we do by these presents will and require all persons whatsoever, that they forbear to transport any more stone from our Isle of Portland, without the leave and warrant first obtained from Dr. Christopher Wren, surveyor of our works." In the next place, money was not forthcoming in sufficient quantities. It is true that, in addition to the proportion of coal-duties allotted to the building of St. Paul's, King Charles graciously states in his second commission-"We are very sensible that the erecting such a new fabric or structure will be a work not only of great time, but of very extraordinary cost and expense;" and adds, "We are graciously pleased to continue the free gift of £1000 by the year, to be paid quarterly out of our privy purse, for the rebuilding and new erecting of the said church;" but the value of a "promise to pay" from the merry monarch was very fluctuating and uncertain. The remaining provisions for raising funds were-authority given to the commissioners to ask and receive voluntary contributions from all subjects; an injunction to the judges of the Prerogative Court and others to set apart "some convenient proportion" of all commutations for penance towards the erection of St. Paul's; and an inquisitorial power vested in the commissioners to inquire after any legacies and bequests for the benefit of the cathedral church that may have been fraudulently concealed. In 1678 the Bishop of London felt it necessary to publish a very earnest and urgent address, exhorting all classes of persons throughout the kingdom to extend their liberality towards the building; and among the receipts of one year we find entered £50 from Sir Christopher Wren, whose annual salary as architect was only £200. But the greatest obstruction he experienced was occasioned by the prejudices and ill-will of a section of the commissioners. They pestered him by incessant attempts to force him to deviate from his own plan, and introduce alterations, the suggestion of crude ignorance. This annoyance began with his undertaking, and even survived its close. The alterations forced upon him by the Duke of York have already been noticed. In 1717 the commissioners transmitted to him a resolution importing "that a balustrade of stone be set up on the top of the church, unless Sir Christopher Wren 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; and if he doth not, then the resolution of a balustrade is to be proceeded with." The venerable architect replied by a demonstration of the ignorance which dictated the proposal, prefacing his remarks thus:-"I never designed a balustrade. Persons of little skill in architecture did expect, I believe, to see something they had been used to in Gothic structures, and ladies think nothing well without an edging. I should gladly have complied with the vulgar taste, but I suspended for the following reasons," &c. He concludes with the emphatic declaration-" My opinion therefore is, to have statues erected on the four pediments only, which will be a most proper, noble, and sufficient ornament to the whole fabric, and was never omitted in the best ancient Greek and Roman architecture; the principles of which, throughout all my schemes of this colossal structure, I have religiously endeavoured to follow; and if I glory, it is in the singular mercy of God, who has enabled me to begin and finish my great work so conformable to the ancient model." It would have been well had the thwarting he experienced been confined to this meddling coxcombry of tampering with his plans; but, irritated at his opposition to their interference, his persecutors had recourse to still meaner devices for annoying him. As early as 1675 we find their creatures set on to fly-blow his fame with accusations of undue delay in the payment of workmen; and in 1710 we find them throwing obstacles in the way of finishing the building, for the avowed purpose of keeping him out of £1300, the amount of a moiety of his salary suspended by Act of Parliament till the completion of the building. Notwithstanding these obstructions, Wren single-handed completed St. Paul's in the course of thirty-five years from the laying of the foundation-stone; while St. Peter's was the work of more than twenty architects, supported by the treasure of the Christian world, under the pontificates of nineteen successive Popes. Nor was St. Paul's the work of an undistracted attention. In a manuscript book of the transactions of the privy council, in the possession of Mr. Elmes when he wrote the Life of Wren, the architect's name occurs in almost every page. Petitions are constantly referred to the "surveyor-general," in order that he may make personal inspection and report. Upon him devolved the task of detecting and abating all nuisances, irregular buildings, defects in drainage, &c., that might prove prejudicial to public health or the beauty of the Court end of the town. These tasks imposed upon him much personal exertion and extensive and intricate calculations. The Royal Exchange, the Monument, Temple Bar, Chelsea Hospital, many of the Halls of the great companies, seventeen churches of the largest parishes in London, and thirtyfour out of the remaining parishes on a large scale, were rebuilt under the direction and from the designs of Wren, during the time that he was engaged upon St. Paul's. When an Act of Parliament was passed in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Anne for the erection of fifty additional churches in the cities of London and Westminster, Wren was appointed one of the commissioners for carrying on the works. Previous to his undertaking this new office he submitted to his colleagues a report on the proper method of conducting such an important business, pointing out the most fitting situations for new churches, the best materials to be used, the most proper dimensions, situation of the pulpit, and other necessary considerations. As we found the germ of the conception of his own St. Paul's Cathedral in his report to King Charles on the condition of the ancient structure, so we find embodied in this report to the commissioners a satisfactory exposition of his theory of ecclesiastical architecture. Wren, a man of equally-balanced disposition and strong judgment, was born and had his early education in the family of a dignitary of the Church of England; his scientific and literary training and many distinctions he received at Oxford. He was emphatically a Protestant according to the views of the Church of England -an admirer of its subdued yet elegant stateliness of ritual. This feeling, cooperating with his fundamental principle, that in architecture