GREENWOOD ILLUSTRATED. 



229 



the inhabitants of Boston belongs the cre- 

 dit of first showing this country how beau- 

 tiful and consoling a spot " God's acre," 

 (as the old Germans expressively call the 

 burial ground,) may be made. The burial 

 ground — alas ! for too long a time that sad 

 and desolate place, open to the garish eye 

 by the highway and in the crowded streets, 

 overgrown with thistles and briars, and cal- 

 culated only to render more painful and re- 

 volting the final decay of the poor discarded 

 tenement of the soul ! 



Mount Auburn was the first to show our 

 people how soothing and benign the influ- 

 ence upon the living, rural beauty may 

 exert even in the last resting place of the 

 dead. It is only fifteen years since that 

 place was consecrated by the eloquent and 

 touching address of Stoey, yet so rapidly 

 has the appreciation of its beauty and fit- 

 ness extended, that we can now name quite 

 a number, many of them of great beauty, 

 in various parts of the country. Indeed, 

 almost every one of our larger towns or 

 cities at the north, now points to its rural 

 cemetery as one of its most interesting fea- 

 tures. 



Greenwood, we feel bound to say, is the 

 finest rural cemetery in America, and, we 

 may add, in the world. It is not yet equal 

 to Mount Auburn in monuments ; it is not 

 superior to it in its interior of leafy woods 

 and dells, but it is pre-eminent in a certain 

 breadth that belongs to it ; and especially 

 in extent, in position, and in the grand ocean 

 view that it commands. 



From Mr. Cleveland's introductory re- 

 marks, we quote some paragraphs on the 

 salutary influences of cemeteries, and the 

 selection of the site of Greenwood itself. 



" The idea of a rural cemetery, sufficiently re- 

 mote to be beyond the rangre of city improvements, 

 yet so near as to be of convenient access, seemed 

 to reach at once, all the necessities of the case. 

 Large enough for the wants of many generations, 



it furnishes, in its guarded enclosure, full security 

 against those violations of the grave, by which 

 the zeal of science or of gain has so often shocked 

 public sentiment and deeply injured the feelings 

 of survivors. The vault, so unpleasant to many, 

 might indeed be found here, but it would no long- 

 er be the inevitable resting-place of the departed. 

 Hither wounded Affection could resort, attracting 

 no notice and dreading no intrusion. Here Sor- 

 row could bring its graceful offerings, and Taste 

 and Art join with Nature herself in adorning the 

 last home of the loved and lost. To its silent soli 

 tudes he thoughtful would come to meditate, 

 here the man of business and care would often re- 

 assure his hesitating virtue ; and here, amid the 

 thousand witnesses of mortality, and in all the sooth- 

 ing influences of the scene, the gay and leckless 

 would read lessons of wisdom and piety. 



To the importance of this reform, New-York, 

 though somewhat slow to move, could not but at 

 length awake. If any where the evils alluded to, 

 were obvious and vast; if in any city i etter ac- 

 commodations were imperatively demanded, that 

 city was emphatically this great and growing me- 

 tropolis. Again and again, in the progress of im- 

 provement, the fields of the dead had been broken 

 up to be covered with buildings or converted into 

 open squares. The tables of death showed that 

 already nearly ten thousand human bodies must be 

 annually interred, while calculation made it all 

 but certain that in half a century more the aggre- 

 gate would be told in millions. 



" The island of New-York, presenting no secure, 

 or at least no very eligible spot for a cemetery, at- 

 tention was turned to a large unoccupied tract in 

 Brooklyn, lying near Gowannus Bay. As if provi- 

 dentially designed and reserved for the very use to 

 which it has been put, it would be difficult to name 

 a particular in which these grounds could have 

 been better adapted to that use. Within sight of 

 the thronged mart, and not three miles from its 

 busiest haunts. Greenwood enjoys nevertheless per- 

 fect seclusion. It is of ample extent, and there is 

 hardly a square rod of it which ma)^ not be used 

 for burial. Its numerous avenues and paths furnish 

 a long and delightful drive, presenting continually 

 scenes of varied beauty. Now you pass over verdant 

 and sunny lawns — now through park-like groves, 

 and now by the side of a tangled and unpruned 

 forest. At one moment you are in the dell with 

 its still waters, its overhanging shade and its sweet 

 repose. At the next, 3'ou look out from the hill- 

 top on the imperial city with its queenly daughter 

 — on the bay so beautiful and life-like — <lown into 

 the quiet and rural hamlet, or beyond it on the 

 distant ocean." 



To those who have not yet seen Green- 

 wood, these engravings, from the highly 

 artistical burin of Smillie, will convey a 

 very faithful impression ofmany of its lovely 

 sylvan scenes, interspersed with fine monu- 

 ments, and diversified by winding lanes. 

 Greenwood has been well laid out, we be- 



