raffic. The craftsmen who had no work to do, were
employed when this was done on the building operations. The quays were
cleared, and the warehouses put up again, for the business of the Port
continued. Ships came, discharged their cargoes, and waited for their
freight outward bound. Then the houses arose and the shops began to open
again. And the Companies stood by their members: they gave them credit:
advanced loans: started them afresh in the world. Had it not been for
the Companies, the fate of London after the fire would have been as the
fate of Antwerp after the Religious Wars. But there must have been many
who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity. Hundreds of
merchants, and retailers, having lost their all must have been unable to
face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start. The men advanced
in life; the men of anxious and timid mind; the incompetent and feeble:
were crushed. They became bankrupt: they went under: in the great crowd
no one heeded them: their sons and daughters took a lower place: perhaps
they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink; out of
which it is difficult to rise. The craftsmen were injured least: their
Companies replaced their tools for them: work was presently resumed
again: their houses were rebuilt and, as for their furniture, there was
not much of it before the fire and there was not much of it after the
fire.

The poet Dryden thus writes of the people during and after the fire:

Those who have homes, when home they do repair,
To a last lodging call their wandering friends:
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care
To look how near their own destruction tends.

Those who have none sit round where once it was
And with full eyes each wonted room require:
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.

The most in fields like herded beasts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor:
And while the babes in sleep their sorrow drown,
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store.

[Illustration: ORDINARY DRESS OF GENTLEMEN IN 1675.

(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'_)]

54. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS.

The aspect of the City varies from age to age: the streets and the
houses, the costumes, the language, the manners, all change. In one
respect however, there is no change: we have always with us the same
rogues and the same roguery. We