We have learnt by dire experience the heavy burden of repairs incident to the mediæval system of external supports by flying arches, pinnacles, and buttresses in our climate. He goes on to specify necessary repairs, some done, and others needed, and to plead for the finishing of the West Front and the completion of the Central Tower with the addition of a spire, which “will give a proper Grace to the whole Fabrick, and the West End of the City, which seems to want it.” Sir Charles Barry was later to be equally concerned with the idea of completing the outline of the Abbey, as his last designs show. Wren’s common sense and real respect for Gothic are alike shown by his proposal for the spire: “I have made a Design, which will not be very expensive but light, and still in the Gothic form, and of a Style with the rest of the Structure, which I would strictly adhere to, throughout the whole Intention: _to deviate from the old Form would be to run into a disagreeable Mixture: which no Person of a good Taste could relish_.” He went on to talk of the north window, then stopped with plaster to prevent its total ruin, and said his models for the new work were “such as I conceive may agree with the original scheme of the old Architect, _without any modern mixtures to shew my own Inventions_.” His North Transept Front was swept away by Pearson, not to everyone’s satisfaction, and though the Gothic grammar of it was inevitably at fault, because he was trying to do something against the current of the times, the failure was not due to any lack of appreciation of Gothic. The existing western towers were not built in Wren’s lifetime and he need not be charged with the defects of their execution by the introduction of definitely classical cornices and other details of a type which Wren would not have used. So much for Wren as a student of Gothic. I come now to an example of the use he made of other men’s writings. In the library of Shirburn Castle there is a copy of Wotton’s _Elements of Architecture_, first edition, 1624, annotated by the hand of Sir Christopher himself. It is worth while quoting from these notes in some detail, because they show that Wren was a careful reader and that he was quick to mark every kind of practical application of what he read. The page references are to the first edition of the _Elements_.