Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul Part 12

61. =Cornwallis= (Gen. Chas., Marquis, K.G., 1739-1805). American visitors, a.s.sociating him only with the surrender of Yorktown, may wonder at this monument. It is fully merited, not so much for the defeat of Tippoo Sahib and conquest of Mysore, as for continuing the policy of Clive and sternly preventing the natives of India from being ground down by the greed and cruelty of English residents. Twice Viceroy of India, and died there in harness. Napoleon met him during the negotiations at Amiens, and styled him "_un bien brave homme_." A pyramidal group. In Garter mantle with insignia (ribbon again over wrong shoulder). The male figure represents the river Bagareth (_sic_) and holds an emblem of the Ganges. The female figure standing by is our Eastern Empire. Perhaps the best of this sculptor. (Rossi.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo S.B. Bolas & Co._ MONUMENTS OF DR. JOHN DONNE AND BISHOP BLOMFIELD.]

CHOIR SOUTH AISLE.

Four are rec.u.mbent figures of bishops and dignitaries, and call for no comment beyond the success in giving a life-like expression to the features.

*62. =Milman= (Henry Hart, 1791-1868). Dean for nineteen years.

Pastor, poet, historian, and divine. (Williamson.)

*63. =Donne= (John, 1572-1631). A versatile and somewhat eccentric dean, 1621-1631. The only monument at all intact that escaped the Fire. Upright in shroud, and on cla.s.sical urn. In old church in like position, but on opposite side. Sat for his portrait in his shroud.

64. =Blomfield= (Chas. Jas., 1786-1857). Bishop, 1828-1856. (Geo.

Richmond.)

65. =Jackson= (John, 1810-1885). Bishop, 1868-1885. (Thos. Woolner.)

66. =Heber= (Reginald, 1783-1826). Second Bishop of Calcutta; died at Trichinopoly. Thackeray's "Good divine, charming poet, beloved parish priest." Milman's "Early friend, by the foot of whose statue I pa.s.s so often, not without emotion, to our services.... None was ever marked so strongly for a missionary bishop in the fabled and romantic East."

A kneeling figure, and the best in this aisle. Formerly under the east window, but now facing the sanctuary. (Chantrey.)

*67. =Liddon= (Henry Parry, 1829-1890). South side of the Apse. We fitly close this catalogue with this famous preacher, with the possible exception of Henry Melvill the greatest connected with the cathedral in modern time. Residentiary for twenty years, and Chancellor. (Bodley and Garner.)

Amongst the great sculptors, John Gibson is not represented by any work. Amongst the great men, Wren, his epitaph notwithstanding, might well have a monument with a list of his buildings on the pedestal.

Marlborough should have one opposite to Wellington; and Colet, surely, might be again remembered, and with him Dean Church.

THE CRYPT.

The entrance to the staircase is in the ambulatory on the north side of the south transept. This bas.e.m.e.nt story, for the whole length and breadth of the building, of which more than one half is taken up by piers and pillars, dimly lighted in aisles and transepts from above, though it strikes the spectator most impressively, has an aspect weird and sombre to a degree. We feel we are in the company of the dead. The pavement of the dome area is supported by eight larger and four smaller piers, forming externally a square and internally an octagon; and within the octagon eight columns describe a circle of sufficient diameter for Nelson's tomb. The central aisles throughout are likewise supported by double rows of square pillars. At the west end of the choir the piers underneath the chancel arch are exceptionally ma.s.sive, and east of them the introduction of two extra rows of pillars together with an irregularity in the vaulting indicates, not only where choir screen and organ were placed, but also that Wren never wanted them there to isolate the chancel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NELSON'S TOMB.]

