Sir Christopher Wren Part 25

One cannot but admire the versatility of mind which enabled Wren, in the midst of great architectural works, and endless business details, to write papers such as these, and to digest and decide upon Flamsteed's long letters on the Earth's motion, his quarrels with Mr. Halley, and his measurement of the height of the Welsh hills.

[_LONDON AS IT WAS._]

The progress of Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals, the growth of his beautiful S. Paul's, the repairs of the Abbey, were now the absorbing interests of Wren's life. From the house in Whitehall which he occupied with his daughter he could easily reach the two former by water, or the latter on foot. Two most interesting pictures by Ca.n.a.letto,[224] giving a general view of the city and of Westminster, enable us to realise what the whole effect must have been in an atmosphere far clearer than at present, before the river was cut by iron bridges, or the city robbed of steeple or tower. The death of King William and the accession of Queen Anne in the spring of 1702 made little difference to Wren, except to his advantage. He appears to have been on very good terms with her, and with her Danish husband. He is said to have built S. Anne's, Soho,[225]

and to have made it externally to resemble a Danish church as much as he could, out of compliment to Prince George. He also gave to the Town Hall of Windsor, a statue of Prince George, to correspond with that of Queen Anne. The Prince is dressed in a Roman costume, and the pedestal has the following inscription:

SERENISSIMO PRINCIPI GEORGII PRINCIPI DANIAE HEROI OMNI SAECULO VENERANDO CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, ARM: POSUIT MDCCXIII.

One marvels how 'Est-il possible' came to merit such an inscription as this!

[THANKSGIVING AT S. PAUL'S.]

In 1702 Sir Christopher suffered a grievous loss by the death of his only daughter, Jane, on the 29th of December. She was laid in the vault of S. Paul's close to the graves of Dr. and Mrs. Holder,[226] and her father wrote the short Latin inscription which records her virtues, her skill in music, and implies how loving and how congenial a companion he had lost in her. She was but twenty-six when she died. The sculptor, Bird,[227] of whose power Wren had a good opinion, carved a monument in low relief, representing Jane Wren playing on an organ; a harp and a spinnet are beside her, and a group of angels in the clouds above, one of whom holds the music. It is but an ordinary piece of monumental sculpture, now much obscured by dust. Jane Wren's death must have left a great blank in the life of the father whose interests and pursuits she had shared, and one wishes she could have lived long enough to see the top stone laid on the dome of S. Paul's. The Duke of Marlborough's brilliant victory at Blenheim, on Aug. 13, 1704, brought Queen Anne and all her court in their utmost splendour to a thanksgiving at S. Paul's on the 7th of September.

'The streets were scaffolded from Temple Bar, where the Lord Mayor presented her Majesty with the Sword, which she returned. Every Company was ranged under its banners, the Citty Militia without the rails, which were all hung with cloth suitable to the colour of the banner. The Lord Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen were in their scarlet robes, with caparisoned horses; the Knight Marshall on horseback, the Foot Guards; the Queen in a rich coach with eight horses, none with her but the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough in a very plain garment, the Queene full of jewells. Music and trumpets at every Citty Company. The great Officers of the Crown, n.o.bility and Bishops, all in coaches with six horses, besides innumerable servants, went to S. Paul's where the Deane preached. After this the Queen went back in the same order to S. James's. The Citty Companies feasted all the n.o.bility and Bishops, and illuminated at night. Music for the Church and anthems by the best masters. The day before wet and stormy, but this was one of the most serene and calm days that had been all the year.'[228]

No doubt it was a splendid pageant, the grandest that had been seen since those which celebrated the Restoration, and S. Paul's, despite the scaffolding still round the dome, must have looked magnificent. In 1705, Sir Christopher's eldest son went abroad again, travelling this time to Holland, where in the excitement of Marlborough's brilliant campaign he very nearly joined the army as a volunteer.

[_BARCELONA._]

A letter[229] to him from Sir Christopher is extant; the handwriting is not quite so steady as in the former letter, but still clear.

'Whitehall, Oct. 11, 1705.

'Dear Son,--I received at once three of y^r le^{trs}: one from Harlem, Sep. 26, another from Amsterdam of Sep. 28, O.S., a third of Oct. 13, N.S., by all which I rejoyced in your good Health & your recovery from your cold. I am very well satisfied you have layd aside your designe for the Army; which I think had not been safe or pertinent, at least not soe much as Bookes & Conversation with ye learned. Your Traffic for good Bookes I cannot disapprove.

