DESIGNS FOR MONUMENTS AND RURAL TABLETS. 



329 



raediable, would be entirely avoided by the 

 possession of some good written authority 

 on the subject. Many a vile monument 

 would, perhaps, never be ordered, if the 

 little satisfied person who selects it, could 

 but once see a design, that would body forth 

 some vague but inexpressible better idea of 

 shape in marble, which he has in his mind. 



It is to meet such popular wants that this 

 volume is issued. The letter press is com- 

 posed mainly of judicious selections from 

 Mr. Loudon's little volume on Cemeteries, 

 the last one his pen produced. Mr. Smith 

 has very properly omitted such of Mr. Lou- 

 don's remarks as appertain to the very for- 

 mal style of laying out cemeteries, which 

 the latter advocated. Such a mode is per- 

 haps the only one for the borders of large 

 towns, where space is small, and a geome- 

 tric arrangement all that is possible to have. 

 But in America, the good taste shown at 

 Mount Auburn, has been copied almost uni- 

 versally in choosing the sites of other rural 

 burial places, viz., to select some diversified 

 wooded surface, some distance from the 

 town, affording scenery where nature, rather 

 than art, should always retain most com- 

 mand over the feelings. 



The second half of the volume is devoted 

 to designs for the monuments themselves. 

 Monuments are objects which are intrinsi- 

 cally but little valued or understood by 

 Americans, though in older countries they 

 take strong hold of the national heart. " A 

 garden cemetery and monumental decora- 

 tion, afford the most convincing tokens of 

 a nation's progress in civilization, and in 

 the arts* which are its result. We have 

 seen with what pains the most celebrated na- 

 tions of which history speaks, have adorned 

 their places of sepulture, and it is from the 

 funereal monuments, that we gather much 

 that is known of their civil progress and 

 42 



their advancement in taste. Is not the sto- 

 ry of Egypt written on her pyramids ; and 

 is not the chronology of Arabia pictured on 

 its tombs ? Is it not on the funereal relics 

 of Greece and Rome, that we behold those 

 tender images of repose and tender sorrow, 

 with which they so happily invested the 

 idea of death ? Is it not on the urns and 

 sarcophagi of Etruria, that the lover of noble 

 sculpture still gazes with delight ? And is 

 it not amid the catacombs, the crypts, and 

 the calvaries of Italy, that the sculptor and 

 painter of the dark ages chiefly present the 

 most splendid specimens of their chisel and 

 their pencil ? In modern days, also, has it 

 not been at the shrine of death, that the 

 highest efforts of Michael Angelo, Canova, 

 Thorwaldsden, and Chantry, have been eli- 

 cited and exhibited ? The tomb has been, 

 in fact, the great chronicle of taste through- 

 out the world. In the East, from the hoary 

 pyramid to the modern Arab's grave ; in 

 Europe, from the rude tomb of the Druid to 

 the marble mausoleum of the monarch; in 

 America, from the grove which the Indian 

 chief planted round the sepulchre of his son, 

 to the monument which announces to the 

 lovers of freedom the last resting place of 

 Washington." {Necropolis Glasgue7isis, as 

 quoted, p. 7.) 



We have to say it with pain, that judg- 

 ing by this standard, the'^Americans as a 

 people would fill but a sorry page in the 

 history of the world. Washington's tomb 

 is an insignificant and neglected piece of 

 brickwork, disgraceful to the sympathies and 

 taste of a great people, in whose hearts he 

 is truly and profoundly cherished. But the 

 arts always perfect themselves by degrees in 

 a youthful nation, and the organ of venera. 

 Hon will doubtless be found more fully de- 

 veloped half a century hence. 



In the meantime, rural cemeteries wilj 



