n the morning we were waked with my
maids crying out, "Fire, fire, in Markelane!" So I rose and looked out,
and it was dreadful; and strange apprehensions in me, and us all, of
being presently burnt. So we all rose; and my care presently was to
secure my gold, and plate, and papers, and could quickly have done it,
but I went forth to see where it was; and the whole town was presently
in the streets; and I found it in a new-built house that stood alone
in Minchin-lane, over against the Cloth-workers'-hall, which burned
furiously: the house not yet quite finished; and the benefit of brick
was well seen, for it burnt all inward, and fell down within itself;
so no fear of doing more hurt. So homeward, and stopped at Mr. Mills's,
where he and she at the door, and Mrs. Turner, and Betty, and Mrs.
Hollworthy, and there I stayed and talked, and up to the church leads,
and saw the fire, which spent itself, till all fear over. I home, and
there we to bed again, and slept pretty well, and about nine rose, and
then my wife fell into her blubbering again, and at length had a request
to make to me, which was, that she might go into France, and live there,
out of trouble; and then all come out, that I loved pleasure and
denied her any, and a deal of do; and I find that there have been great
fallings out between my father and her, whom, for ever hereafter, I must
keep asunder, for they cannot possibly agree. And I said nothing, but,
with very mild words and few, suffered her humour to spend, till we
begun to be very quiet, and I think all will be over, and friends, and
so I to the office, where all the morning doing business. Yesterday I
heard how my Lord Ashly is like to die, having some imposthume in his
breast, that he hath been fain to be cut into the body.

["Such an operation was performed in this year, after a consultation
of medical men, and chiefly by Locke's advice, and the wound was
afterwards always kept open, a silver pipe being inserted. This
saved Lord Ashley's life, and gave him health"--Christie's Life of
the first Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. ii., p. 34. 'Tapski' was a name
given to Shaftesbury in derision, and vile defamers described the
abscess, which had originated in a carriage accident in Holland, as
the result of extreme dissipation. Lines by Duke, a friend and
imitator of Dryden:

"The working ferment of his active mind,
In his weak body