Sir Christopher Wren Part 26

[230] G. F. Gronovius, 1613-1672. He was the author of many works, chiefly annotations of the cla.s.sics, and succeeded Heinsius in the Greek chair at Leyden.

[231] Barcelona was taken by Lord Peterborough and Sir Cloudesley Shovel, October 4, 1705, in the war of the Spanish Succession.

[232] The eldest son of the Earl of Portland, afterwards created Duke of Portland.

[233] A portrait of this lady in full profile, with a pale face and black hair, painted somewhat in the style of Sir Peter Lely, is in the possession of Mrs. Pigott.

CHAPTER XIV.

1709-1723.

PRIVATE HOUSES BUILT--QUEEN ANNE'S GIFTS--LAST STONE OF S.

PAUL'S--WREN DEPRIVED OF HIS SALARY--HIS PEt.i.tION--'FRAUDS AND ABUSES'--INTERIOR WORK OF S. PAUL'S--WREN SUPERSEDED--PURCHASE OF WROXHALL ABBEY--WREN'S THOUGHTS ON THE LONGITUDE--HIS DEATH--BURIAL IN S. PAUL'S--THE END.

Heroick souls a n.o.bler l.u.s.tre find, E'en from those griefs which break a vulgar mind.

That frost which cracks the brittle, common gla.s.s, Makes Crystal into stronger brightness pa.s.s.

Bp. Thos. Sprat, quoted in _Parentalia_.

The year 1709 pa.s.sed in steady work, and has little but finis.h.i.+ng touches to the churches to be recorded, unless some of the various private houses built by Wren belong to this period. A house for Lord Oxford, and one for the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham, both in S. James's Court; two built near the Thames for Lord Sunderland and Lord Allaston; one for Lord Newcastle in Queen's Square, Bloomsbury; and a house, so large and magnificent that it has been divided in late years into four, in Great Russell Street. This house was afterwards occupied by Wren's eldest son, and in turn by his second son Stephen.

Sir Christopher himself, while keeping the house in Whitehall from which his letters are dated, had received from Queen Anne the fifty years'

lease of a house at Hampton Green at a nominal rent of 10_l._ a year;[234] he must have found great refreshment in going there occasionally by the then undefiled Thames, to country rest and quiet.

Queen Anne was uniformly gracious and friendly to her Surveyor, and presented him with a buhl cabinet inlaid with red tortoisesh.e.l.l of remarkably handsome work and design.[235]

The following year saw the crown put to the labour of thirty-five years.

Mr. Christopher Wren, who had been a year old when the first stone was laid, now laid the last stone of the lantern above the Dome of S. Paul's in the presence of his father, Mr. Strong the master-builder, his son, and other free and accepted masons, most of whom had worked at the building. The scene could hardly be better painted than in the words of Dean Milman:[236]

'All London had poured forth for the spectacle, which had been publicly announced, and were looking up in wonder to the old man ... who was on that wondrous height setting the seal, as it were, to his august labours. If in that wide circle which his eye might embrace there were various objects for regret and disappointment; if, instead of beholding the various streets of the city, each converging to its centre, London had sprung up and spread in irregular labyrinths of close, dark, intricate lanes; if even his own Cathedral was crowded upon and jostled by mean and unworthy buildings; yet, on the other hand, he might survey, not the Cathedral only, but a number of stately churches which had risen at his command and taken form and dignity from his genius and skill.

On one side the picturesque steeple of S. Mary-le-Bow; on the other the exquisite tower of S. Bride's, with all its graceful, gradually diminis.h.i.+ng circles, not yet shorn of its full and finely-proportioned height. Beyond, and on all sides, if more dimly seen, yet discernible by his partial eyesight (he might even penetrate to the inimitable interior of S. Stephen's, Walbrook), church after church, as far as S. Dunstan's-in-the-East, perhaps Greenwich, may have been vaguely made out in the remote distance; and all this one man had been permitted to conceive and execute;--a man not originally destined or educated for an architect, but compelled as it were by the public necessities to a.s.sume the office, and so to fulfil it, as to stand on a level with the most consummate masters of the art in Europe, and to take his stand on an eminence which his English successors almost despair of attaining.'

