A History of London, Vol. I
Loftie, W. J.
1883
CHAPTER XII. WREN.
CHAPTER XII. WREN.
IT is but seldom in the history of the world that great men and great opportunities meet. Too often genius has to struggle with circumstances. Inigo Jones's fate as an architect may well be contrasted with that of . He had to contend against prejudice, national poverty, and finally, the confusion which was caused by the great rebellion. His finest designs were never carried out. His noble portico at St. Paul's was finished just before war was declared. He fell, indeed, on evil days, and though at once the most learned and the most original of English architects, the accident that he lived in times of social disturbance has deprived us of any very great building from his designs. He was a man of genius without an opportunity.[1] | |
Personally, too, he seems to have been unpopular. He was much disliked by the parishioners of St. Gregory's for instance. They petitioned Parliament against him for pulling down half their church to make room for the new portico. [2] And others looked askance at him as an instrument of the royal extravagance. His | |
363 | design for a palace at Whitehall is still extant[3] and is well known to architects and others. But no part of it ever existed except on paper. The Royal Chapel at Whitehall is, perhaps, the most considerable of his buildings now remaining, and though it has been diverted from its original purpose as a banqueting hall, and much altered and "restored," it is one of the most complete, satisfactory, and at the same time picturesque edifices in Europe. His only remarkable church, if, indeed, he ever designed another, is St. Paul's, Covent Garden. [4] Here, again, the fates were against him. It is evident at a glance that the great question for the architect's solution, was the simple and common one-namely, how to obtain the greatest effect at the least cost. In his portico at St. Paul's Cathedral [5] he was less hampered by want of means. It must indeed have been a noble work, worthy of the situation, and in some sense worthy of the church to which it was attached The worst part of the new work was the pair of western towers, but he may have hoped to improve them as time went on. The incongruity of the design with a gothic cathedral has been much insisted upon. But there was probably very little real incongruity between the Norman features of the west front, and the Corinthian |
364 | columns of the portico, not more, certainly, than already existed between the round arched and the pointed work in the church itself. Moreover, incongruity, where both the old work and the new were of the best, would rather deserve the name of picturesqueness, and we may feel sure that no work of Inigo Jones ever wanted in this characteristic. We cannot mistake his touch when we meet with any fragment of one of his designs. In fact, if when he was employed at , as Jones had been employed at St. Paul's, had built a similar portico, or had set a Grecian temple on the summit of his towers, it might have looked incongruous, but it would at any rate have been more picturesque than the perfectly congruous but uninteresting, if not ugly design after which the west end was ultimately finished by Hawksmoor.[6] It is no disparagement of to say that Jones had qualities which he wanted, and that Jones more often struck the exact mean between severity and irregularity which produces the best effects in architecture. |
It is a question whether, if the great opportunity afforded to had come to Jones instead, he could have made a better use of it. The very regularity of 's habits, his methodical way of going to work, his exactness and mathematical precision, are qualities seldom united with such high creative power. There is no guess-work in anything he did. He tried no experiments. Everything was thoroughly thought out. He knew beforehand what effect he wished to produce, and how to produce it. Yet, as is so often the case with genius like his, his powers improved with years, and the last design or modification was better than | |
365 | the first. Of no great artist was it ever more true than of , that his genius was a capacity for taking pains.[7] |
, the son of the dean of Windsor, the nephew of the bishop of Ely, was connected by birth with the royalist party. His uncle was a prisoner in the Tower during the whole time of 's ascendancy, [8] but he contrived, without however any inconsistency, to stand on good terms with the Protector's government, owing to his friendship with Claypoole. He had no inclination to meddle in politics, and was not implicated with the losing side at the Restoration. [9] | |
When Inigo Jones, before hostilities broke out between King and Parliament, added the portico to the western front of St. Paul's, he also greatly altered the ancient building in other parts. The Puritans, who saw in the cathedral a useless building too large to preach in, not only stopped the repairs, but considerably injured the whole church, and especially the new portico, in which they permitted booths to be built. After the restoration of the Stuarts even the new work was falling to pieces. The epitaph of a dean who died four years after came home is significant. " Among these sacred ruins | |
366 | his own are laid, in the certainty that both shall rise again." was now employed in the office of Denham, the surveyor-general of works, and had already shown his capacity by a college chapel at Cambridge.[10] He was consulted about the repairs, and reported that the whole building was in a dangerous state. The tower leaned. The pillars of the nave were mere shells, filled with rubble. The roof was too heavy for its supports. He recommended what would practically amount to rebuilding the cathedral. A dome was to be the central feature, and the rest of the church was gradually to be brought into harmony with it. 's idea of patching up an ancient gothic and Norman building, and of gradually bringing the whole into one harmonious design, has merits for which he has hardly yet received due credit. We might possibly, had he carried out the design, have had a new development of architectural art, growing more directly out of gothic, than the classical, or Italian style afterwards followed, and might have seen in any later works undertaken by the same hand, a further and yet further advance. is known to have admired Ely Cathedral-the plan of which, indeed, he copied in his new St. Paul's-and the chapel of King's College, with its "fan-work" roof. The idea of a dome also fascinated him: though it is a curious fact, that he can never, till he built his own, have seen one of any size. The dome of St. Sophia set a pattern all through the East. Every one of the exquisite mosques of Cairo is descended from this most successful Byzantine development of a classical style. What similar feeling might have become in 's hands |
