The dates of the nave and transepts have already been suggested. After the fire of 1087, Bishop Maurice and his successor built everything afresh on a larger scale. The fire of 1136 did great damage, and restoration on a considerable scale was effected. Mr. E.A. Freeman, by a happy coincidence, touches on restorations at Wells of this time, and contrasts our two dates.[44] After the fire of 1136 the restoration would be in a style "somewhat less massive, somewhat more highly enriched." I have already pointed out Freeman's statement that the custom towards the middle of the eleventh century was to throw a coating of the more refined Romanesque of the day over earlier Norman work, and this agrees with the statements both of Wren and Pepys.

We may, then, assume that while the former ground-plan and general outline remained the same, after 1136 the pillars were encased and more elaborate mouldings added. By another statement of the same authority[45] it would seem that "the vaulting shafts run up from the ground" belong to the second restoration, when the vaulting itself was completed, and the date of this is indicated in Bishop Basset's letter of 1255.

Hence the nave and transepts were restored after the transitional Norman style, and vaulting shafts added in the fully developed Early English style, while the window tracery and other details of the isolated north aisles of the transepts were Geometrical. The four piers supporting the central tower were of a later date; but surely there must have been others, though less massive, before, otherwise it is difficult to understand how the tower and spire were supported.

Dugdale gives only two monuments in the nave. Thomas Kemp, who died bishop, reposed under the penultimate arch in the north side, in a chapel enclosed by a screen and railings. The second was that of Sir John Beauchamp, who died in 1358, and whose monument was under the eastern arch on the south side. Somehow the populace entertained the idea that this latter was the burial place of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, uncle to Henry VI., who was murdered in 1447 and buried at St. Alban's. The adjacent part of the south aisle was called Duke Humphrey's Walk: and the tomb seems to have been a sanctuary. At dinner-time, needy people who lacked both the means to purchase a meal and friends to provide them with one, and who chanced to loiter about this sanctuary, were said to dine with Duke Humphrey, and the phrase was equivalent to having no dinner at all.



The Choir.—As our ancestors looked eastward from under the central tower, both aisles of the choir were completely hidden from view by the height of the blank wall. The choir screen in the centre was of less altitude, had four niches for statues on either side, and a fine Pointed doorway in the centre of three orders of arches. The plates are of a date too late to show any rood. Entering through this door was the choir of twelve bays. Stephen Wren implies that the whole of this magnificent member was completed by 1240;[46] but much of the architecture belonged to a somewhat later date, and the prints are corroborated by numerous documents.[47] The extension eastward on the site of Old St. Faith's must have almost amounted to a rebuilding. Where did this extension begin, and where did the choir of 1240 end? Wren noticed that the intercolumnar spacing was less irregular to the east. Mr. Longman points out that the clustered pillars towards the west differed from the others, as did their capitals and the triforium arcading, while the fifth arch-space was greater than all the rest. Here we have the original east end.

Westward, the square fronts of the pillars were left bare; eastward they were covered with clustered shafts, and the springers which supported the vaulting were continued to the ground. Westward, moreover, the triforium arcading differed from that to the east, and was occasionally even left blank.

There remains, however, this peculiarity, that according to the prints the main aisle windows were uniform throughout, and with Geometrical tracery. The vaulting differed from the nave in this, that the diagonals, where they met the longitudinal rib, had bosses, and three single cross ribs alternated instead of one. The longitudinal rib was again unbroken throughout.

That part of the Choir devoted to public worship was limited to the first seven bays, of which the three to the east were on a higher level. The stalls of the dignitaries extended four bays, and shut out the aisles. On the north side the organ occupied the third bay, and on the south the bishop's cathedral throne, as now, was at the end. The Chapel of St. Mary, or Lady Chapel, was east of the presbytery at the extreme end, with St. George's to the north and St. Dunstan's south; and the whole of the space outside the presbytery—north, south, east—was taken up by some of those monuments which contributed so much to the beauty and interest of the interior, and they even encroached inside. Dugdale gives some seventy to eighty. Between the altar and the Lady Chapel was St. Erkenwald's noted and richly decorated shrine, and the tombs of Bishop Braybroke and Dean Nowell. Hard by in the north aisle slept John of Gaunt under his magnificent canopy; and supporter of Wycliffe though he was, his tomb was rifled and defiled during the Commonwealth. Near at hand was the monument of Sebba, King of the East Saxons—a convert of Erkenwald, from whom he received the cowl. In the disgraceful chaos after the Fire, the body of Sebba, says Dugdale "was found curiously enbalmed in sweet odours and clothed in rich robes." Here also could be read the unflattering epitaph over the monument of Ethelred the Unready; and hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in December, 1641, the corpse of another Fleming by birth was interred. Sir Anthony Van Dyck had spent the last nine years of his life in England at the invitation of Charles, and this great pupil of Rubens was probably the last buried in the choir before the Civil War. The Lady Chapel contained a wooden tablet to Sir Philip Sidney, with the inscription:

"England, Netherlands, the Heavens and the Arts, The Souldiers and the World, have made six parts Of noble Sidney; for none will suppose That a small heap of stones can Sidney enclose.

His body hath England, for she it bred; Netherlands his blood, in her defence shed; The Heavens have his soule, the Arts his fame, All Souldiers the grief, the World his good name."

Another wooden tablet in the north aisle was to the memory of his father-in-law, the statesman Walsingham; and numerous other statesmen, nobles, divines, and lawyers were buried, or at least remembered. We can but regret that these are now things of the past, and gone, with the exception of the effigy of Dean Donne—as remarkable as the man himself—and a few mutilated remains. Even Colet's is gone.

Before descending to the Crypt we may remark that the Interior must have fully emphasised the sense of majestic beauty produced by the Exterior. The long perspective eastward from the West Door, flanked on either side by the arcading and terminating with a glimpse of the rose window over the choir screen, as depicted in Dugdale, leaves nothing to be desired.

The Crypt or Shrouds.—The crypt was underneath the eight eastern bays of the choir, and was about 170 feet in length.[48] The entrance was from the churchyard on the north side, and the gloom was lit up by basement windows both at the sides and east end. An additional row of piers down the centre supported the choir pavement above; and the whole undercroft may best be described as of eight arches in length and four in breadth, the arches springing from engaged columns and the vaulting quadripartite.

The mouldings of the clustered columns were plain rounds and hollows, and everything throughout appears to have been uniform and of the same date. The four western bays, rather more than half, formed the parish church of St. Faith; the eastern part the Jesus Chapel, which, after the suppression of the Guild, was added to St. Faith's. These two parts were separated by a wooden screen, and over the door was an image of Jesus, and underneath the inscription:

"Jesus our God and Saviour To us and ours be Gouernour."

These remarks about the Jesus Chapel, be it noted, date only from the reign of Henry VI., by whom the Guild was incorporated, and the members of which held high festival on the days of the Transfiguration and of the Name of Jesus.

At the south-west corner of St. Faith's, but outside, was the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and near this were the three Chapels of St. Anne, St. Sebastian, and St. Radegund. Dugdale gives a list of sixteen of the more noted tombs. They include that of William Lyly, the first master of Colet's famous foundation. Had his bones not been disturbed by Wren's workmen, they could still have been found underneath the arcading due south-west from Dean Milman's tomb.[49] To Lyly's memory his son George, Prebendary of Cantlers, also placed a tablet in the nave above.

Having mentioned our last chapel and altar, it may here be added that the records enumerate not less than twenty chapels and three dozen altars altogether. Besides the Guild of Jesus there were four others—All Souls', the Annunciation, St. Catherine's, and the Minstrels—and these do not seem to include the oldest of all, that founded by Ralph de Diceto in 1197, which met four times a year to celebrate the mass of the Holy Ghost. We now go on to the surrounding buildings.

THE PRECINCTS.

St. Gregory's, in reality part of the cathedral with the Lollards' Tower common to both, is mentioned as a parish church in early documents. Pulled down and rebuilt, in the plates of Hollar it appears as an uninteresting building, hiding from view the four west bays of the south aisle of the nave. After the Fire the parish was united for ecclesiastical purposes to St. Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street, and both have since been by a further union annexed to St. Martin, Ludgate Hill. The Petty Canons were parsons or rectors—that is to say, the income of the benefice was devoted to their support, and so continued until their suppression as a corporation. The Bishop's Palace was to the north-west, and joined the tower. We know nothing of its architecture, and it is last mentioned in Inigo Jones' Report of 1631.

