Londiniana

clines on a globe, having her brow crowned with fruits, which also lie in profusion on the basement, mingled with corn and flowers; and Britannia holds the trident of Neptune in her right hand; her left rests on her shield. Each of these figures measures eight feet. Prudence, whose symbol is a snake twisted round a mirror, and Fortitude, who is characterised by the shaft of a column, and clothed in a lion's skin, are each seven feet high: the height of the Earl's statue is similar. The entire elevation of this monument, from the ground to the top of the pyramid, is nearly thirty-three feet.

FIRE OF LONDON.-CONDUITS DESTROYED.

THE following quaint account of the Spoiling of the City Conduits' is extracted from Rolle's Account of the Burning of London in the Year 1666; commemorated and improved in One Hundred and Ten Discourses, Meditations, and Contemplations."-Meditation XL.

"As nature, by veins and arteries, some great and some small, placed up and down all parts of the body, ministreth blood and nourishment to every part thereof; so was that wholesome water, which was as necessary for the good of London, as blood is for the good and health of the body, conveyed by pipes, wooden or metalline, as by veins, to every part of that famous city. If water were, as we may call it, the blood of London, then were its several Conduits, as it were, the liver and spleen of that city; (which are reckoned as the fountains of blood in human bodies,) for that the great trunks of veins conveying blood

about the body, are seated therein as great roots fixed in the earth, shooting out their branches divers and sundry ways: but alas! how were their livers inflamed, and how unfit have they since been to do their wonted office. They were lovely streams indeed, which did refresh that noble city, one of which was always at work, pouring out itself when the rest lay still. Methinks these several conduits of London stood like so many little, but strong forts, to confront and give check to the great enemy fire, as any occasion should be. There methinks the water was as it were, intrenched and ingarrisoned. The several pipes and vehicles of water that were within these conduits, all of them charged with water, till by the turning of the cock, they were discharged again, were as so many soldiers within these forts, with their musquetry charged, ready to keep and defend these places. And look how enemies are wont to deal with these castles, which they take to be impregnable, and despair of ever getting by them; that is, to attempt the storming of them by a close siege,-so went the fire to work with these little castles of stone, which were not easy for it to burn down, (witness their standing to this day;) spoiled them, or almost spoiled them, it hath for the present, by cutting off those supplies of water which had vent to flow to them, melting those leaden channels in which it had been conveyed, and thereby as it were, starving those garrisons which it could not take by storm. As if the fire had been angry with the poor old tankard-bearers, both men and women, for propagating that element which was contrary to it, and carrying it upon their shoulders as it were in state and triumph; it hath even destroyed their trade, and threatens to make them perish by fire who had wont to live by water."

PARISH CHURCHES ERECTED

LONDON BY SIR

CHRISTOPHER WREN, AFTER THE GREAT FIRE.

AFTER the dreadful Conflagration of London, in September, 1666, Sir Christopher Wren was appointed Assistant Surveyor-general to Sir John Denham (whom he succeeded in March, 1668) and principal architect for rebuilding the city. His noble plan for the improvement of the capital has been mentioned in the account of the Great Fire in the preceding volume; but the disputes about the ground, being private property, and the tenacity with which the citizens adhered to the sites of their old houses, unfortunately prevented the accomplishment of a design which must have rendered London the most beautiful metropolis on the globe. All the talents of that extraordinary genius were brought into action by the complicated and vast extent of the business which he had now to direct and superintend; and so great was his application during the subsequent years of his life, that to employ the words of the "Parentalia," "the number and variety of his works form such a body of civil architecture, as will rather appear to be the production of a whole century, than of the life and industry of one man, of which no parallel instance can be given."

The following is a complete List of the Parish Churches which were built in London after the fire, by this great architect; together with the periods of their erection, and the total amount of the artificers' bills for each fabric: the latter information, except in

one or two instances, was extracted from the original ledgers, which once belonged to Sir Christopher, but are now preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The dates are annexed from other sources; but principally from the "Parentalia;" they mark the time of the completion of the churches.