April 24, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



195 



ered. Most of them are easily raised. All they ask is ordi- 

 nary kindness and they will increase in beauty every year. 

 Best of all, they are adapted to small gardens, and small gardens 

 in this country will always greatly outnumber the large ones. 

 There is no village lot with a square rod of turf which can- 

 not be beautified by a border of hardy shrubs, and there is a 

 place for them, and a place of honor, too, in the most spacious 

 and the most elaborate grounds. They are useful for mass- 

 ing and for single specimens, and the planter who knows 

 how to handle them properly can find a place for them in 

 comprehensive landscape effects as well as in the construc- 

 tion of cabinet pictures — in the middle distance as well as in 

 the foreground of his compositions. 



If there is to be anything distinctive in the gardens of east- 

 ern America, it will grow out of the freer use of deciduous 

 shrubs, and in years to come those parks and gardens will be 

 most interesting where these shrubs have been planted with 

 the greatest intelligence and skill. 



Tombstones for Rural Cemeteries. 



lyr R. J. A. SCHWEINFURTH, a well-known architect of 

 ■'■''■*■ Boston, recently prepared twenty-five designs for sim- 

 ple cemetery monuments, and has kindly joined the Trustees 

 of the Brookline Cemetery, at whose request the drawings 

 were made, in consenting that a few of them should here be 

 reproduced. It was difficult to choose eight as the most in- 

 teresting, where all were very good ; and those we give may 

 be accepted not as better than the others, but simply as show- 

 ing several different types which, with sundry others, were 

 variously developed by the artist. 



The first thing to be remarked in these stones is their sim- 

 plicity; and it need hardly be explained that this is the most 

 important quality they could possess. There may be many 

 places where highly ornate sepulchral monuments are appro- 

 priate, but a rural cemetery is not one of them. But, on the 

 other hand, simplicity should not mean crude ugliness, even 

 in the smallest and most thoroughly rural burial-ground. 

 Stones should be at once unobtrusive yet artistic, plain yet 

 beautiful. Good taste should speak not only in the restricted 

 use of ornament, but in its tasteful application and skillful de- 

 signing. The artistic excellence of these eight designs will, 

 we believe, be as readily appreciated as their lack of ostenta- 

 tion. In place of the bald shapes, clumsy profiles and me- 

 chanical inscriptions with which our simple tombstones in the 

 past have made us familiar, here we have carefullv studied 

 proportions, graceful contours and the suggestion of a kind 

 of lettering which, easily executed and easily read, has yet a 

 certain decorative charm. 



Perhaps the best of all the designs is No. IV. A flat slab, 

 covering the place where the coffined form has been laid to 

 rest, is undoubtedly the earliest form which the Christian 

 monument assumed when it was placed in an open, grassy 

 spot; and it seems the most natural and expressive form, ex- 

 plaining its purpose and marking the site it consecrates more 

 exactly than an erect stone can do. Its inscription can be 

 easily perused by those who stand beside the grave ; and the 

 fact that it is invisible at a distance may be counted a merit, 

 as the last hint of ostentation is thus avoided. Countless 

 memories come to mind of famous men whose tombs are 

 marked by flat stones in those cemeteries of the Old World 

 which most nearly approach in idea to ours ; but we need 

 only recall the fact that such a stone was thought sufficient to 

 mark the grave of Albert Diirer in the suburban graveyard at 

 Nuremburg. Those who seek if to-day where it lies embos- 

 omed in grass, and read its simple inscription, "Emigravii," 

 receive an impression the appropriateness and adequacy of 

 ^vhich must convince them that no more conspicuous memo- 

 rial is needed even for the resting-place of a very noteworthy 

 man. There is a Christian humility and dignity and a simple 

 pathos in the aspect of a stone like Diirer's, or like the one 

 here pictured, which is lost, perhaps, even in the most modest 

 stone which stands erect. And from the point of view of the 

 repose and sanctity of effect which a cemetery as a whole 

 should have, flat stones are palpably preferable to all others. 



