current unceasingly. At once the power, and the personal presence, of the Bishop was not only felt but seen in every part of his vast diocese. In Southwark, particularly, we seemed to realise for the first time what a bishop was. As he himself said, "Where the fight is hottest, there should the leader be.".

But it is not, perhaps, so well known how earnestly he had at heart the restoration of St. Saviour's.

His successor the present Bishop of Winchester carried out the long desired division of the Diocese. It was hoped that Southwark would now have had a Bishop of its own, with St. Saviour's as its Cathedral. But this was not to be, and Southwark became part of the Diocese of Rochester. It would not be becoming to indulge in a panegyric on one still labouring among us. May God in His mercy grant that he may long be spared, and that his grand ideas may be fulfilled and his zeal and good works bear fruit. At any rate we know that the restoration of St. Saviour's to its pristime grandeur of proportion and beauty is his most earnest desire.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FIRE IN TOOLEY STREET, 1861.

THE PRINCESS OF WALES'S PROGRESS THROUGH THE BOROUGH, 1863.

HE year 1861 was a memorable one for England and its Queen; but before I touch upon that event which

has made the 14th of December so sacred a date, and so strangely memorable for evermore with its threefold anniversary of chequered grief and joy, I cannot omit in my story of Southwark some notice of the great fire in Tooley Street.

It was on Saturday evening, June 22nd, that the news. ran through the Borough, of a fire of no ordinary magnitude. As the night drew on the fire increased instead of lessening. Of our own household one had a full view all night long from Billingsgate. Servants and others spent the night on the roof of the house, whilst I betook myself to Southwark Bridge, which, being then a toll-bridge, had a comparatively select crowd of spectators. Of the actual fire itself from the obstruction of the bridges and the bend of the river, much could not be seen, but the glare was terrific. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing was to see the impossible myth of one's nursery days realised by the Thames being literally on fire.

Cotton's Wharf, the one on fire, was filled with jute, fat and grease of various kinds, and every sort of inflammable material. Rivers of burning fat ran over the water, and one saw not merely the golden reflection of the fire, but streams of fire itself blazing up from the water to the sky. Boats with adventurous lads danced like dark specks on the water, to be suddenly enveloped by rings of flame, and the boys in peril of their lives from the rival elements were rescued by others who ran as great danger whilst endeavouring to save them.

One curious episode of interest was caused by a barque in dock, which the water was not sufficiently high to float. Again and again the rigging caught fire, again and again it was extinguished by anxious watchers, it was for a time a race between fire and water, and much fear was there lest

fire should gain the day. At last we gazers on Southwark Bridge heard one of those mighty shouts which arise from a multitude, the tension of whose nerves has been strained to the uttermost with alternations of hope and fear, and at the same moment out glided into the river tall and dark against the tremendous glare, the fine vessel whose fate had hung so long in the balance. From our position, we heard the shout, but did not know the whole story till the next day.

That same evening Mr. Braidwood, the indefatigable head of the fire brigade, met his death by the fall of a wall, whilst he was serving refreshments to his men.

On Sunday, the day after the breaking out of the fire, we determined to go to church in the City, in order by passing over London Bridge to be able to judge for ourselves of the state of the fire. The crowd was simply terrific; the fire shewed no signs of abating, and the mighty stream of water sent forth by Shand and Mason's powerful land steam engine, then, I believe, used for the first time, looked scarcely more than a tiny dribble in comparison with the volume of flames. Days passed on, the wildest stories were afloat; the sewers were filled with fat, and we were told that there was imminent danger from confined gas of the sewers bursting at any moment and in any direction: as one of them ran under our house the prospect was not reassuring. But these threatened dangers had no effect upon the mud larks, who descended into them, and stole quantities of the valuable though unsavoury grease; they laughed defiance at the police as they came up loaded with their booty, knowing they were perfectly safe from the fangs of the guardians of the law, who, in their correct costume, would not have touched them with the end of their staves. On Sunday, four weeks after the breaking out of the fire, we crossed London

Bridge once more, to show a West End friend the smoking ruins, and, as we were looking at them, a jet of flame burst out, I know not how many feet high; of course water was still constantly playing on the smoky ruins. I have given an account of so much of this fire, (the most remarkable of modern times,) as fell within my own observation, and is firmly fixed in my memory; the story of what I saw, rather than an exhaustive or statistical report of it.

But it is not this that makes the year 1861 so well remembered by Queen and people. On December 14th occurred an event that touched the heart of the nation to the quick.

It was in 1861 that our Queen first made acquaintance with real personal grief and sorrow: in the spring she lost her mother, the Duchess of Kent; in December, her husband, the Prince Consort, and the nation grieved with and for her, at the breaking up of the marvellous happiness of her crowned and wedded life.

Who can forget the deep note of the death-bell of St. Paul's, as it came moaning across the river at midnight? Who that was present can forget St. Paul's on the day of his funeral, crowded, packed at each service, though only the ordinary weekday service? For no such gathering had been foreseen or prepared for; every soul of those vast assemblies in black, and by far the greater proportion of them busy city men, all drawn, with one overpowering impulse to relieve their own sorrow of heart, and to pour forth prayers for their Queen.

It was a sight never to be forgotten, and yet I may well be asked what has it to do with Southwark and its Story? Just this. No one who did not realize the gloom which then settled down upon the great city, can realize the enthusiastic joy of the people, when they, who had so faithfully mourned with her, could now rejoice in and with

Р

her and hers. This dark back ground did at the time, and should in the retrospect, heighten the description of the Princess's reception among us. One must remember that such mourning as it had been, implied no Court, no season in London, and the consequent depressing effect upon trade, and the loss of all that makes London bright and joyous, for many months.

Then, when the news came of the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the young Danish Princess; when we heard that she was fair, and good as she was fair, London shook off the nightmare which had oppressed it, opened wide its arms and roused itself to receive the fair Danish bride and welcome her to her adopted land.

The 7th of March, 1863, presented, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary spectacles that England has ever seen. It was a whole people throwing off their mourning and rejoicing with a joy almost as unselfish as their grief had been, and looking back over just eighteen years, we feel thankful to know that the heroine of the day has never disappointed the passionate hopes then expressed. We have seen her in her youthful beauty and promise; we have followed her as she grew to matronly dignity; we have watched with her by her husband's sick bed; we have seen her taking her place in court festivities, herself the fairest of the fair; and in all and every position she has won to herself the homage and love of the British people.

The "Times" for that day thus expresses the hopes of the people. "The world ever starts afresh from day to day, from year to year, from reign to reign, and from one beginning more or less auspicious to another. Another father of his race, and another mother of Princes, another national alliance, with many other circumstances equally