minister of this chapel, had fled to New England to escape Laud's severities. In Cromwell's time he had been lecturer at Bristol Cathedral, and had there greatly exasperated the Quakers. Knowles and Kentish are said to have been so zealous as sometimes to preach till they fainted. In Thomas Reynolds's time a new chapel was built at the King's Weigh-house. Reynolds, a friend of the celebrated Howe, had studied at Geneva and at Utrecht. He died in 1727, declaring that, though he had hitherto dreaded death, he was

with Sir H. Trelawny, a young Cornish baronet. Mr. G. H. Pike, in his "Ancient Meeting Houses," tells the following interesting anecdote of Trelawny's marriage in 1778:-" For his bride he took a beautiful girl, who, apparently without her lover's knowledge, annulled a prior engagement, in order to please her parents by securing for herself a more splendid station. The spectacle was a gay one when, after their honeymoon, Sir Harry and his wife returned to his seat at Looe, to be welcomed home by his friend Clayton

rising to heaven on a bed of roses. After the celebrated quarrel between the subscribers and non-subscribers, a controversy took place about psalmody, which the Weigh-house ministers stoutly defended. Samuel Wilton, another minister of Weigh-house Chapel, was a pupil of Dr. Kippis, and an apologist for the War of Independence. John Clayton, chosen for this chapel in 1779, was the son of a Lancashire cotton-bleacher, and was converted by Romaine, and patronised by the excellent Countess of Huntingdon; he used to relate how he had been pelted with rotten eggs when preaching in the open air near Christchurch. While itinerating for Lady Huntingdon, Clayton became acquainted

and the servants of the establishment. The young baronet proceeded to open a number of letters, and during the perusal of one in particular his countenance changed, betokening some shock sustained by his nervous system. Evening wore into night, but he would neither eat nor converse. At length he confessed to Clayton that he had received an affecting expostulation from his wife's former lover, who had written, while ignorant of the marriage, calling on Trelawny as a gentleman to withdraw his claims on the lady's affections. This affair is supposed to have influenced Sir Harry more or less till the end of his days, although his married life continued to flow on happily."

The Monument.]

Clayton was ordained at the Weigh House Chapel in 1778; the church, with one exception, unanimously voted for him-the one exception, a lady, afterwards became the new minister's wife. Of Clayton Robert Hall said, "He was the most

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favoured man I ever saw or ever heard of." He died in 1843. Clayton's successor, the eloquent Thomas Binney, was pastor of Weigh House Chapel for more than forty years. The Chapel ceased to exist about the year 1880.

THE Monument, a fluted Doric column, raised to commemorate the Great Fire of London, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, who, as usual, was thwarted in his original intentions. It stands 202 feet from the site of the baker's house in Pudding Lane where the fire first broke out. Wren's son, in his "Parentalia," thus describes the difficulties which his father met with in carrying out

maintenance, with other ensigns of the City's grandeur and re-erection. The altitude from the pavement is 202 feet; the diameter of the shaft (or body) of the column is 15 feet; the ground bounded by the plinth or lowest part of the pedestal is 28 feet square, and the pedestal in height is 40 feet. Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing 345 steps 10 inches broad and 6 inches high. Over the capital is an iron balcony encompassing a cippus, or meta, 32 feet high, supporting a blazing urn of brass gilt. Prior to this the surveyor (as it appears by an original drawing) had made a design of a pillar of somewhat less proportion-viz., 14 feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device; for as the Romans expressed by relievo on the pedestals and round the shafts of their columns the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated, so this monument of the conflagration and resurrection of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames. The flames, blazing from the loopholes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within), were figured in brass-work gilt; and on the top was a phoenix rising from her ashes, of brass gilt likewise."

The following are, or rather were, the inscriptions on the four sides of the Monument :

SOUTH SIDE.

NORTH SIDE.

hereof

"In the year of Christ 1666, the second day of September, castward from hence, at the distance of two hundred and two feet (the height of this column), about midnight, a most terrible fire broke out, which, driven on by a high wind, not only wasted the adjacent parts, but also places very remote,

with incredible noise and fury. It consumed eighty-nine churches, the City gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling-houses, four hundred

streets. Of the six-and-twenty wards it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt. The ruins of the City were four hundred and thirty-six acres, from the Tower by the Thames side to the Temple Church, and from the north-east along the City wall to Holborn Bridge. To the estates and fortunes of the citizens it was merciless, but to their lives very favourable, that it might in all things resemble the last conflagration of the world. The destruction was sudden, for in a small space of time the City was seen most flourishing, and reduced to nothing. Three days endeavours in the opinion of all, it stopped as it were by a command from Heaven, and was on every side extinguished.”

after, when this fatal fire had baffled all human counsels and

"This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burning of this Protestant city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord MDCLXVI., in order to the effecting their horrid plot for the extirpating the Protestant religion and English liberties, and to introduce Popery and slavery."

