At the beginning of July Sancroft wrote to him again:—
‘Sir,—Yesterday my Lords of Canterbury, London, and Oxford met on purpose to hear your letter read once more, and to consider what is now to be done in order to the repairs of S. Paul’s. They unanimously resolved, that it is fit immediately to attempt something, and that, without you, they can do nothing. I am therefore commanded to give you an invitation hither in his Grace’s name, and the rest of the commissioners, with all speed, that we may prepare something to be proposed to his Majesty (the design of such a quire, at least as may be a congruous part of a greater and more magnificent work to follow); and then, for the procuring of contributions to defray this, we are so sanguine as not to doubt of it, if we could but once resolve what we would do, and what that would cost; so that the only part of your letter we demur to, is the method you propound of declaring first what money we would bestow, and then designing something just of that expense: for quite otherwise—the way their lordships resolve upon, is to frame a design, handsome and noble, and suitable to all the ends of it, and to the reputation of the city and the nation; and to take it for granted that money will be had to accomplish it: or, however, to let it lie by, till we have before us a prospect of so much as may reasonably encourage us to begin.
‘Thus far I thought good to prepare you for what will be said to you when you come, that you may not be surprised with it: and, if my summons prevail not, my lord the Bishop of Oxford hath undertaken to give it you warmer, ore tenus,[114] the next week, when he intends to be with you, if, at least, you be not come towards us before he arrives, which would be a very agreeable surprise to us all, and especially to your very affectionate, humble Servant,
‘W. Sancroft.’
THE STATE OF S. PAUL’S.
Wren obeyed this intreaty, came up from Oxford, made a thorough examination of the Cathedral, and wrote a report for the commissioners.
‘What time and weather,’ he says, ‘had left entire in the old and art in the new repaired parts of this great pile of S. Paul’s, the calamity of the fire hath so weakened and defaced, that it now appears like some antique ruin of two thousand years’ continuance, and to repair it sufficiently will be like the mending of Argo-nairs,[115] scarce anything at last will be left of the old.’
He enumerates the various ‘decays’ of the building from the date of the fire in Queen Elizabeth’s reign which burnt the whole roof and caused ‘the spreading out of the walls above ten inches from their true perpendicular’—up to the last fire, of which he says—
‘The second ruins are they that have put the restoration past remedy, the effects of which I shall briefly enumerate.
‘First, the portico is nearly deprived of that excellent beauty and strength which time alone and weather could have no more overthrown than the natural rocks; so great and good were the materials, and so skilfully were they laid after a true Roman manner. But so impatient is Portland stone of fire that many tons are scaled off and the columns flawed quite through.’