intersected by innumerable narrow streets. The spires and towers of the
churches shot up into the clear morning air--for, except in a few
quarters, no smoke yet issued from the chimneys. On this side, the view
of the city was terminated by the fortifications and keep of the Tower.
Little did the apprentice think, when he looked at the magnificent scene
before him, and marvelled at the countless buildings he beheld, that,
ere fifteen months had elapsed, the whole mass, together with the mighty
fabric on which he stood, would be swept away by a tremendous
conflagration. Unable to foresee this direful event, and lamenting only
that so fair a city should be a prey to an exterminating pestilence, he
turned towards the north, and suffered his gaze to wander over
Finsbury-fields, and the hilly ground beyond them--over Smithfield and
Clerkenwell, and the beautiful open country adjoining Gray's-inn-lane.

So smiling and beautiful did these districts appear, that ha could
scarcely fancy they were the chief haunts of the horrible distemper. But
he could not blind himself to the fact that in Finsbury-fields, as well
as in the open country to the north of Holborn, plague-pits had been
digged and pest-houses erected; and this consideration threw such a
gloom over the prospect, that, in order to dispel the effect, he changed
the scene by looking towards the west. Here his view embraced all the
proudest mansions of the capital, and tracing the Strand to Charing
Cross, long since robbed of the beautiful structure from which it
derived its name, and noticing its numerous noble habitations, his eye
finally rested upon Whitehall: and he heaved a sigh as he thought that
the palace of the sovereign was infected by as foul a moral taint as the
hideous disease that ravaged the dwellings of his subjects.

At the time that Leonard Holt gazed upon the capital, its picturesque
beauties were nearly at their close. In a little more than a year and a
quarter afterwards, the greater part of the old city was consumed by
fire; and though it was rebuilt, and in many respects improved, its
original and picturesque character was entirely destroyed.

It seems scarcely possible to conceive a finer view than can be gained
from the dome of the modern cathedral at sunrise on a May morning, when
the prospect is not dimmed by the smoke of a hundred thousand
chimneys--when the river is just beginning to stir with its numerous
craft, or when they are sleeping on