'In the morning,' he says, 'was celebrated the Encenia of the New Theater ... it was resolved to keep the present Act in it and celebrate its dedication with the greatest splendor and formalitie that might be, and therefore drew a world of strangers and other companie to the Universitie from all parts of the nation. The Vice Chancellor, Heads of Houses and Doctors, being seated in magisteriall seates, the Vice Chancellor's chaire and deske, Proctors etc. covered with Brocatall (a kind of Brocade) and cloth of gold; the Universitie Register read the founder's grant and gift of it to the Universitie upon these solemn occasions. Then followed Dr. South, the Universitie's orator, in an eloquent speech which was very long and not without some malicious and indecent reflections on the Royal Society as underminers of the Universitie, which was very foolish and untrue, as well as unseasonable. But, to let that pass from an ill-natured man, the rest was in praise of the archbishop and the ingenious architect.' Dr. Plot, the historian of Oxfordshire, who was a member of the Royal Society, in his quaint book gives a careful technical description of the construction of the theatre by Wren, and his assistant, 'Richard Frogley, an able carpenter.' During the years that the theatre was building Wren did not intermit his attendance at the Royal Society; amongst other inventions he produced a machine for drawing in perspective, which was exhibited at one of the meetings. [_THE PLAGUE._] A frightful interruption came to these and to all other pursuits in London. In 1665, the plague, which had more than once afflicted England, broke out with fearful force in London, where the dark narrow streets with their houses meeting overhead, and the foul state of the entire town, gave every encouragement to its ravages. Pepys, who stayed in London all through the worst time of the plague, gives many a record of this visitation.[100] '_June 7th._--The hottest day that ever I felt in my life. This day, much against my will I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors and "Lord have mercy upon us!" writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw. '_August 16th._--To the Exchange, where I have not been a great while. But Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people and very few upon the 'Change! Jealous of every door that one sees shut up lest it should be the plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.