g
the spandrels between the arches the necessary concave surface; and
this stage is finished off with a cantilever cornice, the work (at
least in part) of one Jonathan Maine. The eight great keystones of the
arches by Caius Gabriel Cibber are seven feet by five, and eighteen
inches in relief.

=The Whispering Gallery= is almost exactly a hundred feet from the
pavement, and curiously enough about the same distance across. We are
still, be it understood, below the level of the apex of the exterior
roof, and the Cross is quite two hundred and sixty feet above us. The
gallery projects so that the lectern steps and the pulpit are
underneath. The attendant whispering across the whole area can be
distinctly heard, an acoustic property seemingly caused by the
nearness of the concave hemisphere above.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE DOME.
_From an engraving by G. Coney in Sir H. Ellis' edition of
Dugdale's St. Paul's._]

=The Drum.=--The actual bend inwards now begins, but for this part
only in straight lines.[99] First comes the plain band or
PODIUM, panelled and of a height of twenty feet. On this
stand thirty-two composite pilasters, in reality, as well as in
appearance, out of the horizontal. Three out of each four intervening
spaces are pierced with square-headed windows; and from them such
light as the dome possesses, streams down through the windows of the
exterior colonnade. The alternate fourth recesses, apparently nothing
more than ornamental niches, conceal the supports which bear the
weight above. In the recent scheme of decoration they have been filled
with statues of Early Fathers--the four eastern, SS. Chrysostom,
Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and Athanasius; and the four western, SS.
Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, and Gregory. If the light allows,
the Podium, at present bare, is a suitable place for mosaics.

=The Cupola.=--So, for want of a better name, we will call the topmost
section or inner roof of brick, two bricks thick. Here the straight
lines bearing inwards give way to the sphere; and here, too, the three
separate coverings, which constitute the dome, begin. The circular
opening below the lantern coincides with the lower edge of the fluting
of the exterior shell, and is about two hundred and fifteen feet from
the pavement.[100]

These upper regions, hidden in an almost perpetual gloom, were
decorated in monochrome by Sir James Thornhill; but his work has
failed to resist the chemical