that, if a house were frequently white-washed within and without, it
could scarcely fail to banish personal filth from the inmates; while
habits of cleanliness, which call for habits of industry, would
produce the rest. I have, indeed, often thought that it would be an
efficacious means of bettering the morals, as well as the health, of
the London poor, if St. Giles's, Hockly-in-the-hole, Fleet-lane,
Saffron-hill, and other dens of vice and misery, were by law
lime-washed inside and outside twice in every year. But, in whatever
degree this doctrine may be just, let me hope these observations will
meet the eye of some active philanthropists, who, being thus taught to
consider cleanliness as an auxiliary of morals and happiness, will be
induced so to paint and whiten our dusky-coloured villages and dirty
towns, as to render them worthy of virtuous residents, in the hope
that, by reciprocation, they may render themselves worthy of their
purified habitations.

I do not charge on Barnes and Mortlake exclusively the characteristics
of filth--they are not inferior to other villages within ten miles;
but the whole require improvement, and I recommend Witham, Kelvedon,
and other places in that district of Essex, to their imitation.

Mortlake church-yard and its ancient church stand pleasantly on the
north side of a large field, across which is a picturesque foot-path
to East Sheen. I inquired eagerly for the tomb of Partridge, the
almanack-maker and astrologer, and found it in the south-east corner,
in a tottering condition. Relics so famous would, it might have been
supposed, have extorted from the Parish Vestry a single hod of mortar,
and an hour's labour of a mason, to sustain it: yet thus it is, not
only at Mortlake, but every where. Nothing is conceded to public
feeling, and the most venerable monuments are suffered to fall to
decay for want of the most trifling repairs. The following inscription
is still legible on the slab of the tomb:--

#Johannes Partridge#, Astrologus et Medicinae Doctor, natus
est apud East-Sheen, in comitatu Surrey, 8