e very ruins being calcined, and
nothing remaining in the most populous part, to show the inhabitants where
they had lived, except a church here and there, or an old statue. I looked
into it, three days afterwards, when the air was still so hot, that it was
impossible to breathe; and the pavement absolutely scorched the soles of
my shoes.

"The loss of property by the fire was of course far greater than that by
the plague, and yet assuredly it was not felt a thousandth part so much,
even in the city; for money, even with the lovers of it, is not so great a
thing, after all, as their old habits and affections. The wits at court
never chose to say much about the plague; but the fire, after the fright
was over, was a standing joke. And the beneficial consequences to the city
itself soon became manifest, in the widening and better building of the
streets, an improvement which came in aid of the cleanliness that was
resorted to against the plague; so that instead of a judgment against the
King and his government, Rochester said, in his profane way, that heaven
never showed a judgment of a better sort."

We need scarcely add our commendation of these delightful volumes. Each
page teems with life, and everywhere to use an expression of the writer,
his "soul rises with springy freshness." The portraits, and to use a
familiar term of artists, the bits of painting, have the touches of a
master-hand, and they are interwoven with genius which enlivens art and
embellishes nature.

[1] At or near Mickleham, by the way, the writer might have commanded a
distant view of the burning City. On a fine, clear day we have often
discerned the dome of St. Paul's from one of the hills rising from
Mickleham to Norbury Park.

[2] Evelyn, speaking of this night, says, that it was "light as day for
about ten miles round about, after a dreadful manner."--_Memoirs_, vol.
i. p. 391. second edit 4to. Sir Ralph does not seem to make the light
so strong, though he does not absolutely say it was otherwise. Perhaps
Evelyn speaks of a later hour. The flames appear to have become
visible afterwards to the distance of forty miles.--_Edit._

* * * * *

THE GATHERER

AN ODD STORY.

About 150 years since, there was in France one Captain Coney, a gallant
gentleman of ancient extraction, and Governor of Coney Castle. He fell in
love with a young gentlewoman and courted her for his wife. T