You tell me Gronovius[230] is 25 volumes, I am told they are 26, and that the last is the best & comonly sold by its selfe, you will have a care [a word seems to be omitted] being imposed upon.

Mr. Bateman in his (?) will give you advice how you may get them into the Secretary's packets. You remember how much trouble Mr.

Strong was put to at Dover by the impertinence of the Customer there. I hope this may bee prevented. Wee have not yet rejoyced for Barcelona[231] though you have; though wee doe not doubt it and wagers are layd 6 to one: last night the seales were given to Mr.

Cowper & changes are made of Lord Lieutenants. Give my Service to Mr. Roman & thanks for his Civilities to you. I am importuned to take a little journy to my cosin Munson's to christen her 8^{th} son. Wee are told here that my L^d D. of Marlborough goeth certainly to Vienna, & you resolve well to wait on him before he goes, & then I thinke you have little else to doe but to take the best opportunity to returne, which I am told may happen if you come with my L^d Woodstock[232] who will have convoy. Wee are all in good health at both Houses and wish you happinesse w^{ch} wee also contrive for you.

'I am, dear Son, your affectionate Father,

'CHR. WREN.'

I suppose the mention of 'both houses,' and the hint of happiness being contrived, refer to young Christopher's marriage, which took place in the following year. He married Mary,[233] daughter of Mr. Philip Musard, jeweller to Queen Anne, by whom he had a son, a fourth Christopher Wren.

Wren lost a faithful and valued friend in Mr. Evelyn, who died in the February of 1706, at the age of eighty-five. If Evelyn's diary, of which such frequent use has been made in these pages, is not the same entire revelation of the man himself as is the diary of his friend Pepys, it yet possesses a singular charm in its refinement of thought, and, when the veil is raised, shows us a gentleman and a Christian to be respected as well as loved. He had kept up a steady friendship with Sir Christopher since the day when they first met at Oxford, and had the highest opinion of his powers: 'an excellent genius had this incomparable person,' is his remark after a conversation with Wren.

Evelyn was on the S. Paul's Commission from the first, and Wren was destined, a few years later, sorely to miss the support of this constant friend.

The needful sum for covering in the dome of S. Paul's was voted by Parliament in 1708. The question of using copper or lead was greatly discussed; lead was finally chosen; it does not clearly appear which way Sir Christopher's judgment inclined. Probably to the lead, as he considered it susceptible of much ornament, and the lead covering of S.

Paul's dome is peculiarly beautiful. Bird in this year finished the statue of Queen Anne, which is in the fore court of the Cathedral, and is not without merit. He also carved the relief of the Conversion of S.

Paul above the western portico: the height is too great for it to be possible to judge of the goodness of the sculpture.

[_FIFTY NEW CHURCHES._]

The Act known as 'Queen Anne's Act for building Fifty New Churches' was pa.s.sed in this year, and Wren was of course one of the commissioners. At the age of seventy-six he could not undertake the designing of these new churches. They were princ.i.p.ally built by Gibbs, Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh and others. S. George's, Hanover Square, S. Anne's, Limehouse, S. George's, Bloomsbury, S. Leonard's, Sh.o.r.editch, are some of those built under this Act. Perhaps the best specimen is the beautiful S. Mary-le-Strand, built by Gibbs, on an old site stolen from the Church by the Duke of Somerset in the reign of Henry VIII. Recent careful painting and gilding and the removal of pews have made S. Mary's a charming example of the amount of decoration which can be advantageously bestowed on a Paladian church.

Wren wrote on this occasion a letter to a friend on the Church-building Commission in which he gives the result of his great experience in building town churches. The letter is given with a few omissions. I fear that few of the Queen Anne churches were built strictly on the principles he here lays down; certainly the hint as to pews was disregarded, and grievous indeed have been the results of such disregard. It has been a common fallacy that all Wren's churches were built for pews, and that anything but high pews would ruin the architectural effect. What was Wren's own opinion is manifest from the letter; the actual effect can be seen, for instance, in a print of S.

Stephen's, Walbrook, where this gem of all his churches is represented, just after its completion, with the area clear; or in S. Mary's, Bow, where the pews have lately been diminished into just such 'benches' as the great architect desired.

'Since Providence,' he writes, 'in great mercy has protracted my age, to the finishing the Cathedral Church of S. Paul, and the parochial churches of London, in lieu of those demolished by the fire, (all which were executed during the fatigues of my employment in the service of the Crown from that time to the present happy reign); and being now const.i.tuted one of the Commissioners for building, pursuant to the late Act, fifty more Churches in London and Westminster; I shall presume to communicate briefly my sentiments, after long experience, and without further ceremony exhibit to better judgement, what at present occurs to me, in a transient view of this whole affair; not doubting but that the debates of the worthy Commissioners may hereafter give me occasion to change, or add to these speculations.

