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274 THE CITY AS IT IS
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Vena et
THE BALTIC, THREADNEEDLE STREET
A vase was, however, eventually adopted, but the phoenix was omitted,
as Wren prudently feared the sail the spread wings would carry in a
high wind. Six years were spent in raising the Monument to its height
of 202 feet, and it was at length finished in 1677. There was great
difficulty in finding sufficiently good stone, a difficulty illustrated by the
accident above mentioned. The inscription was an important considera¬
tion, and some of the best scholars of the day tried their hands at it.
Dr. Gale, the Dean of York, was successful. His lines contain some
very grandiloquent references to the King, who was represented in an
accompanying relief in Roman armour, bringing prosperity and plenty
to a mourning city, with scaffoldings in the background, and hodmen
undeterred from their work by the aspect of a very mild and smiling
lion which accompanies the King. When the inscription had been in
its place some four years, the Popish Plot Agitation broke out, and in
1681 an inscription in Latin was made, as well as a wholly new inscrip¬