367 | we know not. He never mastered the simpler principles of gothic architecture, and it is possible that even the task of repairing Old St. Paul's might have only awakened in his mind a disgust at the whole style, in which he saw so much bad work, so much ignorance of the principles of building, so much weakness. [11] St. Paul's, like St. Alban's Abbey in our own time, was chiefly remarkable for size. There was little or no uniformity. The lofty spire, the tallest in Christendom, [12] had been set on fire by lightning in , but the flames were quenched, as tradition reports, with vinegar, and the spire rebuilt, [13] only to be wholly consumed from the same cause in , when no attempt was made to repair the damage. A wooden spire, 520 feet in height, unprotected by either lightning conductors or the neighbourhood of any buildings of similar elevation, was sure to be struck within a few years. It had no towers at the west end until Inigo Jones built two small ones behind or beside his portico. The nave was Norman, consisting of twelve bays, and had been originally roofed with flat timbers. Some time, perhaps in the fifteenth century, it had been vaulted. The tower had great windows showing light into the crossing of the transepts. The east end was terminated by a lofty Lady Chapel, with a large rose window of remarkable beauty. The clerestory of the nave was Early English, but the transepts and choir were decorated.[14] The monuments |
368 | were numerous. A few fragments only remain, now shown in the crypt of the new church. Among the great folk buried in St. Paul's were St. Erkenwald,[15] king Ethelred, the "Unready," or "Without Council," John of Gaunt, duke of ; Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Christopher Hatton, four worthies of the great period; Chigwell, Pulteney, Hewit, and probably many other mayors; more than twelve bishops of London, and a number of deans, including Colet, Nowell and Donne. [16] |
Such was Old St. Paul's, the finest church in London. The newly named Christ Church in Street was considered in its time more elegant, but it was much smaller, and the choir was remodelled at the Reformation. [17] Of the other churches we can only judge from those which survived the fire. The number of them has been considerably diminished even since the time of . Some have been destroyed and rebuilt. Some have been destroyed and never rebuilt, like the Guildhall Chapel. Some, like St. Martin Outwich, have been destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again. Of those that remain, St. Helen's is the most important, St. Ethelburga's the oldest, and St. Katherine Cree the newest, having been practically rebuilt in . St. Olave's, | |
369 | Hart Street, and St. Andrew's Undershaft also survive, with All Hallows Barking.[18] |
The history of an old city church cannot be better illustrated than by the fate of St. Martin Outwich. [19] It underwent every vicissitude except the Great Fire. The parish, like several others within the city boundaries, is situated in two different wards. It probably, therefore, represents the estate, or we may, perhaps, say soke, of the Outwich family. The name occurs as early as , as St. Martin Otteswich. In it is Otheswyke. The name may denote a "wych " or dwelling, within Bishopgate, or may belong to some Otto or Otho whose memory has not otherwise been preserved. Stow mentions four members of the " Oteswich" family, and calls them the founders. The advowson was in the hands of John, Earl of Warren and Surrey, in . It appears to have belonged to the Crown after this for a time. But a certain citizen named Churchman, who was sheriff in , and who was trustee of some descendants of the Outwich family, bought the estate and advowson for them. In we find him joining with them to sell both to the merchant taylors' or linen armourers' company, " Keepers of the Guild and Fraternity | |
370 | of John the Baptist,"[20] and the company has ever since presented to the living. The Great Fire, as I have said, spared the church, which was situated at the extremity of Threadneedle Street, with its east window looking on Street. It thus closely adjoined Gresham House, and almost faced Crosby Place. |
From its conspicuous situation and from the wealth of its patrons the merchant taylors, we might perhaps expect that St. Martin Outwich would have resembled a great country church, or one in a wealthy commercial town like Hull or Boston. But it was only 66 feet long. The wooden roof rose but 31 feet from the floor. The walls were a mixture of brick and stone. The windows were small, and the tower was only 65 feet high to the vane. It did not even rank, therefore, with a second or third rate village church, and contained besides a few handsome altar tombs, no features of architectural importance. The two miserable aisles were divided by a couple of pillars of "a Gothic-Tuscan order," and the chancel was panelled to a height of 11 feet. Such was the old church. In , it became so ruinous that it was pulled down and a new building erected, of which it was remarked that it looked more like a gaol than a church. Cockerell was the architect and his object in disfiguring this very conspicuous corner with so "heavy and ugly" [21] a design never transpired. Within it was a little less hideous, being oval in shape, and not inconvenient for public worship. On its removal in , the parish was united with that of St. Helen and the bones of the unhonoured dead were dug up and | |
371 | carted off to Ilford. Some of the monuments may be seen in St. Helen's Church,[22] and form an interesting addition to the number already collected there. |
It is certain that the majority of the parish churches of London were not unlike St. Martin's when the fire came. Some of them, we know, were perched on arches. [23] St. Mary Colechurch and St. Lawrence Pountney were examples of this arrangement, while St. Mildred's in the Poultry was built in part on a bridge over the . [24] | |
The condition of the city when undertook its reconstruction may be gathered from the summary in the last chapter. But he was not content with the idea of merely rebuilding such churches as those of which I have spoken, nor was he willing to see the narrow, winding, unwholesome streets renewed on their old lines. He prepared a magnificent plan, by which St. Paul's and the Exchange would respectively become the centres of a double system of radiating streets, designed to set off the principal public buildings to the best advantage, while a broad quay lined the river's bank. The cathedral was to be surrounded by a colonnaded piazza, and every street corner was to afford some such vista as that which still surprises and delights the eye when we pass . The western | |
