It must plainly be said that Wren suffered frequent lapses of taste, and it does no service to his great memory to gloss over these faults. As a result of them it happened that practically no work of Wren, however noble in its conception, however magnificent its solution of difficult problems, can be freed from criticism in detail. He did not produce the complete unity against which no criticism can lie. Of Inigo Jones at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden (as it was before it was rebuilt), and again at the Banqueting Hall, of Robert Adam in the hall at Syon, and of Sir Charles Barry at the Reform Club, it can be said that they made no mistakes. Each achievement is complete and perfect in its kind. But it is impossible to say that even of St. Paul’s Cathedral: there are elements in its design which are weak and confused. Even in the steeple of St. Mary-le-Bow, which is very nearly perfect, the diameter of the cylinder enclosed by the ring of columns is hardly right. This sort of criticism is even more true of the majority of the City churches. The cause for this lack of perfection is not difficult to find. Wren was an amateur, not only by the cast of his mind, but by the circumstances of his entry into architecture: he was imperfectly trained for his work. [Illustration: S^T MARY-LE-BOW] If he had followed the example of Inigo Jones and studied the Italian Renaissance on the spot, not only in respect of design, but also of the facts of building, he would have avoided many pitfalls. Great as is the part which the knowledge of mathematics and geometry plays in his art, nothing did and nothing could take the place of the practical knowledge of the art of building which Jones possessed and Wren lacked, at least until his later years.