left unburnt within. Scarcely a single building that came
within the range of the flames was left standing. Public buildings,
churches, and dwelling-houses, were alike involved in one common fate.

In the summary account of this vast devastation, given in one of the
inscriptions on the Monument, and which was drawn up from the reports of
the surveyors appointed after the fire, it is stated, that "The ruins of
the city were 436 acres, [viz. 333 acres within the walls, and 63 in the
liberties of the city;] that, of the six-and-twenty wards, it utterly
destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt;
and that it consumed 400 streets, 13,200 dwelling-houses, 89 churches
[besides chapels; 4 of] the city gates, Guildhall, many public
structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, and a vast number of stately
edifices." The immense property destroyed in this dreadful time cannot
be estimated at less than _ten millions_ sterling. Amid all the
confusion and multiplied dangers that arose from the fire, it does not
appear that more than _six_ persons lost their lives. Calamitous as were
the immediate consequences of this dreadful fire, its _remote effects_
have proved an incalculable blessing to subsequent generations. To
this conflagration may be attributed the complete destruction of the
_plague_, which, the year before only, swept off 68,590 persons!! To
this tremendous fire we owe most of our grand public structures--the
regularity and beauty of our streets--and, finally, the great salubrity
and extreme cleanliness of a large part of the city of London.

In relation to this awful calamity we add the following remarks:--Heaven
be praised (says Mr. Malcolm[6]) old London _was burnt_. Good reader,
turn to the ancient prints, in order to see what it has been; observe
those hovels convulsed; imagine the chambers within them, and wonder why
the plague, the leprosy, and the sweating-sickness raged. Turn then to
the prints illustrative of our present dwellings, and be happy. The
misery of 1665 must have operated on the minds of the legislature and
the citizens, when they rebuilt and inhabited their houses. The former
enacted many salutary clauses for the preservation of health, and would
have done more, had not the public rejected that which was for their
benefit; those who preferred high habitations and narrow dark streets
had them. It is only to be lamented that we are compelled to suffer for
their folly. These errors