28 AUGUST 1915, Page 16

THE DECORATION OF ST. PAUL'S.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The late Mr. G. F. Watts once told me that through the death of Dean Milman he lost the opportunity of decorating the drum of the dome of St. Paul's. He said that he bad intended to paint, either on a gold or deep. blue background, a procession of the "glorious company of the Apostles" and the "noble army of martyrs," and other figures illustrating the Te Deum which were suitable for a Protestant Cathedral. Mr. Watts said that it would have all perished in the blacks of London, as be would have used fresco. He added that mosaic was the proper medium. Sir William Richmond deserves praise for his recovery of the Byzantine technique, but censure for the absurdity of putting semi-Byzantine decoration in a late Renaissance classical