More wonderful still is the view from the surging gathering at the bottom of Ludgate Hill, where all the ways meet. There is the raging tumult, the hurrying from the City and to the City, the business, the traffic, the confusion; yet calm, unruffled above all, rises the great dome, like some work of nature and with all the mistiness of a mountain. The railway bridge across is not by any means a blemish, and most picturesque is the quaint spire of the church half-way up the hill, said to have been placed there by Wren as a foil to his greater work. Its elegant Italian
mouldings are well worthy of study, as well as the exquisite proportions of the spire, exactly adjusted to the tower and building below.
There are some other interesting points associated with the great Cathedral and its construction, which may be suggested to the casual visitor. He will note the imposing portico which fronts him as he approaches from Ludgate Hill, which is in two tiers, one placed over the other, with a double row of columns. It has been often compared with that of St. Peter’s, which offers a single portico of the ordinary pattern, and is considered to be more simple and imposing. Wren, however, could not procure from the quarries blocks more than four feet in diameter, and as lofty columns, to exhibit due proportion, should be far thicker, he was thus compelled to content himself with short columns in two tiers. The same difficulty was found at St. Peter’s, but there the portico is comparatively low, and the columns short.
With all the claims to admiration of this great work, the critical architect, or indeed the amateur, finds other blemishes. One of the most conspicuous is the treatment of the side aisles, where they join the nave and transepts. The most careless observer will be struck by the confusion and make-shift air of the whole. A gallery runs across each, with a low second arch. Below there is a sort of apse, from which open out the two side aisles. This complicated arrangement destroys the general grandeur. The chapels on the right and left near the bottom are set down to the inspiration and influence of the Catholic Duke of York, who, it is said, hoped in better times to use them for his own faith. But it is not likely that such interference would have been tolerated.