The history of this pensive enclosure goes back to the reign of Henry III. It had been from a period even anterior to this set apart as the exercising and training ground for the archers and train-bands of the City; indeed it is probable, whether he knew it or not, that this is the very spot to which Lord Lytton refers in some of the earlier scenes of the “Last of the Barons,” the archery-ground of Finsbury; a romantic and lovely spot, a very easy walk from the quaint gabled houses of the old City four hundred years since. It was a spot surrounded by gardens and orchards in the Manor of Finsbury or _Fens_bury, and on the borders of that extensive suburban tract, the Moor Fields; but when the Great Plague decimated London, the Corporation set apart this field as a burial-place for the poor. It was a gentle acclivity, a rising spot of ground, which, affection had called the _Bon_hill, at a time when the language of the country was very largely held in possession by Norman influences and French terms, as in innumerable instances mingled with Saxon. Thus: In death divided from their dearest kin, This was a field to bury strangers in; Fragments from families untimely reft, Like spoils in flight, or limbs in battle left, Lay there[45]⸺ The subsequent history of the place justifies another characterization from the same poet: For they were there to this Siberia sent, Doomed in the grave itself to banishment. As a humble cemetery for the purposes we have mentioned, it had been enclosed at the charge of the Corporation, but for this purpose it was not long needed; and when the ravages of persecution succeeded to those of disease, one Tyndall purchased it, principally for the interment of Dissenters, and it became known as Tyndall’s Burying Ground. The first interment in this second epoch of its funereal history dates from the first distinctly legible stone in the year 1668. Twenty years after this, it received the beloved and revered remains of John Bunyan; in the interim, many of those who had been among the foremost religious actors, preachers, and writers of the time came hither—Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton, Joseph Caryl, Theophilus Gale, John Owen, William Jenkyn, Henry Jessey, William Kiffin, Hanserd Knollys, and many others. In this spot almost every order of religious outlawed opinion finds some representative: here reposes the active body of Daniel Defoe, and in Bunhill Fields, but in a spot set apart to those of his opinion, rests the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox; and here that revered and holy woman, from whose household in the Rectory of Epworth went forth the inspiration, as from her own life went forth the lives of the prophet and poet of Methodism, Mrs. Susannah Wesley; here rest two well-beloved sweet singers, whose names are found in all our hymn-books, Joseph Swain and Joseph Hart. As the years passed along every one brought some additional revenue to the wealth of the spot.