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224 it to be the smell of the foot-lights. How complete and rapid the destruction was we learn by the following letter written by Mrs. Siddons to her friend James Ballantyne.

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"You have by this time, I am confident, felt many a humane pang, for the wretched sufferers in the dreadful calamity which has been visited on me and those most dear to me. The losses to the Proprietors are incalculable, irreparable, and of all the precious and curious dresses and lace and jewels which I have been collecting for these thirty years—not one, no, not one article has escap'd! The most grievous of these my losses is a piece of Lace which had been a Toilette of the poor Queen of France; it was upwards of four yards long, and more than a yard wide. It never could have been bought for a thousand pounds, but that's the least regret. It was so interesting!! But oh! let me not suffer myself in the ingratitude of repining, while there are so many reasons for thankful acknowledgment. My Brothers, God be praised! did not hear of the fire till ev'ry personal exertion would have been utterly useless. It is as true as it is strange and awful, that everything appear'd to be in perfect Security at Two o'clock, and that at six (the time my poor brother saw it) the whole structure was as completely swept from the face of the earth as if such a thing had never existed. Thank God that it was so, since had it been otherwise, he wou'd probably have perished in exertions to preserve something from the terrible wreck of his property. This is comfort. And you, my noble-minded friend, wou'd, I am confident, participate the joy I feel, in beholding this ador'd brother,