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WRE problem put forward by Pascal as a challenge to the scientific men of Europe; investigations of cycloids, published in Dr. Wallis' work on that subject; papers on the longitude, extending from 1660 to 1720; on the pendulum; a tract on the Julian period; improvements in the telescope; an instrument for making perspective drawings; the first practical application in England of the theory of the barometer; various improvements in dioptrics and dioptrical instruments; investigations in meteorology, and the application of self-registering contrivances to barometers, thermometers, wind guages, &c. In all he is said to have made above fifty discoveries and inventions, but several were lost, or appropriated by others and left unclaimed, through modesty and invincible dislike to controversy.

Wren resigned the Gresham professorship on being appointed Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford in 1660 (not 1670 as it stands by some strange mistake in the Oxford University Calendar). But his presence was missed in London, and probably with a view to securing him a position there, interest was made to obtain for him, in 1661, the post of assistant surveyor-general under Sir John Denham. This was the turning point in Wren's life. Up to this time he had been wholly a man of science. He was only in his thirtieth year, yet he had won a foremost place among the scientific men of England, and that in one of the most remarkable periods in the history of English science. Denham, Wren's superior, was a poet, and never troubled himself about the duties of the surveyorship, which were performed by deputy; and, as offices were then filled. Wren's friends probably only regarded the assistant surveyorship as a convenient sinecure for a studious man. Wren does not appear, up to this time, to have given any special attention to architecture. But it was not in his nature to regard only the emoluments of an office; and as soon as he had familiarized himself with its duties, it is evident that he gave his best efforts to the study of architecture, for which his previous studies had laid an excellent foundation. He did not abandon his scientific pursuits; but after the great fire of 1666 he can have given but little time to them, though we have sufficient evidence that he retained his interest in them.

One of his first architectural engagements was the survey of St. Paul's cathedral, which had been brought into a ruinous condition by neglect and ill-usage during the Commonwealth period. In his report (1663) Wren showed that it required almost rebuilding. Old St. Paul's was a Gothic edifice, but it had lost all consistency of character when Inigo Jones attached an enormous Corinthian portico to its western end. Wren proposed, among other things, to take down the spire (the loftiest in England), which had become unsafe, and substitute for it a grand central cupola. "This cupola," he says in a passage of great interest, as showing that he had already conceived the idea which he carried out in so striking a manner in his new St. Paul's, "would be of present use for auditory, make all the external repairs perfect, become an ornament to his majesty's most excellent reign, to the church, and to this great city." His proposition was strenuously opposed, and before anything was actually done the fate of the old cathedral was decided by the great fire. Wren's first building seems to have been the chapel of Pembroke college, Cambridge, a small building of the Corinthian order, completed in 1665 at the cost of his uncle. Bishop Wren. Other early architectural employments were improvements at the royal palaces of Windsor and Greenwich; portions of Trinity college, Oxford; and the Sheldon theatre, which was begun in 1664, and was a remarkable instance of the early development of Wren's constructive skill.

In 1665, the year of the great plague of London and perhaps to escape from that terrible visitation. Wren went to the continent. His purpose was first to visit France and then proceed to Italy, in order to study the principal ancient and modern buildings. But at this time Bernini was busy with the immense works at the Louvre, and Wren found in that and other important works in progress sufficient to occupy all the time he could spare. At first he was every day at the Louvre, where, he says in a letter written from Paris, "no less than a thousand hands are constantly employed" in every variety of constructive and decorative labour, and "which altogether make it a school of architecture the best probably in Europe." He wanted to obtain a copy of Bernini's plan of the Louvre, but he says, "I could only copy it in my fancy and memory," for "the old reserved Italian gave me but a few minutes view of it." Wren seems to have studied with no less diligence the other leading edifices; "I shall bring you," he writes, "almost all France upon paper." He did not go to Italy, and it has been conjectured that his not having done so may account for some of his deficiencies in taste. This, however, is doubtful. He seems indeed not to have been able to get rid of a tendency to imitate the Parisian "filigrands and little knicknacks," though he refers to them so contemptuously; but it was the tendency of the age, and was not likely to be cured by a flying visit to Italy. Be that as it may, he was compelled to return, and was soon too completely absorbed by the overwhelming duties entailed on him by the unparalleled disaster of the fire of 1666, to think of sparing time for another continental excursion. It was fortunate that he had already made his French journey. Denham, the surveyor-general, had died a few months before the fire, and Wren was appointed his successor. After the fire he was nominated architect for rebuilding the city.

The fire of London opened to Wren one of the rarest opportunities ever offered to an architect, that of reconstructing a capital with the greater part of its churches and public buildings. He addressed himself to the task with all his energy. He first made a careful survey of the ruined city, and it may serve as a clue to the extent of the fire to mention that his official estimate of the damage was £10,780,500. He then drew up an elaborate plan for rebuilding the city, so as to make it one of the noblest capitals in Europe. Had his plan been carried out, London would have been a very different place from what it actually became. He thought the city ought to be convenient, beautiful, healthy. He wished to get rid of all narrow lanes and alleys; to have only three classes of thoroughfares—the main lines of streets at least ninety feet wide, others of sixty feet, and connecting lanes at least thirty feet wide. He would have had St. Paul's stand in a spacious area as the crowning feature of the city; the Royal Exchange, the Post-office, banks, and other great commercial edifices set round a great central space from which the main thoroughfares should radiate; have embanked the Thames from Blackfriars' to the Tower, and formed along it a commodious continuous quay or succession of quays; have placed the churches in convenient open spaces, removing the church-yards, and indeed all burial-places, outside the city walls; have brought the halls of the great city companies together so as to form a magnificent square in the immediate vicinity of Guildhall; have constructed other squares, piazzas, and open places within the city; and finally have converted the pestiferous Fleet river into a navigable canal, and made ample provision of covered sewers. But the citizens were then, as ever since, unanimous in resisting any such interference with their old ways. Wren's plan was cast aside: the city was built up again as nearly as possible on the old lines, the churches, halls, and other public buildings on their former sites; and even at the present time many of the improvements which Wren suggested are only being effected slowly and imperfectly, and in the face of strenuous opposition.

With particular buildings Wren had almost as much difficulty as with the general plan. In erecting his masterwork, St. Paul's cathedral, he had to encounter from its commencement to its completion the most vexatious opposition. He wished to make it a purely protestant cathedral—one adapted strictly to the worship and ritual of the church for which it was built. The adherents to precedent, and the followers of the Romish faith, who, looking to the succession of the duke of York (James II.), himself one of the most resolute of the cabal, anticipated its employment for the ancient ritual, were determined that it should be constructed according to the usual cathedral arrangements. Wren was obliged to give way. The model of his first cathedral is now in the South Kensington museum. It would have been a magnificent building, and have afforded a noble auditorium under the great dome. More original undoubtedly than the present one, it may, however, be questioned whether for general architectural effect it would not have been inferior to the design actually carried out.

The first stone of St. Paul's was laid on the 21st of Juno, 1675. It was opened for divine service, 2nd December, 1697; and the topstone of the lantern was laid by the architect's eldest son, Christopher, in 1710. But notwithstanding this formality it was not in reality completed till some eight or ten years later, as we find Sir Christopher, in a letter dated October, 1717, protesting most earnestly against a resolution of the commissioners that a balustrade of stone should be set up around the top of the building. Wren intended "to have statues erected