Pardon Church Haugh, or Pardonchirche Haw, on the north side and east of the palace, was not a church at all, and was situated probably in St. Gregory's parish. How the "Haw," or small enclosure, received its name is doubtful: there may have been some unrecorded connection with pardons or indulgences. Here Thomas a Becket's father, who was Portreeve, built his chapel, rebuilt by Dean Thomas Moore, whose executors added three chantries. The Haugh was environed by a cloister, and the tombs in this part traditionally exceeded, both in number and workmanship, those in the cathedral, but this is all we know about them. In the cloister was the picture of the Dance of Death. Death, represented by a skeleton, leading away all sorts and conditions of mankind, beginning with Pope and Emperor. The accompanying verse of Dean John Lydgate, monk of Bury (or his translation from the French), was as gruesome as the picture. Somewhere here the Petty Canons had their common hall. Near the cloister, and on the east side, was Walter Sheryngton's Library; and adjacent to the north-west corner of the neighbouring transept, his chapel with its two chantries. East of the Haugh and about opposite the north point of the transept, was the Charnel, a chapel with a warden and three chantries. Underneath was a crypt or vault for the decent reception of any bones that might be disinterred, and hence the name.



We have now arrived at the north side of the transept, and inside the angle formed by chancel and transept stood Paul's Cross, in St. Faith's parish. It was an octagon of some thirty-seven feet, and stood about twelve feet from the old cathedral. Mr. Penrose excavated for the site, and found it just at the north-east angle of the present choir. The last structure—of wood on a stone foundation, and with an open roof—was the gift of Thomas Kemp; but a pulpit cover existed in 1241. Above the roof rose the cross from which the name was derived; and from 1595 the whole was surrounded by a low brick wall, at the gate of which a verger was stationed. Against the choir wall was a gallery of two tiers: in the upper was the projecting royal box or closet, below the Lord Mayor's; and the parishioners of St. Faith had a right to seats. In very bad weather an adjournment was made to the crypt; but our sturdy forefathers endured alike stress of weather, length of discourse, and undiluted frankness of speech, after a manner that altogether puts us, their degenerate descendants, to shame.

From a rude picture, painted in 1620 at the instance of Henry Farley, we can see the preacher for the day with a sand-glass at his right hand. King James, in his state box, has his Queen on his right, and his unhappy son on his left, with the Lord Mayor below. These are to the left of the preacher, who faces the transept. The congregation, partly composed of parishioners of St. Faith, is seated on forms; and the men wear their steeple-crowned hats. A dog-whipper is vigorously belabouring a poor animal with a cat-o'-nine-tails; but the cries of the victim do not in the least disturb either preacher or audience; and two led horses are behind the preacher. A well-dressed youth, a late arrival, bows and accosts a grave-looking citizen with "I pray, sir, what is the text?" and the citizen answers, "The 2nd of Chron. xxiv." A second citizen is dropping a coin into a large money-box by the transept door. The subject of the sermon, judging from the text, was the much-needed restoration; and perchance the preacher was none other than the diocesan, James' "king of preachers."[50]

In 1633 the preaching was removed into the choir "for the repaire of the Church," though we cannot quite see in what way this could help the repairing. Those who shortly afterwards obtained control of the City could tolerate neither the name nor the actual cross, and were afraid of disturbances as well. The structure came down, and although it was said at the time only to make way for another "fairer and bigger," was never restored again. The endowments out of which the preachers were paid went to the Sunday morning preachers, and these latter are the legitimate successors of the old-time divines.



The Clochier, or Bell Tower, with its lead-covered spire crowned with a statue of St. Paul, stood at the east end of the churchyard. There must have been a tower here from a very early period if this was the bell that summoned the folk-mote. The Guild of Jesus owned the four bells of later times; and when that body was dissolved they reverted to the Crown, and were lost at dice to a Sir Miles Partridge, subsequently executed for sharing in the fortunes of the Protector Somerset. The cloister of the Chapter House, or Convocation House, shut off almost entirely the west wall of the south transept and four bays of the south wall of the nave. This was of the unusual arrangement of two stories, and formed a square of some ninety feet on the plan, with seven windows in either story. This was called the "Lesser Cloisters," apparently to distinguish it from the cloister of Pardon Church Haugh. In the centre of the square, and approached through a vestibule from the east, was the Chapter House, an octagon with a diameter of nearly forty feet, supported by massive buttresses. In Dugdale's engraving the lofty roof has gone; and the tracery of Chapter House and Cloisters alike are Perpendicular. It will be seen there were two places for the two Houses of Convocation, one near the west door of the nave, and this.

There was St. Peter's College, where the Petty Canons lived, Holmes College, and the Lancaster College. Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, executed for high treason against his cousin, Edward II., who was canonised by the people, though not by the Pope, had a tablet somewhere in the church at which miracles were believed to be wrought, and two offices to himself. But whether the Lancaster College referred to him or to John of Gaunt, or where it was situated, is uncertain.

Of all these various buildings which surrounded the cathedral and added to its interest, the curious, by going to the south side of the nave, may discern some traces of the old Lesser Cloisters and Chapter House. Everything else has gone so completely that it would be difficult to fix even the exact site.



DIMENSIONS.

OLD ST. PAUL'S.

LENGTH of Nave 252 feet LENGTH across Transept 104 feet LENGTH of Choir 224 feet ————- 580 feet LENGTH across Portico 40 feet ————- Total length 620 feet

LENGTH of Transept 293 feet

BREADTH of Nave 104 feet

HEIGHT of Central Tower 260 feet

HEIGHT Spire 200 feet ————- Total height 460[51] feet

HEIGHT of Nave roof 130 feet HEIGHT Choir 143 feet

Area about 80,000 sq. ft.



FOOTNOTES:

[38] Particularly so in the "Gleanings."

[39] I.e., assuming that Inigo Jones did not convert pointed into round.

[40] Bishop Fulk Basset sent out in 1255 letters hortatory for the contributions of the faithful. "Quod Ecclesia St. Pauli, in retroactis temporibus, tantis turbinibus fuit quassata, &c. ut totum ejus tectum, jam quasi in ruinam gravissimam declinare videtur" (Dugdale, p. 9).

[41] "Parentalia," p. 276.

[42] "Parentalia," p. 275.

[43] Ibid.

[44] "Wells," p. 69. His exact dates are shortly after 1088 and 1136.

[45] "Wells," p. 132.

[46] "Parentalia," p. 273.

[47] Particularly the 68 Indulgences between 1228-1316 cited in "Documents Illustrating," p. 174.

[48] This crypt, under the extension of the thirteenth century choir, cannot be that mentioned by William of Malmesbury. According to the plan in Dugdale, there was no crypt underneath the Norman cathedral.

[49] "Chapters on the History" (pp. 91-93) gives more details about the crypt. Dean Milman calls Lyly John; and Chambers' "Book of Days" buries him in the churchyard.

[50] "Chapters in the History," with plate, pp. 159, 222, etc.

[51] This is Wren's estimate; others are higher.



CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE FIRE TO THE COMPLETION OF NEW ST. PAUL'S (1666-1710).

Christopher Wren was the most distinguished member of a distinguished family. His father's elder brother, Matthew, was fellow and senior treasurer of Pembroke College, Cambridge, when James I. visited that university in 1611, and won the favour of his sovereign by the ability with which he acquitted himself in the "Philosophy Act." After serving as chaplain to Charles in the journey to Spain, he received, amongst other preferments, the Mastership of Pembroke and the Deaneries of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and then was made, in quick succession, Bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely. We shall see that the Cathedral of Ely exercised an influence over his nephew in designing the Dome of St. Paul's. Matthew survived the Commonwealth after a lengthy imprisonment without trial, and returned to Ely after the Restoration. His younger brother Christopher was chaplain to Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, who preferred him to the Rectory of East Knoyle, Wilts.[52] Charles I. made him chaplain in ordinary; and when Matthew was preferred to Norwich, his brother succeeded him in his two deaneries. The Dean, like his brother, was a learned scholar, and to him posterity is indebted for the preservation of many valuable records at Windsor during the troubled times. He married Mary, heiress of Robert Cox, of Founthill, in Wiltshire, and died in poverty and deprived of his benefices before the Restoration. The only surviving son of the marriage, Christopher, was born at East Knoyle, October 20, 1632. Like others who have eventually lived to an extreme old age, he was delicate during childhood, and, instead of being sent early to school, received his primary instruction privately. Like his father before him, he displayed great aptitude for mathematics, both pure and applied, and was fortunate enough to have a capable teacher in Dr. William Holder, the husband of a sister, in whose house his father took refuge and died after his ejection from Windsor. At the age of thirteen he was sent for a short period to Westminster, and about the same time invented a new astronomical instrument. The next year he was admitted as a gentleman commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. Both the Warden, Dr. John Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Seth Ward, observed his early promise, and gave him every encouragement in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and he continued to design ingenious instruments and models, Dr. Charles Scarborough, a surgeon of note, making use of his talents in preparing pasteboard models for his anatomical lectures.[53] His intellectual precocity can only be compared to that of John Stuart Mill, and with this difference, that whereas Mill was forced by his father like a plant under glass, Wren's studies were spontaneous and voluntary.

