Sir Christopher Wren Part 16

The Royal Society was at this time put to serious inconvenience, as more than half of the members failed in paying their weekly money. Wren, who, as might be expected, was one of those who paid most punctually, was re-elected a member of the council, and agreed to serve on a committee for this special matter.

The death of his friend and cousin, Matthew, in the summer of 1672, was a grief to him, as well as a loss to the Royal Society, of which he had been a member from its beginning. On the 20th of November, 1673, Wren received the well-earned honour of knighthood from King Charles at Whitehall. No details of any kind respecting the ceremony are to be found in the chary family record.

S. Bennet Fink, a very graceful and original composition despite the corner into which it was squeezed; and S. Olave's, Jewry, built of brick and stone with a good pinnacled stone tower, were begun at this period, and finished three years later. S. Dionysius, or, as it was commonly called, S. Dionis, Back Church Street, was one of the first completed; its Ionic eastern facade was in Wren's most cla.s.sical style; the pulpit was carved by Grinling Gibbons. Its tower and steeple, according to a frequent custom of Wren's, were added some years later. S. Dionis has, alas! now been swept away, and its site, where the original church was consecrated in 1288, desecrated.[136] The beautiful little S. Bennet's has shared the same unholy fate. S. George's, Botolph Lane, built also in 1674, a handsome stone church with a vaulted roof and good oak fittings, though threatened, still fortunately survives.

[_GRINLING GIBBONS._]

Grinling Gibbons, whom Wren continually employed, was introduced to him by Evelyn, who found the young man in a cottage at Deptford carving a copy of Tintoretto's beautiful Crucifixion. Evelyn showed Wren the carving and besought him to give some employment to a man of such genius. This he gladly promised, and accordingly, many a little known city church is adorned with carvings so light and so graceful that it is hard to believe that they are cut out of wood.

Some works in stone Gibbons also did for Sir Christopher, but wood appears to have been the material he preferred. In 1674 Wren had the satisfaction of restoring Le Soeur's[137] beautiful statue of King Charles to its place at Charing Cross. In the Rebellion it had been overthrown by order of the Parliament, who directed that it should be broken up. John Rivet, a brazier in Charing Cross, purchased it, hid it in the vaults of S. Paul's, Covent Garden, and, to divert suspicion, sold bronze medals and knife-handles, professedly made from its metal.

After the Restoration, he produced it intact, and, under Wren's direction, it was placed on its present pedestal, which was carved by Gibbons, whose handywork is easily recognised in the free, flowing lines of the deeply-cut carving, much as time, aided by London atmosphere, has eaten the very stone away. The poet Waller wrote an epigram[138] on its restoration, which, besides its intrinsic merit, is interesting in connection with the statue:--

That the first Charles does here in triumph ride, See his son reign where he a martyr dy'd; And people pay that rev'rence as they pa.s.s, (Which then he wanted) to the sacred bra.s.s, Is not th' effect of grat.i.tude alone, To which we owe the statue and the stone.

But heav'n this lasting monument has wrought, That mortals may eternally be taught Rebellion, though successful, is but vain, And kings so kill'd rise conquerors again: This truth the royal image does proclaim Loud as the trumpet of surviving Fame.

[_HIS FAVOURITE DESIGN._]

It was about this period that Wren rebuilt the theatre in Drury Lane, which had fallen a prey to its usual enemy, fire. It was reopened in 1674 with a play whose epilogue was written by Dryden. The 'old theatre in Salisbury Court,' as Horace Walpole calls it, was also built by Wren.

During this time Sir Christopher, now formally appointed architect of S.

Paul's with a modest salary of 200_l._ a year, had busied himself in designs for the future cathedral. Everyone, whether qualified or not, gave their opinion about the designs. The first, which was 'a fabrick of moderate bulk, but of good proportion, a convenient quire with a vestibule and portico, and a dome conspicuous above the houses,' was planned by Wren at a time when the Cathedral fund was very small, and the chances of increasing it appeared but slender. This design was rejected as deficient in size and grandeur. After this, in order to find out what style of building was really desired, Wren made several sketches 'merely for discourse sake,' and perceiving that the generality had set their hearts upon a large building, he designed one with which he was himself satisfied, considering it 'a design antique and well studied, conformable to the best style of Greek and Roman architecture.'

The design was greatly admired by those who understood the matter, and they begged Sir Christopher to let them see it in a model.[139] Wren accordingly made a large one, apparently with his own hands, in wood, with all the intended ornaments properly carved. Its ground plan was that of a Greek cross, the choir was circular, it had a very short nave, and no aisles. Externally there was a handsome portico, one small dome immediately behind it, and over the centre of the cross a larger dome.

