'7th. Up by five o'clock; and, blessed be God! find all well; and by water to Paul's Wharf. Walked thence, and saw all the towne burned, and a miserable sight of Paul's Church, with all the roofs fallen, and the body of the quire fallen into St. Fayth's; Paul's school also, Ludgate, and Fleet-street. My father's house, and the church, and a good part of the Temple the like.'-For further particulars of this dreadful calamity, see Pepys's Memoirs, vol. i, pp. 454, et seq.

Heaven be praised (says Mr. Malcolm1), 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 saw his house vie with, nay, superior to, the old

1 Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London in the eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 378.

palaces of his governors. When he paced his streets, he felt the genial western breeze pass him, rich with the perfumes of the country, instead of the stench described by Erasmus; and looking upward, he beheld the beautiful blue of the air, variegated with fleecy clouds, in place of projecting black beams and plaster, obscured by vapour and smoke.

The streets of London must have been dangerously dark during the winter nights before it was burnt: lanterns with candles were very sparingly scattered, nor was light much better distributed even in the new streets previously to the eighteenth century. Globular lamps were introduced by Michael Cole, who obtained a patent in July 1708.

We conclude the illustrations of this day with a singular opinion of the author just quoted. Speaking of the burning of London, he says, "This subject may be allowed to be familiar to me, and I have perhaps had more than common means of judging; and I now declare it to be my full and decided opinion, that London was burnt by government, to annihilate the plague, which was grafted in every crevice of the hateful old houses composing it."

*6. 1701.-JAMES II DIED AT ST. GERMAINS.

In a letter discovered by Dr. Richard Farmer, within the lining of an old book, and now among the Cole MSS. in the British Museum, there is an account of the last illness and death of James II. See also Mr. Ellis's very interesting Royal Letters, vol. iii, p. 353, second edition.

7.-SAINT EUNERCHUS.

Eunerchus was Bishop of Orleans in the year 375. The circumstances of his election were regarded as miraculous.

8.-NATIVITY OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

A concert of angels having been heard in the air to solemnize this important event, the festival was appointed by Pope Servius about the year 695. In

'Manners and Customs of London, vol. ii, p. 16, note.

nocent IV honoured this feast with an octave in 1244, and Gregory XI, about the year 1370, with a vigil.

The following anecdote of the tricks of the Catholic priests is related by Mr. Aubrey. The image of the Blessed Virgin nodded to St. Bernard, and said (that is, the boy with a tube behind the statue) 'Good morrow, Father Bernard,' to which he replied, 'I thank your ladyship, but St. Paul saith, it is not lawful for women to speak in the church.' At Leominster, in Herefordshire, (continues our antiquary) was a great nunnery, where the head of the image of our Lady did, on extraordinary occasions, nodde: upon the dissolution [of monasteries] they found the joints in the neck adapted for it.-Aubrey MS., A.D. 1686. *8. 1720.-SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

In this age of speculation, schemes and companies, for exhausting the purses and pockets of those who are so tangible on the score of cupidity, as to willingly listen to the wild and visionary projects of the wary and the infatuated, it may be as well to offer the South Sea Bubble, which burst on the above day, as a terrible example of peculation to the unreflecting and gullible part of mankind. In the above year, the king having recommended the consideration of proper means for reducing the national debt, one Blount, a cunning and plausible scrivener, established the South Sea Company, for the purpose of buying up the debts of the various companies, and establishing a trade to the South Seas. This company offered theirs in exchange for government stocks; and so great was the rage for obtaining them, that the company's rooms were crowded with persons all desirous of purchasing or exchanging. This infatuation prevailed for months, till at length the bubble burst, and thousands were entirely ruined by this chimerical adventure. The following anecdotes respecting the South Sea scheme may be new to many of our readers.

The inundation of imaginary wealth was such at this period,

that luxuries of every kind poured in upon the nation like a mountain flood, in eating, drinking, gaming, apparel, &c. The clerks in the South Sea House appeared every day in fine laced clothes; and when asked the reason of such finery, they used to reply that, if they did not put gold upon their clothes, they could not consume half their earnings. On busy days it was the greatest favour to get a transfer done; and frequently in giving in the sum to be bought or sold, a £20 Bank note was given at the same time, lest the difference of a day might make £100 per cent. Change Alley was more like a fair crowded with people, than a mart for exchange, as were also all the avenues leading to it. There was a little hump-backed man, who, observing this mania, made his fortune by lending his back as a substitute for a desk, to make transfers on, by those who could not afford time to run to the coffee-houses.