Graduating in 1650, he was elected three years later, after taking his Master's degree, to a Fellowship of All Souls, the next year began his friendship with John Evelyn, and he was subsequently chosen Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College[54] and Savilian Professor at Oxford. Isaac Newton in the "Principia" cites him as an authority on mathematics, and, had he never turned his attention to architecture, he would still have taken high rank in other ways. By 1663, as appears by a letter of Thomas Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, he was looked upon as the fittest man to restore the dilapidated St. Paul's, and was about the same time asked to go to Tangiers to direct the extensive fortifications and harbour projected there. He refused the offer of Tangiers on the plea of health, "and humbly prayed his Majesty to allow of his Excuse, and to command his duty in England." Although this post was to be accompanied by a reversionary grant of the Surveyor Generalship of the Royal Works, one may well ask the question, who, had he accepted it, would have rebuilt St. Paul's?[55]



We now begin to find him devoting what Sprat most truly called "that great genius of yours" to architecture. He examined carefully the leading churches of England and of some parts of the Continent.[56] He went to Paris the year of the Plague, and it is characteristic of the taste of his time that no mediaeval cathedral passed on the way is mentioned. At Paris, under the auspices of Mazarin, many architects and artists were assembled. "I hope I shall give you a very good Account of all the best Artists in France," he wrote to a friend. "My business now is to pry into Trades and Arts. I put myself into all shapes to humour them; 'tis a comedy to me, and tho' sometimes expenceful, I am loth yet to leave it." He mentions not only leading men like Colbert, but more than twenty architects, painters, and designers he met, and above all Bernini, the architect of the Louvre. "Bernini's designs of the Louvre I would have given my skin for; but the old reserved Italian gave me but a five Minutes View; it was five little designs on Paper, for which he had received as many thousand Pistoles: I had only time to copy it in my Fancy and Memory." In after years, when his enthusiasm had been tempered by a more mature judgment, this eulogium would have been materially qualified. We may add here that he was in course of time knighted, and became President of the Royal Society.



Such was the man to whom not merely the king and his advisers, but public opinion, turned to repair the ravages of the Fire, and in particular to rebuild St. Paul's. It was the Surveyor General, Sir John Denham, who recommended Wren as his successor, and the death of Denham in March, 1668, gave this recommendation full effect. One of Wren's many disappointments was that the opportunity was missed of laying out afresh the whole City from Temple Bar to Tower Hill, and from Moorfields to the river. His inventive genius projected broad streets, generally rectangular, with piazzas, each the meeting-point of eight thoroughfares, and quays and terraces along the river bank. He calculated that by obliterating the numerous churchyards and laying out healthier cemeteries in the suburbs, no owner would lose a square foot of ground, and that, although they would not find their property exactly on the same site, every building would be replaced, with the immense compensation of an excellent situation in the finest and healthiest city in the whole world. By this plan St. Paul's would have directly faced a long and broad street running west and passing through the present Law Courts, with St. Dunstan's Church in the centre beyond the Fleet, and the narrow Strand joining from the west at Temple Bar. At Ludgate, three hundred yards west of the cathedral, this avenue of a width of some thirty yards began to open out until, opposite the west front, it had increased to a breadth of a hundred yards, leaving ample room for a piazza. Here an acute bifurcation was formed, the northern street leading to the Exchange; the southern, a broader and a nobler Cannon Street, with St. Paul's between. This scheme, as laid before the King and Parliament, Wren declared to be thoroughly practicable. Certainly it would have prevented congestion of traffic unto this day, and given St. Paul's (although somewhat hemmed in on the east) a position unique amongst churches.[57] "The only and as it happened unsurmountable Difficulty remaining was the obstinate Averseness of great Part of the Citizens to alter their old Properties, and to secede from building their Houses again on the old Ground and Foundations"; and as rebuilding began almost as soon as the smoke of the Fire had ceased, and long before anything definite could be decided upon, a great opportunity was lost. The estimated three-quarters of a million of souls and the vehicles innumerable now crossing the boundaries every weekday are compelled, too often, to traverse choked and narrow streets, and not without danger to life and limb; while St. Paul's itself, cribbed, cabined, confined, becomes in each successive generation more hemmed in as the surrounding emporiums and magazines grow taller and taller.

At first the idea was entertained of restoring the ruins, but this was finally abandoned by royal warrant to the Commissioners in 1668, and clearing and excavations began. The workmen with pickaxes stood on the top of the walls some eighty feet high, and others below cleared away the dislodged stones—a dangerous task in which lives were lost. Of the Central Tower some two hundred feet remained, and a more expeditious plan was adopted. A deal box, containing eighteen pounds of gunpowder, was exploded level with the foundations at the centre of the north-west pillar, and the adjacent arches were lifted some nine inches, while these ruins "suddenly jumping down, made a great Heap of Ruin in the Place without scattering." Wren estimated the whole weight lifted at three thousand tons, and the labour saved equal to that of a battalion of a thousand men. When the alarmed inhabitants of the neighbourhood heard and felt the concussion, they naturally took it for an earthquake. In the surveyor's absence a subordinate used too much powder in attempting a second mine, and neither burying it low enough nor building up the mouth, a stone was projected through an open window into a room where some women were sitting at work. Although no one was hit, the neighbours took alarm, and successfully agitated against all further blasting. Delay was caused, and finally a battering-ram some forty feet in length, worked by thirty men, completed the demolition. The stones and rubbish were cleared away, and used in different buildings and in repairing the streets. Afterwards some houses on the north side which encroached on the building, and may have been those that assisted the passage of the Fire, were levelled, and their site included in the churchyard.

When at length the ruins of Old St. Paul's had come down and the huge mass of wreckage been cleared away, working from the west the excavations for the new foundations were begun. The old cathedral had rested on a layer of loam, or "pot earth" or "brick earth," near the surface; and wells being sunk at various points to ascertain the depth of this, it was found that the loam, owing to the ground sloping towards the south, gradually diminished from a depth of six feet to four. Sinking further, they found sand so loose as to run through the fingers; next, freshwater shells and more sand, and continuing through hard beach or gravel, they reached at last the London clay.[58] At one point of the north-east corner, where the loam had been dug out, Wren was compelled to rest the foundations on the clay; and it seems almost a pity that this was not universally adopted, at whatever additional cost of time and labour, in preference to the loam. The building had not long been completed ere the great weight of the dome caused some of the piers to sink from an inch to more than two inches, and Edward Strong the younger had to repair cracks and fissures.[59] Dean Milman tells us that in his time the City authorities once contemplated a sewer on the south side; but the surveyor, Mr. R. Cockerell, remembering that the sand and shells underneath the loam would be in danger of oozing out, went in great haste to him, and on their joint representation the project was abandoned.

The old cathedral was not due east and west, neither did it directly face Ludgate Hill. Owing to the lie of the land cleared away, both of these peculiarities were increased by the surveyor, and the axis of the New St. Paul's was swung some seven degrees further north than the Old. He thereby made the best of his somewhat cramped site, and avoided the foundations of the old walls. The excavations were not completed nor the site fully cleared and made ready until 1674.



It has been the lament of many that the Pointed arch had by the time of the Fire died out, and that the Renaissance style, borrowed from Italy, had taken the place in England of Gothic architecture. "About two hundred years ago," we are told in the "Parentalia," "when ingenious Men began to reform the Roman Language to the Purity which they assigned and fixed to the Time of Augustus and of that Century, the Architects also, ashamed of the modern Barbarity of Building, began to examine carefully the Ruins of Old Rome and Italy; to search into the Orders and Proportions, and to establish them by inviolable Rules: so to their Labour and Industry we owe in a great Degree the Restoration of Architecture." Here we have the Renaissance style defined. Wren would naturally have fallen in with the fashion of his own time; and the faults he found in his elaborate surveys at Old St. Paul's, Salisbury, and elsewhere confirmed him in his adherence. He found "a Discernment of no contemptible Art, Ingenuity and geometrical Skill in the Design and Execution of some few"; but this was more than counterbalanced by grave faults: "An affectation of Height and Grandeur, tho' without Regularity and good Proportion, in most of them." They are loaded with too much carving and tracery, and in other ways offend his taste, but chiefly in the neglect of a due regard to stability. "There is scarce any Gothick Cathedral, that I have seen, at home or abroad, wherein I have not observed the Pillars to yield and bend inwards from the Weight of the Vault of the Aile.... For this Reason this Form of Churches has been rejected by modern Architects abroad who use the better and Roman Art of Architecture.... Almost all the Cathedrals of the Gothick Form are weak and defective in the Poise of the Vault of the Aile."[60] On the other hand, he reckoned the dome "a form of church-building unknown in England, but of wonderful Grace," and, moreover, the dome wasted a minimum of space, whilst a mediaeval cathedral could accommodate only a small auditory in proportion to its large area, so that every one could both see and hear. Any place of worship was in his eyes badly or imperfectly constructed in which the preacher's voice could not travel so as to be distinctly heard. There is much to be said on both sides in regard to the comparative merits of Gothic and Renaissance; and instead of echoing complaints, it is surely better to be thankful we have one cathedral, situated in the greatest centre of population, in the latter style.[61]

