ice Books. Fourteenth Century. British Museum, 29902.

MONUMENT OF DR. DONNE. After W. Hollar.

PREACHING AT PAUL'S CROSS BEFORE JAMES I. From a Picture by H. Farley
in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries.

OLD ST. PAUL'S FROM THE THAMES. From Hollar's _Long View of London._

WEST FRONT AFTER THE FIRE. From a Drawing in the Library of St. Paul's
Cathedral.

OLD ST. PAUL'S IN FLAMES. After W. Hollar.

OLD ST. PAUL'S

CHAPTER I.

THE BUILDING.

_Roman London_--_The Beginning of Christian London_--_The English
Conquest and London once more Heathen_--_The Conversion_--_Bishop
Mellitus_--_King Sebert_--_The First Cathedral_--_Its
Destruction_--_Foundation of the Second Cathedral by Bishop
Maurice_--_Another Destructive Fire_--_Restoration and
Architectural Changes_--_Bishop Fulk Basset's Restoration_--_The
Addition Eastward_--_St. Gregory's Church on the S.W. side_--"_The
New Work_" _and a New Spire: dedicated by Bishop Segrave_--_How the
Money was raised_--_Dimensions of the Old Church_--_The Tower
and Spire_--_The Rose Window at the East End_--_Beginning of
Desecration._

The Romans began the systematic conquest of Britain about the time
of Herod Agrippa, whose death is recorded in Acts xii. London was
probably a place of some importance in those days, though there is
no mention of it in Caesar's narrative, written some eighty years
previously. Dr. Guest brought forward reasons for supposing that at
the conquest the General Aulus Plautius chose London as a good spot
on which to fortify himself, and that thus a military station was
permanently founded on the site of the present cathedral, as being
the highest ground. If so, we may call that the beginning of historic
London, and the Romans, being still heathen, would, we may be sure,
have a temple dedicated to the gods close by. Old tradition has
it that the principal temple was dedicated to Diana, and it is no
improbable guess that this deity was popular with the incomers,
who found wide and well-stocked hunting grounds all round the
neighbourhood. Ages afterwards, in the days of Edward III., were
found, in the course of some exhumations, vast quantities of bones
of cattle and stags' horns, which were assumed to be the remains of
sacrifices to the goddess. So they may have been; we have no means of
knowing. An altar to Diana was found in 1830 in Foster Lane, close by,
which is now in the