748 W R E W R E 
WREIGHILL, a township of England, in Northumber- from Hampton-Court to London, in February, 1723. His 
land: 15 miles west-south-west of Alnwick. remains were interred, with suitable funeral honours, under 
WREKIN, a river of England, in Lancashire, which 
falls into the Stour. 
WREKIN, a noted hill of England, lying to the east of 
Shrewsbury, in Salop, 1200 feet high. 
WRELTQN, a township of England, in Yorkshire; 21- 
miles west-north-west of Pickering. 
WREN (Sir Christopher), an eminent architect and mathe¬ 
matician, was born in 1632, at the living of his father, who 
was rector of East Knoyle, in Wiltshire, and finished his 
education at Wadham college, Oxford, into which he entered 
in 1646. Before this time, he had given proofs of genius 
by the invention of astronomical and pneumatic instruments; 
the former of which he dedicated to his father, at the age of 
13, in a copy of elegant Latin verses, together with an exer¬ 
cise “ De Ortu Fluminum.” He also distinguished himself 
by the construction of other philosophical instruments ; and 
in 1647 he wrote a treatise on Spherical Trigonometry upon 
a new plan. In 1650 he graduated B.A., and in 1651 wrote 
an algebraical tract on the Julian period. In 1653 he was 
elected fellow of All-Souls’ college, and graduated M.A. He 
was one of the first members of the Philosophical Society at 
Oxford, from which proceeded the Royal Society, and con¬ 
tributed by his experiments and inventions to the amuse¬ 
ment and instruction it afforded ; and in 1663 he was elected 
a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1657 he was chosen as¬ 
tronomical professor at Gresham college; but upon being 
appointed Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, he re¬ 
signed the former office, and in 1661 returned to the univer¬ 
sity, which created him doctor of laws. Wren next presents 
himself to our view as a pre-eminent architect; and thus dis¬ 
tinguished, he received a commission in 1663 to prepare 
designs for the repair of St. Paul’s cathedral; and after his 
return from a tour to France in 1665, with a view to his im¬ 
provement in architecture, he finished those, designs; but 
whilst they were under consideration, the edifice was destroy¬ 
ed by the fire of London in 1666. This catastrophe af¬ 
forded him an opportunity of designing and constructing a 
building altogether new. The contemporary destruction of 
50 parochial churches and many public buildings furnished 
ample scope for the exercise of Wren’s talents; and he 
would have had the honour of refounding, as it were, a new 
city, if the design which he laid before the king and parlia¬ 
ment could have been accomplished without infringing on 
the rights of private property. On the death-of Sir John 
Denham in 1667, he succeeded to the office of surveyor of 
the works; and, in order to obtain leisure for executing the 
various works in which he was employed, and more particu¬ 
larly the rebuilding of St. Paul’s cathedral, he resigned his 
Savilian professorship in 1673. In 1674 he received the 
honour of knighthood, and in the following year the founda¬ 
tion of the new cathedral was laid. For a particular account 
of this magnificent edifice, see the article London. In 
1680 Sir Christopher’s scientific merits caused him to be 
elected president of the Royal Society. In 1683 he was ap¬ 
pointed architect and commissioner for Chelsea college, and 
in the following year comptroller of the works in the castle 
of Windsor. In 1685 he was introduced into parliament as 
a representative of Plympton. To his other public trusts 
were added, in 1698, that of surveyor-general and commis¬ 
sioner for the repair of Westminster abbey ; in 1699 that of 
architect of Greenwich hospital; and in 1708 that of one 
of the commissioners for the 50 new churches proposed to be 
erected in and near the city of London. Having fulfilled 
all his dulies to the 86th year of his age, the administration 
of 1718 incurred indelible disgrace, by suffering political 
consideration to have such influence as to deprive him of his 
place of surveyor to the royal works. The remaining five 
years of his life were spent in honourable retirement, and 
devoted to scientific pursuits, and the reading of the Scrip¬ 
tures. It is said that he indulged a very pardonable vanity 
by being carried once every year to survey St. Paul’s cathe¬ 
dral. His life was prolonged to his 91st year, and termi¬ 
nated in consequence of a cold which he caught in coming 
the choir of St. Paul’s, and upon his tomb is a concise but 
very appropriate and expressive Latin inscription, ending 
“ Lector, si monumenlum requiris, circumspice.” Sir Chris¬ 
topher was twice married, and left one son, a man of learn¬ 
ing and piety, and a good antiquary. The edifices con- 
structed by Wren were mostly public, including a royal 
hunting-seat at Winchester, and the modem part of the 
palace at Hampton-Court. Some of the most remarkable, 
besides St. Paul’s, are, the Monument, the theatre at Oxford, 
the library of Trinity college, Cambridge, the hospitals of 
Chelsea and Greenwich, and of Christchurch, London, the 
church of St. Stephen, Walbrook, those of St. Mary-le-Bow, 
St. Michael, Cornhill, and St. Bride, distinguished by their 
steeples, and the great campanile of Christchurch, Oxford. 
