sir CHRISTOPHER WREN, knt.

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signs for that Purpose: his Predecessor Mr, Inigo Jones had (pursuant to aRoyal commission in 1631, y Car. I.) put the Quire, of a more modernGothick Stile, as before specified, than the rest of the Fabrick, into very goodRepair; he had proceeded to case great Part of the Outside with Portland-Jlone ; had rebuilt the North and South-fronts; and also the West-front, withthe Addition of a very graceful Portico of the Corinthian Order, built. oflarge Portland-/!one. The great Tower remained <to be new cased Inside andOutside; and the whole Inside from the Quire to the West-door to be newcased, and reformed in some Measure.

The Vaulting wanted much 1 to be amended, in order to which it was allwell center’d, and upheld with Standards of some hundreds of tall Masts.

In this State was the Fabrick when the great Rebellion began; " but in" 1643. all the Materials, &c. assign’d for the Repairs were seized, theu Scaffolds pull’d down ; and-the Body of the Church converted to a Horse- DugJale’s St*' quarter for Soldiers ; the beautiful Pillars of Inigo Jones’s Portico were P aul ’ s >£- H 6" shamefully hew’d and defaced for support of the Timber-work of Shops, ^ c ‘

" for Seamstresses, and other Trades; for which sordid Uses, that stately'* Colonade was wholly taken up, and defil’d. Upon taking away the inner" Scaffolds, which suppported the arched Vaults, in order to their late in-“ tended Repair, the whole Roof of the South-crofs tumbled down; and" the rest in several Places of the Church, did often fall; so that the“ Structure continued a wofui Spectacle of Ruin, till the happy Restora-" tion.

“ In 1662, the Dean and Chapter had taken Care to fit up fqr divine** Service, the East-part of the Church beyond the old Quire, enlarging itu the length of one Arch, into the Quire, until the Repairs of the remainingu Part of the old Fabrick should be perfected.

" For the expediting of which general Repair, a royal Commission pass’d Centhuatht“ in 1663. After this, the Time was spent, in taking down Houses and 3

" Nusances that had been rais’d by the late Usurpers, at the West-end, and /. 149.

" Sides of the Church; in clearing the Rubbish; searching the Decays; re-<c pairing the Portico ; in Provision of Stone, Timber, and all necessary Pre-

parations; until the Beginning of the Year, 1666. By which Time Dr.

Wren had siniih’d and adjusted his Designs for the whole Reparation, and" laid the fame before the King, and the Commissioners.

The first Business Dr. Wren had enter’d upon, previous to the forming De-signs for the general Repairs, was to take an exact Plan, Orthography, andSection, upon an accurate Survey of the whole Structure, even to Inches ; inthe Prosecution of which, he was astonissi’d to find how negligent the firstGuilders had been; they seem’d Normans, and to have used the Norman Foot;hut they valu’d not Exactness: some Inter-columns were one Inch and a halfsoo large, others as much, or more, too little. Nor were they true in theirlevels. It consisted in great Part of old Materials, which the Founder, Mau-ritius Bishop of London , had procur’d of King William the Fir ft t out of the^•uins of the Palatine Lower ; these were small Torkjhire Free-stone, Kentijh-u Oiler, and KentiJJo- rag from Maidftone. They made great Pillars withoutu Uy graceful Manner ; and thick Walls without Judgment. They had not3s yet fallen into the Gothick pointed-arch, as was follow’d in the Quire of aWer Date, but kept to the circular Arch; so much they retain’d of the$°nian Manner, but nothing else: Cornices they could not have, for want°f larger Stones : in short, it was a vast, but heavy Building.-—Adjoining toSouth-crofs was a Chapter-house of a more elegant Gothick Manner, with

4 Cloyster of two Stories high.

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