‘In other words, the Church of the Restoration had to begin her work with a clergy of whom at least three-fourths were aliens at heart to her doctrine and her discipline. To the politician this result was most satisfactory; to the Church little short of disastrous.’[84]
GARTER RECORDS RESTORED.
One of the earliest appointments made at the Restoration was that of Dr. Bruno Ryves[85] to be Dean of Windsor and Registrar of the Garter. In the August of 1660, Christopher Wren went to Windsor, and solemnly delivered to the Dean the three registers and the note books of the Order of the Garter, which Dean Wren had, with so much difficulty, recovered and hidden carefully until, at his death, he transferred the charge to his son. Dean Ryves gave a written acknowledgment to Christopher that he had safely received the books, and the service his father had done in preserving them was fully admitted. Gresham College had been cleansed and set in order after the Restoration, and Christopher resumed his lectures there, which were largely attended.
After one of these lectures given in November, Lord Brouncker, Mr. Robert Boyle, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Dr. Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray and others withdrew with Wren to his room, where they discussed a project for a philosophical College or Society. It was not an entirely new idea, for it had been a favourite scheme of Evelyn’s, also of the poet Cowley’s.[86] It was not a matter to be arranged in one sitting, and accordingly they settled to meet weekly in Wren’s rooms after his lectures, and agreed that for incidental expenses each should pay down ten shillings and subscribe a shilling weekly. A list was made of between thirty and forty probable members, among them those previously mentioned, and Christopher’s old friend Sir C. Scarborough, Dr. Seth Ward, Matthew Wren, Cowley, Sir Kenelme Digby, Mr. Evelyn and others. Sir Robert Moray undertook to explain the project to King Charles, and brought back a gracious message that he well approved of it, and would be ready to give it every encouragement. One of the first orders of the Society was that Wren should at the next meeting of the Society bring in his account of the pendulum experiment, with his explanation of it: this experiment related to ‘the determination of a standard measure of length by the vibration of a pendulum.’[87] There followed experiments for the improvement of shipping, in which Wren worked with Dr. Petty and Dr. Goddard. It was a question to what mechanical powers sailing, especially when against the wind, was reducible; ‘he showed it to be a wedge; and he demonstrated how a transient force upon an oblique plane would cause the motion of the plane against the first mover. He made an instrument that mechanically produced the same effect and showed the reason of sailing to all winds.’
But to give all Christopher’s experiments would be to write over again the already well-told history of the Royal Society. It had few more assiduous members.
SAVILIAN PROFESSORSHIP.
In 1661, Christopher resigned his Gresham Professorship, in order to accept the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy, at Oxford.[88] It had been held by Dr. Seth Ward, who was soon afterwards made Bishop of Salisbury in succession to Bishop Hyde. Shortly after his appointment, Christopher had a command from the King to make him a lunar globe, according to the observations made with the best telescopes. He constructed one ‘representing not only the spots and various degrees of whiteness on the surface, but the hills, eminences, and cavities moulded in solid work.’ This curious toy was highly admired, placed in the King’s cabinet at Whitehall, and esteemed a great ‘rarity.’
In this year Wren took his degree as Doctor of Civil Laws, Oxford, and received a similar honour from the University of Cambridge. King Charles purposed paying a visit to Oxford, and the Philosophical Society both there and in London resolved to give him an entertainment. Lord Brouncker wrote from London to Wren to consult him. Wren wrote back:—
‘My Lord,—The Act and noise at Oxford being over, I retir’d to myself as speedily as I could to obey your Lordship and contribute something to the collection of Experiments designed by the Society, for his Majesty’s Reception. I concluded on something I thought most suitable for such an occasion; but the stupidity of our artists here makes the apparatus so tedious that I foresee I shall not be able to bring it to anything within the time proposed. What in the meanwhile to suggest to your Lordship I cannot guess.’... ‘Geometrical problems, and new methods, however useful, will be but tasteless in a transient show.’ He enumerates various things which he had thought of and rejected: ‘designs of engines, scenographical tricks, designs of architecture, chymical experiments, experiments in anatomy, which last are sordid and noisome to any but those whose desire of knowledge makes them digest it.’ ‘Experiments of Natural Philosophy are seldom pompous, and certainly Nature in the best of her works is apparent enough in obvious things, were they but curiously observed; and the key that opens treasures is often plain and rusty, but unless it be gilt it will make no show at Court.’
He proposed to show an experiment with a ‘weather wheel to measure the expansions of air.’ Another—‘no unpleasing spectacle—of seeing a man live without new air as long as you please;’ this was to be effected by an instrument of Wren’s invention which cooled, percolated, and purified the air. Also ‘an artificial eye truly and dioptrically made as big as a tennis-ball.’