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274 THE CITY AS IT IS : “4 tg A ; — J K vm 1 1 comme 10 4 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 consideration, 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