The parish of St. Faith in 1878 consented to the removal of the high railings which marked off their part, and tiles now record the south and west boundaries. This reminds us that the crypt has been a burial place for ages past. Many completely unknown lie around us, and sleep in the company of more than one great maker of history; but we are concerned only with the few, and with certain monuments of others buried elsewhere. At the west is placed Wellington's funeral car, made of captured guns, and with his chief victories inscribed in gold, and the candelabra used for the lying in state. Near, and further east, are buried Cruikshank, Lord Mayor Nottage (who died during his mayoralty in 1886), Bartle Frere and his wife (Lady Frere died 1899, and is the last interred at the time of writing this), and Lord Napier of Magdala. In the very centre the corpse of NELSON, enclosed in wood from a mast of the _Orient_, reposes within the circle of columns in a plain tomb, and underneath a magnificent black and white sarcophagus of the sixteenth century. Let us pause to reflect that this fine work of art, on which Benedetto da Rovanza and his masons spent much labour, was intended by Wolsey for his own monument, but was confiscated with the rest of his goods. To this day no one knows the exact spot where the Abbot of Leicester and his monks buried the great Tudor statesman; and nearly three centuries later the marble covered the coffin of the great admiral. On the top a viscount's coronet takes the place of the disgraced and broken-hearted cardinal's hat. Nelson's nephew, Lord Merton of Trafalgar, lies in a vault underneath, and at the sides are Collingwood and the Earl of Northesk, two companions in arms. A grating here, underneath the centre of the dome, allows the light from the lantern to be dimly seen. Further east and near the south side were placed in April, 1883, the remains of the ill-fated Professor Palmer and his two companions, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington, who were killed by Arabs while on a Government mission in the Desert of Sinai. Underneath the chancel arch is the sepulchre of Wellington, of Cornish porphyry, plain and unadorned. As with the monument, so here, no attempt is made to enumerate those t.i.tles, commands, orders and posts and offices of honour, proclaimed by Garter King at Arms, after Dean Milman had committed his body to the ground. The simple inscription, "Arthur, Duke of Wellington," upon the severely simple tomb, depicts, not incorrectly, the life and character of the Iron Duke. A neighbouring tomb is that of Picton.

Some little distance to the east, and in the end recess of the south choir aisle is the grave of WREN. The plain black marble slab, which tells who lies below, is only raised some sixteen inches; and on the wall of the recess is the original of the famous inscription, "_Lector, si monumentum requiris, circ.u.mspice._" Other members of the family are close at hand in what we may call Wren's corner. His daughter Jane, his daughter-in-law Maria with her parents Philip and Constantia Masard, and tablets commemorate Dame Jane his wife, a daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill, and her great granddaughter who, living to the age of ninety-three, well-nigh connects his time with ours. One of the deans--Newton, Bishop of Bristol, whose monument was not allowed above, slumbers near the great architect; as in =Painters' Corner= do Reynolds, West, Lawrence, Leighton (whose fine gravestone contrasts so oddly with Wren's), and Millais, all Presidents of the Royal Academy, with James Barry, Opie, Dance, Fuseli, Turner, Landseer, and Boehm. Near here are Mylne and c.o.c.kerell, successors of Wren: Milman lies directly under the altar, and Liddon underneath his monument.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. S.B. Bolas & Co._ CHURCH OF ST. FAITH IN THE CRYPT.]

The monuments include two removed from the choir to make room for the organ. John Cooke, killed in command of the _Bellerophon_ (Westmacott), and George Duff, killed in command of the _Mars_ (Bacon), both at Trafalgar. Tablets, busts, or bra.s.ses, are in honour of Lord Mayo, the Canadian statesman Macdonald, the Australian statesman Dally, the Press correspondents who fell in the Soudan, the soldiers who fell in the Transvaal, Goss, the organist and composer, and Bishop Piers Claughton, a residentiary. At the east end, where service is held on a weekday morning at eight, are a few fragments of the old monuments--Nicholas Bacon (in armour and legs missing), Christopher Hatton, John Wolley, and others. Some slight carvings of the old buildings are also left.

THE GALLERIES AND LIBRARY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. S.B. Bolas & Co._ THE LIBRARY.]

Above the aisles are long and s.p.a.cious galleries, and after mounting the staircase to the south-west of the dome, we pa.s.s through one of these--that over the south aisle--to the Library over the South-West Chapel. A gallery is supported by brackets carved by Jonathan Maine, and the flooring is of 2,300 pieces of oak, inlaid and without pegs or nails. There is a portrait of Bishop Compton, who may be considered the founder; and later donations and bequests include those of Bishop Sumner of Winchester, Archdeacon Hale, and notably Dr. Sparrow-Simpson.

