, etc.
I think "thousands" less flat than "crowds collected"--but don't let me
plunge into the bathos, or rise into Nat. Lee's _Bedlam metaphors_ [4].
By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a
house-top in Covent-garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the
reflection on the Thames.
Perhaps the present couplet had better come in after "trembled for their
homes," the two lines after;--as otherwise the image certainly sinks,
and it will run just as well.
The lines themselves, perhaps, may be better thus--("choose," or
"refuse"--but please _yourself_, and don't mind "Sir Fretful" [5]):
As flash'd the volumed blaze, and {_sadly_/ghastly} shone
The skies with lightnings awful as their own.
The last _runs_ smoothest, and, I think, best; but you know _better_
than _best_. "Lurid" is also a less indistinct epithet than "livid
wave," and, if you think so, a dash of the pen will do.
I expected one line this morning; in the mean time, I shall remodel and
condense, and, if I do not hear from you, shall send another copy.
I am ever, etc.
[Footnote 1: 'Twelfth Night', act iii. sc. 4.]
[Footnote 2: Dryden's 'Annus Mirabilis', stanza 231:
"A key of fire ran all along the shore,
And lightened all the river with a blaze;
The wakened tides began again to roar,
And wondering fish in shining waters gaze."]
[Footnote 3: Churchill's 'Times', lines 701, 702:
"Bidding in one grand pile this Town expire,
Her towers in dust, her Thames a Lake of fire.
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