]

In 1668 a small committee of eight, in addition to the Dean and Chapter, was appointed, and about the same time Wren set seriously to work and soon after produced his first design (see p. 57). In addition to the reasons already mentioned, he had at first to take into consideration the all-important question of finance, for when he began there were only voluntary contributions to fall back upon; but in 1670 a share of the import duties on coal was granted, and soon constituted the greater part of the rebuilding fund. In 1673 an enlarged commission of over a hundred members was nominated by royal warrant, with the Lord Mayor at its head, who took precedence over the Primate and the Bishop; and Wren laid his first design before them, of which a model was made. This was a kind of Greek cross; the external order was the Corinthian, with Attic above. It bore a general resemblance to a rotunda, and was crowned with a dome taken from the Pantheon at Rome. This dome was of about the same diameter as the present, but less lofty, and was likewise supported by eight pillars. West of the rotunda part was the foot of the cross, and a secondary dome was afterwards added. When Wren began to design this we have seen that amongst other considerations was that of finance[62]; but even had the coal dues been then granted, it is certain that he would have adhered to it, for it was always a great favourite. In designing it he took two facts into consideration: (1) that the outdoor sermons, formerly preached at the Cross, were for the future to be preached inside, and that a large auditorium would be required for this purpose (2) that religious processions inside were now discouraged, and that a nave and aisles were in consequence a useless waste of space and means.[63] Forgetting these two important items, a vast amount of adverse criticism has been bestowed upon Wren's favourite. Its main drawback was the absence of a proper Sacrarium; and yet so obvious were its advantages, that when a cathedral was lately proposed for Liverpool, no less an authority on architecture than the late Canon Venables advocated its adoption.



The clergy and others wanted something with more resemblance to the old cathedrals; and first of all the surveyor tried to humour them by adding another secondary dome to the west. He next set to work making a great number of sketches, merely, as his grandson says, for "Discource sake"; and one of these was so much approved of that a model was again made. But the demand for a building with choir, nave, and aisles complete continued, and required to be satisfied; and at length one design met with the approval of the king; and on the 14th of May, 1675, Charles issued his warrant to the commissioners accordingly, stating that he approved of this particular design because it was "very artificial, proper, and useful," and could be built by parts, and that his commissioners were to begin at once with "the East-end or Quire."

Wren had already become disgusted with the impediments and delays caused by incompetent judges, and had determined to discontinue making his drawings and plans public.[64]

We shall never know all that took place during the building so as to be able to account for the deviations from this design. The king gave the surveyor permission to make alterations "rather ornamental than essential," and left the whole to his management, so that the royal commission was chiefly employed as treasurers. But even this scarcely explains the great alterations made. The drum and dome of the design, of comparatively modest dimensions, are crowned with a minaret-like spire. The west front has but one order of columns, and the towers are insignificant to a degree. These are amongst the features which were altered, and they were "essential" as distinct from "ornamental." We know that Wren developed as his experience was enlarged; and we know also that certain alterations were made contrary to his wish. Beyond this we are lost in conjecture at the poverty of his design. Perhaps, despising the taste of the commissioners, he never seriously intended to adhere to it, anticipating he would be his own master.



Quickly following on the royal warrant, the first stone was laid June 21, 1675, at the south east corner of the choir.[65] By 1685 the walls of the choir were finished, with the north and south porticoes, and the dome piers raised to a like height. When fixing the centre of his dome, Wren directed a labourer to place a stone as a mark. The man took a broken fragment of an old gravestone on which was inscribed the word Resurgam; and by many this was naturally taken as a favourable augury. In 1686 the old west end, hitherto left undisturbed in its ruins, was cleared away, and two years later the choir was ready for its roof; but shortly after, a fire at the west of the north choir aisle, in a room allotted to the organ-builder, caused a slight delay. Not until 1697 was the choir ready for divine service.

After long years of war, during which the country had suffered from the heavy burden of taxation, and her commerce had been impaired, the treaty of Ryswick was at length signed, sealed, and ratified; and Louis XIV. acknowledged William and Mary as the lawful sovereigns of these isles. The king returned from the Continent in November, 1697, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Stock almost rose, and gold almost fell, to par; and every prospect of a returning prosperity put the public, whatever their politics, in a good humour. A council at which William presided, resolved that the second day of December should be kept as a day of Thanksgiving; and the Chapter decided that the day of Thanksgiving should be the day for the consecration of the choir. William wished to attend himself; but it was represented that if he went in procession from Whitehall, the whole population would turn out, and the parish churches be empty; and he had to rest content with a service in his palace. At St. Paul's the civic representatives attended in full state, and Bishop Compton, Dean Sherlock, and the cathedral staff, occupied the new stalls of Grinling Gibbons. The temporary organ accompanied the chanting, and a special prayer incorporated into the Communion office ran: "We offer our devout praises and thanksgivings to Thee for this Thy mercy, humbly beseeching Thee to perfect and establish Thy good work. Thou, O Lord, dwellest not in houses made with hands; heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; but though Thy throne is in heaven, earth is Thy footstool; vouchsafe, therefore, we beseech Thee, Thy gracious presence in this Thy house to hear our prayers, and accept our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving." Bishop Compton, who preached, took for his text, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord." His sermon has not come down to us, but no doubt he reminded the clergy and congregation that the day of Thanksgiving had been selected because it was the dedication of their metropolitan temple to the public worship of the religion of the Prince of Peace; that after a lapse of thirty years, and in spite of the hardship and distress engendered by plague, fire, and war, London was raising another building on the spot consecrated by centuries of prayer and praise; and that as the result of the treaty of peace, their national religion was assured, while the metropolis might continue to extend her commerce without fear of disaster and bankruptcy.[66]

]

Early in 1699, although the nave was not completed, the north-west chapel was opened for daily morning service, at six in the summer, and seven in the winter. Queen Anne attended in state for the victories of Marlborough on land, and of Ormond and Rook at sea (Nov. 12, 1702). Two years later came Blenheim; and she went again in her state coach drawn by eight bays. From the west door to the choir, under the unfinished vaulting and dome, the way was lined by a detachment of Foot Guards; and as the long procession advanced, the hautboys played and the drums beat until the Queen and her husband had reached their throne in the centre of the choir towards the west, when, after a pause, service began. Dean Sherlock preached from the text, "Doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth"; and the service, which began at one, lasted some three hours. On four other occasions Anne repeated these visits—thrice for victories, and once for the union of England and Scotland.[67]

Although the commissioners decided that the dome was to be covered with copper, lead was used instead, and the work steadily progressed until two years after the last royal visit, when the fabric was completed. Wren was now seventy-eight years of age, and his son Christopher represented him when, in company with the master-mason, Edward Strong, and other free and accepted masons, the last stone was laid on the summit of the lantern, a great crowd looking on from below. Stephen was able to reflect with satisfaction that the cathedral had been begun and finished by his grandfather, and practically during the time of one bishop, for Henchman had died a few months after the laying of the first stone; and he contrasted this with St. Peter's at Rome, where, with an unlimited supply of marble and other costly building materials ready at hand, one hundred and fifty-three years had been required under nineteen popes from Julius II. to Innocent X., and under twelve architects from Bramante to Berninus. Stephen forgot, however, that St. Peter's is more than twice the size of St. Paul's, and that only the bare fabric of the latter was ready, and that it still wanted its mosaics and other adornments.