Altogether many thousands of MSS. and books. A beautiful "Avicenna Canon Medicinae," a psalter supposed to have been used in the old Latin services, and another bought by Dr. Simpson at a second-hand book-stall, are of the fourteenth century. A subscription book for the rebuilding contains the following: "_I will give one thousand pounds a yeare whitehall 20 March 1677/8 Charles R._" These subscriptions never found their way into the fund; and forgetful how readily the Merry Monarch's money might have been intercepted _en route_, it has been a.s.sumed that he never parted with it. In the same book James also promises "_two hundred pounds a yeare to begin from Midsommer day last past._" The printed books include Tyndale's Pentateuch and his New Testament; and the Sumner and Hale bequests include large numbers of curious tracts and pamphlets. Richard Jennings' model of the centre of the west front is preserved. In the eighteenth century St. Paul's was a favourite place for weddings, and the registers, with many interesting names, are being edited for the Harleian Society. The Trophy Room above the North-West Chapel contains Wren's model, which was restored when Sydney Smith was a Canon.

We are quite content to follow Fergusson, and let the architectural value of New St. Paul's stand or fall with the literary value of "Paradise Lost." Just as Addison says of the latter: "In poetry as in architecture, not only the whole, but the princ.i.p.al members and every part of them should be great"; "there is an unquestionable magnificence in every part"; "a work which does an honour to the English nation": just as Macaulay corroborates by eulogising it as "that extraordinary production which the general suffrage of critics has placed in the highest cla.s.s of human compositions"--even so we may end here, and describe this unique and marvellous conception of a man who was not a trained architect, who was never known to have travelled further than Paris and who was incessantly hampered and hindered, as a conception, not indeed architecturally faultless, but for all that and leaving out the much greater St. Peter's, as the finest church of the Renaissance style and epoch, more stable and better adapted for public worship than any earlier cathedral in England. To the Renaissance, the genius of Milton contributed an epic in blank verse, the genius of Wren a second in stone.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Ground-plan of Interior of First Design in Fergusson's "Modern Architecture," p. 260; and in Longman, p. 110, where the scale, though not given, is 1-1/2 inches to the 100 feet.

[91] "Parentalia," p. 290. The Temple of Peace is now known as the Basilica of Constantine or Maxentius.

[92] _Fortnightly Review_, October, 1872.

[93] "Handbook," p. 495.

[94] Tract II. in "Parentalia," p. 357. His mathematical demonstrations with their diagrams, wherein he works out the centre of gravity, are too technical for insertion. The Tract is incomplete.

[95] "Parentalia," p. 291.

[96] The two others on the west wall represent Melchisedek blessing Abraham, and David as a man of war praising G.o.d. On the eastern wall the central piece ill.u.s.trates the texts, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other"; "Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the name of the Lord." At the sides the words of Job, "Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel"; and of the Centurion, "I also am a man set under authority, having under myself soldiers."

[97] Gwilt's "Edifices of London," vol. i., p. 33, quoted by Longman, p. 178.

[98] Nevertheless it is not correct to say that the ma.s.sive pillars of the octagon leave the vista along the side aisles unimpaired. I have satisfied myself that there is an interruption similar to St. Paul's.

[99] See the half-section, half elevation, in Fergusson, p. 271, or section p. 90 above.

[100] So far as I can calculate. St. Peter's, according to Fergusson, is 333 feet high internally, and the diameter 130 feet, giving a ratio of five to two: St. Paul's gives a ratio of two to one. Stephen Wren gives the ratios differently in the "Parentalia."

[101] "Parentalia," p. 291.

[102] "St. Paul's and Old City Life," p. 279.

[103] I think it needless to repeat the evidence I gave _in extenso_ in the _Times_, May 22, 1899. But see the "Parentalia," p. 292, note (_a_), and Mr. William Longman's remarks.

[104] I presume that this gave rise to the idea that this particular kind of mosaic is only suited for churches of the Byzantine style of architecture, like St. Sophia. Yet these old mosaics are found in churches which are not of this style, although situated at one time in the Eastern Empire.

[105] My sister, Mrs. Curry, saw these mosaics on August 30, 1899, and helped me to bring the account up to date.

[106] I am indebted to Ralph's successor, Archdeacon Thornton, for this information. These "Psalmi Ascripti" are found in the _Consuetudines_ of Ralph de Baldock. I am ignorant of Newcourt's sources of information.

[107] _Registrum Statutorum_, Appendix i.

[108] Longman, p. 112.

[109] Further information may be found in _The Journal of the Society of Arts_, June 21, 1895 (Sir W. Richmond); _Magazine of Art_, Nov., 1897 (Alfred Lys Baldry); _Sunday Magazine_, Jan. and Feb., 1898 (Canon Newbolt, who mentions "A Small Lecture on Mosaic," by Sir W.

Richmond, given at the "Arts and Crafts").