churches, I should propose they be brought as forward as possible into the larger and more open streets; not in obscure lanes, nor where coaches will be much obstructed in the passage: nor are we, I think, too nicely to observe east or west in the position unless it falls out properly. Such fronts as shall happen to lie most open in view should be adorned with porticos, both for beauty and convenience, which, together with handsome spires or lanterns, rising in good proportion above the neighbouring houses (of which I have given several examples in the City, of different forms), may be of sufficient ornament to the town, without a great expense for enriching the outward walls of the churches, in which plainness and duration ought principally, if not wholly, to be studied. When a parish is divided, I suppose it may be thought sufficient if the mother-church has a tower large enough for a good ring of bells, and the other churches smaller towers for two or three bells." Wren had a just conception of what was required from the architect in our climate and state of society. The Grecian temple was a dark and narrow sanctuary, externally adorned. The Gothic cathedral was a vast field for the processions of a gorgeous ritual, in climates not always favourable to out-of-doors display. The public buildings of England are places for assemblies in which men can hear and understand each other, or for the display of works of art. If ever we are to have an English architecture worthy to rank alongside of English literature, English statesmanship, and English science, the use of our buildings must be made the first consideration, and their external form must be made not incongruous with-immediately derivative from-that usc. This truth Wren felt and made his guide on all occasions. His extensive scientific acquirements enabled him to give that firmness and solid consistency to his structures which alone is susceptible of receiving and retaining high finish and ornament. The outlines of his works (see the accompanying parallel) are, like all his conceptions, at once stately and graceful. If there be occasionally deficiency, or even faultiness, in his ornaments of detail, that is owing to his limited acquaintance with the architecture of different ages and nations, and not unfrequently to his work having been stunted by a scantiness of funds. There is a curious question connected with the building of St. Paul's, regarding the origin of Freemasonry. Herder in one of his fugitive pieces asserts (but without stating his authority) that Freemasonry (meaning thereby modern European Freemasonry-the Freemasonry of St. John, as it is called) had its origin during the erection of the cathedral, in a prolonged jest of Wren and some of his familiar associates. Herder's story is that, on the stated days on which Wren was accustomed to inspect the progress of the building he and his friends were accustomed to dine at a house in the neighbourhood; that a club was thus formed, which by degrees introduced a formula of initiation, and rules for the conduct of the members expressed in symbolical language, derived from the masonic profession. Similar jocular affectations of mystery are not uncommon: an interesting instance is mentioned by Göthe in his Dichtung und Wahrheit,' in which he took a prominent part during his residence in Wetzlar. It seems rather corroborative of Herder's assertion, that, while the biographers of Wren mention the attendance of the lodge of Freemasons, of which he was the master, at the ceremony of placing the highest stone of the lantern, no mention is made of their attendance at the laying of the foundation-stone. It is also worth notice that every lodge in Great Britain (and we may add on the Continent) is an off-shoot from that one lodge of which Sir Christopher was so long master, now generally known by the name of the Lodge of Antiquity. It is difficult too to conceive the tolerant spirit of masonry-its recognition of the personal worth of men irrespective of their opinions as their sole title to esteem, adopted by any body of men, while the inhabitants of Europe were growing into thinkers through the fever-fit of sectarianism. The age and nation in which Milton defended the liberty of the press, Taylor advocated the "liberty of prophesying," and Locke wrote in defence of toleration, are the first in which we can well fancy an association imbued with that principle to originate. Lastly, there are several circumstances connected with Wren's general career, and with the building of St. Paul's in particular, which seem to be mirrored in masonry. We pronounce no decided opinion on Herder's assertion-leaving the history of masonry, as far as we are concerned, in a state of dubiety, which seems more congenial than clear knowledge to such a mysterious institution. Should any zealous mason grumble at our implied scepticism regarding the great antiquity claimed by his order, we would respectfully remark that Sir Christopher Wren is as respectable a founder as he has