During the time of the commonwealth, the building became exceedingly ruinous, and great part of the church was con verted into stables and barracks; the choir, however, was still used for public worship.
Under the reign of Charles IL the regular government of the church being re-established, the dean and chapter pro ceeded immediately to remove the encroachments, and to restore the stalls and other appendages of cathedral worship; but their revenues not affording the means for a general reparation, another subscription was opened, and the repairs were commenced in 1663. Sir John Denham. the surveyor general, had the superintendence of the works.
Dr. Wren, afterwards Sir Christopher, (as appears from the Parentalia) was employed to make a survey of the build int*, the result of which is given in an elaborate report, con tained in that work. In this paper, the architect, after remarking on the general bad construction of the body of the church, and recommending a new and massy casing of stone, pronounces a final condemnation upon the tower, which, together with adjacent parts, he represents as "such a heap of deforfnities, that no judicious architect would think it cor rigible by any expense that could be laid out upon new dress ing it; but that it would still remain unworthy of the work, infirm and tottering." He therefore proposed a bold altera tion of the primitive form, by cutting off the inner corners of the cross to reduce the middle part to a spacious cupola, or hemispherical rout; and upon this cupola, for the outward ornament, a lantern with a spring top, to rise proportionally; but not to the unnecessary- height of the former spire. This proposal does not appear to have been much approved of by his employers, and the public opinion was expressed strongly for retaining the tower in its ancient form. The great lire of London, in 1666, at length decided the question, and this minfortunate building again became a prey to the flames, which consumed the roof'; and by precipitating the vaulting, weak ened, cracked, and ruined the walls and piers in such a manner, that they were judged incapable of repair. Still
some years of irresolution elapsed before it was finally•.deter mined to erect a new cathedral.
Such was the fitte of this venerable edifice; and, like many other monuments, it might have passed into oblivion, had not the meritorious antiquary, Dugdale, with the assistance of dollar, preserved, in his History of St. Paul's, some con siderable memorials of•its form and decorations.
The ancient cathedral of St. Paul's must always be regarded as one of the great works of the architecture of the middle ages: in magnitude of dimension it for surpassed every other religious edifice of this country ; and it is repre sented by historians as equally pre-eminent in magnificence awl splendour if ornament.
The general form of the plan was a simple erers5, a him a very long choir. and a transept rather short in proportion to the extreme length of the building. The body of the church was in the Norman style of architecture ; huge clustered pillars on each side divided the nave from the aisles, and supported large semicircular arches: immediately above these extended an open gallery, with arcades of the same form and width as those below, but of it much shorter proportion. From this level a different style of building prevailed, for the windows above the gallery were pointed. The vaulting, which covered the nave, was also of the pointed form, of the simplest groined construction, with soffits and diagonal ribs only, similar to Salisbury cathedral and the transept of Westminster abbey. Slender circular shafts, placed against the centre of each pier, ruse from the pavement without any interruption of mouldings, and received the springing of the arches : the transept was in the style of the nave. Ilenee, we may conjecture that the original work of Maurice and De Belmeis comprehended the body of the church as high as the gallery ; the vaulting being, undoubtedly, part of these works, which. in time preceding historical sketch, are mentioned as completed in 1;231 ; and it thus became one of the earliest examples of the use of pointed arches in this country.