riod I have given manifest proofs of my zeal in the prosecution of the work. I again earnestly entreat I may resign, which would be conferring on me the greatest favour."

Amongst the many willing to do justice to the merit and the modesty of Wren, when labouring under the persecution of court intrigue, was Sir Richard Steel, who, in his Tatler, No.52, under the character of Nestor of Athens, observes that "his art and skill were soon disregarded for want of that manner with which men of the world support and assert the merits of their own performances; this bashful quality still put a damp on his great knowledge, which has as fatal an effect upon men's reputation as poverty, for it is said, (Ecclesiasticus, ch. ix. v. 15,) The poor man by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered the same poor man. So here we find the modest man built the city, and the modest man's skill was unknown; but surely posterity are obliged to allow him that praise after his death which he so industriously declined while he was living."

CHAPTER V.

To the End of his Life. WREN quitted the field without a struggle; he retired in peace from the world to his home at Hampton Court, without being affected by any of that bitterness or those angry feelings which the ingratitude and injustice of a court so often engender in minds of less noble stamp, saying, Nunc me jubet fortuna expeditius philosophari. Cheerful in his solitude, and as well pleased to die in the shade as in the light-his son observes of him in the Parentalia," that the vigour of his mind continued with a vivacity rarely found in persons of his age, till within a short period of his death, and not till then could he quit the great aim of his whole life to be (to use his own words) a benefactor to mankind; his great humanity appearing to the last in benevolence and complacency, free from all moroseness in behaviour or aspect; he was happily endued with such an evenness of temper, steady tranquillity, and Christian fortitude, that no injurious incidents or inquietudes of human life could ever ruffle or discompose."

vided his time between the study of the Scriptures, which were at once his guide and his delight, and in the revision of his philosophical works, more particularly those upon the Longitude, and his tracts on Mathematics and Astronomy. Time, which had enfeebled his limbs, left his faculties unclouded till nearly the end of his existence. His chief delight to the very close of life was, that of being carried once a year to see his great work; "the beginning and completion of which," observes Walpole, was an event which one cannot wonder left such an impression of content on the mind of the good old man, that it seemed to recall a memory almost deadened to every other use."

66

Wren's dissolution was as placid as the tenour of his existence had been. On the 25th of February, 1723, his servant conceiving he slept longer after his dinner than usual, entered his room, and found him dead in his chair.-He, to whom in his latter days all distinction had been denied, received, as frequently happens, the tardy honour of a splendid funeral; his remains were deposited in the crypt under the southernmost window of the choir of the Cathedral which he had raised; a plain black slab alone covers the coffin, but no monument beyond the Pile itself attests his goodness or his greatness. On the western jamb of the window of the crypt, is a tablet with this inscription:

Subtus conditur

Huius ecclesiæ et urbis conditor
Ch. Wren,

Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta
Non sibi sed bono publico.
Lector, si monumentum quæris
Circumspice.

Robert Milne, one of his successors in the care of the cathedral, caused this inscription to be placed in gilt letters in a tablet in front of the skreen of the organ: and it is a reproach to the nation and to the age, that no other monument has ever been erected. Indeed, until Mr. Elmes's volume, (with the exception of the Parentalia, )+ no biographical notice

"Beneath is laid the builder of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived above ninety Reader, if thou seekest for his monument, look years, not for himself but for the public good. around."

The

of him had been published. We trust, however, that before long Mr. Cockerel, the present architect to St. Paul's, who has lately superintended its repairs with so much judgment, will carry into effect an intention he is known long to have entertained, of giving to the world a critical account of Wren's most important architectural works, accompanied by a selection from the large collection of drawings now in the library of All Souls' College. Till this shall be done, it can hardly be said that his professional merits can be duly appreciated.

Mr. Cockerel's attainments and talents afford a pledge that the work will be all that either the architect or the amateur can require.

Wren was twice married; first to the daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill, by whom he had one son, Christopher. He afterwards married a daughter of William Lord Fitzwilliam, Baron of Lifford, in Ireland, by whom he had a son and a daughter. The family is not extinct : Mr. Elmes mentions two daughters, and the son of his grandson Stephen, and Christopher Wren, the son of their cousin, of Wroxhall-abbey, in Warwickshire, a seat of Sir C. Wren's, where his only son, Christopher, is buried.

