Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/110

 drawings preserved at All Souls' College refer to this proposal. In these the old Norman nave is shown as altered to the Roman manner, while the choir was to remain Gothic as originally built.

After the fire, therefore, Wren was able to give an unhesitating opinion to the dean, Dr. (afterwards archbishop) William Sancroft [q. v.], that nothing but a new structure ought to be contemplated. There are some persons whose love for mediæval architecture is such that they even now, with the existing cathedral before them, regret that Old St. Paul's was not repaired in some way and allowed to stand. It must, however, be clear to those who have any practical knowledge of architecture, after reading Sir Christopher Wren's reports both before and after the fire, that even to retain the mediæval features of the structure it would have been necessary to take nearly the whole down and reconstruct it, and it is doubtful if that could have been done successfully in the seventeenth century (cf., p. 388). Wren's advice on the necessity of a new building was practically enforced shortly afterwards. It was not at once taken, and a partial attempt at repair was still proceeded with; but the fall of part of the cathedral where this was going on gave convincing proof of the futility of the undertaking; and Wren, who had retired to Oxford, where his duties as Savilian professor of astronomy required his presence, was summoned in haste to London to advise respecting a new cathedral. This was in July 1668 (Parentalia, p. 278). The report from Wren which followed soon after is given in Elmes (p. 248). A great spur was given to the undertaking by parliament having in 1670 assigned a portion of the coal tax—viz. 4½d. per chaldron—annually for the rebuilding; and Wren, now being satisfied that an earnest attempt would be made, devoted himself to forming a design worthy of the occasion. Meanwhile the clearing of the site of the old cathedral was going on, an operation which demanded both time and skilful management. The walls were in that condition that it would have been both tedious and dangerous to have taken them down in the ordinary way by workmen going aloft; so, guided by the experiments mentioned above for measurement of the effect produced by gunpowder, he succeeded in lifting one of the angles of the old tower, more than two hundred feet high, a few inches only, and causing it to collapse without scattering or accident or any injurious consequences to the neighbourhood. But afterwards his second in command, being ambitious of improving upon his master, conducted during his absence a similar operation with less care and with the employment of a larger quantity of powder, which indeed brought down the old masonry, but caused so frightful an explosion that Wren was obliged to give up that method of procedure. However, the resources of his mind were equal to the occasion; he bethought him of the battering-rams of ancient warfare, and caused a huge mast, about forty feet long and shod with iron, to be slung with ropes, and by the labour of thirty men vibrated against the wall at one place for a whole day. The workmen, it is said, despaired of any result, but Wren insisted on its continuance, and on the second day the wall slowly opened and fell (ib. p. 284). It is likely that we have a glimpse at this operation in Pepys's ‘Diary’ (14 Sept. 1668): ‘Strange how the sight of stones falling from the top of the steeple do make me sea-sick, but no hurt I hear hath yet happened.’ We learn from ‘Parentalia’ that the taking down of Old St. Paul's, which was begun in 1666, lasted through part of 1668. In 1673 Wren (who had been knighted the previous year) submitted his first design for the new cathedral to the king, who greatly approved of it, and ordered a model to be made of it ‘after so large and exact a manner that it may serve as a perpetual and unchangeable rule and direction for the conduct of the whole work’ (ib. pp. 280–2). In respect of sequence of events, however, the ‘Parentalia’ is here rather confused. This model still exists in the cathedral. It had been much neglected and defaced, but has been in part restored by the dean and chapter, and is sufficient to give an adequate impression of what Wren intended. Before giving any account of the cathedral as built, this first and favourite design of its author requires some notice. Some of the original drawings are preserved in All Souls' College, Oxford. The plan has been carefully engraved in Elmes (p. 319), and to a smaller scale both in Dean Milman's ‘Annals of St. Paul's’ and in Longman's ‘Three Cathedrals,’ published in 1873. There are also two perspective views of it in the latter. This design, while being loyal to architectural precedent, is an entirely original conception. The central idea—an essential quality in any great work of art—is of extreme simplicity. An octagon which circumscribes a Greek cross is combined with a square attached to one of its sides—viz. the western—which connects the whole into a Latin cross. The central area of the Greek cross is covered by a large and lofty cupola intended to have about the