“Last night the English Opera House was burnt down — a magnificent fire.”
Charles Greville
All the gentility of London was there
from Princess Esterhazy’s ball and all
the clubs; gentlemen in their fur cloaks, pumps,
and velvet waistcoats mixed with objects like
the sans-culottes in the French Revolution —
men and women half-dressed, covered with rags
and dirt, some with nightcaps or handkerchief
round their heads — then the soldiers, the firemen,
and the engines, and the new police running
and bustling, clearing the way, clattering
along, with that intense interest and restless
curiosity, which received fresh stimulus
at every renewed burst of the flames as
they rose in a shower of sparks like gold dust.
(From The Greville Memoirs, January 1830)
Verbatim Poetry 