2.^6 STUDIES OP NATURE. 



with pieces of architedlure, and plant before them, 

 and all around, groves of cyprefs, and of firs, in- 

 termingled with trees which bear flowers and fruits. 

 Thefe fpots infpire a profound and a delicious me- 

 lancholy ; not only from the natural efFeâ: of their 

 decoration, but from the moral fentiment excited 

 in us by tombs, which are, as we have faid in an- 

 other place, monuments ereded on the confines of 

 two Worlds. 



Our great ones, then, would lofe nothing of the 

 refpeft which they wifli to attach to their memory, 

 were they to be interred in public receptacles of 

 the dead, adjoining to the Capital. A magnificent 

 fepulchral chapel might be conftruded in the midfl 

 of the burying ground, devoted folely to funereal 

 obfequies, the celebration of which frequently di- 

 flurbs the worfliip of God in pariQi-churches. Ar- 

 tifts might give full fcope to their imagination, in 

 the decorations of fuch a maufoleum ; and the 

 temples of humility and truth would no longer be 

 profaned, by the vanity and faKhood of monu- 

 mental epitaphs. 



While each citizen Iliould be left at liberty to 

 lodge himfelf, agreeably to his own fancy, in this 

 lafl and lafling abode, I would have a large fpace 

 feleded, not far from Paris, to be confecrated by 

 every folemnity of Religion, to be a general recep- 

 tacle 



