While S. Paul's was thus advancing towards its full beauty, the care of Westminster Abbey was assigned to Wren. Little or no attention seems to have been spent on it between the time of Charles I.'s reign and that in which it was handed over to Wren. With the energy which his sixty-seven years had not checked, he examined the grand building where he had worshipped as a schoolboy, and instantly ordered some of the most needful repairs. In 1713 he sent in a statement to Dr. Atterbury, who was both Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, having in that year succeeded to Wren's old friend, Bishop Sprat: from this paper, though it is anticipating the date, some extracts are here given. 'When I had the Honour to attend your Lordship, to congratulate your Episcopal Dignity, and pay that Respect which particularly concerned myself as employed in the chief Direction of the Works and Repairs of the Collegiate-Church of S. Peter in Westminster, you was pleased to give me this seasonable admonition, that I should consider my advanced Age; and as I had already made fair steps in the Reparation of that ancient and ruinous Structure, you thought it very requisite for the publick Service, I should leave a Memorial of what I had done, and what my Thoughts were for carrying on the Works for the future.' Then follows the history of the building of the abbey up to the reign of Henry III., who rebuilt it 'according to the Mode which came into Fashion after the Holy War. 'This we now call the _Gothick_ manner of Architecture (so the Italians called what was not after the _Roman_ style), tho' the _Goths_ were rather Destroyers than Builders; I think it should with more Reason be called the _Saracen_ Style; for those People wanted neither Arts nor Learning, and after we in the West had lost both, we borrowed again from them, out of their Arabick Books, what they with great Diligence had translated from the _Greeks_.... They built their Mosques round, disliking the _Christian_ form of a Cross: the old quarries whence the Ancients took their large blocks of marble for whole Columns and Architraves were neglected, for they thought both impertinent. Their carriage was by camels, therefore their Buildings were fitted for small stones, and Columns of their own fancy consisting of many pieces, and their Arches were pointed without key-stones which they thought too heavy. The Reasons were the same in our Northern Climates abounding in free stone, but wanting marble.... The Saracen mode of building seen in the East, soon spread over Europe and particularly in _France_, the Fashions of which nation we affected to imitate in all ages, even when we were at enmity with it.'...