any chance of getting-that he "may go farther and fare worse." Wren* was a man well qualified for drawing around him an intellectual and social circle of acquaintances. His talents were of the highest order, and he had overlooked no branch of knowledge cultivated in his day. Evelyn, in his Diary, says "1654, July 11. After dinner I visited that miracle of a youth, Mr. Christopher Wren, nephew to the Bishop of Ely;" and in his Sculpturæ, or History of Chalcography,' "Such at present is that rare and early prodigy of universal science, Dr. Christopher Wren, our worthy and accomplished friend.” His Latin composition is elegant; his mathematical demonstrations original and perspicuous. In 1658 he solved the problem proposed by Pascal as a challenge to the scientific men of England; and proposed another in return, which was never answered. In his fifteenth year he was employed by Sir Charles Scarborough, an eminent lecturer on anatomy, as his demonstrating assistant; and he assisted Willis in his dissections for a treatise on the brain, published in 1664, for which he made the drawings. His anniversary address to the Royal Society, in 1664, bears testimony to the comprehensive and varied range of his intellect, as also to his constant recurrence to observation as the fountain and corrector of theory. With the characteristic carelessness of true genius, he freely communicated the progress and results of his inquiries unchecked by any paltry anxiety to set his own mark upon them before he gave them currency. The earlier annals of the Royal Society bear record that many small men have plumed themselves upon inventions and discoveries which really were Wren's, but which he did not take the trouble to reclaim. His was a social disposition, and the workings of his intellect afforded one of his means of promoting the enjoyment of society. It is a flattering testimony to his temper, that during his long life he seems never to have lost a friend. Steele, in his sketch of Wren, under the name of Nestor, in the Tatler, dwells with emphasis on his modesty :-"his personal modesty overthrew all his public actions"-"the modest man built the city, and the modest man's skill was unknown." It was, however, no sickly Born 1631; died 1723. modesty—the want of a proper consciousness of his own strength. The bitter tears he wept when forced to abandon his original design for St. Paul's, are a proof how truly he estimated its value. When told one morning that a hurricane which occurred in the night had damaged all the steeples in London, he replied, with his quiet smile,-" Not St. Dunstan's, I am sure." There are passages in his Reports to the Commissioners, already quoted, conceived in the very spirit in which Milton announced his hope to compose something which future ages "would not willingly let die." An anecdote of Sir Dudley North, preserved by his brother Roger, conveys a distinct notion of Sir Christopher's conversation :-" He (Sir Dudley) was so great a lover of building, that St. Paul's, then well advanced, was his ordinary walk: there was scarce a course of stones laid, while we lived together, over which we did not walk. . . . . We usually went there on Saturdays, which were Sir Christopher Wren's days, who was the surveyor; and we commonly got a snatch of discourse with him, who, like a true philosopher, was always obliging and communicative, and in every matter we inquired about gave short but satisfactory answers." His equanimity supported him when the intrigues of German adventurers deprived him of the post of surveyor-general after the death of Queen Anne. "He then," observes his son, "betook himself to a country life, saying only with the stoic, Nunc me jubet fortuna expeditius philosophari; in which recess, free from worldly affairs, he passed the five last years of his life in contemplation and study, and principally in the consolation of the Holy Scriptures ;—cheerful in solitude, and as well pleased to die in the shade as in the light." It is said— and it must be true-that the greatest enjoyment of his latter days was an occasional journey to London to feast his eyes upon St. Paul's. On one of these occasions he was residing in St. James's Street. He had accustomed himself to take a nap after dinner, and on the 25th of February, 1723, the servant who constantly attended him, thinking he slept longer than usual, went into his apartment and found him dead in his chair. His mortal relics are deposited beneath the dome of St. Paul's, and his epitaph may be understood in a wider sense than even of that sublime interior: it embraces not merely the British metropolis, but every region where one man is to be found who has benefited by the light which Wren, and his associates in philosophical inquiry, were so instrumental in kindling: SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE. If the skill of our ancient physicians bore any proportion to the lofty pretensions of their studies, great indeed must have been their success. We are apt to fancy that no