In considering the life of Wren we are struck with the splendour of his abilities, the greatness of his pereseverance and labour, the scantiness of his remuneration, and the ingratitude and injustice which he experienced towards the close of his long and arduous course. When the prices paid in these days to artists are called to mind, what must be the surprise at learning that the whole salary paid to the architect of St Paul's was only 2007. a year. Wren afforded all his services in the building of Greenwich Hospital, without any salary or emolument, preferring in this, as in every other passage of his life, the public service to private advantage. And it will be observed, that his salary of 2001. a year was not paid for his mere designs and time; it included the whole expense of models and drawings of every part, the daily overseeing of the works, the framing of the estimates and contracts, and auditing the bills. Without making any invidious comparison, it cannot be denied, that of late there have been few such examples shown of disinterested services towards the public by artists employed in situations similar to his. The scantiness of his pay

was more than once noticed by the writers of the time; and Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, in a letter* respecting the charges of one of the persons employed to superintend the completion of Blenheim, who had made a charge of 300l. a year for his services, beside a salary for his clerk, complains bitterly at being compelled to pay this, "when," she observes, "it is well known that Sir C. Wren was content to be dragged up in a basket three or four times a week to the top of St. Paul's, and at great hazard, for 2007. a year."—Her Grace was perhaps but little capable of drawing any nice distinction between the feelings of the hired surveyor of Blenheim, and those of our architect in the contemplation of the rising of the fabric which his vast genius was calling into existence: her notions led her to estimate the matter by the simple process of the rule of three direct; and on this principle she certainly had good reason to complain of her surveyor,

CHAPTER VI.

His other Works.

Paul's, Wren, who was appointed the In addition to the great work of St. architect for the rebuilding of the whole city, superintended the erection of all the churches, amounting to more than fifty; he was also the architect and contriver of Chelsea College, and the principal officer and comptroller of the works at Windsor. A considerable part of Greenwich Hospital was erected by him, and a splendid palace for a hunting seat of Charles II., now turned into a barrack, was commenced at Winchester. In addition to all these duties, a large proportion of his time was occupied, after the fire of London, in setting out and ascertaining the sites of the different houses destroyed-an employment little suited to his genius, and which involved him in endless al

tercation. His pay as the architect for rebuilding the churches in the city,

was not more liberal than for St. Paul's,

being no more than 1007. a year; the parish of St. Stephen, Walbrook, however, appears, on his completing that admirable church, to have voted a present to his lady of twenty guineas!

In a sketch intended merely for general readers, it is not necessary churches erected by him: those which to enumerate in detail the different

In the possession of W. Tooke, Esq.

are most celebrated for the beauty and convenience of the interior, are St. Stephen's, Walbrook, St. Andrew's, Holborn, and St. James's Church in Piccadilly. St. Stephen's is, by many, considered as the most perfect specimen of Wren's genius; and it has not, perhaps, been surpassed by any modern edifice in elegance and unity of design. It is an oblong square of seventy-five by fifty-six feet; its peculiar beauty arises from the elegance of the vaulting, the form of the cupola, the disposition of the Corinthian columns, the lightness of the supporting arches, and the distribution of the light from above. A judicious and elegant writer on the Public Buildings of London observes, "that this building, so little known amongst us, is famous all over Europe, and is reputed the masterpiece of Wren. Perhaps Italy itself can produce no modern building that can vie with it in taste or proportion. There is not a beauty which the plan would admit of, that is not to be found here in its greatest perfection: and foreigners very justly call our taste in question for understanding its graces no better, and allowing it no higher degree of fame." Such is the reputation of this structure amongst foreigners, that an anecdote is told of an Italian architect who arrived in London and immediately returned after having visited St. Stephen's.

The church of St. James, in Piccadilly, is divided, in the interior, into a nave and two aisles; the principal merit is in the formation of the roof, which is described from information furnished by Mr. Cockerel, as singularly ingenious and economical; and its simplicity, strength, and beauty, are represented as a perfect study of construction and architectural economy. Sir Christopher Wren, who himself conceived this to be one of the best contrived of his churches, observes in a letter

"Churches must be large: but still, in our reformed religion, it should seem vain to make a parish church larger than that all who are present can both hear and see. The Romanists, indeed, may build larger churches: it is enough if they hear the murmurs of the mass, and see the elevation of the host; but ours are to be fitted for auditories. I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold above two thousand persons, and all to hear the service, and see the preacher. I en

deavoured to effect this, in building the parish church of St. James, Westminster, which, I presume, is the most capacious with these qualifications that hath yet been built; and yet at a solemn time, when the church was much crowd. ed, I could not discern from a gallery, that two thousand were present. In this church I mention, though very broad, and the nave arched up, yet as there are no walls of a second order, nor lanterns, nor buttresses, but the whole of the roof rests upon the pillars, as do also the galleries, I think it may be found beautiful and convenient, and, as such, the cheapest of any form I could invent."