Under Wren as Surveyor-General we have already mentioned the master-mason Edward Strong and his son Edward. John Oliver was Assistant-Surveyor and Purveyor, with a salary of L100; Lawrence Spencer was Clerk of the Works and Pay-master at a like salary; Thomas Russell was Clerk of the Cheque at a salary of L50, and called over the roll of workmen at six in the morning, one in the afternoon, and six in the evening.[68] It has to be added that Wren and the royal commissioners did not agree; and that about the time of the consecration of the choir, an Act was passed with a clause suspending "a moiety of the Surveyor's Salary until the said Church should be finished, thereby the better to encourage him to finish the same with the utmost Diligence and Expedition." His salary of L200 was thus reduced temporarily to L100, and the arrears, in accordance with the terms of this Act, were not made good until the completion. And worse than this was the charge brought against him that he deliberately delayed the building so that his pittance of two hundred a year might be continued. The commissioners knew nothing of building, and, like many people of to-day, may have thought that the old cathedrals were finished in a few years. Fortunately, Wren was an enthusiast in his great work, and the happy possessor of an equable temperament that nothing could seriously disturb. Otherwise this disgraceful treatment of so old a man might well have been fatal.

It is better to turn away from this as quickly as may be, and contemplate with a laudable pride the great achievement of our ancestors. The Plague, and still more the Fire, must have seriously impoverished the City; and in 1703 the great storm did immense damage. Of the five-and-thirty years the cathedral was in building, one half were years of war; and the public confidence and security were further disturbed by a revolution, by civil war in Ireland, and by plots and intrigues without number, following in the wake of a disputed succession. Yet the City raised, and almost without complaint, a sum enormous in those days, and which would, even in our own time, be reckoned as serious.

I have calculated the expense as follows. My figures lay no claim to infallibility—I doubt whether a chartered accountant could make a quite accurate balance-sheet—but they may be taken as fairly approximate:—

RECEIPTS. L s. d. Coal Dues 810,181 18 2 Subscriptions and Miscellaneous 68,341 14 1 ———————- Total L878,523 12 3

EXPENDITURE. L s. d. Preliminary 10,909 7 8 Purchase of Houses 14,808 3 10 Cost as in "Parentalia" 736,752 2 3 Interest on Loans 83,744 18 9 ———————— Total L846,214 12 6

BALANCE in 1723 L32,308 19 9

My balance does not tally with Mr. Longman's. He tells us that the coal duty, which was on sea-borne coal, was 1s. 6d. per chaldron, whereof four-fifths went to St. Paul's. The age of Indulgences was over, and, unlike the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the cost of building St. Paul's was chiefly defrayed by a public impost; and this cost may be estimated in round numbers at about three-quarters of a million for the actual building, with an additional hundred thousand for incidental expenses.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] This village, near Salisbury, is called East Knoyle, Knoyle Magna, and Bishop-Knoyle. The entry of baptism runs: "Christopher (2nd sic.) sonne of Christopher Wren Doctor in Divinitie and Rector now." The rector placed this entry, dated only "10th," before March, 1632/31 in a vacant place. Hence the statement that the surveyor was born in 1631, but both the rector and Christopher himself dated the birth October 20, 1632. My thanks are due to the Rev. Canon Milford, Rector of East Knoyle, for the above, and also to his copy of Miss Lucy Phillimore's "Life."

[53] "Parentalia," p. 227 and elsewhere, gives details of his extensive knowledge of anatomy in its various branches.

[54] His inaugural address at Gresham College, in Latin, when he was twenty-five (1657) fills eight folios in the "Parentalia," and is given in facsimile of his handwriting.

[55] The humorous letter of Sprat to Wren says: "I endeavoured to persuade him [the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford] that the drawing of Lines in Sir Harry Savill's School was not altogether of so great a Concernment for the Benefit of Christendom, as the rebuilding of St. Paul's or the fortifying of Tangier: (for I understood those were the great Works in which that extraordinary genius of yours was judg'd necessary to be employed)" ("Parentalia," p. 260).

[56] As it seems to have been ignored how carefully Wren studied cathedrals and other buildings, the following may be of interest: "These Surveys [of Salisbury with elaborate report for the Bishop, Seth Ward] and other occasional Inspections of the most noted cathedral Churches and Chapels in England and foreign Parts" ("Parentalia," p. 306). He never saw, we may assume, his three favourite buildings at Rome—the Pantheon, the Basilica of Maxentius, and St. Peter's.

[57] Ground-plan in "Parentalia," p. 268; and Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture in England."

[58] Milman, p. 407, with geological diagram. The archaeological remains disinterred have been already mentioned, pp. 3 and 4.

[59] Mr. Longman seems to think that the cathedral rests on the loam. The following shows that the strata are irregular, and that in some places the loam is very thin. Edward Strong the younger "also repaired all the blemishes and fractures in the several legs and arches of the dome, occasioned by the great weight of the said dome pressing upon the foundation; the earth under the same being of an unequal temper the loamy part thereof gave more way to the great weights than that which was of gravel; so that the south-west quarter of the dome, and the six smaller legs of the other quarters of the dome, having less superficies, sunk into the thinner part of the loamy ground, an inch in some places, in others two inches, and in other places something more; and the other quarters of the dome, being on the thicker part of the loamy ground and gravel, it did not give so much way to the great weights as the other did, which occasioned the fractures and blemishes in the several arches and legs of the dome." (Clutterbuck, "History of Hertfordshire," vol. i., pp. 167-168; quoted in Dugdale, note, p. 173) Clutterbuck has a great deal to say about the Strongs, father and son, and their family.

[60] "Parentalia," pp. 298, 304, et seq. Wren did not approve of, though he used, the term "Gothic." "The Goths were rather destroyers than builders; I think it [the Gothic] should with more reason be called the Saracen style" (Ibid., p. 297). "The Saracenick Architecture refined by the Christians" (Ibid., p. 306). Cf. Freeman, Fortnightly Review, October, 1872.

[61] Wren estimated that a preacher of average voice might be heard fifty feet in front, twenty behind, and thirty on either side, provided he did not drop his voice at the end of the sentence. He contended that the French preachers were heard further than the English, because they raised their voices at the end of the sentence, just where the words often required particular emphasis to express the meaning. The omission of this was a fault even of capable preachers, was "insufferable," and ought to be corrected at school. After two centuries his criticism still holds good ("Parentalia," p. 320). His remarks upon architecture ought to be reprinted from the "Parentalia," and made compulsory for every student and candidate.

[62] "Parentalia," pp. 281-282, shows how questions of finance entered into Wren's conception of his famous First Design.

[63] "Parentalia," p. 282.

[64] Wren's numerous designs and drawings are undated, and the "Parentalia" is anything but clear. In consequence there has been a certain amount of confusion as to the identity both of the First Design and of the approved Warrant Design.

[65] Some say by the Bishop Humphrey Henchman, who died in the October following; some by the surveyor, and others by the master-mason, Strong. There seems to have been no religious service or great ceremony.

[66] Macaulay, followed by others, speaks merely of the "opening"; the prayer I have quoted from Dugdale shows that the opening was a consecration service. I am unaware that the rest of the cathedral has ever been consecrated; and if not, it resembles Lincoln and many another mediaeval church (Freeman's "Wells," p. 77).

[67] June 27, 1706; December 31, 1706; May 1, 1707 (for the Union); August 19, 1708.

[68] Harleian MS. 4941, quoted in Dugdale, p. 140, note. This was at the beginning.



NEW ST. PAUL'S.





CHAPTER V.

NEW ST. PAUL'S.

EXTERIOR.

"It would be difficult to find two works of Art designed more essentially on the same principle than Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral. The Bible narrative transposed into the forms of a Greek epic, required the genius of a Milton to make it tolerable; but the splendour of even his powers does not make us less regret that he had not poured forth the poetry with which his heart was swelling in some form that would have freed him from the trammels which the pedantry of his age imposed upon him. What the Iliad and the AEneid were to Milton, the Pantheon and the Temple of Peace were to Wren. It was necessary he should try to conceal his Christian Church in the guise of a Roman Temple. Still the idea of the Christian cathedral is always present, and reappears in every form, but so, too, does that of the Heathen temple—two conflicting elements in contact—neither subduing the other, but making their discord so apparent as to destroy to a very considerable extent the beauty either would possess if separate."[69]

I give this quotation at length, not because I by any means agree with one half of the fault-finding, but because it helps to explain the architecture. St. Paul's is often called "Classical," or "Roman," or "Italian"; it is not one of these three: it is English Renaissance. It was, too, a distinctly happy thought of Fergusson to suggest that the Cathedral takes a like place in English architecture to that which the immortal "Paradise Lost" does in English literature. The ground-plan suggests the Gothic; the pilasters and entablature the Greek and Roman; the round arch is found in both Roman and Romanesque, and that commanding feature, the Dome, is the common property of many styles and many ages. The general plan resembles the long or Latin Cross, with transepts of greater breadth than length; and the uniformity is broken by an apse at the east, and the two chapels at the west end.

