arduous undertaking. At first the men stood above, working them down with pickaxes, while labourers below moved away the materials that fell and dispersed them in heaps. The accumulation of rubbish by this means was so great as for a time to hinder them in forming the foundations; part, however, was in time removed to heighten or pave streets, or build the parochial churches. Before this was accomplished, however, Wren constructed scaffolds high enough to extend over the heaps in his way; and, dropping perpendiculars from lines drawn carefully upon the level plan of the scaffold, he set out his foundations. He worked on in this fashion, gaining every day more room, till he came to the middle tower that formerly carried the lofty spire. The workmen quailed before the dangerous task of mounting two hundred feet to cast down this ruin; and Wren's inventive genius immediately conceived the idea of attaining his end by the agency of gunpowder. He drove a hole two feet square to the centre of the pier, deposited in it a deal box containing eighteen pounds of gunpowder; affixed to this a hollow cane containing a quick match, and, closing the mine, gave directions for its explosion. This small quantity of powder lifted up the whole angle of the tower, the two great arches that rested upon it, and the two adjoining arches of the aisles, with the masonry above. The walls cracked to the top, and were lifted visibly, en masse, about nine inches; then, suddenly subsiding again, they fell into a heap of ruins without scattering. It was half a minute before the heap opened in two or three places, and emitted smoke. The fall occasioned such a concussion that the inhabitants round about took it for the shock of an earthquake. The architect, confident in the accuracy of his calculations, awaited with perfect calmness the result of his experiment. His next officer, charged during his absence with the explosion of another mine, put in too much powder, and did not drive the hole deep enough; the consequence of which was that a fragment of stone was shot into the room of a private house where two women were at work. Neither were injured; but the terror of the neighbours induced the commissioners to prevent any further use of gunpowder. The architect was thus forced to turn his thoughts to other methods of saving time, diminishing expense, and protecting men's lives and limbs. His most successful expedient was the adoption of the ancient battering-ram. He provided a strong mast of timber, about forty feet in length, and armed the bigger end with a great spike of iron, fortified with iron bars along the mast, secured by ferrules. This machine he suspended from two places to one ring with a strong tackle, on a triangle (such as were used to weigh heavy ordnance), and kept thirty men beating with this instrument against the same part of the wall for a whole day. The workmen, not discerning any immediate effect, thought this mere waste of time; but Wren, who knew the internal motion thus communicated must be operating, encouraged them to persevere. On the second day the wall began to tremble at the top, and fell in a few hours.

The first stone of the new cathedral was laid on the 21st of June, 1675, by the architect. It was October, 1694, before the choir was finished, as to the stone-work, and the scaffolds struck both without and within in that part. It was the 5th of December, 1697, before divine service was performed at St. Paul's for the first time since the Fire of 1666. And it was not till the year 1710, when Wren had attained the seventy-eighth year of his age, that his son Christopher

laid the highest stone of the lantern on the cupola, attended by the venerable architect himself, Mr. Strong, the master-mason to the cathedral, and the lodge of Freemasons, of whom, says his biographer, Elmes, "Sir Christopher was for many years the active as well as acting master." Forty-four years had elapsed since the burning of the ancient fane; thirty-five since the laying of the first stone of the new. Three reigns had terminated; a revolution had driven a family from the throne; a dynasty (that of Orange) had received the sceptre and become extinct; whilst the stately pile, "the Corinthian capital" of the metropolis, was slowly growing up. The cause of this delay is not the least interesting part of our tale.

The royal mandate of the 14th of May, 1675, which was Wren's warrant for laying the foundation stone, was in fact little more than a permission to carry his plan into effect if he could. In the first place, proper materials were not easily procured, notwithstanding an order issued by the King in Council, in May 1669, to the effect that "there hath been for many years past great waste made of our stone in the Isle of Portland***; in consideration of which, and the great occasion we have of using much of the said stone *** for the repair of St. Paul's, our pleasure is, and we do by these presents will and require all persons whatsoever, that they forbear to transport any more stone from our Isle of Portland, without the leave and warrant first obtained from Dr. Christopher Wren, surveyor of our works." In the next place, money was not forthcoming in sufficient quantities. It is true that, in addition to the proportion of coal-duties allotted to the building of St. Paul's, King Charles graciously states in his second commission-"We are very sensible that the erecting such a new fabric or structure will be a work not only of great time, but of very extraordinary cost and expense;" and adds, "We are graciously pleased to continue the free gift of 10001. by the year, to be paid quarterly out of our privy purse, for the rebuilding and new erecting of the said church;" but the value of a "promise to pay" from the merry monarch was very fluctuating and uncertain. The remaining provisions for raising funds were-authority given to the commissioners to ask and receive voluntary contributions from all subjects; an injunction to the judges of the Prerogative Court and others to set apart "some convenient proportion" of all commutations for penance towards the erection of St. Paul's; and an inquisitorial power vested in the commissioners to inquire after any legacies and bequests for the benefit of the cathedral church that may have been fraudulently concealed. In 1678 the Bishop of London felt it necessary to publish a very earnest and urgent address, exhorting all classes of persons throughout the kingdom to extend their liberality towards the building; and among the receipts of one year we find entered 507. from Sir Christopher Wren, whose annual salary as architect was only 2001. But the greatest obstruction he experienced was occasioned by the prejudices and ill-will of a section of the commissioners. They pestered him by incessant attempts to force him to deviate from his own plan, and introduce alterations, the suggestion of crude ignorance. This annoyance began with his undertaking, and even survived its close. The alterations forced upon him by the Duke of York have already been noticed. In 1717 the commissioners transmitted to him a resolution importing "that a balustrade of stone be set up on the top of the church, unless Sir Christopher Wren do, in

