OLD ST. PAUL'S. 229 



and other things used in sepulture; next to these, rows of skeletons of the 

 ancient Britons, and immediately above them Saxons in stone coffins or 

 graves, lined with chalk; but this proves only that it was a very ancient 

 place of sepulture, and nothing more. The original church we find 

 was dedicated to St. Paul, and the old chronicles tell us that it was 

 greatly indebted for its beauty of structure to St. Erkenwald, who was 

 bishop of the diocese in 675. It was destroyed by fire in 661, and 

 restored in one year, so that its dimensions could not have been very 

 considerable. Fire again destroyed the church in 1,087, at which time 

 Mamki, the Norman bishop, rebuilt it on an enlarged scale at his own 

 expense. In 1135, while this building was in progress, a fire partially 

 consumed it. According to ancient writers this church was six hun- 

 dred and ninety feet in length, by one hundred and thirty in breadth, 

 surmounted by a spire five hundred and twenty feet in height; this 

 building was repaired by De Belmeis, but it was not finished until the 

 time of bishop Niger, who held the see in 1,240. Some considerable 

 additions were made after this, and the church was not completed until 

 1 ,315, in the reign of Edward the Second, who was the ninth king from 

 the laying of the first stone. This was the building which is called 

 " Old St. Paul's," and the immediate predecessor of the present splendid 

 pile. It was said to have been the largest Cathedral in the world, and 

 before it was deformed by the many repairs rendered necessary by time, 

 and in which a variety of incongruous ornaments were added, a most 

 handsome and imposing structure; but it became aheap of inelegance 

 and confusion. In 1315, the spire (which was of timber) was taken 

 down and a new one erected, and a ball with a cross was for the first 

 time fixed upon it. 



The great storm of February 1, 1444 (unparalleled in this country), 

 did the building immense injury, lightning setting fire to the wooden 

 spire, and it was not until 1,462, that the gilded ball again ornamented the 

 summit. On the 4th of June, 1561, it was again exposed to another 

 dreadful conflagration. A plumber, who was repairing the spire, left his 

 pan of coals there while he went to dinner ; the coals by some means 

 ignited the wood, and the fire raged with such force, that in a few hours 

 nothing was left of the immense pile but blackened walls. 



Although it was again rebuilt by public subscription of Queen 

 Elizabeth, and all classes of her subjects, and opened for public 

 worship in five years, yet it was greatly shorn of its original beauty, and 

 the spire was not rebuilt. So slight, indeed, was the whole structure 

 (from the haste with which it was rebuilt), that before the end of the 

 Queeu'sreiju it had so fallen into decay, that the cost of repairing it was 