372 | end was to have looked down Ludgate Hill from a "circular pavilion 60 feet in diameter."[25] The smaller streets were to be not less than 30 feet wide, and all dark alleys and courts were to be abolished. The churches were to occupy commanding situations along the chief thoroughfares, and were to be "designed according to the best forms for capacity and hearing, adorned with useful porticoes, and lofty ornamental towers and steeples in the greater parishes." The churchyards were to be in the ancient Roman fashion, a sort of girdle round the town, carefully planted and laid out, and calculated both to ornament the city and also to check its growth. [26] No gardens were to be within the walls, the wide streets and numerous open spaces being, in 's opinion, sufficient for the healthiness of the citizens. The Fleet was to be left open, to be widened, canalised, and bordered by broad quays, so as to form a convenient port for barges. [27] |
Had been allowed to carry out this magnificent design, which would not, by the way, have cost any more than the actual rebuilding as it eventually took place, no city in Europe would have had a more magnificent, or a more picturesque aspect. It was not a mere architectural day-dream. ", with a perfect knowledge of his own powers, which he considered as dispassionately, and knew as accurately as any matter of mathematical science, was ready to undertake and perform his scheme to the uttermost."[28] But several circumstances conspiredto defeat | |
373 | it. The king could never make up his mind, and at this time the king counted for more than at an earlier period, while the mayor was not a man like Whittington or Gresham. The citizens were in a great hurry to begin the rebuilding. Leases were granted immediately in Moorfields. Men of business were anxious not to part with the old sites. The winter was coming on, and the people must be housed. In short, there was no one to take the scheme up warmly, and there were a great many to oppose it. The modern archaeologist, who knows how instructive are those very courts and alleys which would have obliterated, who traces with diligent minuteness the old parochial boundaries, and tries to reconstruct for himself the gabled houses, the quaint little churches at every corner, the conduits and even the sign-boards which still survive in street names, would have had most cause for regret. |
It is, of course, impossible to go completely through even the shortest notice of all that built within the next few years.[29] No two towers, no two churches, no two porticoes were the same. The infinite variety of his designs is almost as surprising as their uniform beauty. St. Paul's grew slowly, while the parish churches all around were springing up with amazing rapidity. For the most part very little money was forthcoming, and had constantly to postpone every other consideration to that of cost. But the cheapest of the new churches was at least well built, and likely to last without any important repairs, [30] clean, light, airy, and designed as had promised, "according to the best | |
374 | forms for capacity and hearing." The old idea of a church was one in which there would be the best accommodation for the celebration of the Mass. The "capacity " to be studied was not a capacity for holding a large congregation, but for providing as many altars as possible for the chantry priests. The new idea elevated the sermon to the first place in the minds of religious citizens. It is probable that many of the older churches were without pulpits of any kind. In the new ones the pulpit was the prominent if not the principal feature. In another point all the new churches differed from the old. did not put up a single open timber roof like those which prevailed in a large majority of the old churches. Some he vaulted, some he ceiled, but knowing the danger from storm and fire of the high pitched roofs with their open beams, he covered his churches for the most part with lead, and laid it as nearly as possible flat. When he got leave, he took great pains with the exterior, and sometimes, when one part of a church was more exposed to view than another, he accentuated the ornamental and constructional features. The eastern end of St. Lawrence Jewry looks on King Street and the Guildhall Court. It is enriched with an exquisitely proportioned composition of corinthian columns and pilasters.[31] At St. Matthew's Friday Street, [32] again, where only one side faced a street, and light was needed, the whole wall forms a single long window divided by pillars into six arched openings. |
But the great glory of 's parish churches, and indeed of the whole city, are the towers and spires. They are gradually disappearing, to the great regret of | |
375 | all lovers of the beautiful in architecture. When two or three had been pulled down it was discovered, but too late, that the harmonious effect of all was marred. There can be no doubt that made the design of one to balance or contrast or harmonise with another. No tower was built with reference to itself alone. All were part of a single great composition, now for ever lost. I am inclined the more to insist upon this because I have never heard any kind of reason given why they should have been removed. It is sometimes said that the site was valuable. But the site of a church tower is very small, and surely London is not so poverty-stricken that it cannot afford to keep its greatest ornaments. The case of the church itself is somewhat different. In the first place, it covers a more considerable area, and that, too, in many parts of the city where land is sold by the inch almost, so valuable is it. In the second, some persons of influence, though they did not scruple to allow the church to be utterly razed, had very considerable objection to its being put to a secular use.[33] The value of the site and of the materials was applied to a most desirable object, but how that object can be served by the destruction of buildings admirably suited for some business purposes, I have not learned. seems to have foreseen the probability of this course of action, and both to have put his towers apart from the churches to which they belonged, and also to have avoided, where it was possible, setting them in the principal street front. The steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside is an unfortunate exception. Here he built a passage to connect it with |
