326 



Gravestones, 



tional soldier's monument ia the form of a statue is a public square 

 or park, where it may constantly appeal to the busy passers. Boston 

 has recognized the force of this idea, b} placing the statues of her 

 great public men in her public gardens and the grounds of her public 

 buildings, rather than at Mount Auburn. I will make one exception 

 to this rule; a mortuary chapel in a cemetery is an appropriate place 

 for a bust or statue of a public man who is there interred. But this 

 exception extends only to public men. The public are not supposed 

 to care for the effigies of private persons, and any parade of them is 

 objectionable. In the cemetery at Cooperstown, overlooking Otsego 

 lake and the village founded by his ancestors, is a monument in mem- 

 ory of Cooper, the novelist, surmounted by an ideal statue of Leath- 

 erstocking, the hero of so many of his romances. This is a good ex- 

 ample of the proper employment of ideal statuary in the burying- 

 ground, and although a monument to a public man, is properly placed 

 in the peculiar circumstances. If my memory serves me rightly, 

 the statue is supported by a column, which is objectionable for the 

 reasons I have mentioned. 



It is a fundamental canon of art, that mere imitatio^f cheap, com- 

 mon, and ephemeral objects and materials should be^schewed. This 

 law is applicable to the adornment of cemeteries. To illustrate tbis 

 idea: a heap of stones, with a rude, wooden, bark-covered cross, thrust 

 into it, and the whole overgrown with vines, under certain circum- 

 stances is a touching and appropriate memorial, but certainly not 

 where any thing more dignified or more durable can be afforded. But 

 the imitation in stone of such a monument — a very common imita- 

 tion — is entirely indefensible by the laws of art. The more skillful 

 the imitation in such a monument, the worse the art. It is insincere 

 and unworthy — insincere because it expresses a poverty which it does 

 not suffer, and unworthy because it calls attention simply to the dex- 

 terousness of the art. There are of course instances in which a com- 

 mon object has acquired an emblematic use, and may therefore be 

 properly imitated in stone, as for example, the anchor, the Christian 

 emblem of hope. But such use should generally be strictly emblem- 

 atic. Any attempt to use such an emblematic form to signify the oc- 

 cupation of the tenant of the grave or the manner of his death is or- 

 dinarily vulgar. And where the emblem is adopted, the imitation 

 should be confessed ; we must not use the real things For example, 

 we could not tolerate an iron anchor on a monument. Still less could 

 we endure even the imitation of an anchor over the grave of a manu- 

 facturer of anchors. Occasionally, where the occupation or the man- 

 ner of death was one that was essentially noble or heroic, or appeals 



