Sir Christopher Wren Part 13

Paul's, were of so good a quality that Richard Jennings, Wren's master carpenter, bought and transported them by water to Henley-on-Thames (his native town), and with them built a house a mile from Henley, which, bearing the name of 'Badgemore,' is still to be seen. The bricks of which it is built are often admired.

[110] _Desiderata Curiosa_, p. 545. Peck.

[111] Pepys' _Diary_, vol. v. p. 326.

CHAPTER VII.

1668-1673.

PATCHING S. PAUL'S--SANCROFT'S LETTERS--WREN'S EXAMINATION OF S.

PAUL'S--SALISBURY CATHEDRAL--LONDON AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN--LETTER TO FAITH COGHILL--WREN MARRIES HER--TEMPLE BAR--S. MARY-LE-BOW-- ARTILLERY COMPANY--GUNPOWDER USED TO REMOVE RUINS.

Methinks already from this chymic flame, I see a city of more precious mold, Rich as the town which gives the Indies name, With silver pav'd, and all divine with gold.

Already, labouring with a mighty fate, She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow, And seems to have renewed her charter's date, Which heaven will till the death of time allow.

Dryden, _Annus Mirabilis_, ccxciii.

After the death of Bishop Wren, Christopher was a frequent attendant at the Royal Society, where several experiments were made of raising weights by means of gunpowder, a matter which Wren was anxious to investigate before trying to remove the ma.s.s of ruins which had been S.

Paul's. Much very tedious work of carting away rubbish and opening roadways still pressed on Wren and his a.s.sistants before even the necessary levels could be taken and adjusted or any building could be begun.

In spite of Wren's previous statement, and that of Evelyn and Sancroft, in spite of the immense additional damage which the conflagration had caused, attempts were still made to patch up the remains of S. Paul's Cathedral.

As has been said, something was done in order to make it possible to hold Divine Service in the ruins, and there Sancroft ministered, and there possibly he preached before the King on the occasion of the solemn fast held for the fire on October 10, 1666.[112] Parts of the sermon rise to real eloquence, and he admonishes King Charles and his luxurious Court with singular courage and directness. So matters remained with the Cathedral until the spring of 1668.

['_INDISPENSABLY NECESSARY._']

Wren was at Oxford, delivering his Astronomy Lectures, when he received the following letter from the Dean of S. Paul's:[113]

'What you whispered in my ear, at your last coming hither, is now come to pa.s.s. Our work at the west end of S. Paul's is fallen about our ears. Your quick eye discerned the walls and pillars gone off from their perpendiculars and I believe other defects too, which are now exposed to every common observer. About a week since, we being at work about the third pillar from the west end on the south side, which we had new cased with stone, where it was most defective almost up to the chapiter, a great weight falling from the high wall, so disabled the vaulting of the side aisle by it, that it threatened a sudden ruin so visibly that the workmen presently removed, and the next night the whole pillar fell, and carried scaffolds and all to the very ground.

'This breach has discovered to all that look on it two great defects in Inigo Jones' work; one that his new case of stone in the upper walls (ma.s.sy as it is) was not set upon the upright of the pillars, but upon the core of the groins of the vaulting; the other that there were no keystones at all to tie it to the old work; and all this being very heavy with the Roman ornaments on the top of it, and being already so far gone outwards, cannot possibly stand long. In fine, it is the opinion of all men, that we can proceed no farther at the west end. What we are to do next is the present deliberation, in which you are so absolutely and indispensably necessary to us that we can do nothing, resolve on nothing without you.'... 'You will think fit, I know, to bring with you those excellent draughts and designs you formerly favoured us with; and, in the mean time, till we enjoy you here, consider what to advise that may be for the satisfaction of his Majesty and the whole nation, an obligation so great and public, that it must be acknowledged by better hands than those of

'Your affectionate Friend and Servant, 'W. SANCROFT.'

Wren seems to have been unable to come up to London, and to have written an answer to Dean Sancroft reiterating his opinion, while the attempt at repairs continued.

