ines. The Lord Mayor and
City authorities, in conjunction with the College of Physicians,
obtained the consent of Dean Sancroft (the second from Nicolas) and
his chapter for the conversion of the cathedral into a lazar-house;
and a meeting was held in the Chapter House, at which the Primate
Sheldon was present. Sheldon employed himself, co-operating with the
Lord Mayor, in making provision for the victims. "Chapels and
shrines," says Ainsworth, "formerly adorned with rich sculptures and
costly ornaments, but stripped of them at times when they were looked
upon as idolatrous and profane, were now occupied by nurses,
chirurgeons and their attendants; while every niche and corner was
filled with surgical instruments, phials, drugs, poultices, foul rags
and linen."[35] After its chequered career, Old St. Paul's was
destined to be used last of all as a hospital.

=The Fire.=--The house and Navy office of Samuel Pepys were in
Seething Lane, Crutched Friars, near where Fenchurch Street Station
now is. About three in the morning of Sunday, September 2, 1666,
Samuel and his wife were called by their servant Jane, who told them
of a fire visible in the south-west towards London Bridge. After
looking out, not thinking it a great matter, the couple returned to
bed; but getting up at seven Pepys heard a far worse account, and
instead of attending morning service went to the Tower, and called on
his neighbour Sir John Robinson, the Lieutenant. Robinson told him
that the house of Faryner, baker to the king, in Pudding Lane had just
caught fire, that Fish Street was in flames, and the church of St.
Magnus destroyed. These were near the north end of London Bridge, as
the Monument and St. Magnus both remind us.

The origin of the Fire Pepys learnt later (February 24, 1667).
Faryner's people had occasion to light a candle at midnight; they went
as usual into their bakehouse to light it, but as the fire had gone
out, had to seek elsewhere. This striking a light in an unusual place
by Faryner, his son and daughter, is asserted to have been, somehow
and all unknown to them, the origin of the Fire. "Which is," says
Pepys, "a strange thing, that so horrid an effect should have so mean
and uncertain a beginning." About two in the morning, when the family
were upstairs and asleep again, the choking sensation of smoke woke
them up, just in time to escape and tell the tale.

[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S IN FLAMES.
_Originally engraved by Ho