From the Wren Collection, All Souls College, Oxford.
Fig. 101.—Elevation of a House.
From the Wren Collection, All Souls College, Oxford.
A slight but vivid picture of him at work was drawn by the lively Duchess of Marlborough, who, when expostulating with Vanbrugh for demanding £300 a year for looking after Blenheim, declared that Wren had been “content to be dragged up in a basket, three or four times a week to the top of St Paul’s, and at great hazard, for £200 a year.”
All through his busy years as an architect he maintained his interest in science, and was not only President of the Royal Society in 1680, but continued to submit all sorts of inventions and suggestions for the consideration of its members. Curiously enough, these things had but little practical value, not even that one which showed how smoky chimneys might be cured: indeed none but futile specifics have yet been offered to the public with this end in view.
His later years were clouded by the intrigues of his opponents at court, who not only contrived to oust him from his office of surveyor to the royal works, but endeavoured to attack his character for probity. The latter attempt failed of course; but when he was already eighty-six and had held his office for nearly fifty years, he was superseded by an unknown and incompetent person.
Fig. 102.—Sketches for the Front of Two Houses, by Wren.
Wren’s influence on architecture was powerful while he lived, but he can hardly be said to have founded a distinctive school of domestic architecture which long survived him. Soon after his death new publications, amongst which the most influential was Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” changed the trend of design. His influence, however, continued to be felt in the treatment of interior decoration, particularly in regard to panelling and ornamental woodwork, down to the middle of the century. The exteriors of many small Georgian houses may owe something to him, but such houses as are obviously reminiscent of his manner were built during his lifetime.