If "Toby" was of
the same proportions as one of these he must have been quite a
monstrosity.
We were surprised to find Dorchester such a clean and pretty town.
Seeing it was the county town of Dorset, one of the most ancient
settlements in England, and the Durmovaria of the Romans, we expected to
find some of those old houses and quaint passages so common to ancient
county towns; but we learned that the old town had been destroyed by a
fire in 1613, and long before that (in 1003) Dorchester had been burnt
to the ground by the Danes. It had also suffered from serious fires in
1622, 1725, and 1775, the last having been extinguished by the aid of
Johnny Cope's Regiment of Dragoons, who happened then to be quartered in
the town. But the great fire in 1613 must have been quite a fearful
affair, as we saw a pamphlet written about it by an eye-witness, under
the title of _Fire from Heaven_. It gave such a graphic description of
what such a fire was like, that we copied the following extract, which
also displayed the quaint phraseology and spelling peculiar to that
period:
The instrument of God's wrath began first to take hold in a
tradesman's worke-house .
Pages:
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942