at her manor of Chelse ye 22 daye of January in ye second yere of ye reigne of our sovereyne Lady Quene Mary the first, and in Ano. 1555: on whose soule Jesu have mercy.'

The altar-tomb which stood beneath the canopy is destroyed, and a little tablet which was affixed to it is let into the wall above; it commemorates a second time Catherine, wife of the Earl of Huntingdon, and daughter of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, 1620. Entering the chancel, we come to the tomb which Sir Thomas

More erected in his lifetime (1532) to his own memory and that of his two wives. Hither he removed the remains of his first wife, Joan, the mother of his children, the wife whom he married, 'though his affection most served him to her second sister,' because he thought it would be a grief and some blemish to the eldest to have her younger sister preferred before her.'. Here his second wife a widow, Mrs. Alice Middleton, of whom he was wont to say

1 Cresacre More's Life of Sir T. More.

that she was 'nec bella, nec puella '-was buried. Hither also, according to Aubrey, Weever, and Anthony à Wood, More's own headless body was removed from St. Peter's Chapel in the Tower, where it was first interred; but neither his son-in-law Roper, nor his great-grandson More, who wrote his Life, mention the fact, which is rendered improbable by Margaret Roper having moved Bishop Fisher's body from Allhallows Barking, that it might rest with his friend in the Tower Chapel. The head of Sir Thomas More is preserved in St. Dunstan's Church at Canterbury by the tomb of his best-beloved daughter Margaret Roper.

The monument was restored in the reign of Charles I. (by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Chelsea), and again in 1833. On both occasions the words 'hereticis que' were intentionally omitted : there is a blank space where they should have appeared. Above is the crest of Sir T. More-a Moor's head—and his own arms with those of his two wives. The Latin epitaph is Sir Thomas's biography of him

self :

' Thomas More, of the city of London, was of an honourable, though not a noble family, and possessed considerable literary attainments. After having, as a young man, practised for some years at the bar, and served as sheriff for his native city, he was summoned to the palace and made a member of the Privy Council by the invincible king Henry VIII. (who received the distinction unattained by any other sovereign, of being justly called Defender of the Faith, which he had supported both with his sword and pen). He was then made a knight and vice-treasurer, and through excessive royal favour was created chancellor, first of the Duchy of Lancaster, and afterwards of England. In the mean time he had been returned to serve in Parliament, and was besides frequently appointed ambassador by his Majesty. The last time he filled this high office was at Cambray, where he had for a colleague, as chief of legation, Tunstall, Bishop of London, soon afterwards of Durham, a man scarcely excelled by any of his contemporaries in learning, prudence, and moral worth ; at this place he was present at the assembly of the most powerful monarchs of Christendom, and beheld with pleasure the renewal of ancient treaties, and the restoration of a long-wished for peace to the world. “Grant, 0 ye gods, that this peace may be eternal !”

'In this round of duties and honours he acquired the esteem of the best of princes, the nobility and people, and was dreaded only by thieves and murderers (and heretics). 2 At length his father, Sir John More, was nominated by the king à member of the Privy Council. He was of a mild, harmless, gentle, merciful, and just disposition, and was in excellent health, though an old man. When he had seen his son Chancellor of England, he felt that his life had been sufficiently prolonged, and passed gladly from earth to heaven.

At his death, the son, who in his father's lifetime was esteemed a young man both by himself and others, deeply lamenting his father's loss, and seeing four children and eleven grandchildren around him, began to feel the pressure of years. Shortly afterwards this feeling was increased by a pulmonary affection, which he regarded as the sure forerunner of old age. Therefore, wearied of worldly enjoyments, he obtained permission from the best of princes to resign his dignities, that he might spend the closing years of his life free from care, which he had always desired, and that, withdrawing his mind from the occupations of this world, he might devote himself to the contemplation of immortality. As a constant reminder of the inevitable approach of death, he has prepared this vault, whither he has removed the remains of his first wife. Good Reader, I beseech thee that thy pious prayers may attend me while living, and follow me

1 See Doyne C. Bell's Notices of Historic Persons buried in St. Peter ad Vincula. 2 Fuller says that More had a tree in his garden at Chelsea which he called the tree of truth,' and that he used to bind heretics to it to be scourged.

