1857.] Unlverml Diffudon of Life. 471 



beauty of the ground, tasteful monuments with names of interred 

 beautifully engraved upon them, with such other embellishment of 

 trees, shrubbery and flowers as are in good taste. While on this 

 point, we would give some authority for our critique, as even the 

 best taste is regarded by some as a quite capricious aflfair. 



Say.8 Washington Irving: " The grave should be surrounded with 

 everything that can inspire tenderness and veneration." Ilow can 

 this be done by having burial lots enclosed with stone posts, iron 

 bars and chains ? — the very sight of which is repulsive in the ex- 

 treme, as it conveys the idea of rudeness and confinement." The 

 tomb, having been through all the past the great chronicler of the 

 taste andcivilization of a people, this would certainly be pronounced 

 on visiting our Spring Grove, an eminently mechanical and iron a^e. 



"Better," saysCHATEAUBRiAND,"that the grave be arrayed in simple 

 nature, and as the tombs of the Indians whose mausoleums of flowers 

 and verdure are refreshed by the morning dew, embalmed and fanned 

 by the breeze, over which waves the same branch where the black 

 bird builds his nest, and utters forth his plaintive melody." But 

 little better do we regard the rude hedge, furnishing too oft an en- 

 closure to screen, instead of exclude those whose very tread is des- 

 ecration to such a hallowed spot. With London, we feel that a 

 rural cemetery in the neighborhood of a large city, properly design- 

 ed, laid out, ornamented, with mausoleums, vaults, tombs columns 

 vases, urns^ etc., tastefully planted with appropriate trees and shrubs 

 and the whole properly kept, will become a school of instruction in 

 architecture, sculpture, landscape gardening, arboriculture and bot- 

 any, and to the contemplative mind we would add, a refiner and puri- 

 fier of the heart. — Ed. 



* »»* » 



UNIVERSAL DIFFUSION OF LIFE. 



When the active curiosity of man is engaged in interrogating nature, 

 or when his imagination dwells on the wide fields of organic crea- 

 tion, among the multifarious impressions which his mind receives, 

 perhaps none is so proudnof as that of the universal profusion with 

 which life is every where distributed. Even on the polar ice the 

 air resounds with the cries or songs of birds, and with the hum of 