376 | the church, setting the tower forward into the street. It has not yet been pulled down to widen the roadway, like the best of the spires. |
's towers have been divided into three classes.[34] Some are wholly of stone. Some consist of stone substructures with lead-covered spires or lanterns. Some are simple towers. It is difficult to preserve this classification, as it does not in any way define the relative importance of the different designs. The western towers of St. Paul's, for instance, are in the first, and the central dome in the second class. But for practical purposes, and as we have no occasion to go minutely through every one of them, it may do as well as any other. [35] | |
The stone steeples are eleven in number, including the two western towers of St. Paul's. 's most ambitious work is to be found in them. They were only attached to churches when sufficient money was forthcoming and the architect was not too much hampered by questions of cost. The palm among them is usually assigned to St. Mary-le-Bow: and I shall probably be considered very heterodox if I venture to prefer St. Magnus. There are some most charming features in St. Mary's, the light circular colonnade, for instance. But the square and the circular parts do not seem to come well together, and I have never been able to see any meaning or use in the corner finials of the square or lower part of the tower supporting little vases. They certainly have no beauty. Vases alone are used in the same situation on the lovely steeple of St. Bride, as well as on the tower of St. Magnus, which indeed remains, in my mind, one of the most absolutely faultless of 's towers, though I should | |
377 | have preferred stone for lead on the dome at the top. Lead, however, is no necessary part of the design.[36] St. Mary's is much larger, the dragon vane on the top of the highest pinnacle rising to a height of 221 feet 9 inches from the pavement of Cheapside, while St. Magnus is only 185 feet high, and looks even smaller, as it is close under . St. Mary's was begun in , and is therefore among the first, as St. Magnus, erected in , is one of the last of 's designs. |
One cannot but admire the steeple of St. Bride's, built in , although the series of similar stages which form the spire would have been unpleasing if executed by any other hand. As it is, we find it difficult "to avoid the idea that they might all sink into one another, and shut up like the slides of a telescope." [37] Another ambitious, yet scarcely successful design, is that of St. Vedast Foster Lane. It is seen, when we enter the city by Street, behind the steeple of Christ Church, and the two are exactly the same in height. [38] As the steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow can be taken into the same view from the street, it will be seen at once that thought more of St. Mary's than of the others, and that to a certain extent, they were erected to set it off. Of the two St. Vedast's was the first built.[39] Its unquiet play of concave curves comes into absolute and violent contrast with the concentric circles of St. Mary's, and it is easy to believe that saw the advantage of trying in Christ Church the effect of simple right angles and as few curves as were consistent with an arcuated building. | |
378 | Undoubtedly when the authorities remove one of the three both the others will suffer. |
, little as he cared for gothic, has left in the city four examples of what he could do in that style. St. Alban's Wood Street, is hardly to be distinguished from a genuine gothic church of a late period. Inigo Jones had built a church on the same spot, and it is stated by tradition to have been in the same style. As 's work was finished in , it is among the designs of a comparatively early period in his career. Thirteen years later he built the tower only of St. Dunstan's-in-the- East, the church not having been burnt. Here he imitated the design of St. Nicholas, at Newcastle-on- Tyne,[40] perching a small spire or lantern on four flying buttresses. Though really a strong building, it looks weak, and we cannot admire architectural gymnastics. Thirteen years again elapsed, and rebuilt St. Mary Aldermary, a church only partially consumed in the great fire. The groined roof is very fine, and shows what might have been done for the further development of the old style had and his successors taken it up in earnest. The mouldings are too shallow, the tracery and panelling too round, the details semi-classical; but St. Mary's will always take rank after the famous staircase at Christ Church, Oxford, as an example of postmedieval gothic. [41] The tower, the effect of which has been greatly injured, when seen from a little distance, by the removal of 's greatest spire, which stood close by in Watling Street, is graceful, and but for a too | |
379 | frequent repetition of small and meaningless architectural features, very successful as an imitation. St. Antholin's stood alone as the only simple stone spire built. It contrasted admirably with St. Mary Aldermary, being purely gothic in construction though with Italian details. It was taller than St. Mary's by about twenty feet, as a spire should be, but the proportion between them was otherwise very equal. It was pulled down in . "One cannot but deeply regret the loss of this spire, unique in its way among 's works," observes Mr. Taylor, and his words are not by any means strong enough to suit the occasion. We cannot boast much of the culture with which the last quarter of the nineteenth century was inaugurated in the city, when such a vandalism as this was perpetrated. We may recall the words of Strype when speaking of the destruction of the spire of the Austin Friars, "times hereafter may more talk on it." |
's latest architectural effort was the rebuilding of the tower of St. Michael's upon Cornhill, which was only accomplished the year before his death. He had built the church more than forty years before, but the fire, though it had injured, had not destroyed the tower. We have thus in the same building a gothic steeple and a classical church, and the steeple can only be looked upon as a restoration or imitation of the old one. Indeed the parishioners seem, as became the dwellers on the old bishop's soke, to have been unusually conservative in their ideas, and their church covers the exact site of the former one, though it is not rectangular. The tower, one of the most conspicuous in London, as it rises 130 feet from the highest ground in the city, is square, and has at the summit four massive turrets rather than pinnacles, in a very fair gothic style. This | |
380 | is more than can be said for a vulgar porch, bedizened with coarse carving and coloured columns, which has lately been added to the original design. |