[_THE WORK OF ONE MAN._]

There then the Cathedral stood, complete externally in its stately beauty, the work of one man, who, it has been truly said, 'had the conception of a painter as well as an architect.' View the Cathedral when and where we will, with every disadvantage of smoky atmosphere and lack of s.p.a.ce, it yet fascinates the eye by the perfection of its lines and the majesty of the whole effect, so as to leave no power of criticising petty defects. Such was the triumphant success achieved by Wren's patient genius, but

Envy will merit as its shade pursue;

and a series of troubles fell upon him.

There will always be a number of people who imagine that anything can be procured by money, and that for the sake of money anything and everything will be done. People of this mind considered that Sir Christopher Wren prolonged the process of building S. Paul's in order to prolong his own enjoyment of the 200_l._ a year which was the salary he had himself chosen, though it was considered utterly inadequate by the Commissioners when first the work began.

Accordingly in 1696-7, a clause was inserted in the Act 'for the completing and adorning S. Paul's' 'to suspend a moiety of the Surveyor's salary until the said Church should be finished; thereby the better to encourage him to finish the same work with the utmost diligence and expedition.'[237]

No doubt they considered that the Cathedral could be finished off regardless of details, and so left like the sh.e.l.l of an ordinary house to be adorned by any chance person; and to this end they offered their grim 'encouragement'!

It was an insult to a man like Wren, who had again and again--as in the case of Greenwich--given his skill for nothing, and it was doubly unjust because, what delays there were, sprang from the conceit and ignorance of the S. Paul's Commission. Wren protested, but took no active step until he had seen the Dome of his beloved Cathedral completed.

Then he sent in a pet.i.tion to Queen Anne as follows:--

'The most humble pet.i.tion of Sir Christopher Wren

'Sheweth,

'That there being a Clause in an Act of Parliament which suspends a moiety of your Pet.i.tioner's salary at S. Paul's, till the building be finished, and being obstructed in his measures for completing the same, by the arbitrary proceedings of some of the Commissioners for that fabric,--

'Your Pet.i.tioner most humbly beseeches your Majesty graciously to interpose your Royal Authority so as that he may be suffered to finish the said building in such manner and after such designs as shall be approved by your Majesty or such persons as your Majesty shall think fit to appoint for that purpose; and your Pet.i.tioner, etc.,

'CHRISTOPHER WREN.'

['_FRAUDS AND ABUSES._']

This pet.i.tion was sent to the Commissioners, whose reply was, that when Sir Christopher had acted without their approbation his performances had proved very faulty;(!) they then digressed into remarks on their own devotion to the Queen's service, and into a series of petty charges against some of the workmen employed in the Cathedral, especially the bell-founder, Richard Phelp, and Richard Jennings the master-carpenter, whom they charged with a variety of frauds and abuses, and begged should be at once dismissed; they also venture to a.s.sert that 'Sir Christopher, or some employed by him, may be supposed to have found their advantage in this delay.' There is little attempt at proof in this reply of the Commissioners, but much supposition and conjecture. A pamphlet, 'Frauds and Abuses at S. Paul's,' published anonymously at this time, sets out all their suspicions in detail. Sir Christopher replied in a pamphlet ent.i.tled 'An Answer to Frauds and Abuses in S. Paul's,' and laid a pet.i.tion before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, in which he sets out his grievances, how little power had been really given to him and how far he had 'been limited and restrained.'

'However,' he says, 'it has pleased G.o.d so far to bless my sincere endeavours, as that I have brought the building to a conclusion so far as is in my power, and I think nothing can be said now to remain unperfected, but the iron fence round the Church, and painting the Cupola, the directing whereof is taken out of my hands, and therefore I hope I am not answerable for them, nor that the said suspending clause can, or ought, to affect me any further on that account. As for painting the Cupola, your Lords.h.i.+ps know that it has been long under consideration; that I have no power left me concerning it; and that it is not yet resolved in what manner to do it, or whether at all. And as for the iron fence, it is so remarkable and so fresh in memory, by whose influence and importunity it was wrested from me, and the doing of it carried in a way which I venture to say will ever be condemned. I have just this to observe further, that your Lords.h.i.+ps had no hand in it; and consequently ought not share in the blame that may attend it.'

He then asks them for their warrant for the payment of the arrears, amounting to more than 1,300_l._, which were due to him, and says he will ever be ready in the future, to give his advice and a.s.sistance in anything about the said Cathedral. Archbishop Tenison and Bishop Compton laid Wren's pet.i.tion before the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Northey, who p.r.o.nounced 'that Sir Christopher Wren's case was very hard, but that the terms of the Act were so positive that it could not be overridden, but the Commissioners ought in justice to find some remedy.'

