uced
in facsimile in Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture in
England."_]

We now begin to find him devoting what Sprat most truly called "that
great genius of yours" to architecture. He examined carefully the
leading churches of England and of some parts of the Continent.[56] He
went to Paris the year of the Plague, and it is characteristic of the
taste of his time that no mediaeval cathedral passed on the way is
mentioned. At Paris, under the auspices of Mazarin, many architects
and artists were assembled. "I hope I shall give you a very good
Account of all the best Artists in France," he wrote to a friend. "My
business now is to pry into Trades and Arts. I put myself into all
shapes to humour them; 'tis a comedy to me, and tho' sometimes
expenceful, I am loth yet to leave it." He mentions not only leading
men like Colbert, but more than twenty architects, painters, and
designers he met, and above all Bernini, the architect of the Louvre.
"Bernini's designs of the Louvre I would have given my skin for; but
the old reserved Italian gave me but a five Minutes View; it was five
little designs on Paper, for which he had received as many thousand
Pistoles: I had only time to copy it in my Fancy and Memory." In after
years, when his enthusiasm had been tempered by a more mature
judgment, this eulogium would have been materially qualified. We may
add here that he was in course of time knighted, and became President
of the Royal Society.

[Illustration: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
_From the engraving in Elmes' Memoirs of Sir C. Wren, after the
portrait by Kneller at the Royal Society's rooms._]

Such was the man to whom not merely the king and his advisers, but
public opinion, turned to repair the ravages of the Fire, and in
particular to rebuild St. Paul's. It was the Surveyor General, Sir
John Denham, who recommended Wren as his successor, and the death of
Denham in March, 1668, gave this recommendation full effect. One of
Wren's many disappointments was that the opportunity was missed of
laying out afresh the whole City from Temple Bar to Tower Hill, and
from Moorfields to the river. His inventive genius projected broad
streets, generally rectangular, with piazzas, each the meeting-point
of eight thoroughfares, and quays and terraces along the river bank.
He calculated that by obliterating the numerous churchyards and laying
out healthier cemeteries in the suburbs, no owner would lose a square
foot of ground,