fs of houses; towers
like toothpicks, like three-pronged forks, like pepper-casters, like
factory chimneys, like limekilns, like a sailor's trousers hung up to
dry, like bottles of fish-sauce, and like St. Paul's--a balloon turned
topsy-turvy. There they stand, like giant spectral watchmen guarding the
silent city, whose beating heart still murmurs in its sleep. At the hour
of midnight they proclaim, with iron tongue, the advent of a New Year,
mingling a song of joy with a wail for the departed....

[Illustration: WREN'S ORIGINAL DESIGN FOR THE SUMMIT OF THE MONUMENT
(_see page 565_).]

"The dark grey churches and houses spring into existence one by one. The
streets come up out of the land, and the bridges come up out of the
water. The bustle of commerce, and the roar of the great human
ocean--which has never been altogether silent--revive. The distant
turrets of the Tower, and the long line of shipping on the river, become
visible. Clear smoke still flows over the housetops, softening their
outlines, and turning them into a forest of frosted trees.

"Above all this is a long black mountain-ridge of cloud, tipped with
glittering gold; beyond float deep orange and light yellow ridges,
bathed in a faint purple sea. Through the black ridge struggles a full,
rich, purple sun, the lower half of his disc tinted with grey.
Gradually, like blood-red wine running into a round bottle, the purple
overcomes the grey; and at the same time the black cloud divides the
face of the sun into two sections, like the visor of a harlequin."

[Illustration: THE MONUMENT AND THE CHURCH OF ST. MAGNUS, ABOUT 1800.
(_From an Old View._)]

In 1732 a sailor is recorded to have slid down a rope from the gallery
to the "Three Tuns" tavern, Gracechurch Street; as did also, next day, a
waterman's boy. In the _Times_ newspaper of August 22, 1827, there
appeared the following hoaxing advertisement: "Incredible as it may
appear, a person will attend at the Monument, and will, for the sum of
L2,500, undertake to jump clear off the said Monument; and in coming
down will drink some beer and eat a cake, act some trades, shorten and
make sail, and bring ship safe to anchor. As soon as the sum stated is
collected, the performance will take place; and if not performed, the
money subscribed to be returned to the subscribers."

The Great Fire of 1666 broke out at the shop of one Farryner, the king's
baker, 25, Pudding Lane. The following inscription was plac