the destruction of the metropolis of their country; and secondly, that no attempt of any kind appears to have been made by any party, when-on the hypothesis of their guilt-success had rewarded their atrocious efforts, and they had only to reap the harvest they desired. As to Hubert, although, according to Clarendon, neither the judge nor any person present at his trial believed his story, but all saw that he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and anxious to part with it, yet the jury found him guilty, and the King and the judges, notwithstanding their conviction of his insanity, allowed him to be executed! "It was soon after complained of," says Bishop Kennet, in his History of England,' "that Hubert was not sufficiently examined who set him to work, or who joined with him." And Mr. Hawles, in his remarks upon Fitz-Harris's trial, is bold to say that, "the Commons resolving to examine Hubert upon that matter next day, Hubert was hanged before the house sate, and so could tell no further tales." We must add one still more important piece of evidence. Maitland * says that "Lawrence Peterson, the master of the ship that brought Hubert over, upon his examination some time after, declared that the said Hubert did not land till two days after the fire." The truth appears to be that Hubert was insane; and yet the poor creature was executed! This is dreadful work to have taken place in England only one hundred and seventy-five years ago. Nor does it seem to have been done as a sacrifice to the popular frenzy. It is stated in the Pictorial England,' and we find no evidence to the contrary, that "to the lasting honour of the London populace, desperate and bewildered as they were, and mad with excitement, they shed no blood, leaving such iniquities to be perpetrated by the fabricators of Popish plots, the Parliament, and the judges." It is gratifying to be able to add, from the same authority, that during this unhappy period "acts of Christian charity were performed on all sides, old animosities were mutually forgotten, nothing was remembered but the present desolation, all kinds of people expressing a marvellous charity towards those who appeared to be undone.".

In addition to the distress and alarm felt by all during the fire, and the loss and physical privations it entailed for some time on the greater part of the population, it left an immense amount of difficulty and trouble behind in connexion with the arrangements necessary for the rebuilding. The King and the Government had now a painful duty to perform. On the one hand, they saw the necessity of preventing a new London from arising on the ruins of the old, liable to all the same dangers and inconveniences; and, in an affair of such magnitude, some little time for consideration was indispensable:-on the other, they beheld two hundred thousand persons bivouacking without the ruins of their late homes, all clamorous for the re-erection of their dwellings, shops, and warehouses, and who, in their extremity, were unwilling to listen to any schemes of amelioration which should cause a single day's delay. There was also the very delicate task to perform of carefully restoring to each person his own land or situation, for the general destruction had erased so many of the ordinary marks that official supervision and control were indispensable. This part of the business was intrusted to a court of judicature, consisting of the principal judges, who fortunately gave such general satisfaction that the City caused all their portraits to be painted. As to the rebuilding, the man was at hand who could have enabled the King without delay to devise Book viii. p. 899.

* Page 437.

whatever measures were required for the safety and splendour of the new metropolis. When Evelyn, who formed a plan for the rebuilding, took it to Charles a few days after the fire, he found Sir Christopher Wren had been before him; and we cannot but observe that there was something more than ordinarily remarkable in the fact that an architect of Wren's genius should have appeared at the precise moment that he was so much wanted, and when such a

N. Market.

Churches.
Continuation of London
Wall.

Prior to the

stupendous work offered for the development of his powers. time of the Fire he was employed upon the restoration of St. Paul's, (which he had of course afterwards entirely to rebuild,) and in the erection of some other public edifices; but as yet he had completed nothing; and this is pretty well all we know, except by inference, of his architectural reputation in 1666. From the account published by his son in the Parentalia, it appears that he was now "appointed surveyor-general and principal architect for rebuilding the whole City; the cathedral church of St. Paul, all the parochial churches (in number fifty-one, enacted by Parliament, in lieu of those that were burnt and demolished), with other public structures; and for the disposition of the streets. . . . He took to assist him Mr. Robert Hook, professor of geometry in Gresham College, to whom he assigned the business of measuring, adjusting, and setting out the ground of the private street houses to the several proprietors, reserving all the public works to his own peculiar care and direction. In order therefore to a proper reformation, Wren (pursuant to the royal command), immediately after the fire, took an exact survey of the whole area and confines of the burning, having traced over with great trouble and hazard the great plain of ashes and ruins; and designed a plan or model of a new city, in which the deformity and inconveniences of the old town were remedied, by the

enlarging the streets and lanes, and carrying them as near parallel to one another as might be; avoiding, if compatible with greater conveniences, all acute angles; by seating all the parochial churches conspicuous and insular; by forming the most public places into large piazzas, the centre of (six or) eight ways; by uniting the halls of the twelve chief companies into one regular square annexed to Guildhall; by making a quay on the whole bank of the river, from Blackfriars to the Tower. . . . The streets to be of three magnitudes; the three principal leading straight through the City, and one or two cross streets, to be at least ninety feet wide; others sixty feet; and lanes about thirty feet, excluding all narrow dark alleys without thoroughfares and courts." Evelyn's plan, we may here observe, also included several piazzas of various forms, one of which would have formed an oval, with St. Paul's in the centre. It differed from Wren's chiefly in proposing a street from the church of St. Dunstan's in the East to the cathedral, and in having no quay or terrace along the river.

