144 WREN'S EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES 



Experiments, and Mechanic Improvements exhibited by Mr 

 Wren at the meetings in connection with the great movement. 

 One or two examples will serve to show the wide range of his 

 investigations : a weather clock ; an artificial eye, with the 

 humours truly and dioptically made ; several ways of graving 

 and etching ; divers improvements in the art of husbandry ; 

 divers new musical instruments ; easier ways of whale-fishing ; 

 ways to perfect coaches for ease. Indeed there seems to have 

 been nothing in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the 

 waters under the earth, about which he did not know something. 



These things may be regarded as the by-products of a great 

 imagination, an imagination which made him a skilled astronomer 

 and a profound mathematician. He had an extraordinary 

 aptitude for scientific research, and he was the first who ex- 

 perimented in the infusion of foreign liquid into the blood of 

 animals, a process which, modified to the transfusion of blood 

 from one person to another, has had remarkable results in 

 medicine. He also established, by experiment, before the Royal 

 Society in 1668, the Third Law of Motion ; and no doubt his 

 study of the laws of motion subsequently stood him in good 

 stead in his daring feats of architectural construction. 



The remarkable thing about these studies and experiments is 

 that, amid all their variety, not a word is said about architecture. 

 He was a fair draughtsman, but he was primarily a man of science 

 and a virtuoso, in other words, a man accomplished in the 

 arts and sciences, but who had no need to bring his knowledge 

 to any practical test involving responsibility. He was, however, 

 soon to become more than a virtuoso, for in the year 1661 he 

 was appointed deputy surveyor of his majesty's works and 

 buildings under Sir John Denham, and, after the latter's death 

 in 1668, he succeeded him in the office to the exclusion of the 

 more experienced Webb. 



Wren's early efforts in architecture show, as might be 

 expected, considerable immaturity. One of his first was the 

 Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, on which he was engaged 

 between 1663 and 1668. It is interesting as the work of a 

 man young in design, but it cannot be regarded as a master- 

 piece ; its shape is ungraceful, and its detail crude. One of its 

 "principal claims to attention was its roof, which covered (with a 

 flat ceiling) what was then considered a very wide span, namely, 

 70 ft. Here Wren's scientific training must have helped him ; he 



