The Pictorial handbook of London : comprising its antiquities, architecture, arts, manufacture, trade, social, literary, and scientific institutions, exhibitions, and galleries of art : together with some account of the principal suburbs and most attractive localities ; illustrated with two hundred and five engravings on wood, by Branston, Jewitt, and others and a new and complete map, engraved by Lowry . waste of internal capacity, in the unseen spaces between the inner-most and outermost dome, is not nearly so great as in the roofsof Gothic buildings; and no part of this structure can be sai
The Pictorial handbook of London : comprising its antiquities, architecture, arts, manufacture, trade, social, literary, and scientific institutions, exhibitions, and galleries of art : together with some account of the principal suburbs and most attractive localities ; illustrated with two hundred and five engravings on wood, by Branston, Jewitt, and others and a new and complete map, engraved by Lowry . waste of internal capacity, in the unseen spaces between the inner-most and outermost dome, is not nearly so great as in the roofsof Gothic buildings; and no part of this structure can be said tobe (like a Gothic high roof or spire) erected for external effect alone,except the lantern. This, indeed, is so, for the highest windows visiblefrom within, and which appear to form a lantern, are really situatedbelow its base, in the upper part of the brick cone, and are inge-niously lighted from sunk areas, invisible from without, in the sum-mit of the timber dome. The interior of St. Pauls is very disappointing to those who,from the universal practice in the mediaeval and foreign churches,expect to find such an edifice adorned with the artistic contri-butions of every age since its erection. The want of ornament,however (which instead of exceeding, as it should do, falls shortof the quantity lavished on the exterior), is a minor fault compared 190 REPRESENTATIVE ARCHITECTURE—THIRD SKCTTOXAL VIEW OF THE DOME OF ST. PAULS. st. Pauls cathedral. 191 with the very grave one of ill-distributed light. Nothing canatone for the fact that the dome, which ought to be the lightest,is the darkest part of the interior; an effect now sadly exaggeratedby the lower parts having been cleaned, while all above the centralcircular cornice remains lined with dust and smoke, a dark undis-tinguishable cavity. The defect, however, is radical and irremediable;and it seems to us that its avoidance would have been worth anysacrifice of external beauty. So, indeed, the architects of St. P
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookidpictorialhan, bookyear1854