Within it would have been as beautiful as it was original, with the eight smaller domes, not seen outside, encircling the central dome. The Duke of York on seeing the plan complained much of the absence of side oratories, such as are common in most foreign cathedrals, and insisted upon their being added. Sir Christopher knew that such a change would cramp the building and break the beauty of the design to a degree that went to his heart. He shed tears in attempting to change the Duke's opinion. The latter was, as ever, obstinate, and the change had to be made.

The outside, with the two hollow curves joining the transepts with the nave, and the two different-sized domes, would probably have been disappointing; but one speaks with diffidence, for this was Sir Christopher's favourite design, the S. Paul's which he told his son he would most cheerfully have accomplished. When the time came for working out the design, it is very likely that he would have remedied many of the defects which critical eyes now see in the model; but no such opportunity ever came. Preparations were indeed made, in May 1674, for a building after this design; but the clergy were startled by the novelty of the plan, the circular choir, and the absence of aisles, and the architect was compelled to give up his cherished scheme. Several designs, none equal to the first, were produced by Sir Christopher, the large central dome appearing in each of them. Upon this feature he had determined, even in the days before the fire, when the old pointed choir still stood.

[_THE CROWN OF LONDON._]

At length Wren grew weary of criticism and showed his designs no more to the public. King Charles decided on one,[140] and issued a warrant for its erection, stating that the duty on coal[141] amounted to a considerable sum, and saying:--

'Among the designs we have particularly pitched on one as well because we found it very artificial, proper and useful as because it was so ordered that it might be built and finished by parts.'

The east end was to be begun first. Liberty was left to Wren 'to make some variations rather ornamental than essential as from time to time he should see proper,' and the whole was left to his management.

This design is wholly unlike the present Cathedral, and is inferior to any of Wren's other buildings. 'Artificial' in the modern sense of the word, it undoubtedly is. The west end much resembles old S. Paul's as Inigo Jones left it, and is poor and flat; there is a low flat dome, then a lantern with ribbed vaulting, surmounted by a spire something like S. Bride's, but thin and ungraceful. One feels that Wren must have been disgusted with the design when finished, and could only have done such a thing at a time when his genius was rebuked and hara.s.sed by vexatious limitations and interference. Accepted, however, the design was, and Wren, provided with funds and ordered to begin, shook off the fetters which had so cramped him, and by a series of alterations, which certainly reversed the King's order, being essential rather than ornamental, he by degrees worked out the plan of the beautiful S. Paul's which is the crown of London.

No objection seems to have been raised to these changes.

He had a large staff of workmen under him, and an a.s.sistant surveyor, John Oliver, who directed the workmen, measured the masons' work, bought in materials, and examined the accounts; a clerk of the works, Laurence Spenser, who overlooked the men, saw that they did their work as directed, and made up the accounts; each of these was paid 100_l._ a year, half as much as the salary of the architect himself; a clerk of the cheque, Thomas Russell, who called over the labourers three times a day, and kept them to their business. Besides these, there was the master-mason,[142] Thomas Strong, the master-builder of S. Stephen's, Walbrook, frequently employed by Wren, and the master-carpenter, Richard Jennings; all were carefully chosen, and were devoted to Sir Christopher, whose great genius, gentle disposition, and steady equable mind made him much beloved and respected.

On June 21, 1675, the first stone of S. Paul's was laid by Sir Christopher and his master-mason, not by King Charles, as is sometimes said.[143]

In the previous year Wren had lost his son Gilbert, who was buried in S.

Martin's on March 23. In the February following another son was born and baptized by the name of Christopher. This son survived his father and began the collection of letters, papers, and miscellaneous facts about the Wren family which was afterwards published under the name of 'Parentalia; or, Memoirs of the Wrens.' It is, in truth, little but a heap of materials amongst which each fact has to be sought for and its proper place ascertained.

[_EXCAVATIONS._]

It has been truly said that the accounts of the building of S. Paul's are meagre in the extreme. A little is, however, known. As Wren had foretold, there was much 'to be done in the dark;' the old foundations were not to be trusted, and immense excavations had to be made. In the course of this work, he discovered 'graves of several ages and fas.h.i.+ons, in strata or layers of earth, one above another, from the British and Roman times.' The 'Parentalia' describes

'a row of Saxon graves, the sides lined with chalk stones, below were British graves, where were found ivory and wooden pins of a hard wood, seemingly box, about six inches long; it seems the bodies were only wrapped up and pinned in woollen shrouds, which being consumed the pins remained entire. In the same row and deeper were Roman urns intermixed.'