"The basis of the monument," says Strype, “on that side toward the street, hath a representation of the destruction of the City by the Fire, and the restitution of it, by several curiously engraven figures in full proportion. First is the figure of a woman representing London, sitting on ruins, in a most disconsolate posture, her head hanging down, and her hair all loose about her; the sword lying by her, and her left hand carefully laid upon it. A second figure is Time, with his wings and bald head, coming behind her and gently lifting her up. Another female figure on the side of her, laying her hand upon her, and with a sceptre winged in her other hand, directing her to look upwards, for it points up to two beautiful goddesses sitting in the clouds, one leaning upon a cornucopia, denoting Plenty, the other having a palm-branch in her left hand, signifying Victory, or Triumph. Underneath this figure of London in the midst of the ruins is a dragon with his paw upon the shield of a red cross, London's arms. Over her head is the description of houses burning, and flames breaking

The Monument.]

out through the windows. Behind her are citizens looking on, and some lifting up their hands.

"Opposite against these figures is a pavement of stone raised, with three or four steps, on which appears King Charles II., in Roman habit, with a truncheon in his right hand and a laurel about his head, coming towards the woman in the foresaid despairing posture, and giving orders to three others to descend the steps towards her. The first hath wings on her head, and in her hand something resembling a harp. Then another figure of one going down the steps following her, resembling Architecture, showing a scheme or model for building of the City, held in the right hand, and the left holding a square and compasses. Behind these two stands another figure, more obscure, holding up an hat, denoting Liberty. Next behind the king is the Duke of York, holding a garland, ready to crown the rising City, and a sword lifted up in the other hand to defend her. Behind this a third figure, with an earl's coronet on his head. A fourth figure behind all, holding a lion with a bridle in his mouth. Over these figures is represented an house in building, and a labourer going up a ladder with an hodd upon his back. Lastly, underneath the stone pavement whereon the king stands is a good figure of Envy peeping forth, gnawing a heart.”

The bas-relief on the pediment of the Monument was carved by a Danish sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, the father of the celebrated comedian and comedy writer Colley Cibber; the four dragons at the four angles are by Edward Pierce. The Latin inscriptions were written by Dr. Gale, Dean of York, and the whole structure was erected in six years, for the sum of £13,700. The paragraphs denouncing Popish incendiaries were not written by Gale, but were added in 1681, during the madness of the Popish plot. They were obliterated by James II., but cut again deeper than before in the reign of William III., and finally erased in 1831, to the great credit of the Common Council.

*

Wren at first intended to have had flames of gilt brass coming out of every loop-hole of the Monument, and on the top a phoenix rising from the flames, also in brass gilt. He eventually abandoned this idea, partly on account of the expense, and also because the spread wings of the phoenix would present too much resistance to the wind. Moreover, the fabulous bird at that height would not have been understood. Charles II. preferred a gilt ball, and the present vase of flames was then decided on. Defoe compares the Monument to a lighted candle.

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The Monument is loftier than the pillars of Trajan and Antoninus, at Rome, or that of Theodosius at Constantinople.

It was at first used by the members of the Royal Society for astronomical purposes, but was abandoned on account of its vibration being too great for the nicety required in their observations. Hence the report that the Monument is unsafe, which has been revived in our time; "but," says Elwes, "its scientific construction may bid defiance to the attacks of all but earthquakes for centuries to come."

A large print of the Monument represents the statue of Charles placed, for comparative effect, beside a sectional view of the apex, as constructed. Wren's autograph reports on the designs for the summit were added to the MSS. in the British Museum in 1852. A model, scale one-eighth of an inch to the foot, of the scaffolding used in building the Monument is preserved. It formerly belonged to Sir William Chambers, and was presented by Heathcote Russell, C.E., to the late Sir Isambard Brunel, who left it to his son, Sir I. K. Brunel. The ladders were of the rude construction of Wren's time-two uprights, with treads or rounds nailed on the face.