Of 's minor churches it is not necessary that I should say much. Many of them were built in great haste, others with very insufficient means. Thus, the people of Allhallows Lombard Street had a temporary structure erected to worship in, and would have restored their old church had it been possible. They coped the walls with straw and lime to keep them from further destruction. By they reluctantly abandoned hopes of repair, and commissioned to build them a new church. To expedite the building in some parishes, presents were sent to and to his master mason, Hooke, and rewards for rapid work. It is astonishing how solidly and soundly they are all constructed. If ever an architect built for eternity it was . We are sometimes told that it is necessary when the churches are abandoned to pull the towers down on account of the expense of keeping them in repair. But those towers which have been pulled down showed no signs of decay, and would have stood for centuries, and all the longer for not being subject to the tinkering of a modern builder. The excuse only adds insult to injury. | |
The smallness of the cost of 's works is to be observed. Though he built so solidly, and though he took care that no part of the panelling or carving was scamped, yet the most expensive of all his parish churches, St. Mary-le-Bow, only reached 15,400£. As money was worth seven to ten per cent. at the time, we may reckon this less than 50,000£. in our money. Christ Church Street, and St. Lawrence Jewry, cost 12,000£. each, as did St. Bride's. But a great number were | |
381 | built for an expenditure varying from 2500£. at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, to 6000£. at St. Peter's Cornhill. himself drew the modest salary of 100£. a year as architect to the City Church Commissioners. The difficulty of raising money was often very great, and some of the poorer parishes found it almost impossible. In fact, when we remember that there were no insurance companies, that an enormous amount of wealth was destroyed, that a large number of wealthy people were utterly ruined, and that little business had been done the year before the Great Fire owing to the plague, we are surprised at the rapidity with which London rose from her ashes. Private benevolence was very frequently enlisted. A tax on coals was imposed by Act of Parliament. Collections were made from house to house. Yet it was only by two parishes combining their funds that several of the churches were built. [42] The gifts of private individuals were in some cases out of all proportion to what we hear of nowadays. The widow of Henry Rogers, for instance, gave 5000£. to the repair of St. Mary Aldermary, a sum equal to fully 12,000£. now. So, too, Lady Williamson not only gave 2620£. towards the building of St. Paul's, being the largest individual subscription, but 4000£. towards St. Dunstan's-in-the-East and 2000£. towards St. Mary-le-Bow. "Mr. George Holman, said to have been a Roman Catholic, gave 1000£." [43] to the building of St. Benet Fink. Sums of 250£. and 100£. were very common, and the citizens of the time set us a good example. The unanimity with which was employed is also a pleasing feature in |
382 | the annals of the period. Nor was his attention confined to churches. He built also a number of halls for the companies, but here he had the sharp competition of the city architect, Jarman, who in fact restored the greatest of them. But Guildhall was little injured by the Great Fire, and what Jarman did was neither considerable nor admirable. , in short, must be looked upon as the restorer of the London we now see, and one hesitates to write that already eleven of his churches and ten of his towers have been pulled down in what I may call cold blood-as part of a settled and premeditated scheme which still carries on its evil work.[44] |
I have reserved to the last the two most important of his buildings in the city. One is among the smallest, the other by far the largest of his churches, but their history is inextricably connected. had already, early in , built a small domed church. St. Mary-at-Hill had not lost its ancient tower, which stood till , but renewed the body of the church. Four Doric columns support a cupola, which only rises to a height of 38 feet. He formed a more ambitious design towards the end of the same year. In October the foundations were laid of the outwardly plain church of St. Stephen's . Whether ever made a suitable design for the exterior or not I have no information, | |
383 | but of the interior it may safely be said that his fame as an architect is established by it, and is hardly increased by the subsequent erection of St. Paul's. |
St. Stephen's is altogether satisfactory for the same reason that had no rivals and no successors. [45] The amount of thought expended on one little church which was not to cost so much as 8000£. shows us both why the design is so good and also why it has never been imitated. was probably the second mathematician in England at the time, his only superior being Sir Isaac Newton. He knew the exact proportions which would produce the best effect. The church was somewhat pulled about and scraped during the height of the so-called gothic mania, a few years ago, but remains substantially as left it. There was a proposal to cut down the pews. Had this been carried out the whole effect of the church would have been altered. At present, by one of the most subtle yet simple contrivances ever thought of, we see the whole of the area of the church without any interruption. conceived the happy thought of elevating his pillars on bases, and concealing the bases with lofty pews. The real floor, the floor, that is, from which the whole design rises, is therefore on a level with the eye, and the visitor sees the church as if in a picture-as if he himself was not within it. In so small a building this is of the greatest service in enhancing the size. When it is empty, and the visitor sees no figure to measure its size, it appears gigantic. When "two or three are gathered together," everything is changed, and it is betrayed as the miniature | |