At the beginning of July Sancroft wrote to him again:--

'Sir,--Yesterday my Lords of Canterbury, London, and Oxford met on purpose to hear your letter read once more, and to consider what is now to be done in order to the repairs of S. Paul's. They unanimously resolved, that it is fit immediately to attempt something, and that, without you, they can do nothing. I am therefore commanded to give you an invitation hither in his Grace's name, and the rest of the commissioners, with all speed, that we may prepare something to be proposed to his Majesty (the design of such a quire, at least as may be a congruous part of a greater and more magnificent work to follow); and then, for the procuring of contributions to defray this, we are so sanguine as not to doubt of it, if we could but once resolve what we would do, and what that would cost; so that the only part of your letter we demur to, is the method you propound of declaring first what money we would bestow, and then designing something just of that expense: for quite otherwise--the way their lords.h.i.+ps resolve upon, is to frame a design, handsome and n.o.ble, and suitable to all the ends of it, and to the reputation of the city and the nation; and to take it for granted that money will be had to accomplish it: or, however, to let it lie by, till we have before us a prospect of so much as may reasonably encourage us to begin.

'Thus far I thought good to prepare you for what will be said to you when you come, that you may not be surprised with it: and, if my summons prevail not, my lord the Bishop of Oxford hath undertaken to give it you warmer, _ore tenus_,[114] the next week, when he intends to be with you, if, at least, you be not come towards us before he arrives, which would be a very agreeable surprise to us all, and especially to your very affectionate, humble Servant, 'W. SANCROFT.'

[_THE STATE OF S. PAUL'S._]

Wren obeyed this intreaty, came up from Oxford, made a thorough examination of the Cathedral, and wrote a report for the commissioners.

'What time and weather,' he says, 'had left entire in the old and art in the new repaired parts of this great pile of S. Paul's, the calamity of the fire hath so weakened and defaced, that it now appears like some antique ruin of two thousand years' continuance, and to repair it sufficiently will be like the mending of Argo-nairs,[115] scarce anything at last will be left of the old.'

He enumerates the various 'decays' of the building from the date of the fire in Queen Elizabeth's reign which burnt the whole roof and caused 'the spreading out of the walls above ten inches from their true perpendicular'--up to the last fire, of which he says--

'The second ruins are they that have put the restoration past remedy, the effects of which I shall briefly enumerate.

'First, the portico is nearly deprived of that excellent beauty and strength which time alone and weather could have no more overthrown than the natural rocks; so great and good were the materials, and so skilfully were they laid after a true Roman manner. But so impatient is Portland stone of fire that many tons are scaled off and the columns flawed quite through.'

Then follows an account of the injuries to the rest of the building, but as they have been already touched on in the extracts from Evelyn's Diary and Sancroft's letters, they shall not be repeated here.

'Having shown in part,' he continues, 'the deplorable condition of our patient, we are to consult of the cure, if possible art may effect it. And herein we must imitate the physician, who, when he finds a total decay of nature, bends his skill to a palliative to give respite for the better settlement of the estate of the patient. The question is then, where best to begin this sort of practice; that is to make a new quire for present use.'

The only part of the cathedral where this could be safely and easily done was at the eastern end of the nave:--

'Since,' he said, 'we cannot mend this great ruin, we will not disfigure it, but that it shall still have its full motives to work, if possible upon this or the next ages: and yet prove so cheap, that between three and four thousand pounds shall effect it all in one summer.

'And, having with this ease obtained a present cathedral, there will be time to consider of a more durable and n.o.ble fabric, to be made in the place of the lower and eastern parts of the Church, when the minds of men, now contracted to many objects of necessary charge, shall by G.o.d's blessing be more widened, after a happy restoration, both of the buildings, and the wealth of the city and nation. In the meantime to derive, if not a stream, yet some little drills of charity this way; or, at least, to preserve that already obtained from being diverted, it may not prove ill-advised to seem to begin something of the new fabric. But I confess this cannot well be put in execution without taking down all that part of the ruin; which whether it be yet seasonable to do we must leave to our superiors.'

[_SALISBURY CATHEDRAL._]

Many meetings and much discussion ensued, and Wren's opinion at last prevailed; the King issued an order in council for taking down the walls at the east end, the old choir, and the tower, and for clearing the ground in order to lay a fresh foundation. While this was being done, Wren prepared sketches and designs for a new S. Paul's. He had also an engagement out of London: his friend Dr. Seth Ward, the Bishop of Salisbury, an active member of the Royal Society, asked Wren to survey his beautiful cathedral, which had suffered much in the civil wars, and lately by lightning and tempest.

