The Intercolumns Of The Lower Range Of Pilasters Are Thirty-Three
Ornamental Windows And Six Niches, And Of The Upper
Range thirty-
seven windows and about thirty niches, many whereof are adorned with
columns, entablature, and pediments; and at the
East end is a sweep,
or circular space, adorned with columns and pilasters, and enriched
with festoons, fruit, incense-pots, &c., and at the upper part is a
window between four pieddroits and a single cornice, and those
between two large cartouches.
The ascent to the north portico is by twelve steps of black marble;
the dome of the portico is supported and adorned with six very
spacious columns (forty-eight inches diameter) of the Corinthian
order. Above the doorcase is a large urn, with festoons, &c. Over
this (belonging to the upper range of pilasters) is a spacious
pediment, where are the king's arms with the regalia, supported by
two angels, with each a palm-branch in their hands, under whose feet
appear the figures of the lion and unicorn.
You ascend to the fourth portico (the ground here being low) by
twenty-five steps. It is in all other respects like the north, and
above this a pediment, as the other, belonging to the upper order,
where is a proper emblem of this incomparable structure, raised, as
it were, out of the ruins of the old church, viz., a phoenix, with
her wings expanded, in flames, under which is the word RESURGAM
insculped in capital characters.
The west portico is adorned and supported with twelve columns below
and eight above, fluted, of the respective orders as the two ranges,
the twelve lower adorned with architrave, marble frieze, and a
cornice, and the eight upper with an entablature and a spacious
triangular pediment, where the history of St. Paul's conversion is
represented, with the rays of a glory and the figures of several men
and horses boldly carved in relievo by Mr. Bird.
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