when dead, that I may not have done this in vain, nor dread with trembling the approach of death, but willingly undergo it for Christ's sake, and that death to me may not be really death, but rather the door of a more blessed life.' Beneath are the lines :

*Chara Thomae jacet hic Joanna uxorula Mori,

Qui tumulum Aliciae hunc destino, quique mihi.
Una mihi dedit hoc conjuncta virentibus annis,

Me vocet ut puer et trina puella patrem.
Altera privignis (quae gloria rara Novercae est)

Tam pia, quam gratis, vox fuit ulla suis.
Altera sic mecum vixit, sic altera vivit,

Charior incertum est, quae sit an illa fuit.
O simul, 0 juncti poteramus vivere nos tres,

Quam bene, si fatum religioque sinant.
At societ tumulus, societ nos, obsecro, coelum !

Sic mors, non potuit quod dare vita, dabit.' A tablet on the wall above commemorates Elizabeth Mayerne, 1653, daughter of Sir Theodore Mayerne, the famous physician, and wife of Peter de Caumont, Marquis de Montpelier, a French Protestant who fled to England from the Huguenot persecutions. The altarpiece is James Northcote's 'Entombment of Christ.'

Opposite the More monument is an altar-tomb of the Bray family, who held the manor in the reign of Henry VII., which formerly bore the inscription—' Pray for the soul of Edmund Bray, knight, Lord Bray, cosin and heire to Sir Reginald Bray, Knight of the Garter.'1 His brother Reginald Bray lies with him. On the same wall is the well-executed little monument of Thomas Hungerford (1581), distinguished at Pinkie Cleuch, so often alluded to in the charming descriptions of this old church in the Hillyars and Burtons,' by Henry Kingsley, whose father became rector of Chelsea in 1836, and who vividly portrays in his book the reminiscences of his own childhood.

A sort of triumplial arch, forming the entrance to the north aisle, is the tomb of Richard Gervoise or Jarveis, Sheriff of London, 1557, one of an ancient family who resided in the precincts of Chelsea Palace.

The east end of the north aisle is the chapel of the Lawrence family, from whom Lawrence Street, Chelsea, takes its name. The most conspicuous monument is that of Mrs. Colvill, 1631, with her half-figure rising from the tomb in her winding-sheet; but far more worth notice is the small tomb of her father, Thomas Lawrence, 1593, with a beautifully finished little family group kneeling on cushions, the dead babies lying beside them.

Against the north wall, in a kind of marble cave, on a black sarcophagus, reclines the figure of Jane, Lady Cheyne, 1669, eldest daughter of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and his comical Duchess.2 Intensely devout in her later life, she was celebrated in her youth for her gallant defence of one of her father's houses against the Roundheads. Beneath is an inscription to her husband, Charles

1 Weever's Funeral Monuments. This Sir R. Bray was the architect of Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster, and St. George's at Windsor.

2 See the account of her in the chapter on Westminster Abbey.

Lord Cheyne, 'whom she never grieved but in her death. The statue of Lady Jane is attributed to Bernini, and the drapery is characteristic of his style, though the impossible hand proves an inferior master.

The sight of the pulpit may recall Dr. Donne preaching the funeral sermon of George Herbert's mother (July 1, 1627), and Izaak Walton, who 'heard him preach and weep,' seated amongst the congregation.

'Four hundred years of memory are crowded into this dark old church, and the flood of change beats round the walls, and shakes the door in vain, but never enters. The dead stand thick together there, as if to make a brave resistance to the moving world outside, which jars upon their slumber. It is a church of the dead. I cannot fancy any one being married in that church-its air would chill the boldest bride that ever walked to the altar. No; it is a place for old people to creep into and pray, until their prayers are answered, and they sleep with the rest.'--H. Kingsley.