The best views are, perhaps, the two oblique ones approaching from Ludgate Hill and from Cannon Street. The upward view from the churchyard on the south side by the angle of nave and transept gives the proportions of the lower stages of the dome effectively; and those who care to make the weary ascent of one of the Crystal Palace towers, will be rewarded by the aspect of the dome emerging above the pall of surrounding smoke, and appearing to preside like a watchful and protecting deity over the destinies of the city at its feet.

The dimensions are as follows, in feet:—Length, 513, which may thus be divided: nave and portico, 223; breadth of transept, 122; length of choir, 168. Length of transepts, 248 feet. Breadth of nave, 123; of transept and choir a trifle less; of west front with chapels, 179. Height, to summit of balustrade, 108; to apex of roof, 120; to stone gallery, 182; to base of sphere, 220; to upper gallery at the summit of the dome, 281; to the summit of the cross, 363 feet.

The material is from the quarries of Portland, chosen because of its durability in regard to both weather and smoke, the facilities for transport, and the size of the blocks. Had Roche Abbey stone from South Yorkshire been more easily obtainable, these quarries might have been used as well. The size of the blocks contributes an important feature to the architecture, where so much depends upon the breadth of four feet; and even the procuring of this, as time went on, and the stonecutters had to work at a greater distance from the sea, became a matter of delay and difficulty, and the masons might have to wait months for their blocks.

The combination of the stability with such lightness and gracefulness as were procurable, can in a measure be estimated by the comparative area taken up by the walls, pillars, and other points of support. This area amounts to seventeen per cent., and compares favourably with St. Peter's at Rome, which is more than half as much again, as well as with St. Sophia and the Duomo at Florence. On the other hand many of our Gothic cathedrals require only ten per cent.[70] Wren would have said that they lack stability, and that he had calculated accurately on the minimum of massiveness requisite for security; and besides this, they have no heavy dome to be poised. Throughout there are two stages or stories. The lower has the Corinthian Order, which was always Wren's favourite, as he held that it was at once more graceful and bore a greater weight of entablature than the earlier Doric and Ionic. Wren's first design of a Greek Cross followed St. Peter's in consisting of one main order plus an attic.[71] While Bramante at St. Peter's found stones of nine feet in diameter in the quarries of Tivoli, Wren, after making inquiries all over, could not procure sufficient stone for his columns and pilasters of a greater diameter than four feet, and he would not depart, at least to any degree, from what he held to be the correct Corinthian height of nine diameters. Had a sufficient quantity of larger blocks been obtainable, we should have had the Corinthian order plus the attic, instead of the two regular orders of Corinthian and Composite.[72] And this, it seems, was his reason for departing in this respect from the First Design; as also partially from the Approved Design. The pilasters are grouped in pairs throughout, not only for stability, but also for sufficient space for the circular-headed windows ornamented with festoons. Above the entablature rises the second stage or story, or order. Here the coupled pilasters have that slight difference in base and more particularly in capital which constitutes the Composite order. The capitals have the larger scrolls or volutes of the Ionic above the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian proper. In reality the difference is, here, but slight; and the best authorities maintain that there is less difference between the Corinthian and the Composite than between different examples of the Corinthian itself. The reason for the dressed niches, with pediments instead of windows, like those in the lower stage, will come later on. A main architrave and cornice run round the entire building like an unbroken string course, and above this, excepting at the different fronts, a balustrade, to which a history is attached.

A new commission had been nominated after the death of Queen Anne[73] (which by the way included Sir Isaac Newton), and this commission insisted upon a balustrade unless the surveyor "do in writing under his hand set forth that it is contrary to the principles of architecture, and give his opinion in a fortnight's time." Wren answered, "Persons of little skill did expect, I believe, something they had been used to in Gothic structures, and ladies think nothing well without an edging." He urged that he had already terminated the building, and that his design of pairs of pedestals in continuation of the pilasters would better resist the wind. As in other matters, he had to give way; and the difference in the effect cannot be judged from mere illustrations.[74] The four angles, where the transepts join, are filled up with the huge supporting bastion-like piers of the dome; and internally are left, so to speak, hollow; that at the south-west being utilised as a staircase, and the others on the ground floor as vestries.

No roof is visible from below. The actual roof of oak and lead was so flattened as to be invisible in accordance with the ideas of the architect. "No Roofs almost but Spherick raised to be visible." "The Ancients affected Flatness." "No Roofs can have Dignity enough to appear above a Cornice, but the Circular."[75]

We now come to that peculiarity upon which so much adverse criticism has been bestowed. The usual observer will wonder why there are niches instead of windows in the upper stage, as light is so much needed. On entering the interior he will notice that the height of the aisles does not correspond with the exterior; and on ascending to the Stone Gallery will ascertain that this upper stage of the exterior is not part of the actual wall of the church, which stands back some thirty feet. It is, in fact, a screen or curtain wall; the lower stage alone is the wall of the aisles, and the disfiguring square openings with which the pedestals below the niches are pierced, give light to the passages and galleries between the aisles and the roof. Externally one is supposed to see the wall of the cathedral; in reality one sees the lower story forming the wall, and an upper story in continuation made to look as though the church were immediately behind, but in reality quite disengaged from it. The following is an able specimen of the adverse criticisms that have been directed against this curtain: "It is a mere empty show with nothing behind it, and when once this is known it is impossible to forget it, or to have the same feeling towards the building which a spectator might have, despite its defects of detail, who believed its external mass to represent its interior arrangements."[76] Yet an attentive study of the "Parentalia" enables us to plead a great deal in mitigation. The spectator will notice that there are no substantial buttresses; and the reason is the simple one that Wren held them to be disfigurements. "The Romans always concealed their Butments."[77] "Oblique Positions are Discord to the Eye unless answered in Pairs, as in the Sides of an equicrural Triangle.... Gothick Buttresses are all ill-favoured, and were avoided by the Ancients."[78] Such were the opinions of Wren; but how was he to procure stability? The answer is, by the curtain wall. By its dead weight pressing on the walls of the aisles it renders them stable and immobile, free from all danger of thrust, while it conceals the buttresses which render secure the clerestory stage of the building proper. To paraphrase his own words: "I do not add buttresses, but I build up the wall so high as by the addition of this extra weight, I establish it as firmly as if I had added buttresses."[79] Thus this wall performs a double function: it is a substitute for buttresses in respect to the aisle walls, and a screen for the actual buttresses of the clerestory stage.

Such is the purpose of the upper story. An ingenious critic who did not seem to know this vindicates it on the plea that "uninterrupted altitude of the bulk in the same plane, is absolutely necessary to the substructure of the mighty dome."[80] No doubt the size of the dome requires a proportionate rise in the lower elevations; but the fact remains that the exterior and interior do not correspond. A greater authority than this critic has thus defined good architecture: "The essence of good architecture of any kind is that its constructive system should be put boldly forward, that its decorative system should be such as in no way conceals or masks the construction, but makes the constructive features themselves ornamental."[81] And at his uncle's cathedral of Ely, Wren might have borrowed and worked out an idea which would have silenced all accusation of fraud and deceit. There, in the central part of the choir on the south side, the roof was removed and placed lower down centuries ago, the better to light up certain shrines below. This roof was never restored to its original position; and the upper stage of the wall is pierced with empty windows through which flying-buttresses can now be seen. The effect, though altogether unusual, is far from displeasing; and the spectator who remembers that Wren was perfectly familiar with this building, is led to wonder why he did not by piercing the niches, imitate Ely at St. Paul's.

The Windows, round-headed and without tracery, contrast unfavourably with the Lancet and Decorated. Wren recognised the value of tracery, as is evident from his remarks on Salisbury Cathedral, although he objected to the Perpendicular mullions and transoms.[82] Yet it is difficult to see how he could have devised anything more elaborate or graceful to harmonise. The carving above and below, in the conventional festoons of the day, is almost universally voted as respectable and nothing more. Mr. Ruskin is very severe on these festoons, on the ground that they are tied heavily into a long bunch thickest in the middle, and pinned up by both ends against a dead wall, and contends that the architecture has no business with rich ornament in any place. Yet he admits that the sculpture is as careful and rich as may be; and let any one study, for instance, the window immediately east of the south portico, and particularly below, where the details can be better observed. In spite of a heavy top-coat of smoke, the combination of cherubs, birds, grapes, and foliage is as graceful and artistic as possible; and the work beneath the east end and north transept windows will also well repay careful study. These details are apt to be neglected, possibly because they seem dwarfed by the immense proportions of the building.[83]

The North and South Chapels, as we hear on probably trustworthy authority, were added at the instance of James, Duke of York, who looked forward to the day when the Roman Catholic services would be substituted for the Anglican. Although Stephen is silent as to his grandfather's intentions, there is evidence given by Mr. Longman and Miss Lucy Phillimore to show that Wren tried his best to finish the building without them. Whether seen from the north-east or south-west they interfere with the perspective, and the independence of the lowest stage of the West Towers is completely lost; and curiously enough in this last respect the South-West or Consistory Chapel does very much what St. Gregory's did to the Lollards' Tower in Old St. Paul's.