No. VII. shows a modest type of headstone which is re- 

 deemed from poverty by its graceful proportioning and by the 

 simple band of classic adornment which encircles the letter- 

 ing. No. V. is another classic design which is given a less 

 severe look by a nicely profiled base and cornice. No. VIII. is 

 sturdier, again, in its proportions, and those who think classic 

 ornamentation a little cold and inexpressive on a modern 

 tombstone may be attracted by the Palm-branch which forms 

 Its decoradon. Here a place for a possible second inscription 

 is indicated on top of the stone, nor is there any reason why 



all its sides could not be used if the lettering were discreetly 

 applied; and a single monument, bearing the names of sev- 

 eral individuals, is often more desirable than many, being less 

 obtrusive as well as much less costly. Too often we see 

 a pretty lot, where a single attractive monument should have 

 stood, encumbered with a row of stones which, if they are all 

 alike, produce the unfortunate effect of things bought by the 

 quantity or, if they are unlike, contrast unpleasantly with one 

 another. No. I. shows another squarish stone, but with a 

 canted space on the side for the inscription. In another de- 

 sign, not reproduced here, Mr. Schweinfurth varied this idea 

 by making the stone still thicker and inclining both sides to 

 give room for two inscriptions. No. VI. shows a stone which 

 is extremely plain in outline but wins beauty from the decora- 

 tion. It is intended, of course, for use upon a soldier's grave, 

 and in the artist's series it was accompanied by a second, which 

 was appropriate for a naval officer or sailor. 



At the time of the Reformation, or more exactly, in Puritan 

 days, the cross was so generally associated with the rites and 

 usages of the Catholic Church that it was wholly banished from 

 Protestant graveyards. No crosses can be found among the 

 old tombstones of New England, and in Protestant Germany 

 they are still rare. Modern American feeling, however, has 

 again accepted them as the natural symbol of every Christian 

 sect, and the form constantly occurs in all our cemeteries. 

 We are unable to give our readers a strictly simple cross-form 

 from Mr. Schweinfurth's hand; but something better, we think, 

 is offered in the picture No. III. This is one of the very 

 earliest of Christian gravestone-forms reduced to its sim- 

 plest elements. It shows that combination of the cross and 

 the circle — the emblem of Christ and the emblem of eternity— 

 which more constantly appears than any other design in "the 

 oldest sepulchral monuments of the northern nations of 

 Europe. In many parts of the British Isles gravestones may 

 still be seen — not, of course, in their original positions, but 

 preserved in church or cloister, or in some antiquarian col- 

 lection like the rich and interesting one in the library of Dur- 

 ham cathedral — which antedate not only the Norman, but the 

 English conquest. They have come down to us from that 

 early British Church which flourished when the Romans bore 

 sway in the land, which was wiped out of England proper by 

 the deluge of Anglo-Saxon heathens, but lived on in Ireland, 

 thence extended its influence to Scotland, and from Scotland 

 came back into the north of England again when the mission- 

 aries of Rome were converting the more southerly districts. 

 And on almost all these monuments — separated from one 

 another, perhaps, by several centuries of time, but akin in that 

 artistic character which is popularly called " Celtic " — the cross 

 within the circle appears. Sometimes it forms the body of the 

 stone, as in our picture, although seldom so simply treated as 

 here. Sometimes it is carved in relief, sometimes incised ; 

 but in one shape or another it is the prevailing motive. 

 Surely, therefore, there can be no motive which is more ap- 

 propriate for the use of modern Christians descended, as a 

 rule, from the inhabitants of the British Islands. None could 

 have greater historical sanctity, none could be more expressive 

 in its meaning, and none could be more attractive to the eye. 

 It was, indeed, because of its many claims to attention that two 

 designs were selected for reproduction in which this symbol 

 appears. In No. III. it forms the monument ; in No. II. it is 

 carried upon a plainly outlined headstone, and interwoven with 

 those ribbon-like lines which were the great and inevitable 

 feature in all kinds of " Celtic " ornamentation. This stone 

 might almost be accepted as a genuine relic of the early British 

 Church, and seeing that it is wholly unaffected, appropriate 

 and modern-looking, the fact will undoubtedly recommend 

 it to those who care for artistic, historical, or ecclesiological 

 suggestiveness. 



There is another merit, we may add, in designs as simple as 

 these besides the great merit of appropriateness to their place. 

 They are not difficult to execute ; they can be well formed and 

 carved by any intelligent stone-mason, while an elaborate de- 

 sign with very varied profiles and intricate carvings needs a 

 skillful sculptor for its right execution. Even where money is 

 not grudged is is usually difficult to find such a sculptor just 

 when and where he is needed for such a purpose. The origi- 

 nal designs which Mr. Schweinfurth prepared were drawn on 

 a larger scale than our reproductions, and were accompanied 

 by sections from which any careful mechanic could work with 

 success. 



Of course the good that may spring from the publication of 

 this litde series need not be confined to actual imitation of the 

 designs portrayed. Each of them suggests much more than 

 it reveals ; each of them may become the text for a large num- 

 ber of variations. Onlv, it should be borne in mind that to 



