its dykes with the ground, to cut down its mound, and fill in its
ditch. Of acts of wanton and insolent destruction, this stands supreme
in the history of the county.

Wimbledon has held a great house, and has seen royal progresses which
cost the lord of the manor a fortune. Thomas Cromwell was one of the
lords of the manor, and after him came Catherine Parr: but the great
days were those of the Cecils. Lord Burghley, Elizabeth's treasurer,
lived at intervals at the Rectory House, and some of Elizabeth's summer
excursions came to Wimbledon; she stayed with her treasurer and with his
son. But the Cecil who belongs most to Wimbledon is not the treasurer
whose nod summed up the wisdom of a Parliament, nor any Lord of
Burghley; but a younger son who was a soldier and a sailor. He was
Admiral and Marshal-General of the forces sent by James I. and Charles
I. against the Spaniards; he was made Lord Wimbledon, and his memory on
the records of the army of his day is that his name of Cecil was punned
into General Sit-still when he was a soldier of almost foolhardy
personal daring, and that he re-introduced into the army the "old
English march." There was "one certaine measure," a royal warrant
informs us, which had been lost "through the negligence and carelessness
of drummers," although it had been "by the approbation of strangers
themselves, confessed and acknowledged the best of marches." This march,
at the instance of Lord Wimbledon, was beaten in the king's presence at
Greenwich in 1610 and ordered to be exactly and precisely observed by
all drummers in the kingdom of England and principality of Wales,
without any addition or alteration whatsoever. We do not hear it in
these days of battles without drums and colours; but we do not fight
much better, perhaps, without the drums.

The old Wimbledon church was demolished; the new church was built in
1786. It has many monuments, but the grave which fascinates is the tomb
neither of a great statesman nor a good man. It is apart in a far
corner; over it is laid a huge slab of black stone, perhaps half a foot
thick, and the stone tells you that under it lies the body of "John
Hopkins, Esquire, familiarly known as Vulture Hopkins." Misers have had
hard things said of them often enough; of Hopkins Pope wrote that "he
lived worthless, but died worth three hundred thousand pounds," and,
reflecting on the "Use of Riches," Pope made a couplet on his funeral:--

"When Hopkins dies,