plashes from the fiery torrents, which elicited from him the most astounding yells.  Having helped him to climb the monument, Leonard pushed him through the window after Wingfield, and then cast his eye round the building before he himself descended.  The sight was magnificent in the extreme.  Prom the flaming roof three silvery cascades descended.  The choir was in flame, and a glowing stream like lava was spreading over the floor, and slowly trickling down the steps leading to the body of the church.  The transepts and the greater part of the nave were similarly flooded.  Above the roar of the flames and the hissing plash of the descending torrents, was heard the wild laughter of Solomon Eagle.  Perceiving him in one of the arcades of the southern gallery, Leonard shouted to him to descend, and make good his escape while there was yet time, adding that in a few moments it would be too late.

“I shall never quit it more,” rejoined the enthusiast, in a voice of thunder, “but shall perish with the fire I have kindled.  No monarch on earth ever lighted a nobler funeral pyre.”

And as Leonard passed through the window, he disappeared along the gallery.  Breaking through the crowd collected round Wingfield and Blaize, and calling to them to follow him, Leonard made his way to the north-east of the churchyard, where he found a large assemblage of persons, in the midst of which were the king, the Duke of York, Rochester, Arlington, and many others.  As Leonard advanced, Charles discerned him amid the crowd, and motioned him to come forward.  A passage was then cleared, for him, through which Wingfield and Blaize, who kept close beside him, were permitted to pass.

“I am glad to find no harm has happened to you, friend,” said Charles, as he approached.  “Rochester informed me you were gone to Newgate, and as the gaol had been burnt down, I feared you might have met with the same mishap.  I now regret that I did not adopt your plan, but it may not be yet too late.”

“It is not too late to save a portion of your city, sire,” replied Leonard; “but, alas! how much is gone!”

“It is so,” replied the king, mournfully.

Further conversation was here interrupted by the sudden breaking out of the fire from the magnificent rose window of the cathedral, the effect of which, being extraordinarily fine, attracted the monarch’s attention.  By this time Solomon Eagle had again ascended the roof, and making his way to the eastern extremity, clasped the great stone cross that terminated it with his left hand, while with his right he menaced the king and his party, uttering denunciations that were lost in the terrible roar prevailing around him.  The flames now raged with a fierceness wholly inconceivable, considering the material they had to work upon.  The molten lead poured down in torrents, and not merely flooded the whole interior of the fabric, but ran down in a wide and boiling stream almost as far as the