[73] The Royal Commissions expired with the sovereign.
[74] Mr. Longman gives the two together, p. 143.
[75] Tracts in "Parentalia," pp. 352-353. Stephen Wren (p. 269) explains how his grandfather departed from the conventional arrangement of architrave, frieze, and cornice in his entablatures, omitting one or other of these whenever he thought good. Here, above the pilasters and windows of the lower order he seems to have merged the three, and in the corresponding part of the upper order to have omitted anything like a frieze.
[79] Ibid., p. 301, with diagram, showing how a wall does the same as buttresses.
[80] Mr. Wightwick, quoted in Longman, p. 188.
[81] E.A. Freeman, _Fortnightly Review_, October, 1872, p. 380.
[82] Yet he preferred the Early English windows of Salisbury to any later.
[83] "Who among the crowds that gaze upon the building ever pause to admire the flowerwork of St. Paul's?... It is no part of it. It is an ugly excrescence. We always conceive the building without it, and should be happier if our conception were not disturbed by its presence. It makes the rest of the architecture look poverty-stricken, instead of sublime; and yet it is never enjoyed itself" ("Seven Lamps," iv. 13). All I can say is I have enjoyed studying it. Mr. Edward Bell also sends me the following: "We have a familiar instance in the flower-work of St. Paul's, which is probably, in the abstract, as perfect flower sculpture as could be produced at the time; and which is just as rational an ornament of the building as so many valuable Van Huysums, framed and glazed, and hung up over each window" ("Stones of Venice," I., xxi. 3). In my humble opinion this criticism is overdrawn; and, after all, Mr. Ruskin commends the sculpture.
[84] Dugdale, p. 191; but some authorities give double that of St. Paul's.
[85] Fortunately for effect the technical distances are slightly exceeded. The "Parentalia" says "alternately," but the central is wider than the remaining four, which are similar.
[86] The objection that the exterior of the West Front does not correspond with the interior is not accurate. The west end inside contains (_a_) the lower stage, with the great arch and doorway, and (_b_) the upper, with the window.