The name of Mortlake appears in English records at a very early date, as it was an important manor belonging to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The manor itself appears to have included much more than the present parish, but the house was in the village. It was a not unfrequent residence of the archbishops down to the time of Cranmer, by whom the lands were alienated in exchange to the king. Only the tower of the church is old, and this is not particularly interesting; the remainder is Hanoverian, and suitable to its period. Here are entombed Dee and Partridge, the astrologers; Philip Francis, the supposed author of "Junius"; and John Bernard, Sir Robert Walpole's "only incorruptible Member of Parliament"; while in the neighbourhood lived Colston, the philanthropist; Jesse, the naturalist, and Henry Taylor, author of "Philip van Artevelde"--a fair share of celebrities for a quiet little suburban town. Just beyond Mortlake is the village of Barnes, with the bridge of the South-Western Railway spanning the Thames. The houses and gardens by the riverside give a bright and homelike aspect to the scene. The church incorporates fragments of an ancient building, and the rectory has been occupied by more than one clergyman of mark. Inland, stretching back across the peninsula, and thus offering a short cut from Putney, well known to the frequenters of boat-races, lies Barnes Common--a breezy spot, bright in summer with blossoming furze, which happily is still sacred from the builder, and untouched by the landscape gardener. [Illustration: HOGARTH'S TOMB AT CHISWICK.]