It is curious to look for them. For instance, there is a certain great
burying ground laid down in Strype's map of the year 1720. It is there
represented as so large that to cover it up would be a big thing. No
single man would dare to appropriate all at once so huge a slice of
land. I went, therefore, in search of this particular churchyard, and
I found a very curious thing. On one side of the ground stands a great
printing office. As the gate was open I walked in. At the back of the
printing office is a flagged court or yard. In the court the boys--it
was the dinner hour--were leaping and running. Not one of them knows
now that he is running and jumping over the bones of his ancestors. It
is clean forgotten that here was a great churchyard. Another great
burying ground long since built over lay at the back of Botolph's Lane
in Thames Street. That is built over and forgotten. There is another
where lies the dust of the marvellous boy Chatterton. I am due that of
the thousands who every day seek this spot not one can tell or
remember that it was once a burying ground. On this spot the paupers
of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, were buried--Chatterton, that
poor young pauper! with them. And it is now a market, Farringdon
Market--close to Farringdon Street--opposite the site of the Old Fleet
Prison whence came so many of the bodies which now lie beneath these
flags.
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