'1. I conceive the Churches should be built, not where vacant ground may be cheapest purchased in the extremities of the suburbs, but among the thicker inhabitants, for the convenience of the better sort, although the site of them should cost more; the better inhabitants contributing most to the future repairs, and the ministers and officers of the church, and charges of the parish.

[_CEMETERIES._]

'2. I could wish that all burials in churches might be disallowed, which is not only unwholesome, but the pavements can never be kept even, nor pews upright; and if the churchyard be close about the church, this also is inconvenient, because the ground being continually raised by the graves, occasions, in time, a descent by steps in the church, which renders it damp, and the walls green, as appears evidently in all old churches.

'3. It will be enquired, where then shall be the burials? I answer, in cemeteries seated in the outskirts of the town....

'A piece of ground of two acres in the fields will be purchased for much less than two roods among the buildings; this being enclosed with a strong brick wall, and having a walk round, and two cross walks decently planted with yew trees, the four quarters may serve four parishes, where the dead need not be disturbed at the pleasure of the s.e.xton or piled four or five upon one another, or bones thrown out to gain room.... It may be considered further, that if the cemeteries be thus thrown into the fields, they will bound the excessive growth of the city with a graceful border, which is now encircled with scavengers' dung-stalls.

'4. As to the situation of the churches, I should propose they be brought as forward as possible into the larger and more open streets; not in obscure lanes, nor where coaches will be much obstructed in the pa.s.sage: nor are we, I think, too nicely to observe east or west in the position, unless it falls out properly; such fronts as shall happen to lie most open to view should be adorned with porticoes, both for beauty and convenience; which together with handsome spires or lanterns, rising in good proportion above the neighbouring houses (of which I have given several examples in the City of different forms), may be of sufficient ornament to the town, without a great expense for enriching the outward walls of the Churches, in which plainness and duration ought princ.i.p.ally, if not wholly, to be studied....

[_CHURCHWARDEN'S CARE DEFECTIVE._]

'5. I shall mention something of the materials for public fabrics.

It is true, the mighty demand for the hasty works of thousands of houses at once after the Fire of London, and the frauds of those who built by the great,(?) have so debased the value of materials, that good bricks are not to be now had without greater prices than formerly, and indeed, if rightly made, will deserve them; but brickmakers spoil the earth in the mixing and hasty burning, till the bricks will hardly bear weight; though the earth about London, rightly managed, will yield as good bricks as were the Roman bricks (which I have often found in the old ruins of the City), and will endure, in our air, beyond any stone our island affords; which, unless the quarries lie near the sea, are too dear for general use.

The best is Portland or Roch-Abbey stone; but these are not without their faults. The next material is the lime: chalk-lime is the constant practice, which, well mixed with good sand, is not amiss, though much worse than hard stone-lime. The vaulting of S. Paul's is a rendering as hard as stone: it is composed of c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l lime well beaten with sand: the more labour in the beating, the better and stronger the mortar. I shall say nothing of marble (though England, Scotland, and Ireland afford good, and of beautiful colours); but this will prove too costly for our purpose, unless for Altar-pieces. In windows and doors Portland stone may be used, with good bricks and stone quoins. As to roofs, good oak is certainly the best, because it will bear some negligence. The churchwardens' care may be defective in speedy mending drips; they usually whitewash the church, and set up their names, but neglect to preserve the roof over their heads. It must be allowed, that the roof being more out of sight, is still more unminded. Next to oak, is good yellow deal, which is a timber of length, and light, and makes excellent work at first; but, if neglected, will speedily perish; especially if gutters (which is a general fault in builders) be made to run upon the princ.i.p.al rafters, the ruin may be sudden. Our sea-service for oak, and the wars in the North Sea, make timber at present of excessive price. I suppose, ere long, we must have recourse to the West Indies, where most excellent timber may be had for cutting and fetching. Our tiles are ill made, and our slates not good: lead is certainly the best and lightest covering, and being of our own growth and manufacture, and lasting, if properly laid, for many hundred years, is, without question, the most preferable; though I will not deny but an excellent tile may be made to be very durable: our artisans are not yet instructed in it, and it is not soon done to inform them.... Now, if the churches could hold each 2,000, it would yet be very short of the necessary supply. The churches, therefore, must be large; but still, in our reformed religion it should seem vain to make a parish church larger than that all who are present can both hear and see. The Romanists, indeed, may build larger churches; it is enough if they hear the murmur of the Ma.s.s, and see the elevation of the Host; but ours are to be fitted for auditories. I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold above 2,000 persons, and all to hear the service, and both to hear distinctly, and see the preacher. I endeavoured to effect this in building the parish Church of S.

