SIR OHBISTOPHER WREN.*
THE hook before us goes some way towards making up for the neglect with which England's greatest architect has been treated in recent years by the writers and compilers of " Art. Books." At the same time, we could have wished for rather more technical information and fewer generalities. For instance, we should like to know whether Wren's system of proportion was founded on theory or was purely empirical P Again, did he employ methods and forms unused before, or did he only make use of well-known formulas of Boman architecture, applying them in his own splendid way P But if we do not find all we should like to know in Miss 2/ninon's book, we can nevertheless, especially if we skip the early chapters with their diatribes against the Puritans, discover a great deal of interesting history and analysis of Wren and his art. Wren was a rare, indeed perhaps the only, instance of a great English artist who came from the intellectual and conj. voted classes. His father was Dean of Windsor and his uncle Bishop of Ely, and the young. man grew. up in a society of clever people and Court favour. Oxford and science, especially mathematics and astronomy, absorbed him, and his original outlook upon building was from the standpoint of geometry, In the year 1665, at the ago of thirty-two, Wren went to Paris and became acquainted with Mansard and Bernini, and witnessed the building of the Louvre. The artistic side of the man was awakened, and Wren returned to England and by degrees developed into the architect who was able to build St. Paul's. With Wren it was certainly a case of the hour and the man. London and its Cathedral were burnt down, but an architect equal to the great occasion was waiting ready to rebuild them. Unhappily the English dislike of eo-ordinated plans crippled the genius who would have made the city rise from its ashes upon well-Ordered lines. These lines would not have been those of dull regularity, like the plan of a new town in America. Wren took the main features of London, physical and historic, and let them be the starting-points of his scheme. However, the citizens would have none of it, and preferred to build haphazard. But if Wren could not carry out a general plan, he, besides building the Cathedral, was employed in designing numbers of churches. Of these lost, though many remain, fourteen have been destroyed by fire and the Union of City Benefices Act, the second being much the MOM destructive agent of the two. It has accounted for no less than ten chnrches pulled down in the latter part of the last century. The amount of building accomplished by Wren wae enormous, oven taking into con- sideration the taut that at the age of ninety be was still at work. To the end he was consulted about the fabric of Westminster Abbey, although he was not responsible for the mean western towers, as is popularly supposed.
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