On June 15, 1825, the Monument was illuminated with portable gas, in commemoration of laying the first stone of New London Bridge. In 1858, and again in 1879, the ornamental and symbolical "flame" at the top was re-gilt. The total height of the whole construction above the stone-work is 20 feet, with a diameter at the widest part of 8 feet.

Certain spots in London have become popular with suicides, yet apparently without any special reason, except that sometimes they are vain and like to die with éclat. Waterloo Bridge was formerly chosen for its privacy; the Monument used to be chosen, we presume, for its height and quietude. Five persons have destroyed themselves by leaps from the Monument. The first of these unhappy creatures was William Green, a weaver, in 1750. On June 25 this man, wearing a green apron, the sign of his craft, came to the Monument door, and left his watch with the doorkeeper. A few minutes after he was heard to fall. Eighteen guineas were found in his pocket. The next man who fell from the Monument was Thomas Craddock, a baker. He was not a suicide; but, in reaching over to see an eagle which was hung in a cage from the bars, he overbalanced himself, and was killed. The next victim was Lyon Levi, a Jew diamond merchant in

on the 18th of January, 1810. The third suicide

of a baker in Hemming's Row, St. Martin's-inthe-Fields. Her mother was dead, her father bed-ridden, and there being a large family, it had become necessary for her to go out to service, which preyed upon her mind. The October following, a boy named Hawes, who had been that morning discharged by his master, a surgeon, threw himself from the same place. He was of unsound mind, and his father had killed himself. The last suicide was in August, 1842, when a servant-girl from Hoxton, named Jane Cooper, while the watchman had his head turned, nimbly climbed over the iron railing, tucked her clothes tight between her knees, and dived head-foremost downwards. In her fall she struck the griffin on the right side of the base of the Monument, and, rebounding into the road, cleared a cart in the fall. The cause of this act was not discovered. Suicides being now fashionable here, the City of London (not a moment too soon) caged in the top of the Monument in the present ugly way.

The Rev. Samuel Rolle, writing of the Great Fire in 1667, says "If London its self be not the doleful monument of its own destruction, by always lying in ashes (which God forbid it should), it is provided for by Act of Parliament, that after its restauration, a pillar, either of brass or stone, should be erected, in perpetual memory of its late most dismall conflagration."

"Where the fire began, there, or as near as may be to that place, must the pillar be erected (if ever there be any such). If we commemorate the places where our miseries began, surely the causes whence they sprang (the meritorious causes, or sins, are those I now intend) should be thought of much more. If such a Lane burnt London, sin first burnt that Lane; causa, causa est causa causatio; affliction springs not out of the dust; not but that it may spring thence immediately (as if the dust of the earth should be turned into lice), but primarily and originally it springs up elsewhere.

to say that his sins did not help to burn London, that cannot say also (and who that is I know not) that neither he nor any of his either is, or are ever like to be, anything the worse for that dreadful fire. Lastly, whereas some of the same religion with those that did hatch the Powder-Plot are, and have been, vehemently suspected to have been the incendiaries, by whose means London was burned, I earnestly desire that if time and further discovery be able to acquit them from any such guilt, that pillar may record their innocency, and may make themselves as an iron pillar or brazen wall (as I may allude to Jer. i. 18) against all the accusations of those that suspect them; but if, in deed and in truth, that fire either came or was carried on and continued by their treachery, that the inscription of the pillar may consigne over their names to perpetual hatred and infamy."

"Then was God to his people as a shadow from the heat of the rage of their enemies, as a wall of fire for their protection; but this pillar calls that time to remembrance, in which God covered himself, as with a cloud, that the prayers of Londoners should not passe unto him, and came forth, not as a conserving, but as a consuming fire, not for, but against, poor London."

Roger North, in his Life of Sir Dudley, mentions the Monument when still in its first bloom. " He (Sir Dudley North)," he says, "took pleasure in surveying the Monument, and comparing it with mosque-towers, and what of that kind he had seen abroad. We mounted up to the top, and one after another crept up the hollow iron frame that carries the copper head and flames above. We went out at a rising plate of iron that hinged, and there found convenient irons to hold by. We made use of them, and raised our bodies entirely above the flames, having only our legs to the knees within ; and there we stood till we were satisfied with the prospect from thence. I cannot describe how hard it was to persuade ourselves we stood safe, so likely did our weight seem to throw down the whole fabric."