- ance was not far distant, for he was released from
confinement by the Restoration.
WREN'S RESTRAINTS IN DESIGNING HIS EDIFICES.
It is often seen, that when kings patronize genius,
instead of allowing it to develop itself according to
its own laws, they hamper it according to their own
preconceived fancies. The palace at Hampton
Court is censured for its ill proportions; but Cunningham
says that Wren moved under sad restraints
from the commissioners in one place, and the court
in the other. When the lowness of the cloisters under
the apartments of the palace was noticed by
one of the courtiers, King William turned on his
heel like a challenged sentinel, and answered sharply,
"Such were my express orders!" The rebuked
nobleman bowed, and acquiesced in the royal taste.
When St. Paul's Cathedral was nearly completed,
the "nameless officials" called commissioners of that
edifice, decided to have a stone balustrade upon the
upper cornice, and declared their determination to
that effect, "unless Sir Christopher Wren should
set forth that it was contrary to the principles of
architecture." To this resolution, in which blind
ignorance gropes its way, calling on knowledge to
set its stumblings right, Wren returned the following
answer: "I take leave first to declare I never
designed a balustrade. Persons of little skill in architecture
did expect, I believe, to see something
that had been used in Gothic structures, and ladies
