Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry

by John G. Edgar

While preparing designs with that view, he made a tour to France for the purpose of widening and improving his conception of architecture, and visited the most admired works of the greatest professors of his art in that country. In Paris he viewed, and made drawings of, the various edifices, and took due notice of every thing likely to elevate his ideas and improve his taste. He had, moreover, the distinction of being introduced to Bernini, the celebrated sculptor.

“I would have given my skin for Bernini’s design of the Louvre,” said Wren, with becoming ardor; “but the old reserved Italian gave me but a few minutes’ view. It was five little designs in paper, for which he had received as many thousand pistoles. I had only time to copy it in my fancy and memory.”

He strove to make himself acquainted with the most esteemed buildings in the city and its vicinity. With a mind refreshed by travel, and an eye impressed with the fabrics it had gazed on, Wren gladly enough returned to England, having, as he stated, surveyed and brought with him “almost all France on paper.” He was now enthusiastically intent on proceeding with the restoration of St. Paul’s; but there had arisen among the commissioners disputes, which effectually checked his eagerness. Public works are, in their progress, too frequently victims of private whims; and Wren now found so, to his dismay. Those who had been intrusted with the management of the business formed themselves into two parties. One of these obstinately contended that the church should be merely “patched up” to the best advantage; while the other were zealous for the full and complete restoration proposed by Wren. The architect, whose fortitude and patience were ever remarkable, reasoned with them in that calm tone which he ever adhered to under all annoyances; but he argued in vain. Suddenly the Great Fire not only put a period to the strife, but opened up a large stage for the genius and energy of this truly great Englishman, whose schemes speedily became the talk of Europe.

The dreadful conflagration had destroyed the principal part of St. Paul’s, while helplessly damaging the remainder; and Wren, perceiving that any efficient repair was now utterly impracticable, conceived the idea of associating his name with a grand ecclesiastical structure worthy of the capital of royal England. His path, however, was not yet quite clear; for the hearts of the commissioners, “untraveled, still returned” to the old building, and another effort was made to reconstruct it. The rubbish was removed, and the enterprise entered on; but the fall of a pillar soon indicated how vain and futile such an attempt really was.

Wren was on a visit at Oxford, when he received the intelligence of this disaster; and perhaps he felt that his day of triumph had at length arrived. He forthwith wrote and recommended a total removal of the ruins of the former church, and the erection, from the foundation, of a cathedral that should exhibit the taste and dignity of the country. Nevertheless, so perverse is human nature, when a change of opinion involves a confession of error, that the system of “patching up any how” was persisted in till the middle of 1668, when it was resolved that a new cathedral should be built. Wren now applied himself to the production of several designs and models for the contemplated structure, and, in due time, they were laid before the proper authorities. It appears that, whatever credit pertains to the rejection of the best and adoption of the worst plans, must be assigned to that royal duke whose insane bigotry and superstition afterward cost him the proudest crown in Christendom. The architect’s temper did not give way; but he shed tears at the injudicious selection.

Operations were forthwith commenced in earnest, but though there was practiced none of the tardiness which had characterized the preliminary arrangements, the gigantic magnitude of the work occasioned a delay of years; and it was not till the third quarter of the eventful century had passed that the scorched ruins were altogether removed, and the first stone laid by the great architect, under whose superintendence it was completed in the comparatively brief space of thirty-five years. Previously to the work being entered on, Wren had the honor of knighthood conferred on him; and about the same period he married a lady of Oxfordshire; though he had reached his forty-second year—an age at which men are generally rather disinclined to relinquish their freedom. He was speedily blessed with a son, who, in 1700, laid the last and highest stone of the cathedral, in presence of the principal persons employed in the building. Wren subsequently planned no fewer than fifty new ecclesiastical edifices for the metropolis; and no man, however high in that art, which is half a science, and therefore requires mathematical knowledge in its votaries, ever imitated with so much success the churches of Italy. His mind was vigorous, his judgment accurate, and he excelled in unity and elegance.

In July, 1669, he had experienced the satisfaction of seeing the first of his architectural designs realized. This was the theatre at Oxford, founded by Archbishop Sheldon. It was opened with great and imposing solemnity; and the munificent founder marked his appreciation of the skill displayed in the building by presenting Wren with a golden cup, and appointing him one of the curators for life.

Meantime the plague of London had drawn public attention to the defective state of its architecture, and the great conflagration had afforded an opportunity of introducing extensive improvements. Wren then stood forth as an architect capable of making a new and extensive city arise, phœnix-like, from the ashes. He earnestly desired to give beauty and dignity to a capital of whose greatness, in other respects, he spoke in language of enthusiasm. His proposal was to run a spacious street, in a direct line, from St. Paul’s to the Exchange, another to the Tower, and a third westward to Piccadilly. The bank of the river was to be adorned with a terrace, and there he proposed to place the halls of the twelve great city companies. This scheme, which had the warm support of the king and his ministers, was all but frustrated by the citizens, who found that it unfortunately interfered too much with the rights and property of private individuals to be realized to any satisfactory extent.