PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 155 



their great cemeteries, Greenwood, Laurel Hill, Mount Auburn, 

 many others of less note ; but any of which would have astonished 

 and delighted their inhabitants twenty years ago. Philadelphia has, 

 we learn, nearly twenty rural cemeteries at the present moment, 

 several of them belonging to distinct societies, sects or associations, 

 while others are open to all.* 



The great attraction of these cemeteries, to the mass of the com- 

 munity, is not in the fact that they are burial-places, or solemn places 

 of meditation for the friends of the deceased, or striking exhibitions 

 of monumental sculpture, though all these have their influence. All 

 these might be realized in a burial-ground, planted with straight 

 lines of willows, and sombre avenues of evergreens. The true secret 

 of the attraction lies in the natural beauty of the sites, and in the 

 tasteful and harmonious embellishment of these sites by art. Nearly 

 all these cemeteries were rich portions of forest land, broken by hill 

 and dale, and varied by copses 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 awakens at the 

 same moment, the feeling of human sympathy and the love of nat- 

 ural beauty, implanted in every heart. His must be a dull or a 

 trifling soul that neither swells with emotion, or rises with admira- 

 tion, at the varied beauty of these lovely and hallowed 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 embel- 

 lishment. 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 equal- 

 led in private places, f 



* "We made a rough calculation from some data obtained at Philadelphia 

 lately, by which we find that, including the cost of the lots, more than a 

 million and a half of dollars have been expended in the purchase and decora- 

 tion of cemeteries in that neighborhood alone. 



f Laurel Hill is especially rich in rare trees. We saw, last month, almost 

 every procurable species of hardy tree and shrub growing there, among 



