am the Conqueror, who granted the
city the charter which is still extant. Henry I. gave it a new charter,
which is said to have been the model for _Magna Charta_. In the twelfth
century London attained the dignity of having a lord mayor. It sided
with the House of York in the Wars of the Roses, and in Elizabeth's
reign had about one hundred and fifty thousand population, being then
about two miles south of Westminster, with fields between, and having
the Tower standing apart from the city farther down the Thames. The
plague devastated it in 1665, carrying off sixty thousand persons, and
next year the Great Fire occurred, which destroyed five-sixths of the
city within the walls, and burned during four days. This fire began at
Pudding Lane, Monument Yard, and ended at Pie Corner, Giltspur Street.
To commemorate the calamity the Monument was erected on Fish Street
Hill, on the site of St. Margaret's Church, which was destroyed. It is a
fluted Doric column of Portland stone, erected by Wren at a cost of
$70,000, and is two hundred and two feet high. The inscriptions on the
pedestal record the destruction and restoration of the city; and down to
the year 1831 there was also an inscription untruthfully attributing the
fire to "the treachery and malice of the popish faction;" this has been
effaced, and to it Pope's couplet alluded:

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies."

A vase of flames forty two feet high, made of gilt bronze, crowns the
apex, up to which leads a winding staircase of three hundred and
forty-five steps. The structure has often been compared to a lighted
candle, and the balcony at the top, having been selected as a favorite
place for suicides to jump from, is now encaged with iron-work to
prevent this.

London was rebuilt in four years after the Great Fire, and the first
stone of the new St. Paul's was laid in 1675, when the city had, with
the outlying parishes, a half million population. Its growth was slow
until after the American Revolution, and it began the present century
with about eight hundred thousand people. The past seventy years have
witnessed giant strides, and it has made astonishing progress in the
elegance of its parks and new streets and the growth of adornments and
improvements of all kinds. London has become, in fact, a world within
itself.

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]

Among a multitude of fa