Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul Part 13

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION (1710-1897)

Wren's great friend and supporter on the Commission, John Evelyn, was long since dead; and in 1718, thanks to an intrigue, the Surveyor was dismissed in favour of an incompetent successor, chiefly famous for figuring in the Dunciad. Fortunately, says his grandson, "He was happily endued with such an Evenness of Temper, a steady Tranquillity of Mind, and Christian Fort.i.tude, that no injurious Incidents or Inquietudes of human life, could ever ruffle or discompose." He continued for a time superintending at the Abbey, but soon took a house from the Crown at Hampton, where he could look upon another of his innumerable designs, and from time to time came up to see his cathedral, and, as the story goes, was wont to sit under the dome.

Thanks to the regularity and temperance of his habits, for he profited by his medical studies, and his happy disposition, he lived five years longer, occupying his leisure with a variety of mathematical and scientific studies, and above all "in the Consolation of the Holy Scriptures: cheerful in Solitude, and as well pleased to die in the Shade as in the Light." A visit to London brought on a cold he failed to shake off. He was accustomed to take a nap after dinner; and on February 25, 1723, his servant, thinking he had slept long enough, entered the room. The good old man had pa.s.sed quietly to his well-earned rest. His wife had long pre-deceased him. Steele declared that Wren was absolutely incapable of trumpeting his own fame, "which has as fatal an effect upon men's reputations as poverty; for as it was said--'the poor man saved the city, and the poor man's labour was forgot'; so here we find the modest man built the city, and the modest man's skill was unknown."[110] But Wren did not build only for the Commission who dismissed him, but for posterity; and posterity more impartial will yet p.r.o.nounce that he belongs to the great men of two centuries ago, and accord him a place beside Marlborough and Addison and Newton.

About this time Parliament vested the fabric in three trustees--the Primate, the Bishop, and the Lord Mayor. With them rests the appointment of the surveyor, the examination and audit of his accounts, and in general the charge and maintenance of the cathedral.[111] This trust is unique, and has its origin in the large sums provided from taxation, whereas the other cathedrals were raised by voluntary offerings. The eighteenth century does not call for more than a pa.s.sing notice. Wren's intentions continued to be delayed or frustrated in at least four important respects. The high railings shut out any complete view of the exterior: the dome area, isolated from the choir by the organ, was not used for the very purpose it was designed: the interior lacked mosaics: no monuments to the great dead filled the recesses ready for them. Reynolds headed a body of artists anxious to execute a scheme of adornment not in accordance with the architect's views, and was defeated by Bishop Terrick on grounds other than aesthetic. George III. gave thanks in 1789 for his recovery, and again eight years later for naval victories. On this latter occasion Nelson attended as one of the representatives of the Fleet; and as his one remaining eye rested on the Howard monument, did he think that the time was near at hand when he would be brought there, and when another monument would be erected to himself? For at last the cathedral was being put to its intended use; and the first memorial was accorded to a self-sacrificing philanthropist, who was not even a member of the Anglican communion. Another eight years, and amidst all that was high and distinguished, under the very centre of the dome, Dean Pretyman-Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, committed to the ground the maimed body of the greatest of our sea captains. "As a youth," says Dean Milman, "I was present, and remember the solemn effect of the sinking of the coffin. I heard, or fancied that I heard, the low wail of the sailors who bore and encircled the remains of their admiral."[112] During the short peace before the return from Elba Wellington carried the sword of state before the Regent at the Thanksgiving service (July 9, 1814), and Dean Milman was called upon to officiate at the funeral of Wellington (November 18, 1852), which the Prince Consort attended, when the length of the procession may be estimated from Henry Greville's statement that it took one and three-quarter hours to pa.s.s Devonshire House.

