10 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 



lies in the natural beauty of the sites, and 

 in the tasteful and harmonious embellish- 

 ment of these sites by art. Nearly all these 

 cemeteries were rich portions of forest land, 

 broken by hill and dale, and varied by 

 copes and glades, like Mount Auburn and 

 Greenwood, or old country seats, richly 

 wooded with fine planted trees, like Laurel 

 Hill. Hence, to an inhabitant of the town, 

 a visit to one of these spots has the united 

 charm of nature and art, — the double wealth 

 of rural and moral associations. It awa- 

 kens, at the same moment, the feeling of 

 human sympathy and the love of natural 

 beauty, implanted in every heart. His must 

 be a dull or a trifling soul that neither swells 

 with emotion, or rises with admiration, at 

 the varied beauty of these lovely and hal- 

 lowed spots. 



Indeed, in the absence of great public 

 gardens, such as we must surely one day 

 have in America, our rural cemeteries are 

 doing a great deal to enlarge and educate 

 the popular taste in rural embellishment. 

 They are for the most part laid out with 

 admirable taste ; they contain the greatest 

 variety of trees and shrubs to be found in the 

 country, and several of them are kept in a 

 manner seldom equalled in private places.* 



The character of each of the three great 

 cemeteries is essentially distinct. Green- 

 wood, the largest, and unquestionably the 

 finest, is grand, dignified, and park-like. It 

 is laid out in a broad and simple style, com- 

 mands noble ocean views, and is admira- 

 bly kept. Mount Auburn is richly pictu- 

 resque, in its varied hill and dale, and owes 

 its charm mainly to this variety and in~ 



* Laurel Hill is especially rich in rare trees. We saw, last 

 month, almost every procurable species of hardy tree and 

 shrub growing there, — among others, the Cedar of Lebanon, 

 the Deodar Cedar, the Paulownia, the Araucaria, etc. Rho- 

 dodendrons and Azaleas were in full bloom; and the purpls 

 Beeches, the weeping Ash, rare Junipers, Pines, and deci- 

 duous trees were abundant in many parts of the grounds. 

 Twenty acres of new ground have just been added to this 

 cemetery. It is a better arboretum than can easily be found 

 elsewhere in the country. 



tricacy of sylvan features. Laurel Hill is a 

 charming pleasure-ground, filled with beau- 

 tiful and rare shrubs and flowers ; at this 

 season, a wilderness of roses, as well as 

 fine trees and monuments.* 



To enable the reader to form a correct 

 idea of the influence which thesft beautiful 

 cemeteries constantly exercise on the pub- 

 lic mind, it is only necessary to refer to the 

 rapidity with which they have increased in 

 fifteen years, as we have just remarked. 

 To enable them to judge how largely they 

 arouse public curiosity, we may men- 

 tion that at Laurel Hill, four miles from 

 Philadelphia, an account was kept of the 

 number of visitors during last season ; and 

 the sum total, as we were told by one of 

 the directors, was nearly 30,000 persons, 

 who entered the gates between April and 

 December, 1848. Judging only from occa- 

 sional observations, we should imagine that 

 double that number visit Greenwood, and 

 certainly an equal number, Mount Auburn, 

 in a season. 



We have already remarked, that, in the 

 absence of public gardens, rural cemeteries, 

 in a certain degree, supplied their place. 



* Few things are perfect; and beautiful and interesting 

 as our rural cemeteries now are, — more beautiful and inte- 

 resting than anything of the same kind abroad, we cannot 

 pass by one feature in all, marked by the most violent bad 

 taste ; we mean the hideous ironmongery, which they all 

 more or less display. Why, if the separate lots must be 

 enclosed with iron railings, the railings should not be of sim- 

 ple and unobtrusive patterns, we are wholly unable to con- 

 ceive. As we now see them, by far the larger part are so 

 ugly as to be positive blots on the beauty of the scene. 

 Fantastic conceits and gimcracks in iron might be pardona- 

 ble as adornments of the balustrade of a circus or a temple of 

 Comus; but how reasonable beings can tolerate them as 

 enclosures to the quiet grave of a family, and in such scenes 

 of sylvan beauty, is mountain high above our comprehen- 

 sion. 



But this is not all ; as if to show how far human infirmity 

 can go, we noticed lately several lots in one of these ceme- 

 teries, not only enclosed with a most barbarous piece of irony, 

 but the gate of which was positively ornamented with the 

 coat of arms of the owner, accompanied by a brass door 

 plate, on which was engraved the owner's name and city 

 residence ! All the world has amused itself with the epitaph 

 on a tombstone in Pere la Chaise, erected by a wife to her 

 husband's memory; in which, after recapitulating the many 

 virtues of the departed, the bereaved one concludes with — 

 " his disconsolate widow still continues the business, No. 

 — , Rose-street, Paris." We really have some doubts if the 

 disconsolate widow's epitaph-advertisement is not in better 

 taste than the cemetery brass door-plate immortality of our 

 friends at home 



