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On March the 18th, 1650, he commenced Batchelor of Arts; and the following year, at his father's request, he composed a short algebraical tract, relating to the Julian period, very useful in chronology. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls college in the beginning of November, 1653; and, the 11th of December following, he took the degree of Master of Arts. In the mean time he became one of the first members of the Philosophical Society at Oxford; at whose first assemblies at Wadham college, he exhibited many new theories, inventions, experiments, and mechanic improvements. In 1656, he invented the method of infusing liquors immediately into the mass of blood in an animal body. This, like many other of his inventions and discoveries was falsely challenged by the Germans and other foreigners; which occasioned the Royal Society to publish a paper in defence of Sir Christopher's just claim.

On the 7th of August, 1657, he was chosen Astronomy Professor in Gresham college, London; when he made a very learned speech on his inauguration. In 1658, he first of any one found out a straight line equal to the cycloid, and parts thereof; and about the same time he solved the problem relating to the then newly discovered elliptical astronomy. This problem had been proposed by the ceJebrated mons. Pascal, under the feigned name of Jean de Montfert, to all the English mathematicians as a challenge. Mr. Wren sent his solution to the challenger, and returned another problem in the like spirit to the mathematicians in France (formerly proposed by Kepler, and then likewise solved by our author) of which they never gave any solution. Not long after this, he suggested, in the year 1659, a method for finding the different pressure of the air, which occasioned the discovery of the use of the barometer as a weather-glass. In 1660, he invented a method for the construction of solar eclipses, which has now for many years been generally followed as the most concise and plain. He was very instrumental in concerting those, weekly meetings, which were begun this year at Gresham college; but he soon after removed back to Oxford, being appointed on

the

the fifth of February Savilian professor of astronomy in the room of Dr. Ward. He entered on his Savilian professorship, having resigned that of Gresham, on the 18th of May, 1661; and was created on the 12th of September doctor of laws.

Not long after his return to England, from travels which he had undertaken for his improvement in the science of architecture, having digested and finished his designs for the entire reparation of St. Paul's, he laid them before the king and the commissioners in the beginning of the year 1666; but, that part of the plan, by which a dome with a cupola, and a lantern with a spiring top, was to be raised in the room of the old steeple, being opposed by several of them, a contest arose, which five days after was decided by the fire of London on the 2d of September. That dreadful calamity furnished matter abundantly to exercise all the extraordinary talents of an enlightened architect. Upon this occasion he was appointed surveyor-general and principal architect for rebuilding the whole city; in which was included, not only the cathedral of St. Paul, but fifty-one parochial churches, which were enacted by parliament to be built in lieu of those that were burnt and demolished, besides other public structures; and also for the disposition of the streets. He immediately drew up excellently beautiful plans for that purpose, which were laid before the king and the House of Commons. But the execution of that noble design was unhappily prevented by the disputes which arose about private property, and the haste and hurry of rebuilding.

In 1669, he finished the theatre at Oxford. On March the 9th, 1673, he resigned his Savilian professorship in the university, and had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him by his majesty the ensuing year.

Before the end of 1674, he married Faith, daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill, of Blechingdon in Oxfordshire; upon whose decease the next year, he soon after married Jane, daughter of William, Lord Fitzwilliam, baron of Lifford in the kingdom of Ireland. On the 10th of August 1675,

the

the foundation of the Royal Observatory was laid at Green. wich, in pursuance of a proposal made by Sir Christopher, who was one of the commissioners appointed by his majesty to find a proper place for that purpose.