The earlier Parliaments returned by the first Reform Bill brought about sweeping and ill-considered changes, both diocesan and capitular. Ess.e.x and the small archdeaconry of St. Alban's were separated from the diocese, and instead of being formed into a new one, were annexed to Rochester.[113] The capitular changes were chiefly the work of one sweeping Act which applied to the Chapters as a body (3 and 4 Vict. c. 113). The obligation of residence was removed from the prebends; four new resident canonries were created, and the revenues of the prebends alienated. By this scheme the greater part of the authority was entrusted to the dean and the residentiaries, and the thirty prebends became almost honorary, excepting that the old fees had still to be paid on installation. Thirty benefices--sinecures most of them in the modern sense and of large and increasing value--had become an anomaly and out of date; but were residents, officially non-resident for three-fourths of the year, the happiest method of reform? What Sydney Smith, one of the last of the old resident prebendaries, thought of these changes may be read in his life. A more competent authority on matters capitular than Sydney Smith, and like him in other respects an admirer of the first Victorian ministry, roundly declared, "The three months system is a mockery and worse";[114] and as a matter of fact the residentiaries prefer to discharge their duties by a more regular attendance. The patronage of three of these coveted stalls was reserved to the Crown; the fourth was left to the Bishop; but although the Archdeaconry of London was annexed to this fourth, one-third of the revenue was deducted for the remaining Archdeaconry of Middles.e.x. Since then the income of this fourth stall has been raised to the level of the others, and the prebendal stall of Cantlers re-endowed, the occupant being the diocesan inspector in religious knowledge. The one satisfactory feature in these changes is that the alienated revenues, estimated at 150,000, have been put to a good and practical use. By yet another change the mediaeval college of the petty canons has been dissolved, and the minor canons reduced from twelve to six.

The best vindication of the new order of things is to look at results.

It was left to Dean Milman and his Chapter, originally at the suggestion of Bishop Tait, to endeavour to carry out Wren's designs and Wren's ideas. The high exterior railings are gone: the organ removed to its proper position and the organ screen taken away, so that dome and choir are connected for congregational purposes: the system of decoration by mosaics well advanced. The absolute necessity of using the dome was emphasised, not only by the Sunday evening services, but by the appointment of HENRY PARRY LIDDON to a resident's stall. Competent judges have a.s.serted that Henry Melvill, though not the greater thinker, was the greater preacher of the two; but Melvill was almost past his best on his appointment in 1856, and he is rather a.s.sociated with the choir than the dome. Be this as it may, Wren would have been gratified indeed to have seen the favourite offspring of his genius filled from arch to arch, and to have listened to the clear and melodious high-pitched voice of the great preacher, always articulate, and with an articulation after Wren's own heart that did not drop the last words of the sentences. Wren would have been further gratified to have seen his dome used, in addition to weekday services, three times each Sunday, as he would have been to have worked under those successive Deans--Milman, Mansel, Church, Gregory--who, in conjunction with their Chapters, have loyally endeavoured to put the cathedral to the use he wished from the day he first began to design his short Greek cross; and finally, he would have been gratified at Gounod's statement that the services are rendered to the finest music in the world, and to have seen the free facilities offered to the public for studying his architecture, and would have contrasted the orderly behaviour of the visitors from every quarter of the globe with the old-time swashbucklers and rowdies of Paul's Walk; and any objection to the lengthening westward would have been removed, had he lived to have seen his great cathedral filled from door to door with a congregation of from ten to twelve thousand at the special musical services.

This all too short summary must close by recording that the Queen attended the Thanksgiving service in February, 1872 for the recovery of the Prince of Wales; and on Queen Victoria's Day, Tuesday, June 22, 1897, again proceeded in state from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's, where a Thanksgiving service was held at the West Front on occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, her Majesty returning by way of London and Westminster Bridges.

FOOTNOTES:

[110] _Tatler_, No. 52.

[111] Milman, p. 449.

[112] The account in Dugdale (p. 455) from the _London Gazette_ of January 18, 1806, fills more than eight folio pages of small print.

[113] A small part of the Surrey side was also in the diocese.

[114] Freeman's "Wells," p. 95.