ancient Roman city, which he did in an interesting paper, printed in Parentalia, and the before-mentioned Memoirs. He continued to attend and make communications to the Society, and inaugurated its first meeting in Arundel House, by a paper on various methods of ascertaining the diameters of planets, calculated to seconds.

OCCUPIED as Wren was in his architectural works, more numerous and important than ever, before or since, devolved upon one man, there is scarcely a meeting of the Royal Society recorded in which papers and experiments in astronomy, anatomy, physics, etc., by him and applications to him from the Council, are not recorded.

THIS year the Royal Society lost one of the earliest and most distinguished members, ABRAHAM COWLEY, who stands at the head of the metaphysical poets of England. On his admission as a Fellow, he addressed the Society in a Pindaric ode, which is prefixed to Dr. Sprat's History of that body, and dedicated to them his "Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy." The poet had retired from court to enjoy his latter years, to a farm near Chertsey, granted to him by the King. But neither his body nor his mind were suited to agricultural occupations. One evening, on returning from a convivial visit to a friend in the neighbourhood, with his friend Sprat, both being on foot, and unacquainted with the locality, they lost their way among the damp meadows of that marshy place, which brought on the poet a violent cold and

fever, which terminated his mortal life on the 27th July 1667, in the forty-ninth year of his age. Evelyn, who knew him well, calls him an incomparable poet, and a virtuous man, his very dear friend. On the 3rd August, the poet's earthly remains were removed from Wallingford House*, where it had lain in state, to its earthly resting place in Westminster Abbey, where they were deposited next to Chaucer, and near to Spencer. The hearse drawn by six horses, and, as Evelyn who was there, says, with all funeral decency, was followed by nearly a hundred coaches of the nobility and gentry, with all the scholars, wits and philosophers of the day, and several bishops and clergy

men.

WREN began the year 1668 by continuing his labours in rebuilding the city, by attendances and communications to the Royal Society, conducting the works of the Sheldonian Theatre, and his customary lectures as Savillian professor of Astronomy at Oxford. Mr. Howard of Norfolk, presented the Society with a piece of ground one hundred feet long, and forty feet deep, whereon to build a college, towards the building of which they were possessed of above a thousand pounds contributed. Wren was written to at Oxford to prepare the drawings, and to attend Mr. Howard with them. Wren's answer, which contains a full description of his design is in the letter-book+ of the Royal Society, and

A mansion then standing on the site of the present Admiralty Offices, Whitehall.

+ Vol. II. p. 220.

my Memoirs*. The Society also appointed him one of a select committee to examine and report on Dr. Wilkins's Essay towards a real character and a philosophical language. Towards the close of the year Wren produced to the Society, his theory of the collision of bodies, with details of various experiments made to verify his hypothesis, which were so favourably received, that they were ordered to be registered+, and were subsequently published in the Philosophical Transactions+.

THE year 1669 in London, is almost a repetition of its predecessor, the King, the commissioners and their architect proceeding in their laborious occupations of clearing the ruins, settling disputed claims, building the smaller streets and edifices, setting out, and preparing for the greater. The Surveyor General, Sir John Denham's infirmities increasing, he deputed Wren to be his nominal deputy, to execute the office of Surveyor General of his Majesty's works; which appointment was confirmed by the King's letters patent, under the privy seal, on the death of Sir John Denham. The patent is dated March 28, 1669.

In this year Wren presented the world, through the Royal Society, with a paper relative to his discovery of a right line equal to a cycloid, and added continually to their stock of experimental knowledge. In addition to the architectural works on which he was engaged,

* Page 237.

+ Register Vol. IV. p. 29.

Vol. III. No. 43.

R

he was commissioned by Archbishop Sancroft, to design and execute the chapel of Emanuel College, Cambridge, which he began this year; as well as the new Custom House, London. After many attempts to patch and repair the remains of Old St. Paul's, contrary to Wren's advice and opinion, which was, that being a ruin of two thousand years old, to repair it by degrees, would leave none of the ancient building; it was determined to clear away all the ruins, and build a new Cathedral ; and a new commission was issued for that purpose. Wren was also employed at this time in the reparation of Salisbury Cathedral, but he was not happy in his Gothic works, which was a style of architecture he neither loved nor understood.

HOBBES of Malmesbury, who had been teacher of mathematical philosophy to Charles II. in his youth, had been engaged in a controversy relative to the quadrature of the circle, and published a work on that muchdebated subject, which proved him to have been but little skilled in mathematics, however profound he might have been as a metaphysician. Dr. Wallis undertook to combat the Leviathan of the day, and satisfactorily demolished his hypothesis, in the work* which he published this year, and presented twelve copies to the Society, for its library, president, secretaries, Sir Robert Moray, Sir John Lowther, Dr. Wren, Messrs. Hoskins, Hooke and Collins. Experiments were continued confirmatory of Wren's laws of motion, from which was

* THOMAS HOBBES quadratura circuli, cubatio, sphere, duplicatio cubi, confutata. Oxon. 4to. 1669.

deduced, that motion cannot be decreased or increased infinitely, but that there are limits set both for the increase and decrease of all the motion in the world. Letters were received by the Society from Huygens in Paris, Slusius, from Liege, and from other eminent Philosophers on the Continent, in commendation and corroboration of Wren's demonstration of the hyperbolic cycloid, his laws of motion and other important discoveries which then occupied all the learned men in Europe.

THE Royal Exchange was finished and opened to the public in the September of this year, and is remembered by the merchants and others who frequented it before its destruction by fire in 1838, as a handsome, useful and commodious edifice. The buildings in London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the attendances at the Royal Society, occupied the whole of Wren's time. In addition to these he was appointed, with Dr. Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, Sir Robert Moray, Drs. Wallis, Goddard, and Hooke, to be a committee to ascertain the best way of determining the measure of a degree upon the earth's surface. In fact Wren's name is found in every important measure of the Society.

THE sudden and mysterious death of the Princess Henrietta Anne of England, sister of Charles II., and married, shortly after his restoration, to Philip, Duke of Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV., has been before alluded to. The circumstances preceding and following this melancholy event, which occurred on