Miss Wren

“ At school no pains were spared with so promising a pupil as young Wren soon showed himself to be. His sister Susan married, in 1643, Mr. William Holder, subdean of the Chapel Royal, of a Nottinghamshire family, a good mathematician, and one ‘who had good skill in the practic and theoretic parts of music’ [27] Susan Wren was sixteen when she married, and though childless the marriage was a very happy one. ”

“ Undoubtedly she frowned faintly as she asked:
"What are you talking about, George?"
"Beau Geste, and the 'Blue Water,' Patricia," replied Lawrence. "If I appear to be talking through my hat, I am not really, and will produce reason for my wild-but-not-wicked words," he laughed. "There is method in my madness, dear."
"There's madness in your method," replied Lady Brandon a trifle tartly, and added: "Have you seen Michael, then? Or what? Tell me!" ”

“ Mrs. Wren shook a worldly-wise head. “As for being an outsider, a girl can’t be more than a lady just as a man can’t be more than a gentleman. And if you are a lady and have always gone straight you needn’t fear comparison with the highest in the land.”
Mary shook a head of sadness and perplexity.
“Somehow it doesn’t seem right to mix things in that way,” she said.
“It’s the only way that keeps ’em going,” said Mrs. Wren scornfully. “And well they know it. At least nature knows it. Look at Wrexham! Do you mean to say that his inbred strain wouldn’t be improved by Milly? ”

“ You can do that much for your living, surely."
Venus came over, smiled foolishly, and licked the Royal nose.
"Stop it, you Ass," said the Queen. "You've got to mourn, I tell you, not giggle. Lie down, and look as though you have lost Hope or a bone or something—go on. . . ."
Venus wagged his tail and mounted the block. The Headsman's eye gleamed and he raised his axe.
"My faithful follower wishes to die for me," exclaimed the delighted Queen. "He can."
As the Executioner poised himself for the stroke, Venus saw his mistake and vacated the block. ”

“ Sarah, Duchess, must have been a client calling for all Wren’s skill in handling people. When she quarrelled with Vanbrugh about his fees for Blenheim, she quoted Wren as a pattern of moderation “content to be dragged up in a basket, three or four times a week, to the top of St. Paul’s, and at great hazard, for £200 a year.”
Groombridge Place, Kent, is another house of infinite charm which has been attributed to Wren. The All Souls Collection of his drawings includes some sketch elevations of houses. ”

“ About this time, as his diary says, he was ‘joined together in happy matrimony.’ His wife was Eliza Brownrigg, the widowed daughter of Thomas Cull, Esquire, of Ipswich; she had one daughter by her first marriage, and seems to have been possessed of some property in Suffolk. The marriage was in truth as happy as the cruel times in which their lot was cast would allow, though chequered with many sorrows; for of the twelve children whose birth Wren records in his diary, six died while very young. When King Charles journeyed to Scotland for his coronation he summoned Wren to attend him. ”

“ Here we leave the little dolls' dressmaker, under the protecting care of her "godmother," the first real guardian she has ever known, and with a new friendship to supply her life with that youthful intercourse which has never been hers. And so in leaving her our hearts are light, for Miss Jenny Wren is brighter now, and happier now, and younger now, than ever before. ”

“ But they are born to certain things, they have been bred to them for generations, and it surely stands to reason that they are better at their own game than a mere outsider can hope to be.”
“Fiddle-de-dee!” said Mrs. Wren. “I hope you are not such a goose as to take swelldom at its own valuation. [Pg 114] It’s all a bluff, my dear. Your humble servant, Jane Wren, could have been as good a duchess as the best of ’em if she had been given the chance. I don’t want to be fulsome, my dear, but I’ll back a girl of your brains against Lady Agatha Fitzboodle or any other titled snob.” ”

“ In the Cathedral his memory is cherished; but in the city of London, which he rebuilt from its ashes, no statue has been erected to him, no great street has been honoured by taking as its own the name of Christopher Wren, though a name
On fame’s eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled. ”

