230 



GREENWOOD ILLUSTRATED. 



lieve, chiefly by Major Douglass, whose 

 skill and taste are well known. The seve- 

 ral buildings erected for the purposes of 

 the place, are designed in a simple and 

 quiet rural style, which meets with our 

 hearty approval. The " Keeper's Lodge," 

 is the subject of one of the engravings in 

 Part I., and Mr. Cleveland's description, 

 which accompanies it, is a pretty and truth- 

 ful reflex of the beauty of the view, and 

 the moral feeling which it awakens in the 

 mind. 



"On the left of the avenue, and just beyond the 

 entrance, stands the keeper's lodge. It is a cot- 

 tage in the rustic, pointed style, with four gables. 

 The sides are of plank uprights, battened with 

 cedar poles, rough from the forest. Its whole ex- 

 terior is unsmoothed and unpainted — yet it is sym- 

 metrical and picturesque. Embowered in the 

 grove, and already looking old enough to be coeval 

 with the trees that shade it, its entire aspect is in 

 harmony with the place and its associations. In 

 such a home, we sometimes imagine, might have 

 been found, long ago, near the church-yard of 

 some quiet hamlet in our fatherland, one of those 

 immortal sextons, whose occupation and quaint 

 humor genius has loved to depict. 



" Hard by, a tower of the same primitive order, 

 supports a bell, which is rung whenever a funeral 

 train enters the grounds. This is a custom hal- 

 lowed by its own appropriateness, as well as by 

 long and general observance. In cities, the toll- 

 ing of bells for the dead has, as a matter of neces- 

 sity, been long discontinued. In country villages, 

 however, the usage still prevails. The deep tones 

 of the bell in Greenwood, penetrating its dells, 

 and echoing from its hills, are the only sounds 

 that reach the mourner's ear, as he follows some 

 dear object to the tomb. Often, we know, at such 

 times, this unexpected but still familiar sound has 

 touched the springs of memory and feeling, carry- 

 ing back the mind to the homely scenes, but bright 

 hours of childhood — to the far-off native vale — to 

 that knell from the village steeple, which once 

 called the reminiscent to weep over some sweet 

 flower, cut down in its morning beauty — and to 

 that humble grave-yard, where, bedewed with 

 tears of veneration and love, a father and mother 

 now sleep." 



Many of the monuments in this cemetery 

 are of that soft brown sandstone used in 

 the construction of Trinity Church, and we 

 have noticed a few — as, for example, some 

 on Ocean Hill, in a bold and massive style, 

 which are both original and good. 



It is not a little remarkable that the Land- 



scape Gardening taste of the country should, 

 at the present moment, appear most fully 

 developed in our rural cemeteries. In the 

 main, they are admirably laid out and well 

 kept. The original growth of wood is well 

 treated, the individual lots prettily planted 

 with flowers and shrubs, and the general 

 effect is park-like, or highly picturesque. 



The only point broadly open to criticism, 

 is the mode of e?iclosi?tg a majority of the 

 lots held by individuals. The exhibitions 

 of ironmongery, in the shape of vulgar iron 

 railings, posts and chains, balustrades, etc., 

 all belonging properly to the front-door 

 steps and areas of Broadway or Chestnut- 

 street, and for the most part barbarous and 

 cockneyish in their forms, are totally out of 

 keeping with the aspect of nature, the re- 

 pose, and the seclusion of a rural cemetery. 

 A collection of such barrier?, such as we 

 have especially noticed at Laurel Hill, goes 

 far to destroy all the harmony and rural 

 beauty of the scene. 



When an iron fence is made the means 

 of enclosing a cemetery lot, it should al- 

 ways take the simplest and most unobtru- 

 sive form. One does not desire a display 

 of florid iron castings in such a scene. It 

 is an open violation of the spirit of nature 

 that breathes around. A low hedge, neatly 

 kept, of Arbor Vitse, Privet, or that hardy, 

 compact and charming little Rose, the Dou- 

 ble Burnet (Double White Scotch,) will al- 

 ways be an harmonious and agreeable mode 

 of marking the limits of proprietorship in a 

 secluded sylvan scene like our cemeteries. 



To those who can afford to buy illustrated 

 works of this class, we cannot too cordially 

 commend Greenwood Illustrated. It is 

 a work highly creditable to New-York and 

 to the country in every respect,* 



* The following is the plan of publication : 

 " The work will be published in Parts, each containing three 

 beautiful line engravings, for 50 cents, or proof impressions, 



