the south aisle to the chancel, and the ornate monument to Richard Lussher placed in the tower, as one enters the church from the street. Richard Lussher was not a remarkable man, or if he was the memory of his extraordinary qualities has not been handed down to us. But if he was not remarkable, his epitaph is, as you shall judge:-- "Memoriae Sacrum. "Here lyeth y{e} body of Ric: Lussher of Puttney in y{e} Conty of Surey, Esq: who married Mary, y{e} second daughter of George Scott of Staplefoord, tanner, in y{e} Conty of Essex, Esq: he departed y{s} lyfe y{e} 27{th} of September, An{o}o 1618. Aetatis sue 30. "What tounge can speake y{e} Vertues of y{s} Creature? Whose body fayre, whose soule of rarer feature; He livd a Saynt, he dyed an holy wight, In Heaven on earth a Joyfull heavy sight. Body, Soule united, agreed in one. Lyke strings well tuned in an unison, No discord harsh y{s} navell could untye. 'Twas Heauen y{e} earth y{s} musick did envye; Wherefore may well be sayd he lived well, & being dead, y{e} World his vertues tell." Some scornful commentator has called this doggerel; but I would that all doggerel were as interesting. [Sidenote: _HISTORIC FIGURES_] We have already heard of one Cromwell at Putney, but another of the same name, Thomas Cromwell,--almost as great a figure in the history of England as "His Highness" the Protector,--was born here, a good deal over a hundred years before warty-faced Oliver came and set his men in array against the King's forces from Oxford. Thomas was the son of a blacksmith whose forge stood somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Wandsworth Road, on a site now lost; but though of such humble origin he rose to be a successor of Wolsey, that romantic figure whom we shall meet lower down the road, at Esher, who himself was of equally lowly birth, being but the son of a butcher. But while Wolsey,--that "butcher's dogge," as some jealous contemporary called him,--rendered much service to the Church, Cromwell, like his namesake, had a genius for destruction, and became a veritable _malleus ecclesia_. He it was who, unscrupulous and servile in attendance upon the King's freaks, unctuous in flatteries of that Royal paragon of vanity, sought and obtained the Chancellorship of England, by suggesting that Henry should solve all his difficulties with Rome by establishing a national Church of which he should be head. No surer way of rising to the kingly favour could have been devised. Henry listened to his adviser and took his advice, and Thomas Cromwell rose immediately to the highest pinnacle of power, a lofty altitude which in those times often turned men giddy and lost them their heads, in no figurative sense. None so bitter and implacable towards an old faith than those who, having once held it, have from one reason or another embraced new views; and Cromwell was no exception from this rule.