WRE
WEI
of his plans, with full authority to pro- ceed, lie made the most careful arrange- ments for his great work, appointing officers for the several special duties of overlook- ing and paying the men, measuring and checking the materials used, and buying and paying for them, and he diligently himself directed and superintended the whole, and made the drawings for all the details and every part of the work, attend- ing in person, carefully watching the work to its completion with never-failing solici- tude, during 35 years, and for all this he was paid 200/. a year.
Wnile occupied with this great work, he was ordered by the King to survey the whole of the burnt citj, and to make designs for its reconstruction. He made practical plans, founded on sufficient data in respect to expense and other particulars. His designs included spacious, arterial streets, quays on the Thames bank, the decorative rebuilding of the churches, with fine squares and public buildings, and the removal to the environs of graveyards and noxious trades. But petty interests and prejudices prevailed, or London would have risen from its ruins one of the most magni- ficent and beautiful of known cities.
In 1667 he commenced the Royal Ex- change, and in the following year he suc- ceeded to the office of surveyor-general, to which he had been appointed in reversion. The new theatre at Oxford followed, and Temple Bar in 1670; the Monument in 1671. He also built the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, the Ashmolean Library, the Palace at Winchester, the College of Physicians, the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, made large alterations to Hampton Court Palace, built Greenwich Hospital, Marl- borough House, St. James's, the western towers of Westminster Abbey, and above 60 parish churches, all of them noted for their construction and suitable convenience, and many of them conspicuous for their beauty; of these latter may be specially mentioned St. Mary-le-Bow, St. Stephen, Walbrook, St. Magnus, London Bridge, St. Bride, Fleet Street. A complete list of his works will be found in the Parentalia. Many of his most interesting designs are possessed by All Souls' College, Oxford.
He was knighted by Charles II. in 1673. At the age of 86 he was removed from the office of surveyor-general by Geo. I., after 60 years' service, to make way for William Benson, who was notoriously in- competent. During the short remainder of his life he was taken once a year, we are told, to St. Paul's, and the sight of the great work which he had been spared to complete revived faculties almost dormant with age. He died February 25, 1723, aged 91, and has found his proper rest in St. Paul's. He had filled the office of president of the
Roval Society, had sat in two parliaments, and had been twice married. He made many discoveries in science, and was the first in tliis country who experimented upon the new art of mezzo-tint. As an architect his genius eclipsed all others, and during his lon^ professional life he was without a rival. Yet the critics have not left him scatheless. Walpole, whose Strawberry Hill Gothic gives us little faith in his archi- tectural judgment, speaks of Wren's want of taste, his false taste, and of his palace at Winchester as the ugliest building in the island. His works are, however, the greatest omaments of our Metropolis. His knowledge of geometry and mathematics
gave him great constructive skill, which is genius has employed in designs of sur- passing magnificence, grandeur, and beauty, marked by refined taste and invention. His St. Paul's remains the most distinguished architectural object in our Metropolis ; his palace at Greenwich the greatest ornament of the Thames.
WRIGHT, Mrs. Patience (sometimes called Mehetable and Sybilla), modeller in wax. She was born of Quaker parents, at Bordentown, New Jersey, U.S., in 1725. Her maiden name was Lovell. She married in 1748, and became a widow in 1769. She early snowed an aptitude for modelling, using dough or any material that fell in her way. and before 1772 had made herself known by her small portraits modelled in wax. She then, with her three children, came to this country, seeking a wider field in the English Metropolis, where her great ability was soon recognised, and she was much employed. In 1778 she made an ex- hibition of her works, among which were portraits of the King and Queen, the Duke of Cumberland, and many eminent persons, and also the story of Judith and Holo- femes. A full-length by her in wax of Lord Chatham stood in Westminster Abbey. She had an ardent feeling of country, and had gained the acquaintance of many emi- nent men of the day. She was called a spy, and during the war was charged with giving political information to Dr. Franklin, then the American minister at Paris, and in 1781 she went to France, where she was made much of by those holding her opinions. She was again in London, to which she never lost her attachment, in August, 1785. She died March 23, 1786. Her younger daughter, whose face often appears in the works of West, P.R.A., married Hoppner, R.A. Her son, Joseph Wright, wno was born in America in 1756, was assisted in art by West and Hoppner, practised for a time in London, exhibiting at the Academy in 1780 * Mrs. Wright modelling in Wax,' and afterwards in Paris, and then returned to America, where he died, of yellow fever, in 1793.
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