244 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
the footpads, armed with cutlasses, made off through 
the churchyard. It was of this then lonely, rural church¬ 
yard that it was said the dead would rest “ as secure 
against the day of resurrection as . . . in stately Paules”; 
but, alas for modern exigencies, the Midland Railway 
now spans the sacred ground by a viaduct, and the 
would-be improvers, in turning what remained into a 
garden, have moved the tombstones, levelled the un¬ 
dulating ground, and heaped the head-stones into 
terrible rocky mounds, or pushed them in rows along 
the wall. Numerous were the interesting monuments it 
contained; many a courtly French emigre here found 
a resting-place, such as the Comte de Front, on whose 
tomb was the line, “ A foreign land preserves his ashes 
with respect.” Although a monumental tablet put up 
to record the opening, and the names of the designers 
of the garden, proclaims it to be “ a boon to the living, 
a grace to the dead ” ; it is doubtful how that respect 
to the dead was shown. The lines go on to say it was 
“ not for the culture of health only, but also of 
thought.” Surely health and thought could have been 
equally well stimulated by making pretty paths, lined 
with trees and flowers, wind reverently in and out 
among the tombs, and up and down the undulating 
ground, with seats in shade or sun, arranged with peeps 
of the old church ; and there might even have been 
room for the fine sun-dial (the gift of Baroness 
Burdett-Coutts) without levelling the whole area and 
laying it out with geometrically straight asphalt walks. 
The asphalt paths are in themselves a necessity in 
most cases, as the expense of keeping gravel in order 
is too great, and the majority of the renovated dis¬ 
used burial-grounds suffer from this fact. 
