The churchyards in London to which a somewhat rural flavour still clings are, perhaps, those in the extreme south east, such as St. Nicholas’, Plumstead, and St. John the Baptist’s, Eltham, which, together with Lee and Tooting Churchyards, are still used for interments, St. Mary’s, Bromley-by-Bow (originally the chapel of St. Mary in the Convent of St. Leonard), with its beautiful altar tombs, and St. Mary’s, Stoke Newington. There is something particularly picturesque about the last named, with the old church in its midst. Mrs. Barbauld lies buried here, and a lady whose death was caused by her clothes catching fire, upon whose tombstone this very quaint inscription was placed:— “Reader, if you should ever witness such an afflicting scene, recollect that the only method to extinguish the flame, is to stifle it by an immediate covering.” All the parish churches had their churchyards, the only ones not actually adjoining them being those of St. George’s, Hanover Square, St. George’s, Bloomsbury, and St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, where the first body interred was that of Robert Nelson, author of “Fasts and Festivals.” Some were added to many times, some have been seriously curtailed. The largest of the churchyards are Stepney, Hackney, and Camberwell. That of St. Anne’s, Limehouse, had a strip taken off it in 1800, when Commercial Road was made, that of St. Paul’s, Hammersmith, was similarly curtailed in 1884. The present churches of Hammersmith and Kensington are far larger than their predecessors, and therefore the churchyards dwindled when they were built. St. Clement Danes and St. John’s, Westminster, once stood in fair-sized churchyards; now, in each case, there is only a railed-in enclosure round the church. But one of the most serious shortenings was at St. Martin’s in the Fields. In fact, of those buried from this particular parish, few can have been undisturbed, except, perhaps, in the cemetery in Pratt Street, Camden Town, now a public garden, which belongs to St. Martin’s. One of the parochial burial-grounds is under the northern block of the buildings forming the National Gallery, another one is lost in Charing Cross Road, while a third one (now a little garden) in Drury Lane was so disgustingly overcrowded that no burials could take place there without the disturbance of other bodies, which were crowded into pits dug in the ground, and covered with boards. But to return to the churchyard itself, the burial-ground immediately surrounding the church, where Nell Gwynne and Jack Sheppard were buried. A strip on the north side and a piece at the east end still exist, flagged with stones, and were planted with trees, provided with seats, and opened to the public by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association in 1887. But once there was a large piece of ground on the south side, where now there is none, called the Waterman’s Churchyard. Its disappearance is accounted for by the following