COACH OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.')
WAGGON OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.')
It was at this time of universal poverty that the advantages of union was illustrated to those who had eyes to see. First of all, the Corporation had to find food—therefore work. Thousands were employed in clearing away the rubbish and carting it off so as to make the streets, at least, free for traffic. The craftsmen who had no work to do, were employed when this was done on the building operations. The quays were cleared, and the warehouses put up again, for the business of the Port continued. Ships came, discharged their cargoes, and waited for their freight outward bound. Then the houses arose and the shops began to open again. And the Companies stood by their members: they gave them credit: advanced loans: started them afresh in the world. Had it not been for the Companies, the fate of London after the fire would have been as the fate of Antwerp after the Religious Wars. But there must have been many who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity. Hundreds of merchants, and retailers, having lost their all must have been unable to face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start. The men advanced in life; the men of anxious and timid mind; the incompetent and feeble: were crushed. They became bankrupt: they went under: in the great crowd no one heeded them: their sons and daughters took a lower place: perhaps they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink; out of which it is difficult to rise. The craftsmen were injured least: their Companies replaced their tools for them: work was presently resumed again: their houses were rebuilt and, as for their furniture, there was not much of it before the fire and there was not much of it after the fire.
The poet Dryden thus writes of the people during and after the fire:
Those who have homes, when home they do repair,
To a last lodging call their wandering friends:
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care
To look how near their own destruction tends.
Those who have none sit round where once it was
And with full eyes each wonted room require:
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.
The most in fields like herded beasts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor:
And while the babes in sleep their sorrow drown,
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store.
ORDINARY DRESS OF GENTLEMEN IN 1675.
(From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.')