384 | of a grand cathedral.[46] The amount of work in planning and carrying out this small building must have been altogether out of proportion to its bulk. A few sentences from a paper on it by a competent architect [47] will exhibit its difficulties. "The plan results from an octagon inscribed in a circle whose diameter is equal to the distance between the centres of the extreme columns. The interior length of the church is the common measure of the other parts, one-half of it being given to the diameter of the circle about which the columns under the cupola are circumscribed.... The columns are of the Corinthian order, and it is truly astonishing to observe the advantage the architect has taken of so scanty a number as sixteen." But the great merits of St. Stephen's are not to be described by mathematical and architectural terms, however carefully chosen. They are better indicated in the simple fact that the effect charms the most ignorant visitor as it satisfies the most learned critic. To imitate work like this would require not only 's genius but his knowledge. We have had clever architects since his time, no doubt, but none who were able to apply to their designs his " capacityfor taking trouble," and his previously-acquired mathematical experience, together with the natural eye for beauty which distinguished him. stands alone in his own line as stands in his. Neither |
385 | of them established a school, for the simple reason that no one in their time was worthy to be their scholar. |
The largest, and in some senses the greatest, of 's buildings is that which he substituted for the venerable cathedral church of London. An exaggerated idea of Old St. Paul's has been formed of late. I have endeavoured above to form an impartial idea of what it was in reality. To say that 's church is a worthy successor is to disparage . His work is in a different style, of course, and it is not possible to institute a just comparison. The only cathedral in Europe worthy to compete with 's is St. Peter's at Rome; yet, except in the one matter of size, where St. Peter's has the advantage, St. Paul's is superior. It is not possible to compare St. Paul's adequately with either Salisbury or Ely; but both comparisons have been made. Salisbury and St. Paul's are alone as having been begun and finished, or nearly finished, in the same style: Ely Cathedral presents the same complexities of plan as St. Paul's; but carried very little further both comparisons fail. The slight irregularities of Salisbury only add to its picturesqueness, and the removal of an incongruous campanile by Wyatt is always ranked as an architectural crime; or, at least, as that kind of mistake which is as bad as a crime. Ely has the fault of Old St. Paul's, and is in two very different styles. No classical or gothic addition-so as it is good of its kind-can very greatly injure it. But 's St. Paul's is a harmonious composition, complete and uniform, remarkable as much for its unity as for its beauty.[48] An incongruous addition, however good in itself, would be calculated to injure it. To | |
386 | a gothic cathedral it stands as an ode of Gray's stands to a ballad like Chevy Chase. A line, a word, subtracted or added, would spoil the ode. Half-a-dozen good verses would not hurt the ballad. |
The great feature of St. Paul's, however, is neither its size nor its beauty, but its fitness, whether considered from an artistic point of view or from that of mere utility. It is sometimes objected to churches in a classical style that they are like heathen temples. This is perfectly true of St. Pancras New Church, for example, only that no real Greek building of the size would be so ugly. But St. Paul's is unmistakably a church, notwithstanding its classical details, and can never for a moment be mistaken for anything but a church. It is roomy and bright: people can see and hear in it. Windows are part of the design. At St. Pancras windows exist in spite of the style. At St. Paul's the dominant problem in the architect's mind was how to make it possible and convenient for the largest number of people to worship or to be taught together. It is not too large for the dome itself to be used as St. Paul's Cross was used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are probably no such congregations in the world as those which assemble in St. Paul's Sunday after Sunday, and all can hear, all can see. | |
It is said to be the test of Handel's oratorios that they may be sung by any number of voices that can be assembled, and that they sound better and better as the choir is increased in strength. St. Paul's Cathedral stands the test of numbers in the same way, and never looks so well as when it is most full of worshippers. But its fitness is evidenced in many other ways, and it may safely be asserted that no church has been built since the Reformation which so completely answers its purpose. | |
387 | |
St. Paul's, as first designed it, was to be a singlestoreyed building with two domes, one considerably smaller than the other, and with a portico strongly resembling Inigo Jones's. The interior was evidently a matter for more thought with him than the exterior. In fact, it would have consisted mainly of the space under a great dome, with a vestibule formed under the smaller one. But court or other influence was against it, and after some delay proceeded to sketch a design on the lines of a gothic church. It was to be cruciform in plan, to have side aisles and a clear-storey and at least a couple of chapels. To all these conditions he submitted, but very unwillingly, and the drawing, which still exists, as approved by the king and the commissioners, fulfilled them all, but is without any exception the poorest and weakest design which ever issued from his hands. We can, in fact, scarcely recognise his work in it. But to the king and his brother it mattered little whether had done his best or his worst so that they had a church suitable to the religious worship which one of them already openly professed. The drawing was therefore passed, with the words "very artificial, proper, and useful." | |
It was no sooner thus accepted than silently threw it aside. There is no known drawing extant of the church as we now see it. Three features, all wholly foreign to 's ideas of good taste, exist in the building, all forced upon him by his employers. The existence of a central aisle and clear-storey rendered it necessary that a kind of screen should be built above the walls of the side aisles. The general appearance of the whole building becomes at once two-storeyed. So also the dome could no longer cover the wide space at first intended, but must be circumscribed to suit the altered | |
388 | plan This led to another constructive deception, and we have now, in fact, three domes; an inner one, which is that seen within the church; an outer one, which is that seen from the street; and between the two a coneshaped building of brick made to carry the weight of the central lantern, with its ball and cross. Lastly, when the work approached completion, a balustrade, which is not a classical feature, but borrowed from the gothic, was proposed, and a third time had to submit. " Ladies," he said scornfully, in an official reply to the commissioners, "think nothing well without an edging." |