Below this was hard 'pot-earth,' which Wren thought would be sufficiently firm to bear the great weight about to be laid upon it, but to ascertain its depth he had dry wells dug, and found it very unequal, in one place hardly four feet; he searched lower and found loose sand, then sand and sh.e.l.ls; he speaks of them as sea sh.e.l.ls, but it is now thought that they were probably river; below this again hard beach, and then London clay. He took great precautions when he laid any foundations here, fearing lest the sand should slip. The bed of sand is a danger still, for if pierced by a drain or other underground works the sand might run off, leaving a hollow under the pot-earth. The Cathedral authorities are accordingly wisely jealous of any excavations near S.

Paul's. When the north-east portion of the choir was reached, in digging the foundations a pit was found, from which all the pot-earth had been taken, containing many fragments of vases and urns, all of Roman pottery. This pit was a very serious difficulty, occurring as it did at the very angle of the choir.

Sir Christopher's a.s.sistants suggested to him to drive in piles of timber; but he knew that, though timber lasted well under water, yet in this case, where it would be half in dry and half in wet sand, it would rot in the course of time, and 'his endeavours were to build for eternity.' He dug down more than forty feet, till he came to the hard beach, below which was the London clay, and upon the beach built a pier of solid masonry ten feet square, till within fifteen feet of the ground, and then by turning an arch brought it level with the rest of his foundation.

The theory commonly received was that a temple of Apollo stood where Westminster Abbey now stands, and that the site of S. Paul's Cathedral was occupied by a temple of Diana. Wren, however, believed in neither legend. The temple of Apollo he thought was invented merely that the monks of Westminster might not be behind the Londoners in antiquities.

In spite of the horns of stags, tusks of boars, and the like, said to have been found during former repairs of S. Paul's, in spite of an image of Diana dug up hard by and in the possession of Dr. Woodward,[144] he wrote to Bishop Atterbury[145] that he 'changed all the foundations of old S. Paul's, and rummaged all the ground thereabouts, and being very desirous to find the footsteps of such a temple, I could not discover any, and therefore can give no more credit to Diana[146] than to Apollo.'

In the September of 1675, when the work with which her husband's name is for ever connected was but little advanced, Lady Wren died, and was buried, as her son Gilbert had been, in the chancel of S.

Martin's-in-the-Fields, leaving her husband with a baby son hardly seven months old. The 'Parentalia,' with characteristic carelessness, gives neither the date of her death nor the place of her burial.

[_SECOND MARRIAGE._]

No hint even is to be found of how this loss affected Sir Christopher, but whether it was from the desolate state of his home, or the helplessness of a widower left with an infant son, or from other causes, he was not long in marrying again. His second wife was Jane Fitzwilliam, daughter of the second Baron Fitzwilliam, her mother was an heiress, the daughter of Hugh Perry _alias_ Hunter, a sheriff and alderman of London.

Lord Fitzwilliam died in 1643, the same year that he had succeeded to his father, and the widowed Lady Fitzwilliam died twenty-seven years later at 'Dutchy House in the Savoy,' the family house; so Jane Fitzwilliam had been some years an orphan when she was married to Sir Christopher in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall, on February 24, 1676-7.

In this year Wren rebuilt S. Magnus, London Bridge,[147] which having escaped one 'most dismal fire' in 1633, was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666. Sir Christopher rebuilt the church with Portland stone and oak timber, adding to it a picturesque tower with a cupola and a peal of ten bells. London Bridge, then covered with little houses and shops, would, Sir Christopher foresaw, require alteration, and he, anxious that S.

Magnus should not suffer when the time came, proposed to leave s.p.a.ce by it for a footway. The churchwardens overruled him. The improvement Wren expected has since been made, and when the workmen came to make a pathway under the portico they discovered to their great surprise that Sir Christopher had made the necessary arches, though bricked up, and left them to be in readiness for the change which he foresaw, though the churchwardens of S. Magnus did not. The state of London Bridge was very unsatisfactory; constant repairs were needed, and to shoot the narrow arches and not be swamped by the fall of the water was no easy feat.

Wren had a plan for saving repairs and improving the water way by wide Gothic arches, taking away every other arch, and making the two into one, which would reduce the fall to nine inches at the most. This seems to have remained a scheme only.

