St. Mary Somerset, St. Botolph's, and
St. Mary Magdalen, formerly large and crowded churchyards, still kept
sacred in the year 1720, and, indeed, until further interments were
forbidden in the year 1845, are now quite built over and forgotten.
What has become of the churchyards of St. Michael Royal, St. Michael
Queenhithe, St. Benet, St. George, St. Leonard Eastcheap, and St.
James's Garlickhithe? Alas! no one knows. The tombstones are taken
away, the ground has been dug up, the coffin-wood burned, the bones
dispersed, and of all the thousands, the tens of thousands, of
citizens buried there--old and young, rich and poor, Lord Mayors,
aldermen, merchants, clerks, craftsmen, and servants--the dust of all
is scattered abroad, the names of all are as much forgotten as if they
never lived. But they have lived, and if you seek their monument--look
around. It is in the greatness, the wealth, the dignity of the modern
City, that these ancient citizens live again. Life is a long united
chain with links that cannot be separated; the story of humanity is
unbroken; it will go on continuous and continued until the Creator's
great purpose is fulfilled, and the drama of Man complete.

In one or two of these churches all the churchyard left is a square
yard or two at the back of the church. In one of these tiny
enclosures--I forget which now--I found that of all the headstones and
tombs which had once adorned this now sadly diminished and attenuated
acre, there was left but one. It was a tombstone in memory of an
infant, aged eight months. Out of all the people buried here, who had
lived long and been held in honour, and thought that their memory
would last for many generations--perhaps as long as that of
Whittington or Gresham--only the name of this one baby left!

It was in the vaults of St. James's Garlickhithe, that they found,
before the place was bricked up and left to be disturbed no more, many
bodies in a state of perfect preservation--mummies. One of these has
been taken out and set up in a cupboard in the outer chapel. He is
decently guarded by a door kept locked, and is neatly framed in glass.
You can see him by special application to the pew-opener, who holds a
candle and points out his beauties. Perhaps in all the City churches
there is no other object quite so curious as this old nameless mummy.
He was once, it may be, Lord Mayor--a good many Lord Mayors have been
buried in this church--or, perhaps, he was a Sheriff, an