We now turn to the different parts and members.

North and South Fronts.—These are similar, each part corresponding to each, excepting a slight difference in the steps of the porticoes caused by the ground on the south side sloping towards the Thames; and this uniformity or symmetry is invariably carried out in the different parts wherever feasible. Take the three main windows of the choir aisles on either side, and compare them with the three of the nave aisles on either side between the transepts and the chapels. The windows themselves and their pilasters exactly agree, as do their distances.

Where the uniformity of the fronts is broken by the projecting transepts and chapels, it is broken after one manner, so that when you have seen the north side you have seen the south, excepting for the above-mentioned difference caused by the slope.

The North and South Fronts are approached by flights of steps of black marble. The steps on the north side are twelve in number, and are reached from the whole semi-circle; on the south side they are twenty-five in number, and are reached from the ends, the front having a low wall. Here, the flanking urns on either side afford another instance of the disregard of Wren's wishes. The difference in the number of the steps is caused by the slope towards the Thames, and is interesting as affording an instance of a difference between the two fronts. The Corinthian pillars, of the full diameter of four feet, cleverly support the semi-circular entablature above, which is part of the general entablature continued all round. These porticoes have semi-dome shaped roofs, and are flanked on either side by the windows of the transept aisles. The central windows above the porticoes are slightly larger than the others, and have niches on either side. Above these are triangular pediments, and above these again, and in alignment along the balustrade, are statues of ten of the Apostles—five to each front. The sculpture on the northern pediment depicts the royal arms, with angels bearing palm branches for supporters, and on the southern is a Phoenix with the motto "Resurgam."



By universal consent these facades are admirable in the justness of their proportions, and the harmonious way in which they blend both with the west front and the entire building. Caius Gabriel Cibber received six pounds for modelling and a hundred pounds for carving the Phoenix.

The East End.—The Apse was intended for the reception of the altar. It has three windows in either stage. Underneath the lower central window is a crown, with cypher of William and Mary, surrounded by the garter. This device was intended to show in whose reign the choir was built. It was probably correct when put up; but poor Mary died before the completion. The apse is of the breadth of the centre, and on either side are the windows of the aisles, while the central one in the basement belongs to the Crypt Chapel. There is nothing very striking or remarkable in this part, the details being similar to the rest of the church. Very different is the case with our next feature of interest.

The West Front.—The best view is that from the direct front; but by looking from the north or south-west the conjunction of the chapels comes in sight, and the spectator can judge for himself whether or no, so far as the exterior is concerned, they are any improvement. A few additional dimensions are necessary. The summits of the towers are 222 feet high; the statue of St. Paul above the apex of the pediment is 135 feet. I have already given prominence to the cause of the defeat of Wren's original conception of one main order and an attic, namely, that he could not get blocks of stone of a sufficient size. The Approved Design, so far as the colonnade is concerned, seems to have been borrowed from the portico of Inigo Jones. The dimensions of the blocks had been discovered, yet there was only one order of columns, with a second story of three windows, and supported by Inigo Jones' harp-shaped buttresses; the only buttresses that Wren even wished to have visible. Now, the old portico was not cleared away until 1686; and the west front was built after Wren's taste and judgment had been given time to ripen. In consequence we have a complete revolution, so far as the Approved Design is concerned, and something infinitely more noble and dignified; and we may congratulate ourselves that his blocks of stone were no larger, so that he produced two orders of columns. At St. Peter's, where marble of 9 feet (8-1/4 only according to more recent accounts) was used, the pillars have a shaft of 74 feet, not including capital or base, and the highest statue is 175 feet from the base, as compared with the 135 feet of St. Paul's.[84] Yet Wren, by resorting to two orders of columns, has so increased his apparent height, that those who have compared the two, assert that the west front of St. Paul's appears to be as high as St. Peter's.

In the lower order the columns are twelve in number, fluted and in pairs. Claude Perrault had recently adopted this method of coupling in the eastern facade of the Louvre, as is duly acknowledged in the "Parentalia." According to Stephen Wren, it "is not according to the usual Mode of the Ancients in their ordinary Temples, which for the generality were small; but was followed in their Coloss or greater Works; for instance, in the Portico of the Temple of Peace, the most magnificent in old Rome, the Columns were very properly and necessarily doubled to make wider openings." Italian buildings are likewise cited. The columns project slightly in advance of the Front; and as the central part with the great doorway is recessed some twenty feet, a depth of shadow is produced in the Pronaos.

As the great doorway for "Solemnities" requires a wider opening in front than the two side ones in daily use, the two central pairs are placed Eustyle—i.e., with a supposed space between of two and a half diameters—while the rest are placed Pycnostyle—one and a half diameters.[85] In the second story, owing to the towers above, the outside couples are displaced by pilasters; and the eight remaining columns support the architrave and cornice, and the great triangular pediment above of seventy-four feet in breadth and eighteen in height. On this is represented in bas-relief the Conversion of St. Paul. Saul of Tarsus still seated on his horse, which is crouching on the ground, looks up at the rays of light; and the alarmed escort are trying to control their frightened steeds. In the distance is Damascus. The sculpture is the work of Francis Bird, and he was paid for it the handsome sum of L650. The statue on the apex is that of the patronal saint; the two near him are those of St. Peter and St. James, while the four more remote are those of the Evangelists, with their emblems taken from Rev. iv. 7.

The Towers, with their Italian details, complete the Facade. They consist of five stages besides the domes, of which the two lower correspond with the rest of the front. The third is pierced with circular openings, which in the southern are filled up with the faces of the clock. The fourth is transitional between the square and the octagon; from each angle of the square below spring two pairs of Corinthian columns, half-concealing, half-revealing the supports of the small domes. The fifth is an octagon, with two orders of open arches in each face, and an exterior arcading, urn-shaped pedestals being freely adopted as in the stage below. The domes, the pine of which was modelled by Francis Bird, is designed with curves of contrary flexure for the purpose of adding to the height. Mr. Longman likens these towers to Alpine aiguilles, and points out how picturesquely they form outposts to the great mass of the dome.

Both towers are used as campaniles. The north contains the "five minutes" bell, and the new peal, numbering twelve. The southern contains the three bells on which the clock is struck; and the largest of these, weighing 5 tons 4 cwt., is the passing bell on great occasions. On June 3, 1882, the citizens heard for the first time their new Great Paul. This monster, weighing nearly seventeen tons, came from the foundry of Messrs. Taylor, at Loughborough, and its progress by road was duly chronicled like that of some great personage. It was placed in the south tower, and is reckoned amongst the largest bells in the world. Part of the magnificent railings, cast without the use of coal, at Lamberhurst on the Kent and Sussex border, have been removed, and, after suffering shipwreck, now enclose a monument at Toronto. We can but regret that some second home was not found in London for such a specimen of an extinct industry: but the throwing open of the area, so that justice might be done to the view of the cathedral, is in strict accordance with Wren's views. So is the present arrangement of the steps. In the landing the red marble is from Laconia, in Southern Greece, the dark grey from Porto Venere, near La Spezia, in Italy, and the granite from Shap, in Westmoreland.

Posterity may be thankful that Wren was allowed a free hand in departing from the Accepted Design, and in carrying out his more fully developed conceptions. The well worked out designs of the different parts and details, and the combination of these into one harmonious whole with the dome for a background, leave nothing to be desired.[86]

Before leaving, the visitor may stand by Queen Anne's statue and reflect that near that very spot was erected the scaffold on which suffered Sir Everard Digby, Robert Wynter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, for their share in the Gunpowder Plot. Digby was said to have been the handsomest man of his day. He died "penitent and sorrowful for his vile treason," as did all save Grant.

The Dome.—To the end, Wren's wish seems to have been to have made the external height no greater than was required by the formation of the internal cupola. "The old Church having had before a very lofty Spire of Timber and Lead, the World expected that the new Work should not in this Respect fall short of the old (tho' that was but a Spit and this a Mountain). He was therefore obliged to comply with the Humour of the Age, (though not with ancient Example, as neither did Bramante) and to raise another Structure over the first Cupola." Stephen might have said two other structures. Not only did Wren wish the interior height to be somewhat less, so as to make it more perfect for the purpose of an auditorium, but he thought any greater exterior height unnecessary, and would have finished off the exterior elevation in some other way.