use and ornament must always go hand in hand, produced his peculiar style of church-building, and must never be left out of view in attempting to estimate the character and success of that class of his works. The first object with Wren was to ascertain the proper capacity and dimensions of a church. Owing to the populousness of London, "the churches must be large; but still, in our reformed religion, it should seem vain to make a parish church larger than all who are present can both hear and see. The Romanists, indeed, may build larger churches; it is enough if they hear the murmur of the mass and see the elevation of the host; but ours are to be fitted for auditories." Having determined the most eligible size of a church upon this principle, and hinted at the variations of form and proportion of which it was susceptible, he proceeds to the internal arrangement the distribution of the area and the position of the pulpit:-"Concerning the placing of the pulpit, I shall observe a moderate voice may be heard fifty feet distant before the preacher, thirty feet on each side, and twenty behind the pulpit, and not this unless the pronunciation be distinct and equal, without losing the voice at the last word of the sentence, which is commonly emphatical, and if obscured spoils the whole sense." Upon the useful he superinduces his external ornament, taking care that there shall be no discordance between the two:-" As to the situation of the churches, I should propose they be brought as -- : forward as possible into the larger and more open streets; not in obscure lanes, nor where coaches will be much obstructed in the passage: nor are we, I think, too nicely to observe east or west in the position unless it falls out properly. Such fronts as shall happen to lie most open in view should be adorned with porticos, both for beauty and convenience, which, together with handsome spires or lanterns, rising in good proportion above the neighbouring houses (of which I have given several examples in the City, of different forms), may be of sufficient ornament to the town, without a great expense for enriching the outward walls of the churches, in which plainness and duration ought principally, if not wholly, to be studied. When a parish is divided, I suppose it may be thought sufficient if the mother-church has a tower large enough for a good ring of bells, and the other churches smaller towers for two or three bells." Wren had a just conception of what was required from the architect in our climate and state of society. The Grecian temple was a dark and narrow sanctuary, externally adorned. The Gothic cathedral was a vast field for the processions of a gorgeous ritual, in climates not always favourable to out-of-doors display. The public buildings of England are places for assemblies in which men can hear and understand each other, or for the display of works of art. If ever we are to have an English architecture worthy to rank alongside of English literature, English statesmanship, and English science, the use of our buildings must be made the first consideration, and their external form must be made not incongruous with-but immediately derivative from-that use. This truth Wren felt, and made his guide on all occasions. His extensive scientific acquirements enabled him to give that firmness and solid consistency to his structures which alone is susceptible of receiving and retaining high finish and ornament. The outlines of his works are, like all his conceptions, at once stately and graceful. If there be occasionally deficiency, or even faultiness, in his ornaments of detail, that is owing to his limited acquaintance with the architecture of different ages and nations, and not unfrequently to his work having been stunted by a scantiness of funds. THE EXTERIOR. Approaching London, or pausing on the last hill-top to look back on its wide expanse, we feel that the graceful and majestic dome of St. Paul's is the centre of the City-the nucleus about which its masses congregate-the stately Queen, round which tower, monument, and spire stand ranked as attendant handmaidens. Whether we stand on Battersea Rise on a summer evening, with the Abbey towers of Westminster showing their distinct outlines through pure air, when the distant city is veiled by the pall of smoke which the light breeze is inclining towards the ocean, while the stately dome ascends where the regions of definite form and dim amorphous haze fade into each other, its golden cross gleaming through a slumberous golden light-or whether from the heights of Hampstead, when in the silence of the dewy morning we could imagine nothing was awake but the sun and ourselves, we behold the mighty structure by the deceptive influence of the clear air and sidelong light projected into startling nearness-or whether from the hill of Greenwich we see the huge mass swathed in mist, now dim and scarce distinguishable, now lost to view and again reappearing, dark and threatening, like some Highland mountain amid its congenial vapours from every point of view, under every change of atmospheric influence, the dome of St. Paul's remains the prominent and characteristic feature of London, viewed from a distance. Nor does its power over the fascinated eye and imagination cease when we mingle with the spring-tide of human existence, hurried in incessant ebb and flow along the multitudinous and labyrinthine streets of the metropolis. Ever and anon we are aware of the mighty pile seen through some street vista, or appearing over the house-tops as if close at hand. It is ever present, ever beautiful, ever imposing. The Cathedral church combines all the elements of grandeur and beauty. Of colossal size, its summit mingles with the clouds, and at times appears to shift with the thin mists that float past it. The impression made by its graceful outline is heightened by the finish of all its parts, indicating a compactness of structure which gives promise of an eternally youthful appearance. "In the beginning of the new works of St. Paul's," writes Sir Christopher Wren, in the 'Parentalia," "we are told an incident was taken notice of by some people as a memorable omen: when the surveyor in person had set out upon the place the dimensions of the great dome, and fixed upon the centre, a common labourer was ordered to bring a flat stone from the heaps of rubbish (such as should first come to hand) to be laid for a mark and direction to the masons: the stone, which was immediately brought and laid down for that purpose, happened to be a piece of a gravestone, with nothing remaining of the inscription but this single word in large