The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-06-21 00:00:00

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

The Daily News, in •leader, gives the following interesting
paiticalarsiconnected with this severable cathecrat:—
The vast congregations which have assembled in St.
Paul's Cathedral of 1 ite years have developed what
may be described as a new use for that splendid edifice,
and have created a new interest in its completion.
Probably not many among the crowds of worship.wrs
have noticed the really unfinished character if the
butidimt. They see around them a magnificent
monument to the genius of the architect, and do
not know tbe story it tells of thwarted purposes and
unfinished plans. in Bishop Newton's autobiography
he says that Sir Christopher Wren complained that
his wings were clipped and the Church deprived of its
ornaments, because Parliament took the money for
Ring William's wars. He meant to inlay the Dome
with mosaics but it was gaudily painted by Thornhill
instead. Fifty years after the death of the archit-ct,
the Royal Academy proposed to decorate the building
with pictures, but the scheme dropped through, and
Dean Milmsai records the proposal with a " shuider
at the thought of our walls covered with the
audacious designs and tawdry colouring of West,
kiarry, Cipriani, Dance, and Angelica Kaufmann."
From that time nothing was done till the year, 1853,
when Bir James 'Thornhill's paintings in the Dome
were restored by Mr. Parris at a cost .if which
the Dean greatly regretted. A Committee had
been appointed and a fund raised for decorating the
Church, and up to the time of Dean Millman's death,
in 1868, about £lO,OOO had been spent in decoration, and
an equal sum in making provision for the accommoda-
tion of the vast congregations which during the past
few years have assembled under the Dome. A new
Committee was named in 1870, and an appeal sent
out for hinds to complete the restorations. The sub.
Kriptions, however, came in very slowly, till the
National Thanksgiving in February laid year gave
the movement an impulse. Everybody felt that now
the national Cathedral ought to be made worthy of
such events. This lew effort had resulted, on the 31st
of March last, in the collection of a sum of nearly
£56,000. The Committee has elected Mr. Willi mil
Burges as the architect for the completion of the build-
ing, and in a statement lately issued to the sub-
scribers they state that they hope, at an early period,
to be in possession of his designs for the completion
and deeoration of the interior.

St. Paula Cathedral has gone through many vicis-
situdes. Mr. Wiiliam Longman, the Chairman of the
Finance COli in ttee for its completion, has just pub-
lished a verf admirably illustrated history of the
three successive Catheora's dedicated to St. Paul
which have stood on the present site. A singular
fatality seems Ls have atteud-d the building. During
the twelve centuries in which London has had a St.
Paul's, the Cathedral has been five times destroyed or
nearly destroyed by fire. Of the first Cathe lral nothing
is known. In the seventh century a church was
built on tie old site of is Pagan temple, whioh
having stood for some five centuries, was de-eroyed by
fire which devasted London in the reign of Wham the
Conqueror. The second St. Paul's was begun within
a few years of the deetruction ot the first ; but two
hundred years afterwards it was still incomplete. In
the first year of Stephen's reign (1136) a fire swept over
London from the bridge to "the church of the Danes,"
and the rising Cathedral was nearly destroyed. In 1444
the steeple, which was of wood covered with lead, was
fired by lightning in a great storm on the lot February,
and so much damage was done that it was not completely
repaired for eighteen years. In the year 1561 the
steeple was again net on fire by lightning, and
burned down, with the whole roof of the church.
' The root was restored ; but the steeple was never
rebuilt. Fitful efforts at restoration were made, much
like those, f later times; and King James, tilting cum-
passsion on the decayed fabric, appointed a Royal Com-
mission to consider what could be done to restore it, and
luigo Jones desigoed his celebrated Italian portico. The
effort e f th t pee iod was a noble one, an i puts to the
blush the z-al of these more prosperous times. In a few
years nearly £90,000 were raised, and but for the
troubles the building would have been completed
as perhaps the most curious mixture of architec-
tural styles that Landon could show. Mr. Longman
thinks it fortunate that Inigo Jones was prevented
by the Civil War from carrying out hi+ schemes. After
the restoration of Charles IL, the w ,rk was again
taken in hand, and Sir Caristopher Wren was pre-
paring plans for completing the building when the
Great Fire swept it away, and the present building
was erected on the ancient site. The aret stone was
laid in 1675 and the last in 1710, but the interior was
never finished. Dean Milman raid that the windows,
in his o ay, were the temporary ones which Sir Christo-
pher Wren had put in •till others more suited to the
architecture and dignity of the building could take their
place.' The effort at building seemed to have exhausted
the zeal of the public, and for 1503 ears scarcely any thing
has been done. The great temple was almost useless.
It seemed absolutely neglected and forg Ater), except
as a place of burial for great soldiers and sailors, or as
the place of a national thanksgiving. Even the resto•
ration of Sir James Thornhill's paintings in the dome
was only undertaken because the plaster was falling in
I flakes or hanging loose on the walls; and Dean Mil-
man says t the bolder thought, ~f attempting to
ornament he interior rose afterwards with the deter-
mination to use the apace under the dome for public
service. It was the thought of use which inspired the
I thought of beauty.

The uses to which the Cathedral has been put are
among the most curious points in its chequered history.
An odd glimpse of ancient customs is given by Dua•
dale. In 1275 Sir lk illiam Le Band grve a yearly
buck and doe in exchange for twenty-two acres of
land, and from that time till the days of Queen
Elizabeth the gift was received by the Canoes
standing on the steps of the Choir, attired in
their sacred vestments, and was borne in pro-
cession rolled the church. There are some strange
hints in our literature of the customs of Old St.
Paul's. Ben aollneln d,scribes Bobadil as "a Paul's
man ; " and when Falstaff asks, "Where's Bardolph ?"
and the Page replies that he is gone to buy a horse in
Smithfield. Falstaff answers, " I bought him in St.
Paul's" The middle aisle was called Paul's Walk,
and was the common meeting place of the citizens, the
Exchange, the t.lace wits and gallants and news-
mongers assembled. Bishop Earle, in his Micro-
cosm 'graph's, describes it an the "lands epitome,
the lesser isle of Great Britain. . . . The
noise in it is like that of bees, a strenge
hnuimkg or buzz mixed of walking, tongues
and feet. 'I he general mint of all famous ; all
inventiou'. are emptied here, and not. a few pocket,"
Osborn, writing of the reign of James, says it was the
fashion of those times, and continued till his own, for
the principal gentry, Lards, Commune, and men of all
professions but merely mechanic, to meet in Paul's
Church by chiven and walk in the middle aisle till
twelve, and after dinner from tine(' to six, during
whisM time some dismursed of business, others of news.
Outside the church the cloisters were let to trunk -
makers, houses were built against the walls, and in one
place a baktr had excavmsed an oven in one of the
buttresses', whem he bad baked his bread and pies.
Rope dauting feats from the battlements were minium.,
and there is a legend of a horse named Marone°, the
property Ma vintnerinCheavide, which ww'said to have
climbed the steeple. The decorations were perhaps the
natural COlldellWillCO of the Cathedral beibg thrown open
to the people in unde gout times. The reaction from thoie
tinate troi: ghtgentral exclui ion. The ugly wall and huge
railing which have so long given the west font its
desolate appearance wren built in oppokithm to the
plans and wished of the architect, and will, in the
coming improvements, be removed. 'I he front of the
great Cathedral will once more be open to the public,
just as is strvicee have been thrown open by holding
them beneath the dome.