Not satisfied with the whispering gallery, we ascended to another on the exterior of the dome, where we found one of the most extraordinary bird’s eye views of a town, I remember ever to have seen. The day was clear, cool, and calm, and, of course, the vapour of the atmosphere floated at some distance above the houses. The whole panorama presented a field of dingy bricks, out of which were issuing thousands of streams of smoke, ascending in right lines to the canopy of murky vapour above. The effect was to give this vast dusty-looking cloud, the appearance of standing on an infinity of slender vapoury columns, which had London itself for their bases. In a small district around the cathedral, there also arose a perfect chevaux de frise of spires and towers, the appendages of the ordinary parish churches, of which London proper contains an incredible number. Some one said that three hundred might be counted from the gallery, and really it did not strike me that there could be many less.
Seen in this manner, London offers little to be mentioned in comparison with Paris. It has no back ground, wants the grey angular walls, the transparent atmosphere, the domes and monuments, for we were on the only one of the former, and the general distinctness, necessary to satisfy the eye. It was not always easy to see at all, in the distance, and the objects were principally tame and confused. I like mists, feathery, floating, shadowy mists, but have no taste for coal-smoke.
We were much amused with a remark of a good woman, who opened some of the doors above. There were sundry directions to visitors to pay certain stipulated prices, only, for seeing the different parts of the edifice. All the English cicerones have a formal, sing-song manner of going through their descriptions, that is often the greatest source of amusement one finds, but which nothing but downright mimicry can make intelligible to those who have not heard it. The woman, in question, without altering the key, or her ordinary mode of speaking, concluded her history, with saying, “by the rules of the church, I am entitled to only two pence for showing you this, and we are strictly prohibited from asking any more, but gentlefolks commonly give me a shilling.” They have a custom here of saying that such and such an act is un-English, but I fancy they will make an exception in favour of this.
If you are as much puzzled, as I was myself once, to understand in what manner such huge churches can be used, you will be glad to have the matter explained. In all Catholic cathedrals, you already know, there are divers chapels, that are more or less separated from the body of the building, in which different offices are frequently staying at the same time. Near the centre, or a little within the head of the cross (for this is the form they all have) is the choir. It is usually a little raised above the pavement, and is separated from the rest of the nave by a screen, by which it is more or less enclosed on the other sides. In this choir are performed all the cathedral services, the preaching taking place in a different part of the church; usually from movable pulpits. Frequently, however, these pulpits are fixtures against a pier, the size of the edifice rendering their appearance there of no moment.
In St. Paul’s there is the screen and the choir, as at Canterbury. But instead of the canons or prebend’s stalls, only, there are also pews for a congregation. There are, moreover, a pulpit and a reading-desk, and, the organ forming part of the screen, an organ-loft for the choir. In this chapel, or “heart” of the church, then, is the usual service performed. In Catholic cathedrals, you will understand that laymen, except in extraordinary cases, are not admitted within the choir, and the organ is almost always at the end of the nave, over the great door, and beneath an oriel window. The cathedrals at Canterbury and Westminster, were both built for the Catholic worship, and they had their private chapels; but St. Paul’s having arisen under the Protestant régime, is a little different. I believe there are private chapels in this building, but they are detached and few. After excepting the church or the choir, and the parts appropriated more properly to business, the remainder of this huge edifice can only be used on the occasions of great ceremonies. There are, however, a utility and fitness in possessing a structure for such objects, in the capital of a great empire, that will readily suggest themselves. There is something glorious and appropriate in beholding the temple of God rearing its walls above all similar things, which puts the shallow and pettifogging sophistry of closet-edifices and whittling sectarianism to manifest shame.
The absence of the side chapels gives a nobleness to the centre of St. Paul’s, that is rather peculiar to itself. It is true that the choir, with the screen, which partially cuts off the side aisles, in some measure intercepts the view, and the eye nowhere embraces the whole extent, as in St. Peter’s; a fact, that, coupled with its vast dimensions, must always render the coup d’œil of the interior of the latter, a wonder of the world. But few churches show, relatively, as grand a transept and dome, as this. Apart from the dimensions, which, exclusively of the colonnades, the Vatican, and the sacristy, are in all things, about one-sixth in favour of St. Peter’s, the difference between the coups d’œil of the two churches, exists in the following facts. On entering St. Peter’s, the eye takes in, at a glance, the whole of the nave, from the great door at one end, to the marble throne of the pope, at the other. In St. Paul’s, this view is intercepted by the screen, and the appliances of protestant worship just mentioned. In St. Peter’s, there is everywhere an ornate and elaborate finish, of the richest materials, while the claims of St. Paul’s to magnificence, depend chiefly on the forms and the grandeur of the dimensions. In St. Peter’s, all the statuary, monuments, and other accessories, are on a scale suited to the colossal grandeur of the temple, the marble cherubs being in truth giants. Whereas, in St. Paul’s, individuals being permitted to erect memorials in honour of their friends, the proportions have been less respected.
To conclude, St. Paul’s, in the severity and even in the purity of its style is, in some few particulars, superior to the great Roman Basilica; but, these admissions made, it will not do to urge the comparison further, since the latter in size, material, details, and in the perfection of its subordinate art, has probably never been approached, as a whole, since the foundations of the earth were laid. St. Paul’s, like all Protestant churches, is wanting in the peculiar and grateful atmosphere of the temple. Still, like all large edifices, it is temperate, being cooler in summer and warmer in winter, than those that are smaller. At least, so it has always appeared to me.
Our visit happened to be made during the season of festivals, and more than a usual number of the officials were loitering about the church. Who they were, I cannot say, but several of them had the sleek, pampered air of well-fed coach horses; animals that did nothing but draw the family to church on Sundays, and enjoy their stalls. There was one fellow, especially, who had an unpleasantly greasy look. He was in orders, but sadly out of his place, nature having intended him for a cook.