hops and stalls: the nave of
the church actually became a cavalry barrack.

[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S ON FIRE.

(_From Longman's 'A History of the Three Cathedrals of St. Paul's.'_)]

When King Charles returned it was resolved to repair and restore the
cathedral, by this time almost in ruins: but while the citizens were
considering what should be done, the Great Fire of London settled the
question by burning down all that was left.

Then Christopher Wren began the present building. The first stone was
laid on June 21, 1675, nine years after the Fire. Divine service was
performed on December 2, 1697, the day of thanksgiving for the Peace of
Ryswick. The work was completed in 1710, thirty-five years after its
commencement. The present church is 100 feet shorter than its
predecessor: its dome is also 100 feet lower than the former spire. The
grandeur of the building cannot be appreciated by any near view, because
the houses block it in on all sides, and the former view from the bottom
of Ludgate Hill is now spoiled by the railway bridge. Those who wish to
see what St. Paul's really is--how splendid a church it is--how grandly
it stands above the whole City--must cross the river and look at it from
Bankside, Southwark.

The dome is three fold: it consists of an outer casing of wood covered
with lead: a cone of bricks which supports the lantern and cross: and an
inner cupola of brick which supports nothing. The towers at the west end
are 222 feet in height.

St. Paul's, especially since the crowding at Westminster Abbey, is
becoming the National Burial Church. It is already well filled with
monuments of British worthies and heroes of this and the last century.
Of men distinguished in Literature, Art, and Science, there are buried
here Dr. Johnson, Hallam the historian, Sir Joshua Reynolds the painter,
Turner the painter, Rennie the engineer who built Waterloo Bridge, Sir
William Jones, the great Oriental scholar, and Sir Astley Cooper, the
great surgeon. There is also buried here, as he should be, Sir
Christopher Wren himself. But those who visit the Cathedral desire most
to see the tombs of Wellington and Nelson. The remains of the former lie
in a great sarcophagus worked out of a single piece of Cornish porphyry.
Those of the Admiral were placed first in a coffin made from the main
mast of the French ship _Orient_, taken at the Battle of the Nile.
This was deposited in a sarcophagus made by Cardinal Wolsey and in