In nothing did the sweetness of Wren’s nature so clearly appear as in his relations with Robert Hooke, a sour philosopher and, it would seem, a disloyal fellow. Hooke was at Westminster just before Wren and ran second to him all his life. If Elmes’ view of the case be true, Hooke picked up Wren’s ideas, developed them and tried to take all the credit of them, and was a bad colleague generally. He quarrelled with Newton, disputed with Flamsteed, and was snubbed by the Royal Society when he did a design, unasked, for their home which was promptly rejected and Wren asked to do it instead. He was always in hot water and incurably unpopular, but Wren stuck to him. When an assistant was needed in the great labours which followed the Fire, Wren appointed Hooke to measure and set out the ground of all the “private street houses,” but was wise enough to keep the Public Works in his own hands. Wren was delightfully loyal to the contractors whom he employed. He must have been on intimate terms with Edward Strong, master mason at St. Paul’s and elsewhere, for he sent young Christopher abroad in charge of Strong’s son. He gave the buildings he liked best to the few men he most trusted. Strong and Christopher Kempster did St. Stephen’s Walbrook; Strong did the delightful brickwork at St. Benet Paul’s Wharf, St. Augustine’s, St. Mildred’s, and several others. On the fifty churches only thirteen joiners and ten plasterers received contracts. All the coppersmith work, except at two churches, was done by one Robert Bird. My publication of the accounts of the City churches destroyed all manner of vain fancies as to the employment of Dutch joiners and Italian plasterers in their building. When Wren found a good English workman he employed him steadily, and only went to a foreigner like Tijou for the miraculous ironwork at St. Paul’s, Hampton Court, and elsewhere when he was a notable artist and far superior to his English colleagues. [Illustration: PLATE XIV THE ST. PAUL’S DEANERY PORTRAIT. A copy of the Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery.] As an example of the way Wren was trusted, it is worth noting that when Flamsteed was bickering by letter with Cassini, the French astronomer, and accusing Halley of disingenuous practices and praying God to make Halley sensible of his faults, the peaceful Wren was called in as umpire.