Almost ever since the publication of books on architecture had begun, a certain number of wealthy Englishmen had taken an interest in the subject. Lord Burghley had procured books from abroad in the time of Elizabeth; and as the years went by more and more people studied such publications as were procurable. Webb, it will be remembered, referred to the fact that “most gentry in England at this day have some knowledge in the theory of architecture,” and by the end of the seventeenth century, it had become the fashion among the great and wealthy to take an interest in the subject--that is, in the classic architecture of the books. It is hardly necessary to say that the interest was somewhat superficial, and concerned itself with appearance more than with convenience; it was still the theory rather than “ye practique,” as Webb phrases it, that was studied. The pursuit of the most technical and utilitarian of the arts was thus taken up by amateurs. Wren himself was an amateur when he first began to design. His chief, Sir John Denham, was reckoned by Evelyn “a better poet than architect,” but to do Sir John justice, he does not appear to have advanced a claim to be an architect of any kind. Evelyn was a patron of the arts, and especially of architecture, about which he wrote a book. After him, in the eighteenth century, came Lord Burlington, the most distinguished patron of architecture of that age. He was a patron of architects, too; many of the best known men of the century owed their start in life to the earl. He dabbled in design himself. We are probably justified in calling it dabbling, but it was not so considered at the time, and Horace Walpole, himself a dabbler, speaks of him as a distinguished architect. It was through the munificence of Lord Burlington that many designs of Palladio were published, as well as those drawings left behind him by Webb, which, under the title of “Designs by Inigo Jones,” had so great a vogue at this period. [Illustration: FIG. 145.--A HALL OR PUBLIC ROOM, BY WEBB. From the Worcester College Collection, i. 37.]