Though the architecture of the cathedral was not of the kind which he considered the best, Wren had too fine a taste, too quick an eye for beauty of form, not to admire it heartily, and in his report he p.r.o.nounced that 'the whole pile was large and magnificent, justly accounted one of the best patterns of the age wherein it was built.' He praised the pillars and mouldings, 'the stately and rich plainness' to which the architect had trusted. He made a thorough examination of the whole, especially the spire, which had declined to the south-west, and had caused great alarm. Wren was of opinion that the architect had not laid as sufficient foundations, especially under the pillars, as he should have done, considering the marshy nature of the soil, the frequent inundations, the great weight that the pillars had to bear, and that they themselves were too slight, particularly those under the spire.

To prevent further mischief to the spire, he ordered some timbers in it, and in the tower, to be cut away, and put in bands and braces of iron wrought by anchor smiths who were accustomed to great work for s.h.i.+ps. He then had a plummet dropped to the pavement, from the highest possible part of the spire, the height of which he reckoned at 404 feet from the ground, to see exactly what the decline was, and ordered this trial to be repeated at certain times to see if the decline increased.

When, nearly 200 years later, Mr. Wyatt made the trial, he found that the decline was unaltered, so true had Wren's science proved.

[_LONDON AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN._]

Both this year and the previous one had, so far as London was concerned, been taken up by the business of levelling, marking out streets, and adjusting the claims of such as had had houses in the city before the fire. Wren had laid before the King and Parliament a model of the city as he proposed to build it, with full explanations of the details of the design; the model probably does not exist, but the ground-plan has been preserved, and suggests a London very different to the present one.

The street leading up Ludgate Hill, instead of being the confined, winding approach to S. Paul's that it now is, even its crooked picturesqueness marred by the viaduct that cuts all the lines of the Cathedral, gradually widened as it approached S. Paul's, and divided itself into two great streets, ninety feet wide at the least, which ran on either side of the Cathedral, leaving a large open s.p.a.ce in which it stood. Of the two streets, one ran parallel with the river until it reached the Tower, and the other led to the Exchange, which Wren meant to be the centre of the city, standing in a great piazza, to which ten streets, each sixty feet wide, converged, and around which were placed the Post Office, the Mint, the Excise Office, the Goldsmiths' Hall, and the Ensurance, forming the outside of the piazza. The smallest streets were to be thirty feet wide, 'excluding all narrow, dark alleys without thoroughfares, and courts.'

The churches were to occupy commanding positions along the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares, and to be 'designed according to the best forms for capacity and hearing, adorned with useful porticoes and lofty ornamental towers and steeples in the greater parishes. All churchyards, gardens, and unnecessary vacuities, and all trades that use great fires or yield noisome smells to be placed out of town.'

He intended that the churchyards should be carefully planted and adorned, and be a sort of girdle round the town, wis.h.i.+ng them to be an ornament to the city, and also a check upon its growth. To burials within the walls of the town he strongly objected, and the experience derived from the year of the plague confirmed his judgment. No gardens are mentioned in the plan, for he had provided, as he thought, sufficiently for the healthiness of the town by his wide streets and numerous open s.p.a.ces for markets. Gardening in towns was an art little considered in his days, and contemporary descriptions show us that 'vacuities' were speedily filled with heaps of dust and refuse.

The London bank of the Thames was to be lined with a broad quay, along which the halls of the city companies were to be built, with suitable warehouses in between for the merchants, to vary the effect of the edifices.

The little stream whose name survives in _Fleet_ Street was to be brought to light, cleansed, and made serviceable as a ca.n.a.l one hundred and twenty feet wide, running much in the line of the present Holborn Viaduct.[116]

These were the main features of Christopher Wren's scheme, and had he been allowed to accomplish it, we can imagine what the effect of London might have been without its noisome smells, without its dark crooked lanes, without its worst smoke, its river honoured not only with the handsome quay it has at length obtained, but with a line of beautiful buildings and fair spires, and above all S. Paul's, with an ample s.p.a.ce around it, giving free play to its grand proportions. Wren, with a perfect knowledge of his own powers, which he considered as dispa.s.sionately, and knew as accurately as any matter of mathematical science, was ready to undertake and perform his scheme to the uttermost.

[_PREOCCUPIED GROUND._]

The difficulties were however considerable: there were the endless quarrels about property, the reluctance to part with an old site, and, chief difficulty of all, the utmost hurry of rebuilding in order to house the people before the approaching winter.