melancholy dream." This, however, was not the opinion of the judges
who tried him. "Neither the judges," says Clarendon, "nor any present at
the trial, did believe him guilty, but that he was a poor distracted
wretch, weary of his life, and chose to part with it this way."

A few notes about the Great Fire will here be interesting. Pepys gives a
graphic account of its horrors. In one place he writes--"Everybody
endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river, or
bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their
houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into
boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to
another. And, among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were
loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys
till they burned their wings and fell down. Having staid, and in an
hour's time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody, to my sight,
endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods and leave all to
the fire."

But by far the most vivid conception of the Fire is to be found in a
religious book written by the Rev. Samuel Vincent, who expresses the
feelings of the moment with a singular force. Says the writer: "It was
the 2nd of September, 1666, that the anger of the Lord was kindled
against London, and the fire began. It began in a baker's house in
Pudding Lane, by Fish Street Hill; and now the Lord is making London
like a fiery oven in the time of his anger (Psalm xxi. 9), and in his
wrath doth devour and swallow up our habitations. It was in the depth
and dead of the night, when most doors and senses were lockt up in the
City, that the fire doth break forth and appear abroad, and like a
mighty giant refresht with wine doth awake and arm itself, quickly
gathers strength, when it had made havoc of some houses, rusheth down
the hill towards the bridge, crosseth Thames Street, invadeth Magnus
Church at the bridge foot, and, though that church were so great, yet it
was not a sufficient barricade against this conqueror; but having scaled
and taken this fort, it shooteth flames with so much the greater
advantage into all places round about, and a great building of houses
upon the bridge is quickly thrown to the ground. Then the conqueror,
being stayed in his course at the bridge, marcheth back towards the City
again, and runs along with great noise and violence through Thames
Street westward, where, ha