The flames raged
between high brick walls, roaring louder than a blast furnace.
Seldom, indeed, have Mars and Pluto had so dainty a sacrifice
offered at their shrines; for over all the din of battle,
and the reverberation of monster artillery, the burning
leaves of the first printed Bible and many another priceless
volume were wafted into the sky, the ashes floating for miles
on the heated air, and carrying to the astonished countryman
the first news of the devastation of his Capital.
When the Offor Collection was put to the hammer by Messrs Sotheby
and Wilkinson, the well-known auctioneers of Wellington Street,
and when about three days of the sale had been gone through, a Fire
occurred in the adjoining house, and, gaining possession of the Sale Rooms,
made a speedy end of the unique Bunyan and other rarities then on show.
I was allowed to see the Ruins on the following day, and by means
of a ladder and some scrambling managed to enter the Sale Room
where parts of the floor still remained. It was a fearful sight
those scorched rows of Volumes still on the shelves; and curious was it
to notice how the flames, burning off the backs of the books first,
had then run up behind the shelves, and so attacked the fore-edge
of the volumes standing upon them, leaving the majority with a
perfectly untouched oval centre of white paper and plain print,
while the whole surrounding parts were but a mass of black cinders.
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