Although a quiet, modest, and always overworked person, Wren seems to have liked social relaxation. He was at Lord Brouncker’s in February, 1666-7, with Samuel Pepys, who refers to the music that their host had provided. There were two eunuchs, so tall as to move Sir T. Harvey to some physiological imaginings, and one woman “very well dressed and handsome enough, but would not be kissed,” at least so Mr. Killigrew informed Mr. Pepys. Not long afterwards Pepys met Wren at Streeter’s, “with several virtuosos,” looking at the paintings which were being made for the new theatre at Oxford. It must have been a pleasant occasion on February 9, 1671, when Wren and Pepys dined with Evelyn at Says Court, and all of them went afterwards to see the “Crucifixion” which Grinling Gibbons had carved. A few weeks later the King and Queen indicated their wish to see this work, at Evelyn’s suggestion, and it was taken to Whitehall for their inspection. Evelyn records the anger he felt at the Queen ignoring the merits of the wonderful carving because a “French pedling woman” had run it down, but he had the compensation that “Mr. Wren faithfully promised me to employ him.” How faithfully that promise was fulfilled is proved by the choir stalls of St. Paul’s and work at many another Wren building.
In February, 1676, Evelyn and Wren, with other notable Fellows of the Royal Society, dined with Sir John Williamson, and in November in the following year the same inseparable friends dined in the company of Prince Rupert and other learned men at the Lord Treasurer’s. Wren had achieved that useful measure of friendship with Prince Rupert which caused his name to figure on a list of intimates to whom the Prince sent every year a gift of choicest wine from his estates on the Rhine.
In August, 1680, Evelyn was deputed by the Royal Society to make a visit of ceremony to Monsieur Chardine, a famous French traveller who had come to London, and characteristically he took Wren with him.
Wren must have been good company at dinner. In 1669 Sir John Clayton wrote to a friend: “Saturday last I went with the Duke of Buckingham to Denham ... on our return home we dined at Uxbridge, and never in all my life did I pass my day away with such gusto, our company being his Grace, Mr. Weller, Mr. Surveyor Wren and myself: nothing but quintessence of wit and most excellent discourse.”
As to whether Wren enjoyed wide hospitalities in his alleged character of Freemason it is impossible to say, but there is a tradition that he was Grand Master of a lodge which was intimately associated with St. Paul’s and became in due time what is known as the Antiquity Lodge. Some candlesticks, and a mallet bearing an inscription which suggests that it was used at a St. Paul’s ceremonial, remain in possession of the Antiquity Lodge. It is necessary, however, to add that Gould in his History of Freemasonry gives it as his opinion, after careful investigation of the architect’s connection with the craft, that the evidence points to Wren not having belonged to a lodge, nor to a society which was not in existence until 1717, and he goes on to allege that there are three misstatements on the mallet inscription. I have no knowledge of these matters, but assume that Gould’s opinion is competent. There is no reference to Freemasonry in any Wren document or in Parentalia, but so far as the latter is concerned the omission means nothing.
I have indicated very slightly, and with the diffidence of one who knows nothing of science but a few of its fairy tales, the large range of Wren’s scientific labours. It may be that they were curious rather than important, but it is necessary to set down the considered opinion of Dr. Sprat, the first historian of the Royal Society. It is a notable tribute:
“In the whole progress of this narration, I have been cautious to forbear commending the labours of any Private Fellows of the Society. For this, I need not make any apology to them; feeling it would have been an inconsiderable honour, to be praised by so mean a writer: But now I must break this law, in the particular case of Dr. Christopher Wren: For doing so, I will not alledge the excuse of my friendship to him; though that perhaps were sufficient; and it might well be allowed me to take this occasion of Publishing it: But I only do it on the mere consideration of justice: For in turning over the Registers of the Society, I perceived that many excellent things, whose first invention ought to be ascribed to him, were casually omitted: This moves me to do him right by himself, and to give this separate account of his endeavours, in promoting the design of the Royal Society, in the small time wherein he has had the opportunity of attending it.”
Dr. Sprat then recites some of Wren’s achievements in the fields of natural science, astronomy, etc., and continues thus:
“This is a short account of the principal discoveries which Dr. Wren has presented or suggested to this assembly. I know very well, that some of them he did only start and design; and that they have been since carried on to perfection, by the industry of other hands. I purpose not to rob them of their share in the honour: Yet it is but reasonable, that the original invention should be ascribed to the true author, rather than the finishers. Nor do I fear that this will be thought too much, which I have said concerning him: For there is a peculiar reverence due to so much excellence covered with so much modesty. And it is not flattery but honesty, to give him his just praise; who is so far from usurping the fame of other men that he endeavours with all care to conceal his own.”
A man could not ask a better epitaph than “so much excellence covered with so much modesty.”