Sir Christopher Wren Part 11

AD. DD. CHR. WREN.

Ad te, sed pa.s.su tremulo vultuque rubenti, Fertur ad ingenii culmen, opella levis, Nec quid vult aliud (quid enim velit haud tibi notum) Quam ut justum authoris deferat.--_Ib._ vol. viii. p. 541.

[92] Samuel Butler, born 1612, died, it is said, in great poverty, and was buried in S. Paul's, Covent Garden, 1680.

[93] Wren's lunar globe will be remembered. _Vide supra_, p. 125.

The satire made some sensation and caused La Fontaine to write _Un Animal dans la Lune_, in which, courtier like, he pays a compliment to Charles II., and hints at the happiness of England at peace and able to give herself 'a ces emplois,'

while France was at war with Holland, Spain, and the Empire.

[94] Dr. Richard Bayley, President of S. John's College.

[95] Bishop Andrewes bequeathed 332_l._ to the library of Pembroke College.

[96] Some alterations have recently been made at Pembroke, in which, under the late Sir G. Scott's orders, the chapel has been lengthened by about 20 feet, the stucco of the exterior stripped, and the red brick pointed.

CHAPTER VI.

1664-1667.

REPAIR OF S. PAUL'S--SHELDONIAN THEATRE--THE PLAGUE--A LETTER FROM PARIS--CONSECRATION OF PEMBROKE CHAPEL--FIRE OF LONDON--BISHOP WREN'S DEATH--HIS FAMILY.

Yet, London, Empress of the Northern Clime, By an high fate thou greatly didst expire, Great as the world's, which, at the death of time, Must fall, and rise a n.o.bler frame by fire

_Annus Mirabilis_, ccxii. Dryden.

The repairs of S. Paul's Cathedral could not be delayed. Wren, as Sir John Denham's a.s.sistant, was greatly occupied about the matter, which was one of no ordinary difficulty. The responsibility was really his, for Sir John went out of his mind, and though he recovered, probably did but little business.

When Inigo Jones built his portico, he cased the nave with Portland stone, and rebuilt the north and south fronts. In doing so he pared down the original pointed architecture, until little of its beauty or character remained. His work had in its turn been damaged by the Puritans, who set up booths in the portico, and dug sawpits in the cathedral inclosure. Besides these injuries Christopher Wren's accurate eye detected graver faults in the original design, some of which he enumerates. 'The pillars of the nave, though eleven feet in diameter, were only cased with stone, and filled up with rubbish inside. The roof was always too heavy for them, so that they are bent outwards on both sides, so that the roof already cracked will finally fall in.' He proposed to subst.i.tute a roof[97] of 'a light, thin sh.e.l.l of stone, very geometrically made.' The tower leant much to one side, and was propped with arches and b.u.t.tresses, so as to block the view from the west end. Upon this tower, which he despairingly calls 'a heap of deformities,' there had been formerly a tall, thin, wooden spire, which was destroyed by lightning. For this he wished to subst.i.tute 'a dome or rotunda, and upon the cupola for outward ornament, a lantern with a spring top to rise proportionately.' He hints that when the dome was finished the rest of the cathedral should be harmonised with it, almost impossible though the task appeared. He expected great difference of opinion, and that 'some would aim at a greater magnificence than the age would afford, and some might fall so low as to think of piecing up the old fabric here with stone, there with brick, and covering all faults with a coat of plaster, to leave it still to posterity as an object of charity.' The miserable state of the building is implied in the epitaph of its Dean, Dr. Barwick, who in 1664, 'Inter sacras aedis Paulinae ruinas reponit suas (utrasque resurrecturas securus)'.[98]

[_SHELDONIAN THEATRE._]

Another work upon which Wren was engaged was the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. Sheldon, who succeeded Archbishop Juxon in the see of Canterbury in 1663, was determined to free S. Mary's Church from the profane uses to which it was put when the various 'Acts' were kept there, and any kind of jesting and buffoonery was considered allowable. He had had experience of Wren in the discussions about S. Paul's, and now engaged him as architect. The building is too well known to need a description; the roof was reckoned a triumph of skill because of 'the contrivance of supporting the same without the help of any beam, it being entirely kept up by braces and screws; and is the subject of an excellent mathematical treatise by that prodigy of the age, Dr. Wallis.'[99] It was six years building, and cost 25,000_l._ Evelyn, with whom Wren had often discussed the plans, went to Oxford on purpose to be present at the opening on July 9, 1669.

