Camden relates, that on the anniversary of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25, held in the church, a fat buck was received with great formality at the choir-entrance by the canons, in their sacerdotal vestments, and with chaplets of flowers on their heads; whilst the antlers of the buck were carried on a pike in procession round the edifice, with horns blowing, &c. On the buck being offered at the high altar, one shilling was paid by the Dean and Chapter.

Within was the tomb of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, with the chivalric appointments of proper helmet and spear and target. Here also were monuments to Sir Nicholas Bacon and Sir Christopher Hatton, and tablets to Sir Philip Sydney and Sir Francis Walsingham; the skeleton effigies of Colet, founder of St. Paul's School; and of Dr. Donne, the poet, erect in his stony shroud. Van Dyck was buried here, but had not a monument. Here, too, in the nave, was the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, son of Guy Earl of Warwick: it was unaccountably called "Duke Humphrey's Tomb," and the dinnerless persons who lounged here were said to dine with Duke Humphrey.

But, perhaps, the finest monument was that of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, Edward I.'s able lieutenant in his Scottish expeditions; his portrait effigy lay upon an altar of beautiful decoration.

The state obsequies were a profitable privilege of the Cathedral: the choir was hung with black and escutcheons; and the herses were magnificently adorned with banner-rolls and other insignia of vainglory;

The floor was laid out in walks: "the south alley for usurye and poperye; the north for simony and the horse-fair; in the midst for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murthers, conspiracies, &c." The middle aisle was called Paul's Walk, and was a lounge for idlers and hunters after news, wits and gallants, cheats, usurers, and knights of the post; the font itself being used as a counter. Ben Jonson has laid a scene of his Every Man out of his Humour in "the middle aisle in Paule's;" Captain Bobadil is a Paul's man ;" and Falstaff bought Bardolph in Paul's. Greene, in his Theeves falling out, &c., says: "Walke in the middle of Paul's, and gentlemen's teeth walk not faster at ordinaries, than there a whole day together about enquiry after news." Bishop Earle, in his Microcosmographia, 1629, says: "Paul's Walke is the Land's Epitome, or you may cal it the lesser lle The noyse in it is like that of Bees, in strange hummings or buzze, mixt of walking, tongues, and feet; it is a kind of still roare, or loud whisper." It was a common thoroughfare for porters and carriers, for ale, beer, bread, fish, flesh, fardels of stuff, and "mules, horses, and other beasts;" drunkards lay sleeping on the benches at the choir-door; within, dunghills were suffered to accumulate; and in the choir people walked "with their hatts on their heddes." Dekker, in his Gull's Hornbook, tells us that the church was profaned by shops, not only of booksellers, but of other trades, such as "the semsters' shops," and "the new tobacco office." He also mentions "Paul's Jacks," automaton figures which struck the quarters on the clock.

of Great Brittaine. * *

The desecration of the exterior of the church was more abominable. The chantry and other chapels were used for stones and lumber, as a school and a glazier's workshop; parts of the vaults were occupied by a carpenter, and as a wine-cellar; and the cloisters were let out to trunkmakers, whose "knocking and noyse" greatly disturbed the churchservice. Houses were built against the outer walls, in which closets and window-ways were made: one was used "as a play-house," and in another the owner" baked his bread and pies in an oven excavated within a buttress;" for a trifling fee, the bell-ringers allowed wights to ascend the tower, halloo, and throw stones at the passengers neath.

be

On special saints' days it was customary for the choristers of the Cathedral to ascend the spire to a great height, and there to chant solemn prayers and anthems: the last observance of this custom was in the reign of Queen Mary, when, "after even-song, the quere of Panies began to go about the steeple singing with lightes, after the olde custome." A similar tenure-custom is observed to this day at Oxford, on the morning of May 1, on Magdalen College tower.

We read, too, of rope-dancing feats from the battlements of St. Paul's exhibited before Edward VI., and in the reign of Queen Mary, who, the day before her coronation, also witnessed a Dutchman standing upon the weathercock of the steeple, waving a five-yard streamer! Another marvel of this class was the ascent of Bankes, on his famous horse Marocco, to the top of St. Paul's, in 1660. The first recorded Lottery in England was drawn at the west door in 1569.

At length, the vast pile became dilapidated; but no effectual step for its repair was taken until 1633, when Inigo Jones commenced the great work: to remove the desecration from the nave to the exterior, he built, it is stated at the expense of Charles I., at the west end, a Corinthian portico of eight columns, with a balustrade in panels, upon which he intended to have placed ten statues: this portico was 200 feet long, 40 feet high, and 50 feet deep; but its classic design, affixed to a Gothic church, must be condemned, unless it be considered as an instalment of a new cathedral. Laud was then Bishop of London. The sum collected was 101,3301.; and the repairs progressed until about one-third of the money was expended, in 1642, when they were stopped by the contests between Charles and his people: the funds in hand were seized to pay the soldiers of the Commonwealth, and barracks made in the church. Shortly after the Restoration, the repairs were resumed under Sir John Denham; and "that miracle of a youth," Wren, drew plans for the entire renovation. In the Great Fire of 1666, the church was reduced to a heap of ruins; and books valued at 150,000Z., which had been placed in St. Faith's (the crypt) for safety by the stationers of Paternoster-row, were entirely destroyed. After the Fire, Wren removed part of the thick walls by gunpowder, but most he levelled with a battering-ram: some of the stone was used to build parish churches, and some to pave the neighbouring streets; and thus was prepared the ground for the present Cathedral.