Wren then addressed the House of Commons in a pet.i.tion in which he repeats that his 'measures for completing the Cathedral are wholly over-ruled and frustrated.'

[_A REMEDY FOUND._]

The House considered the matter, and cut the knot by declaring the Cathedral to be finished, and directing the payment of all the arrears of the architect's salary.

Their prompt decision gratified Sir Christopher, who contrasts it with the conduct of the Commission, 'which was such as gave him reason enough to think that they intended him none of the suspended salary if it had been left in their power to defeat him of it.'

The attacks on Jennings, whom Wren firmly defended, fell to the ground: they probably had as little foundation as the 'Screw Plot,' by which at a Thanksgiving, by one man's moving a few of the bolts and screws, the whole dome was to fall in.[238] The bell-founder Phelps, who had removed the faulty bell put up by Wightman under the direction of the Commissioners, also triumphed: he offered to give a bond to the Dean and Chapter to recast the bell at his own expense if, after a year's trial, they were dissatisfied with it: as this offer was never claimed, Wren justly says that they were either content with the bell or else showed great neglect. Until the last few years it was the only bell possessed by the Cathedral.

To perfect S. Paul's some things had still to be done, and, rather than these should suffer, Wren was willing still to undergo the slights and annoyances of the other S. Paul's Commissioners, amongst whose names one wishes that of Sir Isaac Newton did _not_ appear, without clear evidence that he stood by his early patron and friend. One hopes it may have been so, certainly he was not a frequent attendant at the meetings.

[_DECORATION OF S. PAUL'S._]

Within the Cathedral there was some important work to do. Gibbons'

carving had to be completed, and the beautiful iron-work gates on either side of the choir had yet to be set up. For this work Wren employed a M.

Tijou, at that time a famous worker in iron, though no account of him is to be obtained at the present day. Possibly he was one of the French refugees. Wren saw both the carving and the gates successfully finished.

But for the east end of the Cathedral he had a magnificent design which is unfulfilled to this day. He intended to inlay the columns of the apse with rich marble, to use a considerable amount of colour and gilding, and to place over the Altar a hemispherical canopy supported on four writhed pillars of the richest Greek marbles, with proper decorations of architecture and sculpture: he had prepared his model and the needful drawings, Bishop Compton had even received some specimens of marble from a Levant merchant in Holland, but unluckily the colours and the cla.s.s of marble were not what Wren desired, and the plan waited for a better opportunity, which, in Wren's lifetime, never came. Thus, of all this grand design, the only trace is the painting of the apsidal pillars, in imitation of lapis lazuli, which was meant as a temporary experiment, and the model of the canopy in the possession of the Dean and Chapter.

Hardly anything could be done which would more enhance the interior beauty of S. Paul's than the erection of this canopy.

Besides the adornment of the east end of the Cathedral there was also that of the dome to be accomplished. The decoration of S. Paul's is so vexed a question that one almost fears to touch upon it, but the statement in the 'Parentalia' is explicit.

'The judgement of the Surveyor was originally, instead of painting in the manner it is now performed, to have beautified the inside of the Cupola with the more durable ornament of mosaic work, as it is n.o.bly executed in the Cupola of S. Peter's in Rome, which strikes the eye of the beholder with a most magnificent and splendid appearance; and which, without the least decay of colour, is as lasting as marble, or the building itself. For this purpose he had projected to have procured from Italy four of the most eminent artists in that profession; but as this art was a great novelty in England, and not generally apprehended, it did not receive the encouragement it deserved; it was imagined also that the expense would prove too great, and the time very long in execution; but though these, and all objections were fully answered, yet this excellent design was no further pursued.'

In weighing the value of this evidence as to Sir Christopher's views, it is important to remember that the 'Parentalia' was, though edited by Stephen the grandson, actually written by Christopher, the son who was constantly with his father and shared in his interests, and had himself seen, and no doubt described to Sir Christopher that very cupola of S.

Peter's, of which he speaks.

The question of the iron fence round the Cathedral, of which Wren made mention in his pet.i.tion, was much in his thoughts; he wished it to be low, and made of hammered iron, the Commissioners were determined that it should be high, and made of cast iron.