The interior of St. Andrew's, Holborn, after St. James's Church, affords one of the best specimens of arrangement; spacious, rich, and beautiful. It has a nave and two aisles divided into a basement and galleries: the length is a hundred and five feet, the breadth sixty-three, and the height forty-three.

No architect can come in competition with Wren in the construction of the steeple, which is considered a requisite in Christian churches, and in the composing of which it required his genius to combine the excellence of the Roman architecture, with the requisites of height and lightness, to which it had not before been adapted with any success. The spire of St. Dunstan's in the East is admitted to be unrivalled for elegance, and is one of the finest monuments of geometrical skill in existence. That of Bow Church is also among the most elegant of Wren's works; the bottom is a plain tower till it rises over the houses; above this is a beautiful temple, and over it stand flying buttresses supporting a lighter temple, surmounted by a spire. Nothing can afford fuller evidence of his power to combine and adapt the elegant features of the Roman architecture, so as to suit the genius of the work. Wren has not fallen into the common error in building spires, of making the spire straddle across a Greek pediment and crush it with the weight; thus, the spire of Bow Church is built separately, and rises from the ground at an angle of the church.

Another curious work of Wren was the pendulum stage in the upper part of the spire of the Chichester Cathedral, which he rebuilt, to counteract the south-westerly gales, which had forced it from its perpendicularity. (Fig. 6) A

sketch to illustrate this has been added from the work of Mr. Fig. 6. Elmes. To the finial is fastened a strong metal ring, and to that is sus pended a large piece of timber, 80 feet long, loaded with iron; at the bottom are two oak floors, the upper about two inches and a half, and the lower three inches less than the interior masonry of the spire. When the wind blows the spire out of the perpendicular, the pendulum floor touches the lee side of the spire, thus tending to restore the equilibrium of the masonry.

The Doric column at the foot of London Bridge, (Monument,) the largest single column in existence, except the Wellington testimonial, at Dublin, was also designed by Wren; its entire height is 202 feet, being 42 higher than Trajan's column; the pedestal is 40 feet high, 20 feet square; the diameter of the base is 15 feet, and there is a staircase in the shaft of 345 steps.

no

The works of Sir C. Wren do not appear to have been all uniformly successful. Hampton Court and Winchester Palace are far from being favourable specimens of the art. The studies made by him from the buildings of Louis the Fourteenth had too visible an effect on his own designs of palaces and private buildings; and "it may be considered fortunate," observes Horace Walpole, "that the French built only palaces and churches, and therefore Saint Paul's escaped, but Hampton Court was sacrificed to the god of false taste." Wren's failure at Hampton Court may, in a great measure, be attributed to his having worked under the directions of William, whose favourite residence it was, and whose taste in architecture was far below his merit as a patriot king; indeed, when the arrangement of the low cloisters was criticized, the monarch, with his wonted honesty, took the whole blame on himself, acknowledging that they had been constructed by his own particular orders. Nor is it unreasonable to infer that in his other buildings, the defects arose in some degree from the taste of his employers, and that he was compelled by them to

adopt the French fashions, which at that time retained the powerful influence in this country, which the profligate and frivolous court of Charles II. had bestowed upon them.

We have omitted to notice the College of Physicians, built by Wren, which, in a particular department, was one of the most scientific of Wren's edifices. The exterior, indeed, was nowise to be admired; but in the interior, for the purposes of utility and convenience, it was considered perfect, as affording every facility both for seeing and hearing, in the display of anatomical operations and philosophical experiments. As a study of acoustic and optical architecture it was perhaps unrivalled, the peculiar character of the roof and form of the section being admirably adapted to the distribution of sound, and the form of the hall equally suited to the convenience of seeing.

In the construction of theatres and of churches, the propagation of sound is one of the most important points to be attended to. The doctrine of acoustics is little understood by builders in this country, and yet, however hidden to us the subject may be, it is certain the ancients understood its principles with great accuracy; whilst in modern times this important object of architecture has been almost wholly neglected. Vitruvius describes the effects of the science as well understood by the Greeks. The method of producing the effect of the increase of sound in their theatres was singular; and from the mention of it in Vitruvius, as being of frequent use both in these and in the Roman theatres, it is to be inferred that the effect sought was produced. The arrangement, as described, consisted in placing bronze vases or jars in small chambers or recesses having an opening in front in the precinctio, between the first and second row of seats. These jars were inverted, having one end partially raised: they were of different sizes, and are said to have been arranged according to some principle of harmony. It has been a matter of considerable surprise that, with the number of travellers who have been of late so actively exploring the antiquities of Greece and Italy, no remains of this contrivance have been discovered. Mr. Banks, however, it is said, discovered at Scythopolis the remains of these chambers situated in the precinctio,

• This building is now dismantled.