, did it before me), I mean to insert this:
As flashing far the new Volcano shone
And swept the skies with {lightnings}/{meteors} not their own,
While thousands throng'd around the burning dome,
Etc., etc.
I think "thousands" less flat than "crowds collected"—
don't let me plunge into the bathos, or rise into Nat. Lee's
Bedlam metaphors
.
By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames.
Perhaps the present couplet had better come in after "trembled for their homes," the two lines after;—as otherwise the image certainly sinks, and it will run just as well.