Operations were forthwith commenced in earnest, but though there was practiced none of the tardiness which had characterized the preliminary arrangements, the gigantic magnitude of the work occasioned a delay of years; and it was not till the third quarter of the eventful century had passed that the scorched ruins were altogether removed, and the first stone laid by the great architect, under whose superintendence it was completed in the comparatively brief space of thirty-five years. Previously to the work being entered on, Wren had the honor of knighthood conferred on him; and about the same period he married a lady of Oxfordshire; though he had reached his forty-second year――an age at which men are generally rather disinclined to relinquish their freedom. He was speedily blessed with a son, who, in 1700, laid the last and highest stone of the cathedral, in presence of the principal persons employed in the building. Wren subsequently planned no fewer than fifty new ecclesiastical edifices for the metropolis; and no man, however high in that art, which is half a science, and therefore requires mathematical knowledge in its votaries, ever imitated with so much success the churches of Italy. His mind was vigorous, his judgment accurate, and he excelled in unity and elegance. In July, 1669, he had experienced the satisfaction of seeing the first of his architectural designs realized. This was the theatre at Oxford, founded by Archbishop Sheldon. It was opened with great and imposing solemnity; and the munificent founder marked his appreciation of the skill displayed in the building by presenting Wren with a golden cup, and appointing him one of the curators for life. Meantime the plague of London had drawn public attention to the defective state of its architecture, and the great conflagration had afforded an opportunity of introducing extensive improvements. Wren then stood forth as an architect capable of making a new and extensive city arise, phœnix-like, from the ashes. He earnestly desired to give beauty and dignity to a capital of whose greatness, in other respects, he spoke in language of enthusiasm. His proposal was to run a spacious street, in a direct line, from St. Paul’s to the Exchange, another to the Tower, and a third westward to Piccadilly. The bank of the river was to be adorned with a terrace, and there he proposed to place the halls of the twelve great city companies. This scheme, which had the warm support of the king and his ministers, was all but frustrated by the citizens, who found that it unfortunately interfered too much with the rights and property of private individuals to be realized to any satisfactory extent. About this period he was sauntering with Charles the Second through the hunting-lodge at Newmarket, in reference to which his majesty remarked―― “These rooms are too low.”