writing under his hand, set forth that it is contrary to the principles of architecture, and give his opinion in a fortnight's time; and if he doth not, then the resolution of a balustrade is to be proceeded with." The venerable architect replied by a demonstration of the ignorance which dictated the proposal, prefacing his remarks thus: "I never designed a balustrade. Persons of little skill in architecture did expect, I believe, to see something they had been used to in Gothic structures, and ladies think nothing well without an edging. I should gladly have complied with the vulgar taste, but I suspended for the following reasons," &c. He concludes with the emphatic declaration-"My opinion therefore is, to have statues erected on the four pediments only, which will be a most proper, noble, and sufficient ornament to the whole fabric, and was never omitted in the best ancient Greek and Roman architecture; the principles of which, throughout all my schemes of this colossal structure, I have religiously endeavoured to follow; and if I glory, it is in the singular mercy of God, who has enabled me to begin and finish my great work so conformable to the ancient model." It would have been well had the thwarting he experienced been confined to this meddling coxcombry of tampering with his plans; but, irritated at his opposition to their interference, his persecutors had recourse to still meaner devices for annoying him. As early as 1675 we find their creatures set on to fly-blow his fame with accusations of undue delay in the payment of workmen; and in 1710 we find them throwing obstacles in the way of finishing the building, for the avowed purpose of keeping him out of 1300%., the amount of a moiety of his salary suspended by Act of Parliament till the completion of the building. Notwithstanding these obstructions, Wren single-handed completed St. Paul's in the course of thirty-five years from the laying of the foundation stone; while St. Peter's was the work of more than twenty architects, supported by the treasure of the Christian world, under the pontificates of nineteen successive Popes.

Nor was St. Paul's the work of an undistracted attention. In a manuscript book of the transactions of the privy council, in possession of Mr. Elmes when he wrote the Life of Wren, the architect's name occurs in almost every page. Petitions are constantly referred to the "surveyor-general," in order that he may make personal inspection and report. At one time we find him despatched to Knightsbridge, to report whether the site of a projected brewhouse be sufficiently remote from town; and a few days after he is ordered to report on certain buildings erecting in the rear of St. Giles's Church contrary to proclamation. Nobody but Sir Christopher Wren could be found to make proper arrangements for the accommodation of "the Mayor, Aldermen, and officers of this city, and also of the livery of the twelve companies," in Bow Church. To him was intrusted the task of designing and erecting a mausoleum for Charles I., and afterwards for Queen Mary. He was appointed by the Royal Society, in conjunction with Evelyn, to conduct the sale of Chelsea College to Government. Upon him devolved the task of detecting and abating all nuisances, irregular buildings, defects in drainage, &c., that might prove prejudicial to public health or the beauty of the Court end of the town. These tasks imposed upon him much personal exertion and extensive and intricate calculations. In 1762 we find him engaged laying out a new road to Stepney, and in 1692 the new road from Hyde Park

Corner to Kensington. The Royal Exchange, the Monument, Temple Bar, Chelsea Hospital, many of the Halls of the great companies, seventeen churches of the largest parishes in London, and thirty-four out of the remaining parishes on a large scale, were rebuilt under the direction and from the designs of Wren, during the time that he was engaged upon St. Paul's. When an Act of Parliament was passed in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Anne for the erection of fifty additional churches in the cities of London and Westminster, Wren was appointed one of the commissioners for carrying on the works.*

Previous to his undertaking this new office he submitted to his colleagues a report on the proper method of conducting such an important business, pointing out the most fitting situations for new churches, the best materials to be used, the most proper dimensions, situation of the pulpit, and other necessary considerations. As we found the germ of the conception of his own St. Paul's Cathedral in his report to King Charles on the condition of the ancient, structure, so we find embodied in this report to the commissioners a satisfactory exposition of his theory of ecclesiastical architecture. Wren, a man of equally balanced disposition and strong judgment, was born and had his early education in the family of a dignitary of the Church of England; his scientific and literary training and many distinctions he received at Oxford. He was emphatically a Protestant according to the views of the Church of England-an admirer of its subdued yet elegant stateliness of ritual. This feeling, co-operating with his fundamental principle, that in architecture use and ornament must always go hand in hand, produced his peculiar style of church-building, and must never be left out of view in attempting to estimate the character and success of that class of his works. The first object with Wren was to ascertain the proper capacity and dimensions of a church. Owing to the populousness of London, "the churches must be large; but still, in our reformed religion, it should seem vain to make a parish church larger than 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 mass and see the elevation of the host; but ours are to be fitted for auditories." Having determined the most eligible size of a church upon this principle, and hinted at the variations of form and proportion of which it was susceptible, he proceeds to the internal arrangement-the distribution of the area and the position of the pulpit :-" 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 pronunciation 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." Upon the useful he superinduces his external ornament, taking care that there shall be no discordance between the two:-"As to the situation of the

* 1. St. Dunstan's in the East.-2. St. Magnus.-3. St. Benet, Gracechurch Street.-4. St. Edmund the King, Lombard Street.-5. St. Margaret Pattens.-6. Allhallows the Great.-7. St. Mary Abchurch.-8. St. Michael, Cornhill.-9. St. Lawrence, Jewry.-10. St. Benet Fink.-11. St. Bartholomew.-12. St. Michael, Queenhithe.-13. St. Michael Royal.-14. St. Antholin, Watling Street.-15. St. Stephen, Walbrook.— 16. St. Swithen, Cannon Street.-17. St. Mary-le-Bow.-18. Christ Church, Newgate Street.-19. St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey.-20. St. Mildred, Bread Street.-21. St. Augustin, Watling Street.-22. St. Mary Somerset.23. St. Martin, Ludgate.-24. St. Andrew by the Wardrobe.-25. St. Bride, Fleet Street. The scale is expressed by St. Paul's in the background.