"The practicability of this scheme," continues the author of the 'Parentalia,' "without loss to any man or infringement of any property, was at that time demonstrated, and all material objections fully weighed and answered. The only, and as it happened insurmountable, difficulty remaining, was the obstinate averseness of great part of the citizens to alter their old properties, and to recede from building their houses again on the old ground and foundations; as also the distrust in many, and unwillingness to give up their properties, though for a time only, into the hands of public trustees or commissioners, till they might be dispensed to them again, with more advantage to themselves than otherwise was possible to be effected." Thus "the opportunity in a great degree was lost of making the new city the most magnificent, as well as commodious for health and trade, of any upon earth."* The best, however, was done under the circumstances that could be done; and the result was that, when London was rebuilt, which was accomplished in an almost incredibly short space of time (ten thousand houses being erected in the first four years), it was found little more convenient than before, but a good deal more magnificent as far as the public buildings were concerned, and, being built of brick and stone, altogether infinitely more safe. It appears also to have become in the transformation more healthy; the plague, which the year before had carried off one hundred thousand persons, disappeared from that time.

Instead of the present Monument, which was commenced in 1671 and completed in 1677, one after the design here shown was proposed by Sir Christopher, and it is unfortunate that the authorities could not be convinced of its superior fitness for the object desired. It was of somewhat less proportion than the existing Monument, namely, "fourteen feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device; for, as the Romans expressed in relievo on the pedestals and round the shafts of their columns the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated, so this monument of the conflagration and restoration of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames; the flames blazing from the loop-holes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within) were figured in brass-work gilt; and on the top was a phoenix rising from her ashes, in brass gilt likewise." Not only was this most happy, because most appropriate, design rejected, but in that which followed an alteration was made, * Wren's Parentalia, p. 269.

decidedly injurious to its effect, and in opposition to the architect's wishes. He had proposed to place a colossal statue in brass gilt of the King, as founder of

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the new city, on the top of the pillar, or else a figure erect of a woman crowned with turrets, holding a sword and cap of maintenance, with other ensigns of the City's grandeur and re-erection. The flames, however, we suppose, pleased the learned persons who sat in judgment, though the design of which they formed so characteristic a feature did not; so, like other architectural judges nearer our own day, they cut off the feature from where it was appropriate, and placed it where it was not—hence the gilt bunch, representative of flames, of the present structure. On the completion of the Monument, the genius of Cibber, the well-known sculptor of the figures of the two lunatics on the gates of old Bethlehem Hospital, was put in requisition to decorate the front part of the pedestal with an emblematical representation of the destruction and restoration of the City. It is not, however, one of the happiest of his efforts. The work is in alto and bas-relief, and contains numerous figures, symbols, and decorations. We have already transcribed a portion of the inscription on the north side of the Monument; that on the south commemorates what was done for the improvement of London in its rebuilding; another, on the east, the names of the Mayors of London who held office during its erection; and beneath this was originally a fourth, ascribing the fire to the "treachery and malice of the Popish faction;" which was cut away in the reign of James, then restored in deep characters during that of William III., and again erased a few years ago by a vote of the Corporation. Our readers are of course aware that it is to this Pope refers in his famous line where he says the Monument,

[Wren's First Design.]

"Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies."

In conclusion, it may be observed that Wren's plan would undoubtedly have secured to us both of the two great objects which should be sought in all our Metropolitan improvements, namely-complete and universally uninterrupted communication between all parts, and the increase of architectural beauty. But is it not too often forgotten, whilst the failure of that plan is being regretted, that it may yet be carried into effect in all its essential features? We do not mean to say that London can ever be brought to correspond with the design shown in our pages, nor is it necessary. Two or three great lines of communication from one end of London to the other; streets broad in proportion to their use, and the narrowest not too narrow for health or convenience; a quay along the bank of the river; ⚫ and insulation of public structures, that is to say those worthy of such distinction;

are, we consider, the chief features of the great architect's proposals. What is to prevent us from realising all these now? Considerable progress has been made, or is making, already, with regard to the first two points; we hope yet to inhale the fresh breezes by the side of the pleasantest, because most "silent," of "highways;" and with regard to the better display of our public edifices, we are willing to look upon the improvements made around the Monument since the following drawing was taken as the commencement of a good work, of which the opening of the area around the same architect's greatest work, St. Paul's, shall be the next and more important fruit.