With these faults, which probably himself disliked more than any one else, St. Paul's is deserving of all the admiration it receives. Much time and talk have been spent of late on the subject of the decorations. A large sum of money has been laid up, and something will undoubtedly be done before long. I confess, apart from artistic considerations, that I am glad to have been allowed to see it as left it, before the altered arrangement of the organ, before the intrusion of the interior porches, before the introduction of the incongruous, if handsome pulpit under the dome: and before the old grey, ghostly figures on the dome are supplanted by modern mosaics. | |
The dimensions of St. Paul's are well known. The figures are easily remembered. The tip of the cross is as many feet from the pavement as there are days in the year. The extreme length is 500 ft., the width in the transepts being just half. The dome which is 145 feet in outward diameter, is only 108 within, for the reason stated above. The middle aisle of the nave is 80 feet in interior height. The western towers are 222 feet high. | |
The annoyances to which the architect of this great edifice was exposed grew in part out of the political | |
389 | history of the times. He kept as much as possible aloof from politics, but we must remember that St. Stephen was begun the year after wide-spread ruin came upon London merchants by the closing of the Exchequer[49] amid declarations of war with Holland. The first stone of St. Paul's was laid on the 21st June, , the year of disgraceful treaty with France. The College of Physicians, in Warwick Lane, was finished as and ascended the throne. The choir of the new cathedral was first opened for service in , the year of the Peace of Ryswick. |
was not well treated in his old age, and he lived to be older than Inigo Jones. It is quite possible that the magnitude of his own architectural faculty had a bad influence on his contemporaries. No one could hope to approach him, so no one attempted it. [50] The one architect who came near him was an amateur, a man whose leisure enabled him to work out the subtle and difficult questions of proportion, as worked them without leisure. Lord Burlington is now hardly known. The little he built was of rare excellence, and men of inferior genius have tried to improve it, and have only succeeded in spoiling it. [51] But what Burlington, working slowly, with every kind of professional help, with no one or nothing to hurry him, was able to do | |
390 | twice or thrice, did habitually and did better. He thought out each design to the utmost. Whatever his hand found to do, he did it with all his might. After his time art in this country was at as low an ebb as it has ever reached. Before his death he had retired to a house he had bought in Warwickshire, and thence once a year he used to come to London and sit for a while under the mighty dome he had built. When he died, at length, in his ninety-first year, they bore his body to repose in the crypt, and his son placed over the grave the memorable words, now likewise inscribed in a prominent part of the church above- |
" Si monumentum requiris circumspice." | |
Footnotes: [1] Mr. Fergusson, 'History of Modern Architecture,' p. 265, somewhat oddly remarks that "the troubles of the Commonwealth supervened before his career was half over." But Jones was seventy years of age when the portico of St. Paul's was finished, and he was eighty when he died in 1652. Does Mr. Fergusson suppose the average length of an architect's career is 140 years ? [2] Fourth Report 'Historical MSS. Commission,' p. 89. [3] It was published by Kent in 1727. No part of the Banqueting House was in the original design; and it is doubtful whether it forms part of the latter one, which may be found in ' Vitruvius Britannicus,' ii. 4. There are separate plates of the Banqueting House, now Whitehall Chapel, in vol. i. 12, 13. [4] Figured in 'Vitruvius Britannicus.' [5] See Longman's ' Three Cathedrals,' p. 68, and the ' Hand-book to St. Paul's,' p. 28. I understand that a number of Inigo Jones's designs are in the library of Devonshire House. They probably came through Kent's hands to lord Burlington. It would be interesting to know if any view of his restoration of St. Alban's, Wood Street, is among them. The portico of St. Paul's was 40 ft. high, 50 ft. deep, and 200 ft. wide. The columns must therefore have been of about the same size as those of St. Martin- in-the-Fields, but the depth and width of the portico were much greater. [6] These western towers are usually attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, but Miss Phillimore and other recent authorities assign them to Hawksmoor. [7] Many of Sir Christopher Wren's drawings are preserved in the Library of All Souls' College. They are briefly described by Mr. Arthur Ashpitel in the Transactions of the Lon. and Midd. Arch. Soc.,' iii. 39. [8] See vol. ii. for a further account of bishop Sir Christopher Wren and his contest with the Hattons about Ely Place. The authorities for Sir Christopher Wren's life and work which I have chiefly consulted are Miss Phillimore's ' Sir Christopher Sir Christopher Wren,' Mr. A. T. Taylor's ' Towers and Steeples,' and two articles by Mr. Basil Champneys in the 'Magazine of Art' for 1882. [9] Miss Phillimore, whose own prepossessions come out strongly in the book on Sir Christopher Wren, would make Sir Christopher much more of a partisan than history shows him. He did not in any way betray what would now be called "ritualistic" views in the planning and adorning of churches. [10] Pembroke Chapel, "restored" away by Sir G. Scott. Such an interesting building should have been spared, but Pembroke College suffered worse things than this a little later. [11] Sir Christopher Wren, in his contempt for gothic, was justified by many things which the fire revealed. It has been so much the habit, for perhaps thirty years past, to praise the conscientiousness of medieval workmen, that I was long in coming at the reasons of Sir Christopher Wren's aversion to gothic. [12] See above, chapter vii. [13] In 1462. [14] See Mr. Ferry's beautiful elevations in the 'Three Cathedrals.' The spire had four corner pinnacles, as appears from Van Wyngaerde's view, and from a small illumination engraved in Canon Stubbs's edition of 'Annales Paulini' in the Rolls Series, p. 277. [15] See above, chapter iii. [16] Donne's effigy, in a shroud, is the most perfect of the old monuments now surviving. It stands in the south aisle of the choir. I have mentioned the preservation of Bishop Braybroke's body in chapter viii. [17] See 'London's Remains,' by