London two months. The fortifications failed their only test when the New Model Army entered London in 1647, and they were levelled by Parliament the same year. London was plagued by disease in the early 17th century, culminating in the Great Plague of 1665–1666, which killed up to 100,000 people, or a fifth of the population. The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings. Rebuilding took over ten years and was supervised by Robert Hooke as Surveyor of London. In 1708 Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral
Rice pudding often rendered boring by too-frequent inclusion in menus. In Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "Kenelm Chillingly", a would-be host reassures a prospective guest: "Don't fear that you shall have only mutton-chops and a rice-pudding". In Henry James' "A Passionate Pilgrim", the narrator laments: "having dreamed of lamb and spinach and a salade de saison, I sat down in penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding". Charles Dickens relates an incident of shabby treatment in "A Schoolboy's Story:" "it was imposing on Old Cheeseman to give him nothing but boiled mutton through a whole Vacation, but that was just like the system. When