After much argument it was agreed the innovators should produce a plan and estimate. This design is preserved at All Souls, and shows an inner and outer dome surmounted by a lantern crowned with a huge openwork pineapple 68 feet high, of what Sir Reginald Blomfield justly calls “a monstrous and horrible design.” But the scheme went no further. On Sunday, September 2nd, within a week of the Commission meeting, the Great Fire broke out. By the 7th Pepys saw the “miserable sight of Paul’s Church, with all the roof fallen and the body of the quire fallen into St. Faith’s.” Evelyn was there the same day and infinitely concerned: “Thus lay in ashes that most venerable Church.” The destruction was complete. Very soon after the Fire, Wren was appointed principal architect for rebuilding the whole City, and set about fitting part of St. Paul’s ruins for temporary use in Divine Service. On January 15, 1667, the King made order to that effect, and on March 5 a sub-committee was set up to do something. They seem to have been lamentable dullards, for they still harped on the idea of patching up the ruins, and attempted to do so, despite Wren’s protests. He seems to have followed the wise course of leaving them to their tinkerings and to the Nemesis of a tottering fabric, with good and inevitable results. After the shattering experience of the Fire, the new facing of large stones could not be secured properly to the old walls. A year and some money had been wasted before Dean Sancroft wrote to Wren, then at Oxford, on April 25, 1668, to say: “What you whispered in my ear, at your last coming hither, is come to pass. Our work at the west end of St. Paul’s is fallen about our ears.” Sancroft expected worse would follow, confessed that they were helpless without Wren, and begged him to come to London. It would appear that Wren was not satisfied as to their change of heart, and thought it wiser to let them muddle along into worse trouble before he went to their aid. They still went on patching until things got quite hopeless, when Wren received a peremptory order from the Archbishop and the other Commissioners to attend with all speed. In one thing Sancroft seems to have been wiser than Wren. He was all for the planning of a “design, handsome and noble, and suitable to all the ends of it, and to the reputation of the city and the nation, and to take it for granted that money will be had to accomplish it.” Wren wanted to know what money they would provide before he set about a design, and to delay action until men’s minds were less distracted with all the troubles that followed the Fire. After more argument Wren convinced everyone that the first business was to give up all ideas of patching and to sweep the site clear of the ruins. This task lasted until April, 1674. [Illustration: THE SECOND DESIGN FOR ST. PAUL’S, ALSO KNOWN AS THE “REJECTED DESIGN” AND THE “MODEL DESIGN.”]