In the church of St. Magnus, London Bridge, the remains of Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible, rest: they were removed here from the Church of St. Bartholomew when it was pulled down to make more room for the Bank of England. This church has perhaps the finest tower, lantern, and steeple of all the City churches, in front is a small court planted with trees, whose foliage is strangely refreshing in early summer down in this dark place almost below the approach to the bridge. The church itself is fine but not very interesting. I have sometimes counted as many as ten present at the Sunday morning service.
St. Michael's, Tower Royal, is Whittington's church. In this parish he lived, though a house was long shown as his in Hart Street; here he died; in this church he was buried—behind this church stood his College of the Holy Spirit with its bedesmen and its ecclesiastical staff. If we pass the church and look in at the gateway on the north, we shall notice unmistakable signs of an ancient collegiate foundation in the disposition of the modern houses. Here is now the Mercers' School. In the church there is no adequate monument to the memory of London's greatest merchant—the man who did so much for the City which made him so rich, who royally entertained the King and Queen in his own house, and at the close of the banquet burned before their eyes the royal bond for £60,000, worth in modern money at least £600,000. I never think of Whittington without remembering a certain verse in the Book of Proverbs, 'Blessed is he who is diligent in his business, for he shall stand before Kings.'
St. Nicolas Cole Abbey is, within, a kind of gilded drawing-room. There is gilt everywhere, gilt and wood-carving; and on Sunday morning, thanks to the strange taste of the Vicar, who likes to dress himself up in scarlet and green, and to have a boy making a smell with a swinging pot, there are sometimes more than the customary ten for a congregation.
Of St. Mary Somerset only the tower remains. Why they pulled down this church, why they pulled down St. Michael's Queenhithe, or St. Nicolas Olave, or St. Mary Magdalen, all in this part of London, passeth man's understanding. If you want to find out what these churches were like, you may consult the book by Britton and Le Keux on London Churches. They are represented in a collection of steel engravings drawn after the fashion of eighty years ago, so as to bring out the strong points with great softening of unpleasant details.
Many of the churches were not rebuilt after the Fire. This shows that
by the year 1666 this part of London was already beginning to be
occupied more by warehouses than by private dwellings. Among them were
St. Andrew Hubberd, St. Benet Sherehog, St. Leonard, Eastcheap, All
Hallows the Less, Holy Trinity, St. Martin Vintry, St. Laurence
Poultney, St. Botolph Billingsgate, St. Thomas Apostle, St. Mary
Mounthaut, St. Peter's, St. Gregory's by St Paul, and St. Anne's
Blackfriars—thirteen in all.
At St. Benet's Church—where Fielding was married—you may now hear the service in the Welsh language, just as in Wellclose Square you may hear it in Swedish. In Endell Street, Holborn, you may hear it in French, and in Palestine Place, Hackney, you may hear it in Hebrew.
Certain spaces on old maps of London are coloured green to show where stood certain churchyards. In Thames Street the churchyard of All Hallows the Less still stands; in Queen Street that of St. Thomas Apostle, in Laurence Poultney Hill that of St. Laurence Poultney, a very large and well-kept churchyard; St. Dunstan's, All Hallows, Barking, St. Stephen's, Wallbrook all keep their churchyards still. That of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, stands retired behind the houses. But those of St. Nicolas Cole Abbey, 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, and wore a splendid chain; or he may have been the poorest and most miserable wretch of his time. It matters not; he has escaped the dust—he is a mummy. Somehow he contrives to look superior, as if he was conscious of the fact and proud of it; he cannot smile, or nod, or wink, but he can look superior.
One more church and one more scene, and I have done.