabitants