Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/113

 of the work it was so far advanced that the choir could be opened for service (December 1697); nineteen years later Wren was dismissed from its superintendence, and the cathedral was reported as finished, as no doubt it was in the main essentials. There remained, however, still incomplete several matters which its architect had intended, among these, as he had complained in 1717, the painting of the cupola which had been taken out of his hands. This he had desired should be executed in mosaic, after the manner of St. Peter's at Rome (, p. 510). There was also his marble ‘altar-piece’ intended for the apse, for which he had caused a model to be made (Parentalia, p. 282, see also p. 292 n.) Part of this model is still preserved in the cathedral, but unhappily it was considered to be too fragmentary to give authoritative evidence of what Sir Christopher had intended when the design for the present reredos was made.

Meanwhile, about 1680, Wren had been much engaged in the restoration of the Temple after the fire. Temple Bar had been rebuilt from his designs about 1670–2. In the Temple the cloister is the chief remnant of his work which can now be identified, a substantial building of no peculiar architectural merit. He introduced into the church much ornamental oak wainscoting which had escaped the fire, including a richly carved altar-piece, which was removed as unsuitable early in the nineteenth century; it is now in Mr. Bowes's museum at Barnard Castle, Durham. Full records of Wren's work at the Temple are given in a forthcoming volume of Mr. F. A. Inderwick's ‘Calendar of Inner Temple Records.’ Another of Wren's best works, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, was executed during this period, in 1683. In 1684 Wren was appointed by the king (Charles II) comptroller of the works in the castle of Windsor, an office of small salary, but involving a considerable amount of work. Besides all these spheres of activity Wren took some part in politics. He was returned to James II's first parliament as member for Plympton on 20 April 1685, and to the convention parliament for Windsor on 11 Jan. 1688–9. He was also elected for Windsor to William and Mary's first parliament in March 1689–90, but the return was declared void, and Wren did not sit again in parliament until he was elected for Weymouth on 26 Nov. 1701 (Official Return, i. 552, 557, 564 note, 594).

Of the fifty-two churches which Wren built in London a considerable number have been sacrificed to the utilitarian spirit of the age. Fortunately a record has been preserved in ‘The Parochial Churches of Sir Christopher Wren’ (1848–9, fol.) by John Clayton (d. 1861) [q. v.], which includes all but three of those which have perished; the rest were at that date standing, and, with the exception of three built by Wren in a Gothic style, are included in the forty-six examples of that book. Wren's churches have also been well illustrated in Mr. G. H. Birch's ‘London Churches,’ 1896. Of these a selection of about half may be made of those which are of superior interest on various accounts, and arranged approximately according to the date of their construction: 1670–5, St. Benet Fink, St. Mary-at-Hill, St. Mary-le-Bow, St. Stephen Walbrook, St. Dionis Backchurch; 1675–80, St. Ann and St. Agnes, St. Bride, St. Lawrence, St. Swithin; 1680–5, All-Hallows Thames Street, St. Antholin, St. Clement Danes, St. James Garlickhithe, St. James Westminster, St. Martin Ludgate, St. Mary Magdalene Old Fish Street, St. Peter Cornhill; 1685–90, St. Andrew Holborn, St. Mary Lothbury, St. Mary Abchurch; 1690–5, St. Michael Royal, St. Augustin and St. Faith (spire), St. Mary Somerset (tower), St. Vedast (the steeple); 1700, the steeple of St. Dunstan-in-the-East; 1704, that of Christ Church Newgate Street; 1705, that of St. Magnus; and, lastly, that of St. Michael Cornhill, built from Wren's designs in 1722.

Every one of these churches is to the architect a valuable study in planning. Some of them show great skill in their adaptation to irregular sites. Among existing churches in this particular may be mentioned St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Clement Danes; and among those that have perished, St. Antholin, St. Benet Fink, and St. Dionis Backchurch. In all the churches the main proportions are excellent, but the minor details are not in all good alike. But this could have hardly happened otherwise, as many of them required to be built almost simultaneously. Nothing that has been achieved in modern architecture has surpassed the beauty of their campaniles, not only from the elegance of each, but from their complete variety, while at the same time in harmony with one another. No two are alike. The view of the city of London from the old Blackfriars Bridge (up to about the middle of this century, when huge warehouses and loftier street houses were beginning to be erected)—a view which comprised St. Paul's, with the church steeples, more numerous than exist at present, grouped around it—was scarcely surpassed in any country, and all this was the work of one man.