Sir Christopher Wren And His Times

of the Law, the Crown of the Priesthood, and the Crown of Eoyalty but the Crown of a good Name is superior to them all. n c Talmud. LONDON CHAPMAN HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. MDCOOLTL J VK l l- ul 1 M MI JL TO HIS KOYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, KG., F. R. S., ETC., ETC., ETC., PRESIDENT OF HER MAJESTYS COMMISSIONERS FOR THE - PROMOTION OF THE EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS IN 1851. MAY IT PLEASE TOUR RoTAL HlGHNESS, THE proposition, execution and termination of the great and wondrous exhibition of the natural pro ductions, industry and arts of all nations, which forms the characteristic feature and the crowning triumph of the memorable year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, has transmitted the name of your Royal Highness to the most distant regions of the earth, and will convey it to the latest posterity among those bene factors of the human race who have rendered the greatest honour to HIM who is the author of peace and lover of concord TIIEROTORE a memoir of that period of English his tory which gave birth to the Royal Society, witnessed DEDICATION. the destruction and restoration of the City of London, produced a Boyle, a Newton and a Wren, and was pro lific in the fruits of the new or experimental philosophy the offspring of the illustrious Lord JJacon cannot but be congenial to the head which conceived and the heart which presided over the destinies of this mighty Macrocosm this true Temple of Concord the Exhi bition Building in Hyde Park. BUT, Eoyal Sir, there is a private, and, perhaps, a selfish motive that induced me to week your protection of my unpretending volume, which in a romombranco of the honourable praise your lloyal Highness bestowed on my late sons great work, St. Goorgoa Hall, in Liverpool, a building which does honour to tho taste and munificence of the merchant-princes of that groat commercial town, whilst the edifice wua in progress under its young inventors superintendence. Nor can. I forget tho splendid modalliou-ot-henour, you eonfomxl upon him, which I hope my little grandson, who in too young to know his loss, may live to appreciate nor the kind and affecting manner in which our Mont Gracious Quoen and your Koyal Highness conde scended to mention tho young architects premature death in the recent royal progress through tho County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster. DEDICATION. V WHETHER the public or the private motive predomi nated, I cannot., however, refrain from expressing, as one of the great ikmily of man, of the British stock, my humble portion of gratitude to your Royal Highness, for the elevation of our national character, by collecting in our metropolis the great congregation of arts, manufactures and commerce, with professors, admirers and patrons from every part of the habitable globe. AT the same time, I take leave most respectfully to express my sincere thanks for the prompt and flattering manner in which your Royal Highness condescended to accept my dedication of Sir Christopher Wren and his Times I have the honour to be, Sm, Your Royal Highness most obedient and Very humble servant, JAMES ELMES. PEEF1CK THE quarto volume of Memoirs of the Life and Works of Sir Christopher Wren, which I published some years ago, was almost exclusively devoted to that distinguished man and his works... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.