the elevation--The
Main Arcade, Triforium Belt, or "Attic," and Clerestory. The pedantic
objection to the use of this simple and familiar terminology and
system of classification seems to have arisen from the idea that St.
Paul's must be treated as though it were a purely Classical building.
Upon their fronts the piers have great Corinthian pilasters. These are
continued above the capitals, and the great transverse arches of the
vaulting spring from the continuations on a level with the top of the
triforium. These great pilasters form the divisions east and west into
severies.

[Illustration: THE ORDER OF THE INTERIOR.
_Drawn by Peter Cazalet._]

=The Main Arcade.=--The sides of the piers (east and west) have
smaller pilasters, coupled and with narrow panels between, and above
these is a plain entablature from which the broad arches rise. This
method of making the arches spring from an entablature instead of
letting them rest naturally upon the capitals, was an idea borrowed
from the Romans, who in turn borrowed it from the Greeks. With the
Greeks the entablature was useful, as they had no round arch; and the
Romans, just as they borrowed Greek forms and Greek metres for their
native Italian literature, in a like spirit borrowed their
entablature. It is not necessary, and Freeman calls it a mere
_stilt_.[92] The earliest instance we know of its disuse is in the
colonnade of the great hall of Diocletian's palace at Spalatro. The
greater space of the west severy is diminished by the introduction of
detached columns, so that the arches may all be of a like span. These
columns, coupled and placed in front of the lesser pilasters, are of
white veined marble, and exceedingly graceful. As the arches more
immediately rest upon them than upon the pilasters, the Roman use of
the entablature as a stilt can be here more clearly seen. I may add
that in the church of St. Apollinare Nuovo, at Ravenna, the pillars
have only blocks above their capitals, instead of the old entablature
reaching from column to column; and this church, built about 500
A.D., accordingly represents the Transition stage between the
Roman proper and the Romanesque.

Turning next from underneath the arches, and taking our stand in the
central aisle, we are in a position to notice the details of the main
entablature above the arches. The keystones are ornamented with heads
and other pieces of sculpture. As Wren employed so few arches they
rise to a gr