Simon Ford D.D 1667. Mr. Ellis favoured me with the loan of this rare tract. Christ Church is thus compared to St. Paul's:- "This church next to Paul's was famed; Paul's the more wide; But this with it for neatness vi'd." [18] The following is a list of the gothic churches and chapels in London and the suburbs older than the Fire:-All Hallows; St. Andrew's Undershaft; the tower of St. Andrew Holborn; St. Bartholomew the Great; part of St. Bartholomew the Less; St. Etheldreda's, Ely Place; St. Ethelburga's; St. Giles, Cripplegate; St. Helen; St. John, Savoy; St. Katherine Cree; St. Margaret, Westminster; St. Olave, Hart Street; St. Pancras, Old Church; St. Peter's Abbey Church, Westminster ; St. Peter in the Tower; St. Saviour, Southwark; Stepney Church; Austin Friars, now a Dutch Church; and the crypts of St. John, Clerkenwell, and St. Stephen, Westminster. [19] The old church was described and illustrated in a large quarto volume by Wilkinson, in 1797. [20] The history of this guild, could it be recovered, might throw light on many difficult and disputed points. Was St. John a special patron of the weavers? Or was the guild founded after the incorporation of the company ? [21] Godwin and Britton, 'Churches of London,' ii. 124. [22] I have given some account of St. Helen's in my 'In and out of London.' See also, above, chap. x. [23] There is a church at Bristol in a similar position, and a portion of one of the churches at Warwick is over a gate. [24] 'Church of St. Mildred' by Thomas Milbourne, p. 5. It was rebuilt about 1456: "John Saxton, then rector, gave 32£. towards the cost of the new choir, which is described as standing 'upon the course of Walbrook.' " I may refer here to an article by Mr. Freshfield on St. Margaret's Lothbury, St. Christopher le Stocks, and St. Bartholomew's by the Bank, 'Archaeologia,' xiv. 57; and several papers on old city churches in the 'Transactions' of the Lond. and Midd. Arch. Soc. [25] See paper in the 'Transactions,' iii. 39, by Mr. Ashpitel. [26] Miss Phillimore, p. 173. [27] London has been Haussmannised in the past few years to an immense extent, but Sir Christopher Wren's lines have not been followed, and, indeed, the design adopted has been varied from time to time, so that the result, though some streets are widened, will not, in the end, do much to improve the appearance of the city. [28] Miss Phillimore, p. 174. [29] An approximate list of his city buildings is in Appendix E. Miss Phillimore's is very erroneous, and carelessly printed besides. [30] "Building," he says in a letter quoted by Miss Phillimore (p. 150) "certainly ought to have the attribute of Eternal." [31] The superiority of Sir Christopher Wren as an artist comes out strongly when we compare the east end of St. Lawrence with the very similar one at St. Botolph Aldersgate, by Pierson. [32] Now condemned or destroyed. [33] In India a man will torture and illtreat his cow in the most shocking manner, and then kneel down and worship her. A somewhat similar superstition seems to have prevailed in the minds of the worthy people-I do not in the least know who they are-who have managed this business. [34] Taylor, p. 10. [35] In Knight's 'London,' v. 180, Sir Christopher Wren's churches are divided into "domed, basilical, and miscellaneous," which is in reality no division at all, as most of them come under the last head, which has to be subdivided, [36] Mr. Champneys recognises in the lantern a reminiscence of what Sir Christopher Wren had seen in Blickling and other Jacobean buildings. [37] Fergusson, p. 276. [38] 160 feet; roughly speaking, two-thirds the height of St. Mary-le-Bow [39] 1697. [40] St. Nicholas is familiar to all lovers of Bewick's woodcuts. Two examples of this not very meritorious design are in Scotland. [41] I find, oddly enough, no mention of St. Mary's in Miss Phillimore's book. Perhaps she considers the church merely a restoration. There is evidence, I believe, by the way, that the staircase at Oxford is much older than the date, 1640, usually assigned to it (see Ingram's 'Oxford,' i. 51). [42] The number of churches burnt was about 86. The number rebuilt about 50. [43] Godwin and Britton, ii. 194. [44] The churches destroyed were All Hallows Bread Street,-what does Miss Phillimore mean (p. 252) by saying that Newton was buried here ?-St. Antholin Watling Street; St. Bartholomew by the Bank; St. Bennet Gracechurch; St. Bennet Fink; St. Christopher le Stocks; St. Dionys Backchurch; St. Mary Somerset; St. Michael Crooked Lane; St. Michael Queenhithe; and St. Mildred Poultry; the tower of St. Mary Somerset has not yet found a purchaser, and still stands in Upper Thames Street , though the church has been pulled down. St. Mary-at-Hill has narrowly escaped for the present. [45] No one could ever make the kind of claim against Sir Christopher Wren, for instance, which a son of Pugin's made for his father against Sir C. Barry. There is nothing in the Westminster Palace which might not have been designed by Pugin or by half-a-dozen other architects, but none of Sir Christopher Wren's contemporaries or successors could have designed St. Stephen's. [46] The dimensions of St. Stephen's are thus stated by Gwilt (' Edifices of London,' i. 34); "The main body of St. Stephen's Church (for the entrance and tower stand completely distinct from it), covers a plot of ground 87 ft. 10 in. in length from east to west, and 64 ft. 10 in. from north to south; its clear internal dimensions being 82 ft. 6 in. by 59 ft. 6 in. It is very singular that so many writers, including the author of the ' Parentalia,' should have invariably quoted its dimensions as 75 ft. by 56 ft." The dome is 45 ft. in diameter and 63 ft. in height. The aisles are 36 ft. high. (See Godwin and Britton, 'Churches of London,' ii. 273.) [47] Gwilt ut supra. [48] I do not attempt any detailed account of St. Paul's. It is too familiar and has been too often described already; nor do I describe at any length the previous design. See 'Magazine of Art,' June 1882, for an article on the subject by Mr. Basil Champneys. [49] See next chapter. [50] See criticisms on Gibbs, Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh, and others, in the second volume. [51] The barbarous treatment of Burlington House by some ignorant builder a very few years ago is typical. The additions are costly, loaded with ornament, and-hideous. The architect, if indeed an architect was employed, had no idea that proportion was an element in the beauty of the house he defaced. The original designs are in 'Vitruvius Britannicus' iii. 22-24. A rejected design is in vol. i. 31-32. A beautiful design for a house for General Wade, by Lord Burlington, is in vol. iii. 10. |