The dreadful conflagration had destroyed the principal part of St. Paul’s, while helplessly damaging the remainder; and Wren, perceiving that any efficient repair was now utterly impracticable, conceived the idea of associating his name with a grand ecclesiastical structure worthy of the capital of royal England. His path, however, was not yet quite clear; for the hearts of the commissioners, “untraveled, still returned” to the old building, and another effort was made to reconstruct it. The rubbish was removed, and the enterprise entered on; but the fall of a pillar soon indicated how vain and futile such an attempt really was. Wren was on a visit at Oxford, when he received the intelligence of this disaster; and perhaps he felt that his day of triumph had at length arrived. He forthwith wrote and recommended a total removal of the ruins of the former church, and the erection, from the foundation, of a cathedral that should exhibit the taste and dignity of the country. Nevertheless, so perverse is human nature, when a change of opinion involves a confession of error, that the system of “patching up any how” was persisted in till the middle of 1668, when it was resolved that a new cathedral should be built. Wren now applied himself to the production of several designs and models for the contemplated structure, and, in due time, they were laid before the proper authorities. It appears that, whatever credit pertains to the rejection of the best and adoption of the worst plans, must be assigned to that royal duke whose insane bigotry and superstition afterward cost him the proudest crown in Christendom. The architect’s temper did not give way; but he shed tears at the injudicious selection.