llar for the title of Dean (afterwards
Archbishop) Sancroft's sermon on the Great Fire._]

There was a drought, and the flames spread on their mission of
devastation, assisted by a breeze. St. Paul's and most of the hundred
City churches were not likely to be used for worship that morning. "To
see the churches all filling with goods by people who themselves
should have been quietly there at the time." But service was held as
usual at the Abbey; and just about sermon time, a newly elected king's
scholar, Taswell, noticing a stir and commotion--he was standing by
the pulpit steps--ascertained the cause. The news had spread that the
City was in flames. Like most boys the prospect of something exciting
coincided with his desire to escape a long sermon, so he hastened
outside in time to see four boats on the river, the occupants of which
had escaped in blankets. Let us hope that as he was not fully
admitted, he escaped Busby's birch. All through the Sunday St. Paul's
was safe--the distance from Pudding Lane was a little over half a
mile--and even the east end of Lombard Street was intact. The
parishioners of St. Gregory and St. Faith, lulled into a false sense
of security, remained confident that even though the conflagration
spread westward, and the surrounding houses caught fire, the flames
would not leap across the vacant space of churchyard; and the
booksellers accordingly began to store their goods in St. Faith's as
though the crypt were a fireproof safe.[36] So it might possibly have
been, and in spite of sparks, had the distracted Lord Mayor been firm
enough to prevent the storing of books in the churchyard, and had the
cathedral roof been in good repair. The flames gradually encircled the
churchyard; the goods there took fire, and the flames caught the end
of a board placed on the roof to keep out the wet. The Nemesis of
neglect!

Our young friend Taswell first saw the flame at eight o'clock on the
Tuesday evening at Westminster. It broke out at the top of St. Paul's
Church, almost scorched up by the violent heat of the air and
lightning too, and before nine blazed so conspicuous "as to enable me
to read very clearly a 16mo. edition of Terence, which I carried in my
pocket."

Pepys corroborates as to the day "Paul's is burned and all Cheapside,"
writing of Tuesday, September 4th; and under the same date, Evelyn
adds: "The stones of St. Paul's flew like grenades, the melting lead
running down the streets in a s