[_MODERN DESECRATION._]

S. Mildred's in the Poultry was also begun in this year, a small stone church with a tower and cupola. It was destroyed in 1872,[148] and the details of its removal are instructive as well as painful, and may well be contrasted with the account of the manner of removing the remains of old S. Paul's.[149]

S. Stephen's, Coleman Street, on the site of an old Jewish synagogue, is of the same date; it is a neat small church mostly built of stone, with a curious old stone carving, in high relief, of the Last Judgment, over the door leading to the churchyard.

S. Lawrence, Jewry, 'that new and cheerful pile,'[150] is a large well-proportioned building in the Corinthian style, with a tower and spire, built in the following year. It had been repaired by the paris.h.i.+oners in 1618, and boasted among its vicars three who had become bishops: Edward Reynolds, Bishop of Norwich, one of those who, during the Rebellion, sided strongly with the Presbyterians, and conformed at the Restoration; Dr. Seth Ward, Bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, who has been mentioned before; and Wren's other scientific friend, Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who was buried in the chancel of S. Lawrence's Church in 1672.

S. Lawrence's possesses some excellent stone carving of fruit, possibly from Gibbons' chisel.

S. Nicholas, Coleabbey, was built this year by Sir Christopher on the site of a church so ancient that it stood some feet below the street, and was entered by steps descending down to the floor; its most recent addition was in Richard II.'s reign, though the whole building was repaired in 1630. Wren's is a well-proportioned brick and stone church with a square tower and short fat steeple. S. Mary's, Woolnoth, was only repaired by Sir Christopher; it was afterwards rebuilt entirely by his clerk and pupil, Nicholas Hawksmoor,[151] in 1719. S. Mary's, Aldermanbury, a fine bold stone church, its nave and aisles divided by well-sculptured columns; and S. Michael's, Queenhithe, belong also to this busy year. S. Michael's, standing close to the river, built of stone with plenty of s.p.a.ce and room in it; its slender graceful spire ever beckoning to the swarming river and riverside population, might, one would have imagined, have been invaluable in zealous hands, but it has been swept away and the opportunity is lost.

[_THE MONUMENT._]

It was also in 1677 that Sir Christopher completed the column generally known to Londoners as 'the Monument.' He began it in 1671; but the work had been much hindered by the difficulty of getting blocks of Portland stone of sufficient size. There had been great debate about the ornament for the summit. Wren wished it to be a large statue, as 'carrying much dignity with it, and being more valluable in the eyes of forreigners and strangers.' It was to be fifteen feet high, cast in bra.s.s, at a cost of 1,000_l._ The expense was one reason why this was given up, and the present ornament, a flaming vase of gilt bronze, subst.i.tuted.

Cibber[152] carved a ba.s.so-relievo on one side, representing King Charles in a Roman costume, protecting the ruined city. The four dragons at the base were carved by Edward Pierce,[153] a sculptor and architect who frequently worked for Wren. The other three sides have Latin inscriptions, of which one is an account of the fire, accusing the _furor Papisticus_ as its cause; a brief inscription in English, lower down on the pedestal, repeats the same charge against the 'treachery and malice of the Popish faction.' Sir Christopher had written a Latin one for the column, which spoke of the fire as originating in a humble house, and briefly recounted its ravages; he added, as he was well ent.i.tled to add, that the city was rebuilt 'not with wood and mud as before, but with edifices, some brick and some stone, and adorned with such works that it was seen to rise fairer from its ruins far than before.' As he wrote, he must have given a sigh of regret to the perfection of his unused plan.

The accusation against the Romanists appealed powerfully to the inveterate prejudices of the mult.i.tude. It was accordingly insisted upon and ordered to be put up. James II. had the inscription effaced, but in William III.'s reign it was re-cut deeper than before, and so remained to justify Pope's well-known lines:--

----London's column pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies.[154]

It is a curious retribution that the Monument designed by so great an architect as Wren, to commemorate such an event as the burning of London, and the singular courage and energy of its citizens, is now more generally connected in men's mind with falsehood and calumny than with a great historical event.

The column was at first used, as Wren had intended it should be, as a place for certain experiments of the Royal Society; but the vibration of the column during the ceaseless traffic of London proved too great to allow of the experiments being successfully carried on. Evelyn, with much sense, wished that the column had been placed where the fire ended, and a 'plain lugubrious marble' where it began; and says:--

'I question not but I have the architect himself on my side, whose rare and extraordinary talent and what he has performed of great and magnificent, this column and what he is still about and is advancing under his direction, will speak and perpetuate his memory, as long as one stone remains upon another in this nation.'[155]

[_A TARDY HONOUR._]