Amongst those who are buried here without monuments are Mrs. Fletcher (1595), widow of the Bishop of London, and mother of the dramatic poet ; Magdalen, Lady Danvers (1627), whose first husband was Richard Herbert, by whom she was the mother of the first Lord Herbert of Cherbury and of George Herbert the poet, 'who gave rare testimonies of an incomparable piety to God and love to her children;'Thomas Shadwell (1692), the poet, the MacFlecknoe of Dryden ; Mrs. Mary Astell, 1731, a popular religious writer of her time, and an intimate friend of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who dedicated her "Letters from the East' to her; and Boyer (1729), author of the well-known French Dictionary and a History of Queen Anne. A tablet on the outside of the church, which has now disappeared, till recently commemorated Jean Cavalier, chief leader of the Camisards or insurgent Protestants of the Cevennes. Born 1679, first a herdsman, then a baker, he joined the insurrection of July 1702, and became the boldest and most successful general of 'les enfants de Dieu,' as they called themselves. His wonderful successes at length compelled the Maréchal de Villars to treat with him and grant bim honourable terms. But afterwards his mistrust of Louis XIV. led him to fly to Holland, and thence to England, and his latter years were spent in Chelsea, where he died in May 1740.

Against the south wall of the church on the exterior is the monument of Dr. Chamberlayne (1703), author of the ‘Angliae Notitia.' His strange epitaph records that he was so studious of good to all men, and especially to posterity, that he ordered some of his books, covered with wax, to be buried with him, which may be of use in time to come.' More extraordinary is the adjoining epitaph of his daughter Anne Spragge (1691), which narrates how, having long declined marriage, and aspiring to great achieve. ments, unusual to her age and sex, she, on the 30th of June 1690, on board a fire-ship, in man's clothing—as a second Pallas, chaste

and fearless-fought valiantly for six hours against the French, under the command of her brother,' Sir Edward Spragge, who was drowned in the battle, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. In the King's Road Cemetery, which was given to the parish by Sir Hans Sloane, is the tomb of John Baptist Cipriani, the artist (1785).

At the bottom of Church Lane lived Woodfall, printer of the Letters of Junius,' who died 1805, and was buried in the church without a monument. Henry Kingsley took many of his characters from his father's parish of Chelsea.

Lindsey House (facing the river) was built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1674 for Robert, Earl of Lindsey, Great Chamberlain, on the site of the house of Sir Theodore Mayerne (ob. 1655), who was physician to Henri IV. and Louis XIII. of France, and afterwards to James I. and Charles I. of England. Lord Lindsey had previously inhabited Lindsey House in Lincoln's Inn Fields. His descendant, the Duke of Ancaster, sold the house in 1751 to Count Zinzendorf, who lived there while presiding over the Moravian community which he had established in Chelsea. The next house was at one time inhabited by John Martin, the painter, by whom there are remains of a fresco on the garden wall.

Zinzendorf bought some of the land belonging to Beaufort House for a Burial-Ground. In King's Road (No. 381) is the entrance of a green enclosure, containing his Chapel, a brick building with broad overhanging eaves occupying the site of Sir Thomas More's stables : it is still the property of the Moravians, and contains many epitaphs in which those commemorated are not spoken of as dead, but 'departed.' Against the outer wall is a monument to 'Christian Renatus, Count of Zinzendorf and Pollendorff, born Dec. 19, 1727, departed May 28, 1752,' the only son of the founder of the Moravians, who died suddenly in Westminster. Close by is the monument of Henry LV. of Reuss (1768-1841), his wife Maria Justina, and Henry LXXIII. of Reuss. Some brick walls which belonged to Sir Thomas More's house may still be seen to the south of the burial-ground.

In No. 119 Cheyne Walk, a humble two-storied brick house facing the river and boats, the great painter J. M. W. Turner spent his latter days, shutting up his house in Queen Anne Street, that he might give himself up to the enjoyment of the soft effects upon the still reaches of the Thames. He lived here as Mr. Booth, but the Chelsea boys gave him the name of ‘Admiral Booth' or 'Puggy Booth.' When he knocked at the door of this house and wished to engage the lodgings, the landlady asked him for references. References !' stormed the irascible old man ; 'these, ma'am, are my references ;' and he thrust a bundle of bank-notes in her face. • Well, sir, but what is your name?' 'Name, ma'am ? may I ask what is your name, ma'am ?' 'Oh, I am Mrs. Booth.' "Well, then,

1 The engagement is represented in a picture at Hampton Court. The vessel was the Royal Prince. The lady afterwards married her cousin, John Spragge, and died in childbirth.