Sir Christopher Wren And His Times.

veins of Englishmen ; and the struggle of tradition with tradition , and hate with hate , had now at length only come to a crisis . The divine right of kings had perished on the scaffold , and straight-haired Theocracy reigned in its stead . And thus we may consider ourselves introduced to Sir Christopher Wren and his times .

With regard to the architectural practice of the period , this may be explained in very few words . The modern Classic style of design , ivhich , upon the overthrow of the obsolete Mediieval systems , alike of society and of art , had grown up in Italy in the sixteenth century , had spread westward by degrees over the whole of Europe . In Italy itself Bramante and San G-allo , Vignola and Buonarofcfci had

given place to Pailadio and Scamozzi , and these at last to Bernini and Borromini . In Spain , by this time a warring power , the new manner had long established itself , although perhaps , to little purpose . In France , now rising into great influence under the youthful Louis Quatorze , that which Vignola aud Serlio hacl introduced , and Delorme and Bullant adopted , Perrault , Le Veau , Le Mercier , and Mansard

were preparing to carry still forward . In England the introduction of the new style had been later , tinder James I ., and his unfortunate son , Inigo Jones had exhibited the fruits of Italian travel in the Whitehall Banqueting House in Somerset House , and in numerous other more or less excellent works ; and now , or in another ten years , it was to he discovered that his mantle had fallen upon Christopher

Wren . Further to connect and compare together England , France , aud Italy of that day , let it be remarked that , not moro than two or three years before our starting-point of 1650 , the great cathedral of St . Peter , at Rome , had been pronounced complete , after the labours of nearly a century and a half ; it having engaged the attention of nineteen successive popes ,

and more than half as many architects , of whom Bernini was the last . Fifteen years after our date , in 1665 , we shall find Wren a traveller to Paris , ivhere he obtains an introduction to Bernini , and by that means a glance , —with but little welcome , however , —at his designs for the Louvre ; to prepare ivhich , the famous Italian had been specially invited to the French capital by the king . Two years more , and

we shall find the building of the Louvre , ivhich had been brought to a stand at che foundations by the departure of Bernini in dudgeon , resumed under Perrault . Still , six years forward and Wren is at work upon the design for St . Paul ' s , the foundation-stone of which he lays , after two more 3 'ears , in 1675 , twenty-eight years from the completion of St . Paul ' s , by Bernini , and eleven years from the death of great

old Michel Angeio . Thus much for the condition of architecture at our datum point . But if we are to deal with the entire character of Christopher Wren , it will be desirable that we take a glance none the less afc the general science at that time . For the merits of our great architect as a philosopher are such as not only to shed additional lustre on his architectural name , bufc to reflect honour on the very art itself with which so

good a man iu science is identified . Taking again our point of view at 1650 , look a quarter of a century back , and then a quarter of a century forward . Afc fche past date died Bacon .- at the future date there will appear Newton . The memorable principles of inductive philosophy have been established by the former : the latter , hy application of these principles , will show the way to the

laws of the universe . The position of science , therefore , at our date of 1650 , is in a manner midway between these points , midway between Bacon and Newton—between the ' Novum Organon" and the " Principia . " During the lifetime of Bacon , the new method of thought was not univer - sally or even generally understood ; but already the minds of educated and thoughtful men are bent earnestly upon it

in fche initiative problems of positive science . There stands in honourable rauk " amongst those thinkers an Oxfordshire clergyman , a learned , accomplished , unobtrusive gentleman , by name Dr . Christopher Wren , Dean of Windsor and Wolverhampton , and Registrar of the Order of the 1 Garter . He is the younger brother of a still more notable although less pacific churchman , Dr . Matthew Wren , Bishop of Ely , who is in fche Tower , by the by , at our date of 1650 , and has been there for ten years back , and is

destined to remain there for ten years more , —for conscience sake , as he sternly considers ifc ; for reactionary superstitions and Popish practices , say the other side , and remorseless persecution of the saints . The young student at Oxford , who is our subject , more especially , is the son of Dean Wren , and a nephew , therefore , of the bishop . Aud already , at

eighteen , he adds a third distinguished name to the family , and great expectations are entertained of his future eminence . Many years afterwards , when this youfck has passed through a very long and famous career , and passed away to the rest of the honourable and the just , his son records the lives of these three celebrated ancestors in fche well-known book , the Pareidolia ; and if the following peroration of his

preface is characterised by a good deal of the euphuism of the time , its compliments are at least not undeserved . "The memory of some men , " he says , " is like the rose and other odoriferous flowers , which cast a sweeter and stronger smell after they are plucked : the memory of others may be said to be like the poppy and such vegetables , that make a gay and specious show while they stand the stalkbut

upon ; , being cut and gathered , they have but an ill-favoured scent . The worthy persons exemplified in these records may be compared to the first sort , as well for fche sweet odour of a good name they had while they stood , as also that they were cut down by the common stroke of mortality . " The only son of Dean Wren was from his childhood of a diminutive and weaklframe ; but the mind is the stature

y of the man , and the worthy clergyman and correspondent of philosophers discerned in his boy the evidences of a quick and powerful intellect . He , therefore , took pains with his education , and presently enjoyed delight , beyond perhaps his expectation , in seeing his labours bear fruit . Setting aside such a circumstance as the invention by the youth at the ago of thirteen of what is called an astronomical

instrument , ana its dedication to his father in . pompous Latin verse , it appears to be unquestionable thafc , when sent to Oxford in his fourteenth year , such was the power of his genius that he speedily came to be looked upon , nofc only as a favourite , bufc a prodigy , even amongst learned men . Before the age of sixteen one of the most eminent anatomical lecturers of the age , Dr . Scarborough , was able to employ

him as demonstrating assistant . He had also by this time taken out a patent for a penna duplex , or double writing instrument : he had also invented a weather-clock , and he had produced a treatise on spherical trigonometry . By his eighteenth year there seems to have been a continual succession of learned mathematical essays and ingenious mechanical inventions bearing his name , of which the versatility

was marvellous . He made the drawings for Dr . Willis ' s treatise on the brain . In conjunction ivith the after celebrated Hooke , he worked oufc a novelty , which ho called Micrograplt-ia ; namely , fche delineation of microscopic objects on the magnified scale . As a mathematician he presented investigations of the newly-discovered Cycloid : in astronomy , he offered a theory of the planet Saturn : in mechanics , he is considered to have done something in perfecting the

telescope aud the barometer ; and in anatomy , he claimed to have originated the process of transfusion . "The most considerable experiment , " he says , " which I have made of late is this : —I injected wine and ale into the mass of blood iu a living dog , by a vein , in good quantities , till he became extremely drunk . " And coming thus at last to our datum , point of 1650 , an introduction on fche part of Bishop Wilkins

to the Elector Palatine of the Rhine produces an epistle from the juvenile savant to the distinguished visitor , from which it may be worth while fco read au extract , as a sample both of the literary style of the period aud of the mind of the writer .. The lecturer then read the letter signed " Christopher Wren , " in page 183 of tho Parentalia , to "His Most Illustrious Highness Charles , Prince Elector Palatine

of the Rhine , " & c . In his eighteenth year he was Bachelor of Arts : at twenty-two he becomes Fellow of all Souls' and Master of Arts : he has been for years a leading spirit in fchose learned com-ersaaioni oufc of which , ten years afterwards , arose the Royal Society ; and the language which is used concerning him iu the diary of Ei'elyn is such as this : — " That prodigious young scholar , " " that miracle of a youth , Mr . Christopher Wren , nephew of the Bishop of Ely ; " "tha rare and early prodigy of universal science . "