“ Wren flitted from day to day, keeping his eye on one apartment, especially, which he considered particularly fine.
“I do wish she would hurry up,” he thought, anxious for Mrs. Wren to arrive. “It takes a female so long to get ready to go anywhere. I saw an impudent Blue Jay around here this morning and he may take a fancy to that apartment up there. I wouldn’t like to tackle him, and so, to let him see that it is rented, I’ll fetch a few more straws,” and off Mr. Wren flew, returning in a very little while with his bill full. ”

“ The "Blue Water" had vanished. The white velvet cushion was bare, and the glass cover covered nothing but the cushion.
§ 2. We must have looked a foolish band as we stood and stared, for a second or two, at that extraordinarily empty-looking abode of the great sapphire. I never saw anything look so empty in my life. Aunt Patricia broke the silence and the spell.
"Your joke, Augustus?" she enquired, in that rarely-used tone of hers that would have made an elephant feel small.
"Eh? Me? No, Aunt! Really! I swear! I never touched it," declared the youth, colouring warmly. ”

“ The year after the battle of Worcester, Inigo Jones died, poor and lonely, in a lodging close to the defaced cathedral. He and Christopher Wren must probably have met. Wren had a sincere admiration for his predecessor’s skill, and spoke of the S. Paul’s portico as ‘an exquisite piece in itself.’
MAKING HIMSELF.
In the autumn of 1653, Wren, then just twenty-one, was elected to a fellowship at All Souls, and happy in the comparative tranquillity of Oxford, pursued the various studies which he loved. ”

“ They sat one summer evening, exercise-books for correction piled in front of them.
"Our life," said Katharine, "is so delightfully free. Think of being a governess in a family."
Yes, Lucy Wren had been saved from that.
"Imagine being one of those girls in an idle rich family, with nothing to think about except dress and flirtations." ”

“ Wren's stern Scottish face was a sight to see. "Of what can you possibly be thinking, Major Plume?" he demanded, slowly now, for wrath was burning within him, and yet he strove for self-control. He had had a lesson and a sore one.
"I will answer that—a little later, Captain Wren," said Plume, rising from his seat, rejoicing in the new light now breaking upon him. Westervelt, too, had gasped a sigh of relief. No man had ever known Wren to swerve a hair's breadth from the truth. "At this moment time is precious if the real criminal is to be caught at all. You were first to reach the sentry. ”

“ TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY, CAMBRIDGE: RIVER FRONT.
Noble as this design was, I confess I take more pleasure from Wren’s design for a monument (also in All Souls Library) which Sir Reginald Blomfield reproduces [C] with the note that it was probably drawn by Grinling Gibbons. It shows a lady reclining on a couch, not unlike Raggi’s Lady Cheyne in Chelsea Old Church, but she points with a lively gesture to cherubs flying above her in a burst of rays and clouds. It shows Wren in his most baroque mood, and is perhaps his reminiscence of old Bernini’s monumental manner. ”

“ S. Margaret’s, Lothbury, belongs to the same date, and was rebuilt of stone. Some years later Wren bestowed much rich wood carving on the interior. He chose the Corinthian style for this building and handled it with considerable skill.
HAMPTON COURT.
Queen Mary, who had the Stuart love for genius, was invariably gracious and even friendly to Wren, with whom she held many a conversation on matters of art and science. He considered her to be very well versed in all these subjects and enjoyed discussing them freely with her. ”

“ The beautiful S. Stephen’s, Walbrook, was finished in 1679, and the parishioners, aware that their church was a gem of no common order, offered ‘a purse of twenty guineas to the Lady of Sir Christopher Wren, as a testimony of the regard that the parish has for the great care and skill that Sir Christopher Wren showed in the rebuilding of our church.’ [171] Lady Wren did not long survive to share in her husband’s fame and to sympathise in his work. ”

“ And it is not flattery but honesty, to give him his just praise; who is so far from usurping the fame of other men that he endeavours with all care to conceal his own.”
[118] A man could not ask a better epitaph than “so much excellence covered with so much modesty.”
It may be that Sprat was carried away by his affection for Wren and overstated the case, but that amiable reason can hardly apply to all his contemporaries. Robert Boyle, who had witnessed some of Wren’s experiments, testified that his knowledge of Wren’s extraordinary sagacity made him very desirous to try what he proposed. ”

