156 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



The character of each of the three great cemeteries is essentially 

 distinct. Greenwood, *the largest, and unquestionably the finest, is 

 grand, dignified, and park-like. It is laid out in a broad and simple 

 style, commands noble ocean views, and is admirably kept. Mount 

 Auburn is richly picturesque, in its varied hill and dale, and owes 

 its charm mainly to this variety and intricacy of sylvan features. 

 Laurel Hill is a'charming pleasure-ground^ filled with beautiful and 

 rare shrubs and flowers ; at this season, a wilderness of roses, as well 

 as fine trees and monuments.* 



To enable the reader to form a correct idea of the influence 



others, the Cedar of Lebanon, the Deodar Cedar, the Paulownia, the Arau- 

 caria, etc. Rhododendrons and Azaleas were in full bloom ; and the purple 

 Beeches, the weeping Ash, rare Junipers, Pines, and deciduous trees were 

 abundant in many parts of the grounda Twenty acres of new ground have 

 just been added to this cemetery. It is a better arboretum than can easily 

 be found elsewhere in the country. 



* Few things are perfect ; and beautiful and interesting as our rural 

 cemeteries now are, more beautiful and interesting than any thing of the 

 same kind abroad, we cannot pass by one feature in all, marked by the most 

 violent bad taste ; we mean the hideous ironmongery, which they all more 

 or less display. Why, if the separate lots must be inclosed with iron rail- 

 ings, the railings should not be of simple and unobtrusive patterns, we are 

 wholly unable to conceive. As we now see them, by far the greater part 

 are so ugly as to be positive blots on the beauty of the scene. Fantastic 

 conceits and gimcracks in iron might be pardonable as adornments of the 

 balustrade of a circus or a temple of Comus ; but how reasonable beings can 

 tolerate them as inclosures to the quiet grave of a family, and in such scenes 

 of sylvan beauty, is mountain high above our comprehension. 



But this is not all ; as if to show how far human infirmity can go, we 

 noticed lately several lots in one of these cemeteries, not only inclosed with 

 a most barbarous piece of irony, but the gate of which was positively orna- 

 mented with the coat of arms of the owner, accompanied by a brass door- 

 plate, on which was engraved the owner's name, and city residence ! All 

 the world has amused itself with the epitaph on a tombstone in Pere la 

 Chaise, erected by a wife to her husband's memory ; in which, after recapit- 

 ulating the many virtues of the departed, the bereaved one concludes with 

 " his disconsolate widow still continues the business, No. , Rose-street^ 

 Paris." We really have some doubts if the disconsolate widow's epitaph 

 advertisement is not in better taste than the cemetery brass doorplate im- 

 mortality of our friends at home. 