inconsiderable number of the members of the profession in modern times are distinguished for learning; but what are their attainments to those of Chaucer's "Doctor of Physic" in the fourteenth century? Are they, like him, "grounded in astronomy" (or astrology-the words were at that time almost synonymous)? Can they, as he is represented to have done, during all maladies, Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms can they, we ask, keep the patient "in houres" by their "magic natural;" or, in other words, so regulate the crisis of the disease that it shall only happen when the favourable house is in the "ascendant?" We verily believe that not one of them would ever know the decisive aspect of the heavens when it had arrived. Perhaps, to use Wallenstein's astrological phraseology, "Jupiter, That lustrous god, was setting at their birth Their visual power subdues no mysteries." Certainly they have no faith in these lofty matters. They will not even credit Roger Bacon when he says "astronomy is the better part of medicine;" and were John of Gatisden (the first English court physician) himself to revive, we make no doubt they would laugh to scorn his skill in physiognomy; his projected treatise on chiromancy, or fortune-telling; his sovereign remedies of the blood of VOL. II. C a weasel, and dove's dung; and his precaution (observed with the son of Edward I. or II. during the small-pox) of wrapping the patient in scarlet, and decorating the room throughout with the like colour (the whole being done in a very solemn and imposing manner), which safe prescription recovered him so that no mark was left on his face. And yet it was something in the hours of anguish to look on the "blessed luminaries " above, and connect their movements with the ebbings and flowings of health in our own veins: the very elevation and serenity of thought and feeling thus produced not unfrequently perhaps working a cure,— that might otherwise, we fear, have been vainly sought for from the heavenly conjunctions. But one inconvenience appears to have attended the belief in the medicinal efficacy of these mysterious agencies-astrology, necromancy, sorcery, &c. As it was tolerably evident that no amount of learning could sound their unfathomable depths, the unlearned made no scruple to plunge into them; and the consequence was, that the people placed the attainments of both classes on a common level; in which they were quite right as far as the supernatural was concerned, but quite wrong unfortunately when it led them to overlook the difference between the supernatural with medical knowledge and experience, and the supernatural without it. It was to remedy this state of things that the first operative act of Parliament concerning physicians was framed—the act of the 3rd of Henry VIII., 1511. The preamble gives us a valuable idea of the state of medicine at that period. It says "the science and cunning of physic and surgery was daily exercised by "a great multitude of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no insight in the same, nor in other kind of learning (some also can read no letters on the book); so far forth, that common artificers, as smiths, weavers, and women, boldly and accustomably took upon them great cures, and things of great difficulty, in which they partly used sorceries and witchcraft, and partly applied such medicines unto the diseased as are very noisome and nothing meet therefore; to the high displeasure of God, &c., and destruction of many of the King's liege people." It was then in consequence provided “that no person within the city of London, nor within seven miles of the same, take upon him to exercise or occupy as a physician, except he be first examined, approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London, or by the Dean of St. Paul's.” The other bishops in their several dioceses throughout the country had a similar power conferred on them; a custom, we may observe by the way, that existed down to at least the middle of the eighteenth century. Monks, at that time, formed the greater portion of the body of physicians. What sort of persons were appointed under the provisions of this act, we may judge from a perusal of the minutes of the College of Physicians respecting its proceedings against empirics, where we find half the illiterate quacks and impostors with whom it had to deal, supported by the great ones of the land, from the sovereign downwards. No wonder, then, that enlightened minds beheld the necessity of a better system. Foremost among these was Henry's physician, Thomas Linacre, who had also previously held the same office in the court of Henry VII., and continued to hold it afterwards through the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. He was born at Canterbury, about 1460. He studied at Oxford, at Bologna, at Florence (where Lorenzo de Medici allowed him the privilege of attending the same professors with his own sons), and at Rome. He is said to have been the first Englishman who made himself master of |