SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN
(From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.)
December 28th is given as the date upon which Westminster Abbey was consecrated in 1065; and on December 2nd that other minster, St. Paul's Cathedral, was opened in 1697. Legend says that the same King Sebert who founded the original St. Paul's also founded the Abbey at Westminster, whilst another story invokes the aid of King Offa. There is, however, clear testimony to the establishment of a Benedictine abbey at Westminster in the time of Edgar; that is antiquity respectable enough to satisfy most of us. A cathedral on this site is mentioned by the Venerable Bede as early as 604; but the actual fabric of St. Paul's has, according to Mr. Loftie, undergone greater vicissitudes than that of any other cathedral in England. The present St. Paul's was begun in 1675 and finished in 1710. Its cost was £736,752. Sir Christopher Wren, its architect, received for his services £200 a year. What were then called "the new ball and cross" on the cathedral were completed in this same month in 1821.
ROBERT BROWNING.
(Photo: Cameron and Smith, Mortimer Street, W.)
An old calendar assures me that on the 15th of this month, in the year 1802, "societies for abolishing the common method of sweeping chimneys" were instituted.
On the 20th of this month, in the year 1814, Samuel Marsden landed in New Zealand—a missionary anniversary worth recalling.
