y
on the minimum of massiveness requisite for security; and besides
this, they have no heavy dome to be poised. Throughout there are two
stages or stories. The lower has the Corinthian Order, which was
always Wren's favourite, as he held that it was at once more graceful
and bore a greater weight of entablature than the earlier Doric and
Ionic. Wren's first design of a Greek Cross followed St. Peter's in
consisting of one main order plus an attic.[71] While Bramante at St.
Peter's found stones of nine feet in diameter in the quarries of
Tivoli, Wren, after making inquiries all over, could not procure
sufficient stone for his columns and pilasters of a greater diameter
than four feet, and he would not depart, at least to any degree, from
what he held to be the correct Corinthian height of nine diameters.
Had a sufficient quantity of larger blocks been obtainable, we should
have had the Corinthian order plus the attic, instead of the two
regular orders of Corinthian and Composite.[72] And this, it seems,
was his reason for departing in this respect from the First Design;
as also partially from the Approved Design. The pilasters are grouped
in pairs throughout, not only for stability, but also for sufficient
space for the circular-headed windows ornamented with festoons. Above
the entablature rises the second stage or story, or order. Here the
coupled pilasters have that slight difference in base and more
particularly in capital which constitutes the Composite order. The
capitals have the larger scrolls or volutes of the Ionic above the
acanthus leaves of the Corinthian proper. In reality the difference
is, here, but slight; and the best authorities maintain that there is
less difference between the Corinthian and the Composite than between
different examples of the Corinthian itself. The reason for the
dressed niches, with pediments instead of windows, like those in the
lower stage, will come later on. A main architrave and cornice run
round the entire building like an unbroken string course, and above
this, excepting at the different fronts, a balustrade, to which a
history is attached.

A new commission had been nominated after the death of Queen Anne[73]
(which by the way included Sir Isaac Newton), and this commission
insisted upon a balustrade unless the surveyor "do in writing under
his hand set forth that it is contrary to the principles of
architecture, and give his opinion in a fortnight's time." Wren
answered,