BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE


It will be admitted that, tho in general effect there is nothing in the
same style of architecture which exceeds the exterior of St. Paul's, it
has not a single detail deserving of attention, except the Phenix over the
south portico, which was executed by Cibber, and commemorates the curious
fact narrated in the "Parentalia," that the very first stone which Sir
Christopher Wren directed a mason to bring from the rubbish of the old
church to serve as a mark for the center of the dome in his plans was
inscribed with the single word _Resurgam_--I shall rise again. The other
ornaments and statues are chiefly by Bird, a most inferior sculptor. Those
who find greater faults must, however, remember that St. Paul's, as it now
stands, is not according to the first design of Wren, the rejection of
which cost him bitter tears. Even in his after work he met with so many
rubs and ruffles, and was so insufficiently paid, that the Duchess of
Marlborough, said, in allusion to his scaffold labors, "He is dragged up
and down in a basket two or three times in a week for an insignificant
£200 a year."...

The interior of St. Paul's is not without a grandeur of its own, but in
detail it is bare, cold, and uninteresting, tho Wren intended to have
lined the dome with mosaics, and to have placed a grand baldacchino in the
choir. Tho a comparison with St. Peter's inevitably forces itself upon
those who are familiar with the great Roman basilica, there can scarcely
be a greater contrast than between the two buildings. There, all is
blazing with precious marbles; here, there is no color except from the
poor glass of the eastern windows, or where a tattered banner waves above
a hero's monument. In the blue depths of the misty dome the London fog
loves to linger, and hides the remains of some feeble frescoes by