FORE:"Eh?" the parson was not sure he had heard.
FORE:On his return, the contentions regarding pulling down old St. Paul's were rife as ever; but the following year the fire occurred, and Wren was commissioned to make a plan for the rebuilding of the City. He proposed to restore it on a regular plan, with wide streets and piazzas, and for the banks of the river to be kept open on both sides with spacious quays. But these designs were defeated by the ignorance and selfishness of the inhabitants and traders, and the banks of the Thames became once more blocked up with wharves and warehouses, narrow and winding lanes; and Wren could only devote his architectural talent to the churches, the Royal Exchange, and Custom House. These latter buildings were completed in the three following years; they have since both been burnt down and rebuilt. Temple Bar, a hideous erection, was finished in the fourth year, 1670. All this time the commencement of the new St. Paul's was impeded by the attempts of the commissioners to restore the old tumbling fabric, and it was only by successive fallings-in of the ruins that they were compelled to allow Wren to remove the whole decayed mass, and clear the ground for the foundations of his cathedral. These were laid in 1675, nine years after the fire, and the building was only terminated in thirty-five years, the stone on the summit of the lantern being laid by Wren's son, Christopher, 1710. The choir, however, had been opened for divine service in 1697, in the twenty-second year of the erection.[Pg 70]
FORE:"So long as these stones of your house shall remain one upon the other," began the Apache, "so long shall I be your friend. Have you any tobacco?" Cairness went into the cabin, got a pouch, and tossed it to him. He took a package of straw papers and a match from somewhere about himself and rolled a cigarette deftly.
THREE:Marlborough landed at Dover on the day of the queen's death, where he was received with the warmest acclamations and tokens of the highest popularity. He was met on his approach to London by a procession of two hundred gentlemen, headed by Sir Charles Coxe, member for Southwark. As he drew nearer this procession was joined by a long train of carriages. It was like a triumph; and Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister, wrote home that it was as if he had gained another battle at H?chst?dt (Blenheim) that he would be of great service in case the Pretender should make any attempt, but that he was displeased that he was not in the regency, or that any man except the king should be higher in the country than he. He went straight to the House of Lords to take the oaths to the king; but at Temple Bar his carriage broke down, to the great delight of the people, because it compelled him to come out and enter another, by which they got a good view of him. Having taken the oaths, he retired into the country till the arrival of the king, disgusted at his not being in the regency.
THREE:The corruptionists in Parliament were deaf to eloquence or remonstrance; the base contractors sitting there, and the other vile absorbers of the money voted by the country for the most sacred purposes, for the preservation of the integrity and existence of the empire, sat still in impudent hardihood; but the sound of these stirring words was already out of doors. The City of London voted thanks to the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Shelburne for their motions, and for their promised resumption of the subject on the 8th of February. A great meeting was called at York to induce that county to prepare a petition for reform in Parliament. Many efforts were made by persuasion and by menace to prevent these freeholders from meeting. But the Marquis of Rockingham and Sir George Savile stood forward, attended the meeting, and encouraged the freeholders. The meeting was held on the 30th of December, and, besides these distinguished men, was attended by peers, gentlemen, clergymenthe richest and noblest in the county. A petition was adopted to the House of Commons in the strongest terms. Before separating, this most important meeting appointed a committee of correspondence, consisting of sixty-one gentlemen, to carry out the objects of the petition, and still further to prepare the plan of a national association for the promotion of the great business of reform. The contagion spread rapidly; in numbers of other counties, and in many of the leading cities, similar petitions were got up, and committees of correspondence formed. The result was that very soon, in the counties of Middlesex, Chester, Hants, Hertford, Sussex, Huntingdon, Surrey, Cumberland, Bedford, Essex, Gloucester, Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Norfolk, Berks, Bucks, Nottingham, Kent, Northumberland, Suffolk, Hereford, Cambridge, Derby, Northampton, and the towns of York and Bristol, Cambridge, Nottingham, Newcastle, Reading, and Bridgewater, petitions were prepared, and in most of them corresponding committees organised.
