he was delicate during childhood, and, instead of being sent
early to school, received his primary instruction privately. Like his
father before him, he displayed great aptitude for mathematics, both
pure and applied, and was fortunate enough to have a capable teacher
in Dr. William Holder, the husband of a sister, in whose house his
father took refuge and died after his ejection from Windsor. At the
age of thirteen he was sent for a short period to Westminster, and
about the same time invented a new astronomical instrument. The next
year he was admitted as a gentleman commoner at Wadham College,
Oxford. Both the Warden, Dr. John Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor
of Astronomy, Dr. Seth Ward, observed his early promise, and gave him
every encouragement in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and he
continued to design ingenious instruments and models, Dr. Charles
Scarborough, a surgeon of note, making use of his talents in preparing
pasteboard models for his anatomical lectures.[53] His intellectual
precocity can only be compared to that of John Stuart Mill, and with
this difference, that whereas Mill was forced by his father like a
plant under glass, Wren's studies were spontaneous and voluntary.

Graduating in 1650, he was elected three years later, after taking his
Master's degree, to a Fellowship of All Souls, the next year began his
friendship with John Evelyn, and he was subsequently chosen Professor
of Astronomy at Gresham College[54] and Savilian Professor at Oxford.
Isaac Newton in the "Principia" cites him as an authority on
mathematics, and, had he never turned his attention to architecture,
he would still have taken high rank in other ways. By 1663, as appears
by a letter of Thomas Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, he was
looked upon as the fittest man to restore the dilapidated St.
Paul's, and was about the same time asked to go to Tangiers to direct
the extensive fortifications and harbour projected there. He refused
the offer of Tangiers on the plea of health, "and humbly prayed his
Majesty to allow of his Excuse, and to command his duty in England."
Although this post was to be accompanied by a reversionary grant of
the Surveyor Generalship of the Royal Works, one may well ask the
question, who, had he accepted it, would have rebuilt St. Paul's?[55]

[Illustration: ELEVATION AND SECTION OF WREN'S REJECTED DESIGN
FOR ST. PAUL'S.
_From his drawings in All Souls' College, Oxford, as reprod