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

Nearly eight years elapsed after the Great Fire ere the ruins of the old Cathedral were cleared from the site. Meanwhile, Wren was instructed "to contrive a fabric of moderate bulk, but of good proportion; a convenient quire, with a vestibule and porticoes, and a dome conspicuous above the houses." A design was accordingly prepared, octagonal in plan, with a central dome and cupolettas, and affording a vast number of picturesque combinations, as shewn in the model, preserved to this day. This was rejected; and the surveyor next devised "a cathedral form, so altered as to reconcile, as near as possible, the Gothic to a better manner of architecture;" which being approved, Charles II. issued his warrant for commencing the works May 1, 1675. In digging the foundation, a vast cemetery was discovered, in which Britons, Romans, and Saxons had been successively buried; and on digging deeper, marine shells were found, thus proving that the sea once flowed over the site of the present Cathedral. Wren did not, however, find any remains to support the tradition of a Roman temple to Diana having once occupied this spot.

The first stone of the new church was laid June 21, 1675, by the architect and his lodge of Freemasons; and the trowel and mallet then used are preserved in the Lodge of Antiquity, of which Wren was master. In commencing the works, he accidentally set out the dimensions of the dome upon a piece of a gravestone inscribed Resurgam (I shall rise again); which propitious circumstance is commemorated in a Phoenix rising from the flames, with the motto Resurgam, sculptured by Cibber in the pediment over the southern portico. In 1678 Wren set out the piers and pendentives of the dome. By 1685, the walls of the choir and its side aisles, and the north and south semicircular porticoes, were finished; the piers of the dome were also brought up to the same height. On Dec. 2, 1697, the choir was opened on the day of thanksgiving for the peace of Ryswick, when Bishop Burnet preached before King William. On Feb. 1, 1699, the Morning Prayer Chapel, at the north-west angle, was opened; and in 1710 the son of the architect laid the last stone-the highest slab on the top of the lantern. Thus, the whole edifice was finished in thirty-five years; under one architect, Sir Christopher Wren; one master-mason, Mr. Thomas Strong; and while one bishop, Dr. Henry Compton, occupied the see. For his services, Wren obtained, with difficulty, 2001. per annum! "and for this," said the Duchess of Marlborough, "he was content to be dragged up in a basket three or four times a week." The fund raised for the rebuilding amounted, in ten years, to 216,000l.; a new duty laid on coals for this purpose produced 5000l. a-year; and the King contributed 10,000l. annually.

The Cathedral remained almost untouched until the reign of George III., when Mylne was appointed its conservating architect; an office since filled by C. R. Cockerell, R.A., who, in 1821-2, renewed the copper ball and cross, the original ball being preserved at the Colosseum, in the Regent's Park. In 1841, the exterior of the dome was

It was during these repairs that Mr. Hornor, having passed the summer of 1820, in the lantern above the dome, in executing a general view of the metropolis, next erected, at several feet above the highest portion of the present cross, an observatory, in which he drew a new series of sketches on 280 sheets of drawing-paper-a surface of 1680 square feet. From these sketches was painted the great panoramic view of London and the suburbs, first exhibited at the Colosseum, Regent's Park, in 1829. In 1848, there was put up from the Golden Gallery to the summit of the cross a scaffold supporting an observatory, as the main station for a new trigonometrical survey of the metropolis; and between 3000 and 4000 observations were taken here within three months.

repaired by the workmen resting upon a shifting iron frame. The golden gallery railing has since been regilt.

Exterior.-St. Paul's occupies very nearly the site of the old Cathedral, in the centre and most elevated part of the City; though its highest point, the cross, is 36 feet lower than the Castle Tavern, on Hampstead Heath. The plan of St. Paul's is a Latin cross, and bears a general resemblance to that of St. Peter's. Its length, from the east to the west wall, is 500 feet; north to south, 250 feet; width, 125 feet, except at the western end, where two towers, and chapels beyond, make this, the principal front, facing Ludgate Hill, about 180 feet in width. The chapels are, the Morning Prayer, north; and the Consistory Court, south. The exterior generally is

of two orders, 100 feet in height-the upper Composite, and the lower Corinthian; and the surface of the church is Portland stone,rusticated or grooved throughout. At the east end is a semicircular recess, containing the altar. At the west end, a noble flight of steps ascends to a double portico of coupled columns, twelve in the lower, Corinthian; and eight in the upper, Composite; terminated by a pediment, in the tympanam of which (64 feet long and 17 feet high) is the conversion of St. Paul, sculptured in pretty high relief by Bird; on the apex is a colossal figure of St. Paul, and on the right and left, St. Peter and St. James. Beneath the lower portico are the doors, and above them a sculptured group, in white marble, of St. Paul preaching to the Bereans. This double portico has been much censured: Wren pleaded that he could not obtain stone of sufficient beight for the shafts of one grand portico; "but," says Mr. Gwilt, "it would have been far better to have had the columns in many pieces, and even with vertical joints, Transept. E. Choir. than to have placed one por

tico above another." At the extremities of this front rise, 220 feet, two campanile towers, terminating in open lanterns, "covered with domes formed by curves of contrary flexure, and not very purely composed, though, perhaps, in character with the general façade." (Gwilt.)

