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]
[Illustration: ELEVATION AND SECTION OF WREN'S REJECTED DESIGN
FOR ST. PAUL'S.
_From his drawings in All Souls' College, Oxford, as reproduced
in facsimile in Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture in
England."_]
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.
[Illustration: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
_From the engraving in Elmes' Memoirs of Sir C. Wren, after the
portrait by Kneller at the Royal Society's rooms._]
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.
[Illustration: RELATIVE POSITION AND AREA OF THE GROUND-PLANS OF
OLD AND NEW ST. PAUL'S.
_Reproduced from Longman's "Three Cathedrals of St. Paul's."_]
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]
[Illustration: MODEL OF WREN'S FIRST DESIGN
_Reproduced from Longman's "Three Cathedrals," &c._
[The western cupola is an addition to the design shown on p. 57]]
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.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MODEL.
_A sketch by the Rev J.L. Petit._]
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.
[Illustration: THE "WARRANT" DESIGN.
_From a drawing in All Souls' College, Oxford. Reproduced from
Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture."_]
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]
[Illustration: A LATER DESIGN.
_From Sir C. Wren's drawings at All Souls' College._
[This is approximately the design finally adopted.]]
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._
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, FROM THE WEST.]