James, Westminster, which, I presume, is the most capacious, with these qualifications, that hath yet been built; and yet, at a solemn time, when the church was much crowded, I could not discern from a gallery that 2,000 were present. In this church I mention, though very broad, and the middle nave arched up, yet as there are no walls of a second order, nor lanterns, nor b.u.t.tresses, but the whole roof rests upon the pillars, as do also the galleries, I think it may be found beautiful and convenient, and, as such, the cheapest of any form I could invent.

'7. Concerning the placing of the pulpit, I shall observe a moderate voice may be heard fifty feet distant before the preacher, thirty feet on each side, and twenty behind the pulpit; and not this unless the p.r.o.nunciation be distinct and equal, without losing the voice at the last word of the sentence, which is commonly emphatical, and, if obscured, spoils the whole sense. A Frenchman is heard further than an English preacher, because he raises his voice, and sinks not his last words: I mention this as an insufferable fault in the p.r.o.nunciation of some of our otherwise excellent preachers, which schoolmasters might correct in the young as a vicious p.r.o.nunciation, and not as the Roman orators spoke: for the princ.i.p.al verb is, in Latin, usually the last word; and if that be lost, what becomes of the sentence?

'8. By what I have said, it may be thought reasonable, that the new church should be at least sixty feet broad, and ninety feet long, besides a chancel at one end, and the belfry and portico at the other.

[Sidenote: '_NO PEWS, BUT BENCHES._']

'These proportions may be varied; but to build more than that every person may conveniently hear and see is to create noise and confusion. A church should not be so filled with pews, but that the poor may have room enough to stand and sit in the alleys; for to them equally is the Gospel preached. It were to be wished there were to be no pews, but benches; but there is no stemming the tide of profit, and the advantage of pew-keepers; especially since by pews, in the chapel of ease, the minister is chiefly supported. It is evident these fifty churches are enough for the present inhabitants, and the town will continually grow: but it is to be hoped, that hereafter more may be added, as the wisdom of the Government shall think fit; and, therefore, the parishes should be so divided as to leave room for subdivisions, or at least for chapels of ease.

[_CLEAR BUILDING GROUND._]

'I cannot pa.s.s over mentioning the difficulties that may be found in obtaining the ground proper for the sites of the churches among the buildings, and the cemeteries in the borders without the town; and, therefore, I shall recite the method that was taken for purchasing in ground at the north side of S. Paul's Cathedral, where, in some places, houses were but eleven feet distant from the fabric, exposing it to the continual dangers of fires. The houses were seventeen, and contiguous, all in leasehold of the Bishop, or Dean alone, or the Dean and Chapter, or the petty-Canons, with divers under-tenants. The first we recompensed in kind, with rents of like value for them and their successors; but the tenants in possession for a valuable consideration; which to find what it amounted to, we learned by diligent inquiry, what the inheritance of houses in that quarter were usually held at; this we found was fifteen years' purchase at the most, and, proportionably to this, the value of each lease was easily determined in a scheme, referring to a map. These rates, which we resolved not to stir from, were offered to each; and, to cut off much debate, which it may be imagined everyone would abound in, they were a.s.sured that we went by one uniform method, which could not be receded. We found two or three reasonable men, who agreed to these terms; immediately we paid them, and took down their houses; others, who stood out at first, finding themselves in dust and rubbish, and that ready money was better, as the case stood, than to continue paying rent, repairs, and parish duties, easily came in. The whole ground at last was cleared, and all concerned were satisfied, and their writings given in.... This was happily finished without a judicatory or jury; although, in our present case, we may find it perhaps, sometimes necessary to have recourse to Parliament.'

FOOTNOTES:

[223] _Environs of London_, vol. iv. p. 450. Lysons.

[224] In the possession of H.M. the Queen.

[225] I can find no proof of this, and it is not mentioned in any list of his buildings that I have seen.

[226] Dr. Holder died 1694.

[227] Francis Bird, born in London 1667. His masterpiece was the monument to Dr. Busby. He died in London 1731. A stonecutter of the same name at Oxford is mentioned by Plot in connection with an invention for staining marbles and cutting them like a cameo, who I am inclined to think was a relation.

[228] Evelyn's _Diary_, September 7, 1704.

[229] Hitherto unpublished.