was removed and rebuilt. Inigo Jones
cut away all the decayed stone and crumbling Gothic work of the
Cathedral, and on the west portico expended all the knowledge he had
acquired in his visit to Rome. The result was a pagan composite,
beautiful but incongruous. The front, 161 feet long and 162 feet high,
was supported by fourteen Corinthian columns. On the parapet above the
pillars Inigo proposed that there should stand ten statues of princely
benefactors of St. Paul's. At each angle of the west front there was a
tower. The portico was intended for a Paul's Walk, to drain off the
profanation from within.

[Illustration: THE CHAPTER HOUSE OF OLD ST. PAUL'S, FROM A VIEW BY
HOLLAR (_see page 243_).]

Nor were the London citizens backward. One most large-hearted man, Sir
Paul Pindar, a Turkey merchant who had been ambassador at
Constantinople, and whose house is still to be seen in Bishopsgate
Street, contributed L10,000 towards the screen and south transept. The
statues of James and Charles were set up over the portico, and the
steeple was begun, when the storm arose that soon whistled off the
king's unlucky head. The coming troubles cast shadows around St. Paul's.
In March, 1639, a paper was found in the yard of the deanery, before
Laud's house, inscribed--"Laud, look to thyself. Be assured that thy
life is sought, as thou art the fountain of all wickedness;" and in
October, 1640, the High Commission sitting at St. Paul's, nearly 2,000
Puritans made a tumult, tore down the benches in the consistory, and
shouted, "We will have no bishops and no High Commission."

The Parliament made short work with St. Paul's, of Laud's projects, and
Inigo Jones's classicalisms. They at once seized the L17,000 or so left
of the subscription. To Colonel Jephson's regiment, in arrears for pay,
L1,746, they gave the scaffolding round St. Paul's tower, and in pulling
it to pieces down came part of St. Paul's south transept. The copes in
St. Paul's were burnt (to extract the gold), and the money sent to the
persecuted Protestant poor in Ireland. The silver vessels were sold to
buy artillery for Cromwell. There was a story current that Cromwell
intended to sell St. Paul's to the Jews for a synagogue. The east end of
the church was walled in for a Puritan lecturer; the graves were
desecrated; the choir became a cavalry barracks; the portico was let out
to sempsters and hucksters, who lodged in rooms above; James and Charles
were toppled from