1842. 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



325 



"TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.^ 

 With an Engraving, Plate XII. 

 Karnes of the Public Buildings re/erred to in the annexed Plate. 



1. 



2. 



3. 



4. 



5. 



6. 



". 



8. 



9. 

 10. 

 11. 

 12. 

 13. 

 14. 

 15. 

 16. 

 17. 

 18. 

 19. 

 20. 

 21. 



St. Paul's Cathedral. 

 Chichester Cathedral (repaired). 

 St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street. 

 Westminster Abbey (Towers). 

 St. Vedast, Foster Lane. 

 Christ's Church, Newgate Street. 



j-AU Souls' CoUege, Oxford. 



St. Bene't's, Gracechurch Street. 



Christ's Hospital. 



St. Bartholomew, by the Exchange. 



St. Magnus, London Bridge. 



St. Peter's, Cornbill. 



St. Michael's, Wood Street. 



All Hallows', Bread Street. 



Tower of St. Michael, Queenhithe. 



Marlborough House. 



St. Martin's, Ludgate. 



Royal Hospital at Greenwich. 



Winchester Palace. 



St. Dunstau's in the East. 



22. St. Lawrence, Jewr\'. 



23. St. Stephen's, Walbrook. 



24. Tower of ditto. 



25. St. Michael, Queenhithe. 



26. Buildings in Lawrence Pountuey Hill. 



27. St. James's M'estminster. 



28. St. Bennet, Paul's M'harf, City. 



29. Buckingham House. 



30. Hampton Court Palace. 



31. St. Nicholas Cole-Abbey, Old Fish Street. 



32. Colonnade at Hampton Court. 



33. St. Michael Paternoster Royal. 



34. Entrance to Doctors' Commons. 



35. Temple Bar. 



36. St. Margaret Pattens, Rood Lane. 



37. St. Mary Aldermary, Watling Street. 



38. St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside. 



39. The Monument. 



40. Observatory at Greenwich. 



41. St. Anthony, Watling Street. 



42. St. Albans, Wood Street. 



43. 

 44. 

 43. 

 46. 

 4 7. 

 48. 

 49. 

 50. 

 51. 

 52. 

 53. 

 54. 

 55. 

 56. 

 57. 

 58. 

 59. 

 60. 

 61. 

 62. 



St. .^.ndrew's, Holborn. 



St. Michael's, Cornhill. 



St. George's, Botolph Lane. 



Morden College. 



Old Custom House. 



Chelsea Hospital. 



St. Margaret's, Lotbbury. 



Tower of Christ's Church College, Oxford. 



St. Edmund the King, Lombard Street. 



College of Physicians. 



St. Augustine, Watling Street. 



St. Bennet Fink, Threadneedle Street. 



Old Mansion House, Cheapside. 



St. Matthew's, Friday Street. 



St. James's, Garlick iliU. 



Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. 



Trinity College Chapel, Oxford. 



St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street. 



Trinity College Library, Cambridge. 



Buildings in Doctor' Commons. 



The publication of an engraving from Mr. Cockerell's design, illus- 

 trating all the principal works of Wren, appears to us a fitting oppor- 

 tunity for laying before our readers some account of that great man, 

 and a chronological list of his works. The drawing by Mr. Cockerell, 

 contains no less than sixty public structures, admirably grouped to- 

 gether, so as to produce a beautiful picturesqe effect ; it attracted 

 much attention when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838. Now, 

 by the spirited enterprise of Mr. Hill, of Edinburgh, the publisher, 

 a splendid line engraving on a large scale has been executed by Mr. 

 Richardson, in the first style of art, which will place this work at the 

 command of Wren's numerous admirers in England, on the continent, 

 and in the new world. We heartily commend it to their patronage. 

 The key-plate, which we insert in the present number, will, in our 

 volumes, be always accessible for reference, while the engraving itself 

 forms an abiding record of the labours of the most distinguished 

 master in English architecture, and a work so immediately connected 

 with the sympathies of Englishmen and of English architects, we hope 

 to see in the studio of every member of the profession. 



