At Chester House, another fine old mansion that faces the common, John Horne Tooke spent the last years of his life, and died in 1812, leaving instructions in his will that he should be buried in a mausoleum, still preserved in the garden; but his {203} wishes were disregarded, for he rests in the churchyard of Ealing. Near the Crooked Billet, already referred to in connection with Thomas Cromwell, lived John Murray, founder of the publishing house named after him, and amongst his neighbours were William Gifford, the first editor of the _Quarterly Review_, and James Perry, the originator of the _Morning Chronicle_. Melrose House, on West Hill, now a home for incurables, was once the seat of the Duke of Sutherland. Madame Goldschmidt, better known as Jenny Lind, lived for several years in Wimbledon Park, and it was in Wresil Lodge that the celebrated Anglo-Indian statesman, Sir Bartle Frere, passed away. The Parsonage of Wimbledon is a very picturesque old homestead, but there is little of interest about the modern parish church, that has had several predecessors, except the mortuary chapel connected with it that was built in the early seventeenth century as a family vault by Lord Wimbledon. There are, however, two or three noteworthy eighteenth-century tombs in the churchyard, that also owns a memorial to the celebrated American painter, Gilbert Stuart Newton, who died at Chelsea in 1835. The chief glory of Wimbledon is now, as it has been for centuries, its breezy elevated common, that is more than a thousand acres in extent, and with Putney Heath, Richmond Park, Ham and Sheen commons, form an unbroken stretch of varied scenery unrivalled even in the heart of the country for its rural charm. Peaceful as Wimbledon Common now seems, however, it has witnessed {204} many stirring and gruesome incidents, for it was long a favourite haunt of highwaymen and a noted place for duels. The secluded Coombe Wood on its outskirts, beloved of Constable and Stothard, where stands the house occupied by Lord Liverpool when he was Prime Minister, was the chief lurking-place of those lying in wait for unwary travellers, who were often not only robbed but murdered in broad daylight. It was no unusual thing for the bodies of criminals to be left hanging in chains till they rotted away near the spot where their worst deeds were done, and in a contemporary caricature of the duel already referred to between William Pitt and William Tierney, the remains of the notorious Jerry Abershaw, who suffered death at Kensington in 1735, are seen in the background dangling from a post close to the Windmill which is still such a picturesque feature of the common. [Illustration: WIMBLEDON COMMON]