As matters eventuated, he raised the internal sphere so that the disproportion with the external might be reduced. The whole dome has three shells. (a) The majestic exterior visible to the eye, an outward roof of wood covered with lead and ribbed for the sake of ornament. (b) The intermediate brick cone which supports the lantern and its accessories of 700 tons weight. This springs from the level of the stone gallery, and rises in straight lines which converge at the circular opening beneath the lantern. This, although seen neither from the outside or from within, constitutes the most solid and substantial part. Between this and the outside visible shell is an ingenious network of beams supporting the latter, and at the base of this network a strengthening of which the account had better be given in Stephen's own words: "Altho' the Dome wants not Butment, yet for greater Caution, it is hooped with Iron in this Manner; a Chanel is cut in the Bandage of Portland-Stone, in which is laid a double Chain of Iron strongly linked together at every ten Feet, and the whole Chanel filled up with Lead."[87] (c) The interior dome, also of brick. The height of this third and smallest shell reaches only to the level of the curved lines of the fluted patterns of the exterior shell, a difference of from fifty to sixty feet.



Since the outside cupola does not bear the heavy weight of the lantern it has been denounced as a sham, but this is an exaggeration. It is evident, as we look at it, that it is incapable of bearing any such weight. Much more practical is the objection of Gwilt that the elaborate framework of beams supporting this outside cover is certain to decay in course of time. A third objection is that of deception—the exterior and interior are presumed to be one and the same. This is not correct. Neither roof nor steeple is assumed to have such correspondence, and Wren might surely be allowed a like liberty with his dome. As Mr. Wightwick very properly says, it will be time enough to find fault when the roofs of churches are the same outside as within.

The Romans are credited with first applying the Dome to larger buildings. It travelled eastward to Constantinople, and was in use in Italy during mediaeval times. The word "Dome" is derived from the Duomo of Florence, where Brunelleschi covered in the octagon with his famous cupola in the earlier part of the fifteenth century.[88] But Wren's particular study was the Pantheon, which we have no evidence whatever that he saw; and, indeed, he erected his dome without having ever seen, so far as we know, anything like it.

A few words will suffice for the main features. The first stage of the superstructure is the Stylobate, of 25 feet in height and some 140 to 145 feet in diameter. The next, the Peristyle or Colonnade which lights up the interior. It has thirty-two Composite columns of a height of 38 feet, including the pedestals. Every fourth intercolumnation is filled up with an ornamental niche (if the term be allowable for a recess of the size) to hide the supports behind. This alternation, while it agreeably affects the play of light and shade, yet allows a partial glimpse of the supports. Why could not Wren have done as much with his curtain wall? Above the peristyle comes the Stone Gallery with its balustrade—a great attraction for visitors—just about half-way up to the summit of the cross. Here the diameter decreases by the breadth of the gallery to 108 feet, and the Tholobate[89] rises. It has pilasters, with lights between, in the upper parts. Above is the outer dome proper—the spherical part—with a further contraction to 102 feet. Wren had the advantage of St. Peter's to profit by, and abstained from inserting the "luthern" lights of the larger edifice. The absence of these and the ribbing of the lead coating was, in his opinion, "less Gothic." The lights, again, could not easily have been reached for repairs; and if left unrepaired would have been the means of causing injury to the supporting timbers underneath. The effect, no doubt, is better, and the lighting above and below sufficient for the stairs leading to the lantern.



The Lantern.—The Golden Gallery is almost exactly a hundred feet above the Stone Gallery. The Lantern is an elegant and graceful piece of design and workmanship, and consists of three square stages, each of them with lights and with recesses (or chamfered, so to speak) at the angles. The second has Corinthian columns, which must be fifteen feet in height, and a plain entablature, and some more urn-shaped pedestals. The third is completed with a miniature dome, and has upper and lower lights in each face. Standing immediately underneath, or by Nelson's tomb in the Crypt, these lights produce a striking and almost unique effect. The present gilt ball and cross, which crown the edifice, replaced the originals of Francis Bird, being put up by Cockerell—the then Clerk to the Works—in 1821. The extreme height is from 363 to 365 feet, and in 1848 the Ordnance Survey placed a "crow's nest" against the cross for the purpose of observations from the highest attainable point.

Miss Lucy Phillimore has published a paper of Wren's in which the Surveyor remarks that for the architect it is necessary "in a conspicuous Work to preserve His Undertaking from general censure, and so for him to accommodate his Designs to the Geist of the Age he lives in, though it appear to him less rational." As regards the height of the dome, we are the gainers because he was compelled to do this. It is not, indeed, the whole of St. Paul's or its only important feature; for St. Paul's is not a Byzantine church in which the dome is practically not a part, but the whole. It is the most magnificent member of a magnificent building, and with its graceful equipoise and conscious evidence of stability stands alone and in a class by itself amongst the cathedral superstructures of the land.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] Fergusson's "History on the Modern Styles of Architecture," p. 243. The Pantheon at Rome as restored A.D. 202 was, or rather is, a rotunda with a portico. The rotunda, according to Fergusson ("Handbook," p. 311), is about 125 feet in internal diameter, and an external elevation of about 150 feet. The Basilica of Maxentius, or Temple of Peace, may have been finished in the reign of Constantine (Maxentius, A.D. 311-312; Constantine the Great, 325-337). The ruins show an oblong of 265 feet by 195 feet in internal measurement, including aisles. The whole length is divided into only three bays ("Handbook," p. 319). Fergusson should have added St. Peter's at Rome, which exercised such an influence over Wren. This immense building has, in the exterior, only one Order and an Attic. All three have the round arch.

[70] Fergusson, "Modern Architecture," p. 390.

[71] An Attic is a small story above the cornice, or principal elevation of a building. [The same would read better by substituting "story" for "elevation".] An Attic order is an inferior order of architecture, used over the principal order of a building. It never has columns, but, sometimes, small pilasters. (Longman, note, p. 164.) Very common in Roman and Italian, but unknown in Greek.

[72] "At St. Paul's the Surveyor was cautious not to exceed Columns of four Feet, which had been tried by Inigo Jones in his Portico; the Quarries of the Isle of Portland would just afford for that proportion, but not readily for the Artificers were forced sometimes to stay some Months for one necessary Stone to be raised for their Purpose, and the farther the Quarry-men pierced into the Rock, the Quarry produced less Stone than near the Sea. All the most eminent Masons were of Opinion, that Stones of the largest Scantlings were there to be found, or nowhere. An Enquiry was made after all the good Stone that England afforded. Next to Portland, Rock-abbey Stone, and some others in Yorkshire seemed the best and most durable; but large Stone for the Paul's Works was not easily to be had even there. For these Reasons the Surveyor concluded upon Portland-stone, and also to use two Orders, and by that Means to keep the just Proportions of his Cornices; otherwise he must have fallen short of the Height of the Fabrick.... At the Vatican Church [St. Peter's], Bramante was ambitious to exceed the ancient Greek and Roman Temples ... and although by Necessity he failed in the due Proportions of the proper Members of his Cornice, because the Tivoli stone would not hold out for the Purpose; yet (as far as we can find) he succeeded in the Diameter of his Columns, viz., nine Feet."—Parentalia, p. 288.

[73] The Royal Commissions expired with the sovereign.

[74] Mr. Longman gives the two together, p. 143.

[75] Tracts in "Parentalia," pp. 352-353. Stephen Wren (p. 269) explains how his grandfather departed from the conventional arrangement of architrave, frieze, and cornice in his entablatures, omitting one or other of these whenever he thought good. Here, above the pilasters and windows of the lower order he seems to have merged the three, and in the corresponding part of the upper order to have omitted anything like a frieze.

[76] Builder, January 2, 1892.

[77] "Parentalia," p. 298.

[78] Ibid., p. 352.

[79] Ibid., p. 301, with diagram, showing how a wall does the same as buttresses.

[80] Mr. Wightwick, quoted in Longman, p. 188.

[81] E.A. Freeman, Fortnightly Review, October, 1872, p. 380.

[82] Yet he preferred the Early English windows of Salisbury to any later.

[83] "Who among the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to admire the flowerwork of St. Paul's?... It is no part of it. It is an ugly excrescence. We always conceive the building without it, and should be happier if our conception were not disturbed by its presence. It makes the rest of the architecture look poverty-stricken, instead of sublime; and yet it is never enjoyed itself" ("Seven Lamps," iv. 13). All I can say is I have enjoyed studying it. Mr. Edward Bell also sends me the following: "We have a familiar instance in the flower-work of St. Paul's, which is probably, in the abstract, as perfect flower sculpture as could be produced at the time; and which is just as rational an ornament of the building as so many valuable Van Huysums, framed and glazed, and hung up over each window" ("Stones of Venice," I., xxi. 3). In my humble opinion this criticism is overdrawn; and, after all, Mr. Ruskin commends the sculpture.