“ Bound up in the heirloom Parentalia is a most careful drawing by Wren’s hand of the anatomy of the river eel. Instances of his versatility over the whole field of science can be multiplied almost indefinitely.
From the end of 1662 Wren’s name began to appear less frequently in the records of the Royal Society. His increasing preoccupation with architecture and, later, his journey to Paris provide the reason. ”

“ New and Mr. Enthoven I owe the permission to reproduce here some of the former’s drawings. Stephen Wren was unmarried, but contrived to beget a daughter, Margaret, who took the name of Wren. For her a copy of the Parentalia was bound sumptuously in red leather, tooled and gilt. It bears the initials “M. W.” and Margaret’s autograph appears on the title-page. Interleaved in this delightful and unique volume are many manuscripts, autograph letters, and engravings. Some are in connection with the Dean and the Bishop, but most have to do with Sir Christopher. ”

“ It was Ella's " "At Home," and Ella's husband. But what had Ella to do with either? Ella, with her mind so full of little things, so content with herself and with Tom. Did she envy Ella? Envy Ella? What a funny idea, how had it come into her head?
" Miss Wren, can I speak to you! I want to give you the fifth form next term. They are nice girls, but their tone isn't just what I should wish. It's a difficult age, their home influences are bad, frivolous. ”

“ In all these proceedings, as Elmes justly remarks, “the honour, integrity and public spirit of Wren appear transcendent.”
I must add a word about Wren as a draughtsman. The drawings which can with certainty be attributed to his own hand show him to have been a competent but not a good performer. A man so immersed in multifarious work had no time for the [130] niceties of the drawing-board, and it is probable that his details were drawn roughly in the shops of his contractors or “on the job,” as the work progressed. ”

“ Besides all these architectural and scientific cares, Wren had business of his own on hand, and was at this time engaged to be married to a lady four years younger than himself, whom probably he had known for some time. His bride was Faith, daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill and Elizabeth his wife, who lived at Bletchingdon in Oxfordshire. Sir Thomas was sheriff of the county in 1633, and was knighted at Woodstock in that year, the same in which King Charles was crowned in Scotland. ”

“ You should have at least one friend."
"I understand," briefly answered Wren, as he stepped to the hallway to get his sun hat. "I wish it might be you." The orderly was already speeding back to the office at the south end of the brown rectangle of adobe and painted pine, but Janet Wren, ministering, according to her lights, to Angela in the little room aloft, had heard the message and was coming down. Taller and more angular than ever she looked as, with flowing gown, she slowly descended the narrow stairway. ”

“ This professorship obliged him to come up to London and give a course of lectures every Wednesday in term time at Gresham College. None of these lectures have been preserved, and it seems from a hint in one of Dr. Sprat’s letters, that Wren was in the habit of lecturing from rough notes merely, and used no pains to keep any record of them.
‘HE MAY COME OUT AN HE WILL.’
At this time he made acquaintance with Richard Claypole, who was married to Elizabeth, Cromwell’s favourite daughter; both she and her sister, Lady Falconbridge, were faithful members of the persecuted Church of England. ”

“ We went downstairs and made our way to the smoking-room. The brass box caught my eye, and an idea also struck me with some violence, as I noticed that the lid and front seemed brighter than the rest of it.
"Don't expose me yet, John," said Michael as we crossed the hall.
"John been catching you out?" asked Digby.
"Caught me last night, didn't you, John?" replied Michael.
"Red-handed," said I.
"It's blue-handed that Aunt wants to cop someone," said Digby, opening the door of the smoking-room. "Sapphire-blue."
Isobel was sitting by the fire looking tearful and depressed. ”

“ Wren’s eldest son had in the meantime finished his Eton and Cambridge career and had obtained, by his father’s interest, the post, which must surely have been a sinecure! of Assistant Deputy Engrosser. He does not seem to have inherited any of the brilliant genius of his father, though apparently of very fair abilities and with much taste for antiquities. Far more like Sir Christopher was his daughter Jane, who shared his tastes and studies and took a vivid interest in his work. She added to her other accomplishments that of being a very skilful musician. ”