'In the morning,' he says, 'was celebrated the Encenia of the New Theater ... it was resolved to keep the present Act in it and celebrate its dedication with the greatest splendor and formalitie that might be, and therefore drew a world of strangers and other companie to the Universitie from all parts of the nation. The Vice Chancellor, Heads of Houses and Doctors, being seated in magisteriall seates, the Vice Chancellor's chaire and deske, Proctors etc. covered with Brocatall (a kind of Brocade) and cloth of gold; the Universitie Register read the founder's grant and gift of it to the Universitie upon these solemn occasions. Then followed Dr. South, the Universitie's orator, in an eloquent speech which was very long and not without some malicious and indecent reflections on the Royal Society as underminers of the Universitie, which was very foolish and untrue, as well as unseasonable. But, to let that pa.s.s from an ill-natured man, the rest was in praise of the archbishop and the ingenious architect.'

Dr. Plot, the historian of Oxfords.h.i.+re, who was a member of the Royal Society, in his quaint book gives a careful technical description of the construction of the theatre by Wren, and his a.s.sistant, 'Richard Frogley, an able carpenter.'

During the years that the theatre was building Wren did not intermit his attendance at the Royal Society; amongst other inventions he produced a machine for drawing in perspective, which was exhibited at one of the meetings.

[_THE PLAGUE._]

A frightful interruption came to these and to all other pursuits in London. In 1665, the plague, which had more than once afflicted England, broke out with fearful force in London, where the dark narrow streets with their houses meeting overhead, and the foul state of the entire town, gave every encouragement to its ravages. Pepys, who stayed in London all through the worst time of the plague, gives many a record of this visitation.[100]

'_June 7th._--The hottest day that ever I felt in my life. This day, much against my will I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors and "Lord have mercy upon us!" writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw.

'_August 16th._--To the Exchange, where I have not been a great while. But Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people and very few upon the 'Change! Jealous of every door that one sees shut up lest it should be the plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.

'_September 3rd_ (Lord's Day).--Up; and put on my coloured silk suit very fine, and my new periwigg, bought a good while since, and durst not wear because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what will be the fas.h.i.+on after the plague is done as to periwiggs, for n.o.body will dare to buy any haire for fear of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague. My Lord Brouncker, Sir J. Minnes and I up to the Vestry' (he was then at Greenwich) 'at the desire of the justices of the peace, in order to the doing of something for the keeping of the plague from growing; but Lord! to consider the madness of the people of the town who will, because they are forbid, come in crowds along with the dead corpses to see them buried; but we agreed on some orders for the prevention thereof.

Among other stories, one was very pa.s.sionate, me-thought, of a complaint brought against a man in the town for taking a child from London from an infected house. Alderman Hooker told us it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street' (Gracechurch Street), 'a saddler, who had buried all the rest of his children with the plague, and himself and his wife being now shut up and in despair of escaping, did desire only to save the life of this little child; and so prevailed to have it received stark naked into the arms of a friend who brought it, having put it into fresh clothes, to Greenwich, where upon hearing the story we did agree it should be permitted to be received and kept in the town.'

So the days went on and the gra.s.s waved in Whitehall Court, and to quote Pepys again: 'Lord! how everybody's looks and discourse in the streets is of death and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken.'

None but those whom absolute necessity kept in London stayed in the infected air; the works at S. Paul's were stopped; all meetings and lectures ceased, with good reason, since to gather people together was but to spread the infection.

Christopher Wren profited by the cessation of his London work, to travel abroad. Before going he had much to settle; to help Mr. Evelyn find a tutor, 'a perfect Grecian and more than commonly mathematical,' for his son. This youth went two years later, at the age of thirteen, to Trinity College, Oxford, 'being newly out of long coates.'

['_THE WORLD GOVERNED BY WORDS._']

Wren's Oxford Professors.h.i.+p, and his works, both there and at Cambridge, required to be set in good order before he could go. At Oxford he was engaged on the repairs of Trinity College, for his friend Dr.

