The statues of monarchs which had adorned the
Exchange, were smashed; that of its founder, Sir Thomas Gresham,
alone remaining entire. The ruins of St. Paul's, with its walls
standing black and cheerless, presented in itself a most
melancholy spectacle. Its pillars were embedded in ashes, its
cornices irretrievably destroyed, its great bell reduced to a
shapeless mass of metal; whilst its general air of desolation was
heightened by the fact that a few monuments, which had escaped
destruction, rose abruptly from amidst the charred DEBRIS.
But if the ruins of the capital looked sad by day, their
appearance was more appalling when seen by light of the moon,
which rose nightly during the week following this great calamity.
From the city gates, standing gaunt, black, and now unguarded, to
the Temple, the level waste seemed sombre as a funeral pall;
whilst the Thames, stripped of wharves and warehouses, quaintly
gabled homes, and comfortable inns--wont to cast pleasant lights
and shadows on its surface--now swept past the blackened ruins a
melancholy river of white waters.
In St. George's Fields, Moorfields, and far as Highgate for
several miles, citizens of all degrees, to the number of two
hundred thousand, had gathered: sleeping in the open fields, or
under canvas tents, or in wooden sheds which they hurriedly
erected. Some there were amongst them who had been used to
comfort and luxury, but who were now without bed or board, or
aught to cover them save the clothes in which they had hastily
dressed when fleeing from the fire.
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