Of all these various buildings which surrounded the cathedral and added to its interest, the curious, by going to the south side of the nave, may discern some traces of the old Lesser Cloisters and Chapter House. Everything else has gone so completely that it would be difficult to fix even the exact site.
[Illustration: PLAN OF OLD ST. PAUL'S IN 1666.]
LENGTH of Nave 252 feet LENGTH across Transept 104 feet LENGTH of Choir 224 feet --------- 580 feet LENGTH across Portico 40 feet --------- Total length 620 feet
HEIGHT Spire 200 feet --------- Total height 460[51] feet
HEIGHT of Nave roof 130 feet HEIGHT Choir 143 feet
[39] _I.e._, assuming that Inigo Jones did not convert pointed into round.
[40] Bishop Fulk Basset sent out in 1255 letters hortatory for the contributions of the faithful. "Quod Ecclesia St. Pauli, in retroactis temporibus, tantis turbinibus fuit quassata, &c. _ut totum ejus tectum_, jam quasi in ruinam gravissimam declinare videtur" (Dugdale, p. 9).
[44] "Wells," p. 69. His exact dates are shortly after 1088 and 1136.
[47] Particularly the 68 Indulgences between 1228-1316 cited in "Documents Illustrating," p. 174.
[48] This crypt, under the extension of the thirteenth century choir, cannot be that mentioned by William of Malmesbury. According to the plan in Dugdale, there was no crypt underneath the Norman cathedral.
[49] "Chapters on the History" (pp. 91-93) gives more details about the crypt. Dean Milman calls Lyly John; and Chambers' "Book of Days" buries him in the churchyard.
[50] "Chapters in the History," with plate, pp. 159, 222, etc.
[51] This is Wren's estimate; others are higher.
FROM THE FIRE TO THE COMPLETION OF NEW ST. PAUL'S (1666-1710).
Christopher Wren was the most distinguished member of a distinguished family. His father's elder brother, Matthew, was fellow and senior treasurer of Pembroke College, Cambridge, when James I. visited that university in 1611, and won the favour of his sovereign by the ability with which he acquitted himself in the "Philosophy Act." After serving as chaplain to Charles in the journey to Spain, he received, amongst other preferments, the Mastership of Pembroke and the Deaneries of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and then was made, in quick succession, Bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely. We shall see that the Cathedral of Ely exercised an influence over his nephew in designing the Dome of St. Paul's. Matthew survived the Commonwealth after a lengthy imprisonment without trial, and returned to Ely after the Restoration. His younger brother Christopher was chaplain to Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, who preferred him to the Rectory of East Knoyle, Wilts.[52] Charles I. made him chaplain in ordinary; and when Matthew was preferred to Norwich, his brother succeeded him in his two deaneries. The Dean, like his brother, was a learned scholar, and to him posterity is indebted for the preservation of many valuable records at Windsor during the troubled times. He married Mary, heiress of Robert Cox, of Founthill, in Wiltshire, and died in poverty and deprived of his benefices before the Restoration. The only surviving son of the marriage, Christopher, was born at East Knoyle, October 20, 1632. Like others who have eventually lived to an extreme old age, he was delicate during childhood, and, instead of being sent early to school, received his primary instruction privately. Like his father before him, he displayed great aptitude for mathematics, both pure and applied, and was fortunate enough to have a capable teacher in Dr. William Holder, the husband of a sister, in whose house his father took refuge and died after his ejection from Windsor. At the age of thirteen he was sent for a short period to Westminster, and about the same time invented a new astronomical instrument. The next year he was admitted as a gentleman commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. Both the Warden, Dr. John Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Seth Ward, observed his early promise, and gave him every encouragement in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and he continued to design ingenious instruments and models, Dr. Charles Scarborough, a surgeon of note, making use of his talents in preparing pasteboard models for his anatomical lectures.[53] His intellectual precocity can only be compared to that of John Stuart Mill, and with this difference, that whereas Mill was forced by his father like a plant under glass, Wren's studies were spontaneous and voluntary.