Wren is even better known to the public as an architect than Inigo Jones, largely owing to the fact that he left behind him many more buildings which can be seen to-day than did his predecessor. But the admiration he has received, whether founded on knowledge or not, is no more than his due, for he was a truly remarkable man. He had achieved a European reputation as a man of science before he was thirty, and although, when he became officially connected with building for the first time, he had apparently received no practical training in architecture, he soon made up his deficiencies on the scaffold itself, amid the ring of the trowel and the thud of the hammer. He came of good and cultured stock. His father, Dr. Christopher Wren, was Dean of Windsor; his uncle, Matthew, was Bishop of Ely. His father was a man of considerable attainments in literature and science, and had a superficial knowledge of architecture. Christopher, who was born in 1632, was his only son, and received a good education. His natural abilities enabled him to profit by his opportunities to such a degree that at the age of thirteen he invented a new astronomical instrument and a pneumatic engine, both of which he introduced to his father in elegant Latin, the one in verse, the other in prose. A year later he was entered as a gentleman-commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, where he continued to distinguish himself. It would be tedious to recount his juvenile essays in astronomy, mathematics, gnomonics, and Latin, but so great a reputation did he achieve that when Evelyn (who took a genuine interest in anything remarkable) went to Oxford in 1654, he made a point of going to see “that miracle of a youth, Mr. Christopher Wren, nephew of the Bishop of Ely.”