LONDON STONE AND MONUMENT. 



323 



his sword upon it, and said, ' Now 

 is Mortimer lord of this city ;' and 

 there making a formal but lyin 

 declaration to the mayor, departei 

 back again to Southwark." This 

 incident is introduced by Shak- 

 speare in the second part of King 

 Henry VI., one of the scenes of 

 that drama being laid in Cannon 

 Street, where Cade is represented 

 as striking his staff on London 

 Stone, and saying, " Now is Morti- 

 mer lord of this city. And here, 

 sitting upon London Stone, I charge 

 and command, that of the city's cost, 

 the conduit run nothing but claret 

 wine this first year of our reign." 

 This venerable relic of antiquity is 

 now built into the wall of St. 

 Swithin's Church, where it is pro- 

 tected by iron bars ; and as it ex- 

 isted before London was built or 

 inhabited by the Anglo-Saxons, it 

 may be destined to survive amongst 

 the monuments of its fallen great- 

 ness, and attract the pensive re- 

 gards of the wandering tourist 

 from New Zealand, who in some 

 distant epoch, according to Mr. 

 Macaulay, is to take his station on 

 the remaining arch of London 

 Bridge, and contemplate the ruins 

 of the modern Babylon. 



Here, also, where the leading 

 thoroughfares of William Street, 

 Cannon Street, and East Cheap 

 converge upon London Bridge, 

 stood the famous Boar's-head Ta- 

 vern, immortalized by Shakspeare, 

 which Goldsmith made the subject 

 of one of his pleasant essays, and 

 "Washington Irving in our own 

 day delighted to visit for the sake 

 of its ancient recollections, but 

 which was removed a few years 

 ago to make room for a statue of 

 William IV. The most conspicu- 

 ous object of all is the London Mo- 

 nument on Fish Street Hill, built 

 in 1671-77 to commemorate the 

 great fire, which commenced in this 

 quarter in September, 1666, and 

 covered 436 acres of the city with 



ruins, extending from the Tower 

 to the Temple, Church. The monu- 

 ment is a column of fluted Doric, 

 202 feet high, and was designed by 

 Sir Christopher Wren. Gibber, 

 father of the comedian, sculptured 

 for the pedestal a representation in 

 bas-relief of the destruction of the 

 city ; and the column is surmount- 

 ed by a blazing urn which has re- 

 cently been re-gilt. This noble 

 pillar unfortunately stands in a low 

 position, otherwise it would have 

 been amongst the most conspicu- 

 ous architectural ornaments of the 

 city. It originally bore an inscrip- 

 tion ascribing the fire in London 

 to the malice of the Papists. It was 

 to this accusation that Pope alluded 

 in the well-known couplet 



" Where London's column pointing to 



the skies, 



Liko a tall bully, lifts the head and 

 lies." 



The inscription was expunged in 

 the time of James II., restored in 

 the reign of William III., and 

 finally obliterated in 1830, in ac- 

 cordance with a resolution of the 

 Court of Common Council. The 

 following were the terms of this 

 notable inscription: "This pillar 

 was set up in perpetual remem- 

 brance of that most dreadful 

 burning of this Protestant City, 

 begun and carried on by the trea- 

 chery and malice of the Popish 

 faction, in the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, in the year of our Lord, 

 1666, in order to the carrying on 

 their horrid plot for extirpating the 

 Protestant religion and old English 

 liberty, and the introducing Popery 

 and slavery." A man named Hu- 

 bert made a judicial confession tliat 

 lie set the first house on fire at the 

 instigation of the Papists, and was 

 executed for the crime. He was 

 believed, by those who discredited 

 the origin assigned by him to the 

 conflagration, to be bereft of his 

 senses. On the house in Pud- 



