own faster than the clerks could count them. Before night six
hundred thousand pounds had been subscribed. The next day the throng was
as great. More than one capitalist put down his name for thirty thousand
pounds. To the astonishment of those ill boding politicians who were
constantly repeating that the war, the debt, the taxes, the grants to
Dutch courtiers, had ruined the kingdom, the sum, which it had been
doubted whether England would be able to raise in many weeks, was
subscribed by London in a few hours. The applications from the
provincial towns and rural districts came too late. The merchants of
Bristol had intended to take three hundred thousand pounds of the stock,
but had waited to learn how the subscription went on before they gave
their final orders; and, by the time that the mail had gone down to
Bristol and returned, there was no more stock to be had.

This was the moment at which the fortunes of Montague reached the
meridian. The decline was close at hand. His ability and his constant
success were everywhere talked of with admiration and envy. That man, it
was commonly said, has never wanted, and never will want, an expedient.

During the long and busy session which had just closed, some interesting
and important events had taken place which may properly be mentioned
here. One of those events was the destruction of the most celebrated
palace in which the sovereigns of England have ever dwelt. On the
evening of the 4th of January, a woman,--the patriotic journalists
and pamphleteers of that time did not fail to note that she was a
Dutchwoman,--who was employed as a laundress at Whitehall, lighted a
charcoal fire in her room and placed some linen round it. The linen
caught fire and burned furiously. The tapestry, the bedding, the
wainscots were soon in a blaze. The unhappy woman who had done the
mischief perished. Soon the flames burst out of the windows. All
Westminster, all the Strand, all the river were in commotion. Before
midnight the King's apartments, the Queen's apartments, the Wardrobe,
the Treasury, the office of the Privy Council, the office of the
Secretary of State, had been destroyed. The two chapels perished
together; that ancient chapel where Wolsey had heard mass in the midst
of gorgeous copes, golden candlesticks, and jewelled crosses, and that
modern edifice which had been erected for the devotions of James and
had been embellished by the pencil of Verrio and the chisel of Gibbons.
Me