St. Peter’s church is incontestably the first object in this city, so crowded with single figures: That this church should be built in the form of a Latin cross instead of a Greek one may be wrong for ought I know; that columns would have done better than piers inside, I do not think; but that whatever has been done by man might have been done better, if that is all the critics want, I readily allow. This church is, after all their objections, nearer to perfect than any other building in the world; and when Michael Angelo, looking at the Pantheon, said, “Is this the best our vaunted ancestors could do? If so, I will shew the advancement of the art, in suspending a dome of equal size to this up in the air.” he made a glorious boast, and was perhaps the only person ever existing who could have performed his promise.
The figures of angels, or rather cherubims, eight feet high, which support the vases holding holy water, as they are made after the form of babies, do perfectly and closely represent infants of eighteen or twenty months old; nor till one comes quite close to them indeed, is it possible to discern that they are colossal. This is brought by some as a proof of the exact proportions kept, and of the prodigious space occupied, by the area of this immense edifice; and urged by others, as a peculiarity of the _human_ body to deceive so at a distance, most unjustly; for one is surprised exactly in the same manner by the doves, which ornament the church in various parts of it. _They_ likewise appear of the natural size, and completely within one’s reach upon entering the door, but soon as approached, recede to a considerable height, and prove their magnitude nicely proportioned to that of the angels and other decorations.
The canopied altar, and its appurtenances, are likewise all colossal I think, when they tell me of four hundred and fifty thousand pounds weight of bronze brought from the Pantheon, and used to form the wreathed pillars which support, and the torses that adorn it. Yet airy lightness and exquisite elegance are the characteristics of the fabric, not gloomy greatness, or heavy solidity. How immense then must be the space it stands on! four hundred and sixty-seven of my steps carried me from the door to the end. Warwick castle would be contained in its middle _aisle_. Here are one hundred and twenty silver lamps, each larger than I could lift, constantly burning round the altar; and one never sees either them, or the light they dispense, till forced upon the observation of them, so completely are they lost in the general grandeur of the whole. In short, with a profusion of wealth that astonishes, and of splendour that dazzles, as soon as you enter on an examination of its secondary parts, every man’s _first_ impression at entering St. Peter’s church, must be surprise at seeing it so clear of superfluous ornament. This is the true character of innate excellence, the _simplex munditiis_, or _freedom from decoration_; the noble simplicity to which no embellishment can add dignity, but seems a mere appendage. Getting on the top of this stupendous edifice, is however the readiest way to fill one’s mind with a deserving notion of its extent, capacity, and beauty; nor is any operation easier, so happily contrived is the ascent. Contrivance here is an ill-chosen word too, so luminous so convenient is the walk, so spacious the galleries beside, that all idea of danger is removed, when you perceive that even round the undefended cornice, our king’s state coach might be most safely driven.