All questions of public news were absorbed in asking the price of South Sea stock. It was the first question asked when two people met at either end of the town; nor was it confined to the metropolis, but flew all over England.

The following particulars of the good and ill success of some proprietors of this stock were communicated by a Mr. Cotton, who was a banker's clerk at that time, and lived till the year 1777. A married man of the age of sixty, after portioning off his sons and daughters, secured, as he thought, for himself and wife £1000 per annum South Sea stock; and, with this prudent idea, went to Bath, bought a house there, and proposed settling for life in a contented way. On the first great fall of stock he began to be alarmed; it was at £1000 per cent. when he left London, and it fell to £900. He accordingly left Bath with an intent to sell out, but, before he arrived in London (then a journey of four days) it fell to £250. It was then, he thought, too low to sell: it still continued to fall, and he lost the whole.

Two maiden sisters, being originally proprietors, when the stock got up to £970, were advised to sell out. The elder sister agreed, the other was for continuing; at last the former prevailed,. and they sold out their stock, which amounted to above £90,000. They then consulted their brother how to invest the money; he advised them to buy Navy bills, which were then at £25 per cent. discount. They accordingly bought in, and in two years received full payment from government. Thus they had not only the good fortune to sell out within £30 per cent. of the highest price of stock, but also to gain £ 25 per cent. on their capital.

66

The Duke of Chandos's stock was at one time worth £300,000 He went to the old Duke of Newcastle, to consult what to do: he advised him to sell. No, he wanted half a million. Why then," said the Duke, "sell £100,000, and take your chance for the rest." No, he kept all, and lost all.

'Sir Gregory Page was then a minor. His stock was worth

£200,000. He had two guardians: the one was for selling, the other for keeping. The former was positive, and insisted for an umpire, who gave his opinion for selling. It was accordingly sold; and Sir Gregory, upon coming of age, with the legal interest of so large a fortune, afterwards built a fine house on Blackheath, and purchased a park of three hundred acres around it, in which house he lived, in great magnificence, for fifty years, and then left it, with an estate of £10,000 per annum, to his nephew, the late Sir Gregory Page Turner.

Gay, the poet, had £1,000 stock given him by the elder Craggs: this, with some other stock he purchased before, amounted, at one time, to £20,000. He consulted with his friends what to do. Dr. Arbuthnot advised him to sell out. No, that would be throwing away his good luck. "Well then," said the Doctor, "sell out as much as will produce £100 a year; and that will give you a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton for life." He neglected this and lost all; which had such an effect upon his spirits, that, notwithstanding his subsequent success in the Beggars' Opera, it produced a bilious disorder, which in the end killed him.

An old Quaker, when stock was at its height, employed one Lopez, a broker, to sell out, which he accordingly did; but, when the money came to be paid, stock fell, and the purchaser was off. "Sell then again, friend Lopez,” said the Quaker. He did so, and stock falling a second time, the purchaser walked off. "Sell then a third time, friend Lopez, for any thing, but be sure of thy man,” said the Quaker. This third time he succeeded, and the fall during the two days interval was about £50 per cent., so that, out of £100,000 stock, he secured half. Lopez, who lived many years after this transaction, was well known by the name of Sell then again, friend Lopez.

*11. 1660.-SAGACITY OF THE DOG.

The following curious instance is recorded in Mr. Pepys's Memoirs. To Dr. Williams, who did carry me into his garden, where he hath abundance of grapes: and he did show me how a dog that he hath do kill all the cats that come thither to kill his pigeons, and do afterwards bury them; and do it with so much care, that they shall be quite covered; that if the tip of the tail hangs out, he will take up the cat again, and dig the hole deeper. Which is very strange; and he tells me, that he do believe that he hath killed above one hundred cats.'

*13. 1515.—BATTLE OF MARIGNAN, Fought near Milan, in Italy, between the heroic

U