Of the rank which he occupied as a man of science, we may 
form some judgment from the succeeding concise detail of 
his performances, and more particularly from the testimony 
of Sir Isaac Newton, who, in his “ Principia,” joins the 
names of Wren, Willis, and Huygens, -and characterizes them 
as “ hujus retails Geometrarum facile principes.” As to his 
moral character, it is said to have been worthy of his intel¬ 
lectual eminence; as with great equanimity, he was pious, 
temperate, modest, and communicative of his knowledge; 
and few men seem to have been more generally esteemed by 
their contemporaries. With regard to his architectural skill 
and attainments, a very competent judge, being himself of 
the profession, says, that he possessed an inexhaustible ferti¬ 
lity of invention, combined with good natural taste and pro¬ 
found scientific knowledge ; and that his talent was particu¬ 
larly adapted to ecclesiastical architecture, which afforded 
domes and towers to his picturesque fancy; while, in his 
palaces and private houses, he has sometimes sunk into a 
heavy monotony, as at Hampton-Court and Winchester. 
Among the rich variety of Wren’s towers, steeples, and 
spires, many are truly elegant. The church of St. Stephen’s, 
Walbrook, exhibits a deviation from common forms equally 
ingepious and beautiful. The Monument is grand and 
simple. At Greenwich, his additions to the original work 
of Inigo Jones are singularly grand and beautiful. Upon 
the whole, Sir C. Wren’s architecture is perhaps the per¬ 
fection of that modern style which, with forms and modes 
of construction essentially Gothic, adopts for the decorative 
part the orders and ornaments of antiquity. Biog. Brit. 
Walpole s Anecd. Gen. Biog. 
WREN, s. [ppenna, Saxon; regulus, Lat.] A small 
bird. 
The poor wren, 
The most diminutive of birds, will fight, 
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. Shakspeare. 
WRENBURY, a township of England, in Cheshire; 5 
miles south-west of Nantwich. Population 455. 
'To WRENCH, v. a. [ppmgan, Saxon ; wr eng hen, 
Dutch ; old Engl, raunch. “Hasting to raunch the arrow 
out.” Spenser J] To pull by violence; to wrest; to force. 
Oh form! 
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, 
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls 
To thy false seeming! Shakspeare. 
To sprain; to distort. 
O most small fault! 
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show ? 
Which, like an engine, wrencht my frame of nature 
From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love. 
And added to the gall. Shakspeare. 
You wrenched your foot against a stone, and were forced 
to stay. Swift. 
WRENCH, s. A violent poll or twist; a sprain.—Some 
small part of the foot being injured by a wrench , the whole 
leg thereby loses its strength. Locke.-—Wrenches, in Chau¬ 
cer, signifies means, sleights, subtilties; which is, I believe, 
the sense here.—He resolved to make his profit of this busi¬ 
ness 