Bathurst.[101] On June 22, 1665, Wren writes to them as follows:--

'My honoured Friend,--I am convinced with Machiavel or some unlucky fellow, 'tis no matter whether I quote true, that the world is generally governed by words. I perceive the name of a quadrangle will carry it with those whom you say may possibly be your benefactors, though it be much the worse situation for the chambers, and the beauty of the college, and of the particular pile of building. If I had skill in enchantment to represent the pile, first in one view, then in another, I should certainly make them of my opinion; or else I will appeal to Mons. Mansard or Signor Bernini, both of which I shall see at Paris within this fortnight.

'But, to be sober, if anybody, as you say, will pay for a quadrangle, there is no dispute to be made; let them have a quadrangle, though a lame one somewhat like a three-legged table.'...

Some technical details for the builder follow, and then:

'You need not use any apologies to me, for I must beg you to believe you can command me in things of greater moment, and that I love to serve you as your most faithful and affectionate Friend and Servant,

'CHRISTOPHER WREN.'

The College was repaired by Sir Thomas Pope, it having been left in a very ruinous condition, but the ornamental part is due to Dr. Bathurst, aided by munificent Archbishop Sheldon and other old members of the College.

He was making considerable additions to Trinity College at Cambridge: to this date belongs the library, which he added to the beautiful western Quadrangle known as Nevile's Court.

'A building,' said Wren, in a letter to the Master of Trinity, 'of that consideration you go about, deserves good care in the design and able workmen to perform it; and that he who takes the general management upon him may have a prospect of the whole, and make all parts inside and outside correspond well together.'

Very full directions and six drawings follow, explaining the plan and its details.

'I suppose,' he ends, 'you have good masons; however, I would willingly take a farther pains to give all the mouldings in great; we are scrupulous in small matters and you must pardon us, the architects are as great pedants as critics and heralds.'

[_WREN AT PARIS._]

It was not until midsummer that Wren was able to start on his journey: he went at once to Paris to the Earl of S. Albans, the English amba.s.sador, to whom he had letters. Lord S. Albans had lived at Paris in great ease and luxury all through the Rebellion, far more so, Evelyn indignantly says, than had the King. He was supposed to be privately married to the Queen Dowager, Henrietta Maria. He was what was then called a great virtuoso, a friend of Cowley and of other wits, and entertained Wren with much courtesy and hospitality. Wren's name was, in itself, a sufficient introduction to the scientific men and philosophers of the city, in whose society he took great pleasure.

He had long been a Member of the Order of Freemasons, and had distinguished himself by the attention he gave to the lodges under his care: at the time of his journey to France he was Deputy Grand Master under Earl Rivers; no doubt he availed himself to the full of the opportunities which Freemasonry afforded him for observing the details of the work and becoming acquainted with the workmen, the architects, and the sculptors, whom Louis XIV. had brought in great numbers to Paris.

It would have been interesting had Wren left us a record of his impressions of Paris from a political point of view. It was the brief interval of peace between England and France before the war of the Netherlands. Louis XIV., climbing upwards to the zenith of his brilliant reign, keeping the supreme power in his own hands since Mazarin's death (in 1661), with the wise Colbert for his financier, surrounded by all the great captains, statesmen, wits and artists who made up the 'Siecle de Louis XIV.,' must have been a very interesting subject for the observation of a philosopher like Wren, whose youth had been pa.s.sed among terrible political storms. There is, however, but one slight hint in his journal, but one suggestion that he discerned the true value of much of the glitter and veneer of universal, if temporary, success.

Pascal, with whom he had corresponded, and between whose brief career and his own there is a curious resemblance, had died three years before Wren took his one foreign journey.

The 'Academie Royale des Sciences,' which had just received the formal sanction of Louis XIV., had begun much like the English Royal Society, by small meetings and conferences at Paris amongst scientific men, and in these conferences, Pascal, while very young, had taken a brilliant place. His father, Etienne Pascal, when he found it a vain attempt to withhold mathematical science from his son, cultivated the boy's genius to the utmost, beyond, perhaps, what the very feeble physical frame could bear.

One cannot doubt that Wren was introduced to this society, and took an interest in its discussions, though his attention seems most of all to have been given to architecture.

[_THE LOUVRE._]