at
did hatch the Powder-Plot are, and have been, vehemently suspected to
have been the incendiaries, by whose means London was burned, I
earnestly desire that if time and further discovery be able to acquit
them from any such guilt, that pillar may record their innocency, and
may make themselves as _an iron pillar or brazen wall_ (as I may allude
to Jer. i. 18) against all the accusations of those that suspect them;
but if, in deed and in truth, that fire either came or was carried on
and continued by their treachery, that the inscription of the pillar may
consigne over their names to perpetual hatred and infamy."

"Then was God to his people as a shadow from the heat of the rage of
their enemies, as a wall of fire for their protection; but this pillar
calls that time to remembrance, in which God covered himself, as with a
cloud, that the prayers of Londoners should not passe unto him, and came
forth, not as a conserving, but as a consuming fire, not for, but
against, poor London."

Roger North, in his Life of Sir Dudley, mentions the Monument when still
in its first bloom. "He (Sir Dudley North)," he says, "took pleasure in
surveying the Monument, and comparing it with mosque-towers, and what of
that kind he had seen abroad. We mounted up to the top, and one after
another crept up the hollow iron frame that carries the copper head and
flames above. We went out at a rising plate of iron that hinged, and
there found convenient irons to hold by. We made use of them, and raised
our bodies entirely above the flames, having only our legs to the knees
within; and there we stood till we were satisfied with the prospect from
thence. I cannot describe how hard it was to persuade ourselves we stood
safe, so likely did our weight seem to throw down the whole fabric."

Addison takes care to show his Tory fox-hunter the famed Monument. "We
repaired," says the amiable essayist, "to the Monument, where my
fellow-traveller (the Tory fox-hunter), being a well-breathed man,
mounted the ascent with much speed and activity. I was forced to halt so
often in this particular march, that, upon my joining him on the top of
the pillar, I found he had counted all the steeples and towers which
were discernible from this advantageous situation, and was endeavouring
to compute the number of acres they stood on. We were both of us very
well pleased with this part of the prospect; but I found he cast an evil
eye upon several warehouses and other bui