492 Rural Cemeteries. 



rural cemetery, this multiplicity of small objects cannot be 

 entirely avoided ; but it may be avoided, in a measure, by 

 the exclusion of fences, flower beds, useless ornaments, and 

 shrubbery, except in particular situations. By avoiding this 

 defect, we should promote both that unity and harmony, 

 which are so necessary to produce any desired eff'ect what- 

 ever. In order to secure all these important objects, the 

 grounds ought to be under the supervision of a set of trustees, 

 who should exclude everything that would derange the har- 

 mony of the grounds by the introduction of a false ornament, 

 like an accidental bathos in a passage of pathetic or sublime 

 eloquence. 



The ornaments of a cemetery consist of the natural and 

 the artificial. The natural ornaments are trees, lawn, shrub- 

 bery, flowers, and diversities of surface. The artificial orna- 

 ments are monumental stones, statuary, fences and other 

 buildings. Nothing is more grand or solemn than a venerable 

 old wood, consisting of full-grown and perfect trees. Poets 

 have always delighted to celebrate their solemn stillness and 

 their venerable glooms. AH kinds of trees are adapted to 

 these scenes ; but a general admixture of evergreens would 

 add greatly to their impressiveness. On account of the som- 

 bre character of this class of trees, a grove consisting entirely 

 of them would be gloomy in the interior. But a large pro- 

 portion of evergreens is greatly productive of that seclusion, 

 which the deciduous trees could not afl'ord in the wiuter, and 

 after the fall of the leaf. 



Shrubbery must be managed with a great deal more art, 

 as it is more apt to clash with unity in the expression of the 

 grounds, by apparently subdividing the space into a multi- 

 plicity of parts. It ought not to be very abundant, and never 

 so placed as to conceal the monuments and statuary. Accord- 

 ing to this rule, it is the height of absurdity to conceal these 

 objects by enclosing them in a hedgerow. The kinds of 

 shrubs most proper to be introduced are such as produce 

 flowers of the least showy description. The mountain laurel, 

 the most beautiful of our native flowering shrubs, is objec- 

 tionable, because the beauty of its flowers is too glaring to 



