Where if a Puff of Strong Temptations blow,
It might remind the Staggering Saints and Crow.
Improve the Thought, Dear Sir, and let St. Paul’s
Wise Fane be this new Going Cart for Souls.[215]
It hardly needs the hint that these lines were affixed to ‘the Dean’s side of the pulpit,’ to read in them a bitter satire on Dean Sherlock, whose sudden change of front relative to the non-jurors, and acceptance of the Deanery of S. Paul’s, laid him open to the grave suspicion of having acted from interested motives, and stirred up much vehement animosity. A spirited, if not an impartial, account of this controversy, is given by Lord Macaulay.[216]
Sir Christopher’s remarkable invention appears to have survived the laughter against it, and to have remained in the Cathedral until 1803.
The vaults of S. Paul’s were opened shortly after this thanksgiving to receive the body of Dr. White, the non-juring Bishop of Peterborough, whose funeral was attended by Bishop Turner, Bishop Lloyd and forty nonjuring clergymen.
A FOREIGN TOUR.
At the beginning of the following year, as soon as travelling was possible, Wren sent his son Christopher to Paris; not indeed with the intention of his making that grand tour which a few years later was supposed to finish a young gentleman’s education, but that he might acquire a little experience and knowledge of the world. The young man, evidently, had other ideas, spent a good deal of his money, and then wrote home to his family a letter complaining in true English fashion, of the climate and the cookery of France, and asking leave to continue his journey to Italy. Sir Christopher’s reply has been preserved; and in its folio sheet and brown ink exists in the ‘Parentalia.’ It is, I think, so charming as to double one’s regret that so very few of his letters have been preserved.
‘I WILL NOT DISCONTENT YOU.’