tains the clock, and the north is a belfry; and in the west faces are fates of the four Evangelists. At the northern and southern ends

of the transepts, the lower order, Corinthian, is continued into porticoes

of six fluted columns, standing, in plan, on the segment of a circle, and crowned with a semi-dome. In the upper order are two pediments, the south sculptured with the Phoenix, and the north with the royal arms and regalia; and on each side are five statues of the Apostles. The main building is surmounted with a balustrade, not in Wren's design, the obtrusion of which by the Commissioners caused the architect to say: "I never designed a balustrade: ladies think nothing well without an edging."

The Cathedral was scientifically secured from lightning, according to the suggestion of the Royal Society, in 1769. The seven iron scrolls supporting the ball and cross are connected with other rods (used merely as conductors), which unite them with several large bars descending obliquely to the stone-work of the lantern, and connected by an iron ring with four other iron bars to the lead covering of the great cupola, a distance of forty-eight feet; thence the communication is continued by the rain-water pipes to the lead-covered roof, and thence by lead water-pipes which pass into the earth; thus completing the entire communi cation from the cross to the ground, partly through iron and partly through lead. On the clock-tower a bar of iron connects the pine-apple at the top with the iron staircase, and thence with the lead on the roof of the church. The bell-tower is similarly protected. By these means the metal used in the building is made available as conductors; the metal employed merely for that purpose being exceedingly small in quantity.—(Times, Sept. 8, 1842, abridged.)

Construction. The following details are by an eminent architect: The entrances from the transepts lead into vestibules, each communicating with the centre, and its aisles formed between two massive piers and the walls at the intersections of the transepts with the choir and nave. The eight piers are joined by arches springing from one to the other, so as to form an octagon at their springing points; and the angles between the arches, instead of rising vertically. sail over as they rise and form pendentives, which lead, at their top, into a circle on the plan. Above this a wall rises in the form of a truncated cone, which, at the height of 168 feet from the pavement, terminates in a horizontal cornice, from which the interior dome springs. Its diameter is 100 feet, and it is 60 feet in height, in the form of a paraboloid. Its thickness is 18 inches, and it is constructed of brickwork. From the haunches of this dome, 200 feet above the pavement of the church, another cone of brickwork commences, 85 feet high, and 94 feet diameter at the bottom. This cone is pierced with apertures, as well for the purpose of diminishing its weight as for distributing light between it and the outer dome. At the top it is gathered into a dome, in the form of a hyperboloid, pierced near the vertex with an aperture 12 feet in diameter. The top of this cone is 285 feet from the pavement, and carries a lantern 55 feet high, terminating in a dome, whereon a ball and (aveline) cross is raised. The last-named cone is provided with corbels, sufficient in number to receive the hammer-beams of the external dome, which is of oak, and its base 220 feet from the pavement,-its summit being level with the top of the cone. In form it is nearly hemispherical, and generated by radii 57 feet in length, whose centres are in a horizontal dia meter, passing through its base. The cone and the interior dome are restrained in their lateral thrust on the supports by four tiers of strong iron chains (weighing 95 cwt. 3 qrs. 23 lbs.), placed in grooves prepared for their reception, and run with lead. The lowest of these is inserted in the masonry round their common base, and the other three at different heights on the exterior of the cone. Externally, the intervals of the columns and pilasters are occupied by windows and niches, with horizontal and semicircular heads, and crowned with pediments.

Over the intersection of the nave and transepts for the external work, and for a height of 25 feet above the roof of the church, a cylindrical wall rises, whose diameter is 146 feet. Between it and the lower conical wall is a space, but at intervals they are connected by cross walls. This cylinder is quite plain, but perforated by two courses of rectangular apertures. On it stands a peristyle of thirty columns of the Corinthian order, 40 feet high, including bases and capitals, with a plain entablature crowned by a balustrade. In this peristyle, every fourth intercolumniation is filled up solid, with a niche, and connexion is provided be tween it and the wall of the lower cone. Vertically over the base of that cone, above the peristyle, rises another cylindrical wall, appearing above the balustrade. It is ornamented with pilasters, between which are two tiers of rectangular windows. From this wall, the external dome springs. The lantern receives no sup port from it. It is merely ornamental, differing entirely in that respect from the dome of St. Peter's. (Gwill's Encyclopædia of Architecture.) - Externally the