IX. 



PUBLIC CEMETERIES AND PUBLIC GARDENS. 



July, 1849. 



ONE of the most remarkable illustrations of the popular taste, in 

 this country, is to be found in the rise and progress of our rural 

 cemeteries. 



Twenty years ago, nothing better than a common grave-yard, 

 filled with high grass, and a chance sprinkling of weeds and thiSles, 

 was to be found in the Union. If there were one or two exceptions, 

 like the burial ground at New Haven, where a few willow trees 

 broke the monotony of the scene, they existed only to prove the rule 

 more completely. 



Eighteen years ago. Mount Auburn, about six miles from Boston, 

 was made a rural cemetery. It was then a charming natural site, 

 finely varied in surface, containing about 80 acres of land, and ad- 

 mirably clothed by groups and masses of native forest tree^. It was 

 tastefully laid out, monuments were built, and the whole highly em- 

 bellished. No sooner was attention generally roused to the charnis 

 of this first American cemetery, than the idea took the public mind 

 by storm. Travellers made pilgrimages to iihe Athens of New Eng- 

 land, solely to see the realization of their long cherished dream of a 

 resting-place for the dead, at once sacred from profanation, dear to 

 the memory, and captivating to the imagination. 



Not twenty years have passed since that time ; and, at the pres- 

 ent moment, there is scarcely a city of note in the whole country 

 that has not its rural cemetery. The three leading cities of the 

 north, New-York, Philadelphia, Boston, have, each of them, besides 



