r I saw him. Mr. Pepys, begging God to
forgive him for having an appetite at such a crisis, and interrupting his
laughter at the supper they gave him, with tears of pity and terror, had
brought word to his Majesty that the whole city would be destroyed, if
some of the houses were not blown up. The King accordingly not only
dispatched myself and many others to assist, but went in person with his
brother, and did a world of good. I never saw him look so grim, or say so
many kind things. Wherever he went, he gave the people a new life, for
they seemed dead with fright. Those who had not fled, (which they did by
thousands into the fields where they slept all night,) seemed only to have
been prevented from doing so, by not knowing what steps to take. The Lord
Mayor, a very different one from his predecessor, who showed a great deal
of courage during the plague, went about like a mad cook with his
handkerchief, perspiring, and lamenting himself; and nobody would have
taken the citizens for the same men who settled my court friends at the
battle of Naseby. The court, however, for that matter, was as frightened
as the city, with the exception of the King and one or two others; so
terrible is a new face of danger, unless there is some peculiar reason for
meeting it. The sight indeed of the interior of the burning city, was more
perilous, though not so awful, as its appearance outside. Many streets
consisted of nothing but avenues between heaps of roaring ruins; the sound
of the fire being nothing less than that of hundreds of furnaces, mixed up
with splittings, rattlings, and thunderous falls; and the flame blowing
frightfully one way, with a wind like a tempest. The pavement was hot
under one's feet; and if you did not proceed with caution, the fire singed
your hair. All the water that could be got seemed like a ridiculous
dabbling in a basin, while the world was burning around you. The blowing
up of the houses marked out by the King, was the ultimate salvation of
some of the streets that remained; but as a whole, the city might be
looked upon as destroyed. I observed the King, as he sat on his horse at
the beginning of Cheapside, and cast his eyes up that noble thoroughfare;
and certainly I had never seen such an expression in his countenance
before.

"The fire raged four days and nights; and on the fifth of September,
London, from the Tower to Fleet-street, was as if a volcano had burst in
the midst of it, and destroyed it, th