capitals-"Resurgam” (I shall rise again). How much the architect himself was struck by the circumstance, we see by the decorations of the pediment over the southern portico, where an exquisitely-sculptured Phoenix rising from the flames, with the motto "Resurgam," has been placed in accordance with the idea suggested by the incident. And St. Paul's has indeed risen again in consummate beauty and grandeur. Surrounded as it is on all sides with the countless structures which the religion, trade, commerce, amusements, and luxuries of the first capital of the world have required, many of them separately deserving and enjoying our high admiration, who ever thinks for a moment of comparing any of them (Westminster Abbey excepted) with St. Paul's? who ever, indeed, thinks of them at all, when the eye, casually glancing over the mighty panorama of which they form a portion, is so completely occupied by the one sublime object, soaring upwards so far into the skies, the far-famed dome of the Cathedral ? The man who was born within the sound of its bell, and can scarcely remember when he overpassed those limits-the stranger from the country on a brief visit, who obtains perhaps but a single view-the foreigner, familiar with the architectural marvels of other climes the old and the young, the ignorant and the enlightened, alike feel this wondrous pre-eminence, which makes St. Paul's seem not so much a feature, however great, of London, as an embodied idea of London itself. Can any one fancy London without it? In the absence of this grand central object, toward which, as in a picture, everything around appears to tend, and grow regular and coherent from that very connection, the British metropolis would certainly look like the "great wen that Cobbett calls it. For this reason it may be said, somewhat paradoxically, that the finest view of St. Paul's is obtained from a spot where a considerable portion of it cannot be seen, namely, Blackfriars Bridge; for the body of the structure being hidden, the dome, in consequence, with its pilastered basement and colonnaded pedestal, really seems to rest as it were upon the City; and we can imagine nothing more magnificent than the effect. Wren, it must be owned, was most fortunate in the site for his work. It is true that it is sadly shut in on all sides, but we can amend that matter whenever we please; on the other hand, the advantages of the spot are inestimable. It is in the very heart of the metropolis, and so elevated, that-if we may trust the inscription on the curious little piece of sculpture with a naked boy, in the neighbouring Panyer Alley "When you have sought the city round,' Above all, it stands in the midst of the busiest of London thoroughfares, where thousands daily, as they hurry along with the press, must look upon it; and who shall say how often many of these may not have carried away with them some impression of its beauty, majesty, and power, which may open, however unconsciously, the door to a thousand other refreshing and elevating influences? St. Paul's is the only English cathedral built in that style of architecture which, to employ the most comprehensive phrase, may be denominated the Classic, as distinguished from what is called the Gothic, including the various forms that successively arose in Europe after the fall of the Western Empire. Of course, as there were no Christian churches in Greece and Rome, at least during the flourishing times of architecture and the other arts, a modern cathedral cannot exhibit in every respect either an imitation of any Greek or Roman building, or a complete exemplification of the principles of classic architecture. As, on the one hand, these edifices, even when most strongly marked with all the peculiarities of the Gothic style, retain traces of the fashion of the Roman Basilica, or royal palaces, from which they took their origin, those of them on the other hand that are in general constructed on the purest classical principles must in some things differ from any classic building that ever existed. Indeed, what is called the classic style of architecture, as exemplified in Christian churches, is in all cases something of a very mixed description. St. Peter's at Rome is an evidence of this as much as St. Paul's in London. In these two buildings the columns and the arches that connect them belong, it is true, to the ancient orders, but in almost all other respects they are nearly as unlike any Greek or Roman building as is York Minster itself. Without entering upon the question as to which of the two styles possesses the greatest beauty or suitableness for ecclesiastical buildings in this country and climate, we may at least assume that it was desirable to have in England one cathedral not Gothic. That of London is the only one of our old cathedrals which has been entirely destroyed, and which, consequently, it had become necessary to rebuild from the foundation, since what may be called the proper age of Gothic architecture-when it was practised, we mean, not imitatively, as now, but because it was natural to the time; not as a language is spoken after it is dead by those who have learned it from books or at a school, but as men speak their vernacular tongue. This particular cathedral, therefore,-necessarily new at any rate,-seemed to offer a good opportunity for a single exemplification of a new style. No Gothic pile was sacrificed in order to make room for the classic one. At all events, it will be acknowledged that, Sir Christopher Wren being the architect, it would have been unfortunate if the task assigned to him had been the erection of a Gothic cathedral. Neither his studies nor the character of his genius fitted him for excellence in Gothic architecture. The two western towers of Westminster Abbey, which he erected, show how indifferently he would, in all probability, have acquitted himself if he had been forced to exert his powers, on this occasion also, on an attempt for which they were so little suited; and we should have lost a structure which is undoubtedly one of the noblest the world has ever seen, let us judge it by what standard we may. Like most other cathedrals, St. Paul's is built in the form of a cross, the longer arm of the figure extending from east to west. The shorter, or transept, is nearer the east than the west end; but ther is also at the west end what may be called a smaller transept, in respect at least to the external form of the building. The entire length of the church, from east to west, is 500 feet, and that of the proper transept 285. The breadth of the body of the church is 107 feet, and that of the transept |