It was indeed a melancholy sight, and drew tears to his eyes.  The ravages of the fire were almost inconceivable.  Great beams were burnt to charcoal—­stones calcined, and as white as snow, and such walls and towers as were left standing were so damaged that their instant fall was to be expected.  The very water in the wells and fountains was boiling, and even the muddy Fleet sent forth a hot steam.  The fire still lingered in the lower parts of many habitations, especially where wine, spirits, or inflammable goods had been kept; and these “voragos of subterranean cellars,” as Evelyn terms them, still emitted flames, together with a prodigious smoke and stench.  Undismayed by the dangers of the path he had to traverse, the young man ascended Ludgate-hill, still encountering the same devastation, and passing through the ruined gateway, the end of which remained perfect, approached what had once been Saint Paul’s Cathedral.  Mounting a heap of rubbish at the end of Ludgate street, he gazed at the mighty ruin, which looked more like the remains of a city than those of a single edifice.

The solid walls and buttresses were split and rent asunder; enormous stones were splintered and calcined by the heat; and vast flakes having scaled from off the pillars, gave them a hoary and almost ghostly appearance.  Its enormous extent was now for the first time clearly seen, and, strange to say it looked twice as large in ruins as when entire.  The central tower was still standing, but chipped, broken, and calcined, like the rest of the structure, by the vehement heat of the flames.  Part of the roof, in its fall, broke through the solid floor of the choir, which was of immense thickness, into Saint Faith’s, and destroyed the magazine of books and paper deposited there by the booksellers.  The portico, erected by Inigo Jones, and which found so much favour in Evelyn’s eyes, that he describes it as “comparable to any in Europe,” and particularly deplores its loss, shared the fate of the rest of the building—­the only part left uninjured being the architrave, the inscription on which was undefaced.

Having satiated himself with this sad but striking prospect, the young man, with some toil and trouble, crossed the churchyard, and gained Cheapside, where a yet more terrific scene of devastation than that which he had previously witnessed burst upon him.  On the right of London Bridge, which he could discern through the chasms of the houses, and almost to the Tower, were nothing but ruins, while a similar waste lay on the left.  Such was the terrible change that had been wrought in the aspect of the ruined city, that if the young man had not had some marks to guide him, he would not have known where he was.  The tower and ruined walls of Saint Peter’s Church pointed out to him the entrance to Wood-street, and, entering it, he traversed it with considerable difficulty—­for the narrow thoroughfares were much fuller of rubbish, and much less freed from