In 1680, he was elected president of the Royal Society. In 1683, March the 23d, he began to build the palace of Winchester; and the same year he was appointed architect and a commissioner for Chelsea college. In 1681, he was constituted, in the room of Hugh May, Esq. deceased, principal officer by the style of comptroller of the works in the castle of Windsor, and of all manors and lodges in the forest thereof. In 1685, he was chosen member of parliament for Plympton in Devonshire. In 1690, he began to build the two royal apartments at Hampton Court, which were finished in 1694, just before the death of queen Mary. In 1698, an act of parliament being passed, to charge a branch of the duty on coals for repairing Westminster Abbey, Sir Christopher was appointed surveyor-general, and a commissioner of the works of that cathedral; and he began to carry on the building of Greenwich Hospital the following year. Chelsea College was also compleated under his direction, where he likewise prescribed the statutes and whole economy of the house. In 1700, he was elected a burgess in parliament for Weymouth, and Melcomb Regis in Dorsetshire. In 1708, he was appointed one of the commissioners for building the fifty new churches in and about London. In 1710, he finished the cathedral of St. Paul's. In 1713, at the request of Dr. Atterbury, dean of Westminster Abbey, he drew up a memorial concerning the repairs of that abbey church. In April 1718, his pa tent for the royal works was superseded, in the eightysixth year of his age, after more than fifty years spent in a continued, active, and laborious service to the crown and the public. Till this time he had resided in a house which is appropriated to the office of surveyor-general, in Scot land Yard, adjoining to Whitehall; but, after his removal. from that employ, he dwelt occasionally in a house in St. James's Street, Westminster. He had another house which

belonged

elonged to the surveyor-general to the crown at Hampton Court, the enjoyment of which had been granted him by queen Anne, and was held by an exchequer lease.

His vigour of mind continued, with a vivacity rarely found at his age, till within a few days of his dissolution, which was occasioned, after a few days illness, by a cold contracted in coming from his bouse at Hampton Court to London, on the 25th of February, 1723, in the ninety-first year of his age. He died, as he had lived, with great calmness and serenity, and little sickness. His funeral was attended by many persons of honour and distinction, with great solemnity, from his house in Westminster to St. Paul's cathedral.

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Mr. Hooke, who was intimately acquainted with him, and very able to make a just estimate of his abilities, has comprised his character in these few but comprehensive words: "I must affirm," says he, "that, since the time of Archimedes, there scarce has ever met, in one man, in so great a perfection, such a mechanical hand, and so sophical a mind."-And a greater than Hooke, the illus trious and immortal Newton, whose signet stamps an indelible character, speaks thus of him, with other eminent men: "Sir Christopher Wren, Dr. Wallis, and Christian Augen, by far the greatest geometricians of this age."Mr. Evelyn, in the dedication to him of his "Account of Architects and Architecture," tells him that he "inscribed his book with his name, partly through an ambition of publicly declaring the great esteem (says he) I ever had of your virtues and accomplishments, not only in the art of building, but through all the learned cycle of the most useful knowledge and abstruser sciences, as well as of the most polite and shining; all which is so justly to be allowed you, that you need no panegyric or other history to eternise you, than the greatest city of the universe which you have rebuilt and beautified, and are still improving; witness the churches, the royal courts, stately halls, magazines, palaces, and other public structures, besides what you have built of great and magnificent in both the universities, at Chelsea,

Chelsea, and in the country; and are now advancing in the royal marine hospital at Greenwich: all of them so many trophies of your skill and industry; and conducted with that success, that, if the whole art of building were lost, it might be recovered and found again in St. Paul's, the Historical Pillar, and those other monuments of your happy talent and extraordinary genius."

He wrote many ingenious and useful mathematical and philosophical pieces besides those already mentioned. All which, taken together with the cathedral of St. Paul's, fiftyone parochial churches, the Monument, and other public edifices in London, the two royal palaces of Hampton Court, and Winchester, the royal hospitals of Chelsea and Greenwich, the north front, and other repairs of Westminster Abbey, continued from 1698 to our architect's death in 1723, form such a body of civil architecture as will appear to have been the production of a whole century, rather than of the life and industry of one man, of which, it has been observed, no parallel instance can be given.

Catalogue of the churches of the city of London, royal pa laces, hospitals, and public edifices, built by Sir Christopher Wren, knight, surveyor-general of the royal works, during fifty years, viz. from 1668 to 1718.

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
Alhallows the Great,, Thames
Street.

Alhallows, Bread Street.
Alhallows, Lombard Street.
St. Alban, Wood Street.
St. Anne and Agnes, Aldersgate.
St. Andrew, Holborn.

St. Bennet Fink, Threadneedle
Street.

St. Bride, Fleet Street,
St. Bartholomew, Exchange.
St. Christopher le Stocks.
Christ Church, Newgate Street.
St. Clement Danes, Strand.
St. Clement, Eastcheap.

St. Andrew Wardrobe, Black- St. Dionis Backchurch, Fen

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