Christopher Wren was born on 20th Oct, 1632, at East Knoyle, 

 in Wiltshire, of which parish his father, Christopher Wren, Dean of 

 Windsor, was rector. In this parent he had the advantage of pos- 

 sessing a man of learning, by whom his precocious talents were nursed, 

 and from whom he derived his attachment to mathematical studies. 

 After studying at Westminster School, one of the most illustrious 

 seminaries in England, he entered at All Souls' College, Oxford, where 

 he took the degree of Bachelor and subsequently of Master of Arts, 

 and afterwards acquired a Fellowship. For success in life he pos- 

 sessed strong guarantees in the shape of extensive and profound 

 learning, and powerful connexion. The son of a dignitary who had 

 rendered good service to the royal cause, he was also the nephew of 

 Bishop Wren, a most violent Carlist partisan. His sister, too, is 

 recorded as being in the good graces of Charles II. for curing him of 

 a wound in the hand by her surgical skill. History sayeth not, but 

 perhaps like Newtou, Marlborough, and others of his eminent con- 

 temporaries. Wren might have been indebted for some portion of 

 advancement to feminine interest. However leagued with the royal 

 party, he was of too easy a disposition to allow such prepossessions to 

 stand in his way, for we find him, early in life, commended to the 

 notice of the Lord Protector Cromwell, and, like Dryden, commencing 

 Ins career under his patronage. The Protector even offered him to 

 Vol. V — No. 01.— Octobek, 1842. 



allow his uncle Bishop Wren's release from the Tower, but that furious 

 zealot liked martyrdom too well to accede to the conditions. The, 

 young Wren must, indeed, have been, as he js represented, of very 

 unworldly character to charge himself with such a mission ; for instead 

 cf finding it received as a boon, it was rejected by the Bishop with 

 the greatest indignation. It was not the fashion of that day to let 

 party stand in the way of personal advancement, and young Wren 

 continued his court to the "greatest man" of the day, and pressed 

 forward into the career of scientific advancement, which was opened 

 to him. Wren's chief glory is in some degree his misfortune, the 

 height of his fame in one department has obscured his proficiency in 

 others, and in becoming the great architect of his day, he has lost the 

 fame of being one of its greatest philosophers. To his precocity we 

 have already alluded, and to his inclination for mathematical studies ; 

 he was placed in a school well calculated to bring forth his ener- 

 gies ; for in those days, Newton being unborn, Oxford had not yet 

 ceded to her younger sister mathematical supremacy. Oxford was 

 also the cradle of the Royal Society, in which Wren was early en- 

 rolled, and he had thus full scope for the exertion of his talents, and 

 abundant promise of their being duly appreciated. As a mathema- 

 tician Wren ranks as one of the first of his day,* and to his last day, 

 he continued devotedly attached to that favourite pursuit. As his 

 youth began with that study, and his earliest compositions were di- 

 rected to it, so the last years of his life were spent in the correction 

 of the labours and observations of sixty years. It was Wren who suc- 

 cessfully accepted Pascal's famous challenge to the mathematicians of 

 England, and returned the defiance with a problem which Wren him- 

 self was alone able to answer. As a practical and tlieoretical astro- 

 nomer, he distinguished himself by his observations on the cometary 

 system, and on the satellites of Jupiter, and by anticipating Huygens 

 in assigning the theory of Saturn. He suggested the use of a certain 

 part of the length of a degree as a standard of measure. For the im- 

 provement of navigation and the instruments used in that art, in sur- 

 veying and iu the sciences of observations, he gave to the world many- 

 valuable inventions. He is a claimant for the honour of inventing the 

 barometer, and many of its practical applications. For the study of 

 optics he equally exerted himself; he applied himself to perspective 

 and to the devising of optical instruments. If such was the varied 

 range of his mathematical pursuits, natural studies did not less occupy 



* See Huttou's Mathematical Dictionary, article Wren. 



