Page images
PDF
EPUB

places around the metropolis. Solidity, strength, and durability are the most striking features of the building, which occupies, with its dome and extended architecture, the central front of the southern end of the enclosure.

As I entered the cemetery by the lodge on the north, an attendant, in his official costume, followed me, respectfully proffering me a ground plan of the place, with a neat little book, ornamented on the outside with a gilt urn and weeping willow. The ground plan furnishes me with the regulation of burial, together with a table of charges and fees; and the little book tells me that Mr. Baud is the architect; that "the ground is laid out in the Italian style ;" that the "architecture of the building is Roman Doric;" and that the enclosure "contains about forty acres." Altogether, this is an imposing place; and as I, musingly, pace along its different walks, the same reflection which has been called forth by other cemeteries presses itself on my mind:

"Who would lay

His body in the city burial place,

To be thrown up again by some rude sexton,
And yield its narrow house another tenant,"

who could avail himself of a more decorous resting-place? That it matters but little-nay, that it will matter nothing to us after death, what may become of our poor perishing bodies, must be at once conceded; but the consideration of it matters

something to us while we are alive, and may be a point not altogether unimportant to our friends, when we shall be numbered with the dead. I used to love the solemnity of a common churchyard much better than the more attractive appearance of a cemetery; but this feeling has been, lately, much modified. An overcrowded, unsightly, and disgusting churchyard is shocking even to contemplate.

The enclosure around me, at present, depends more on its buildings, and less on its ground, than any cemetery I have yet seen. It has neither eminences nor trees of any magnitude. In the latter respect, a little time may produce a great change. The broad walk over the catacombs on the west, and the promenade on the eastern terrace, afford some little relief, by their slight elevation, to the generally flat appearance of the ground.

I must not tarry to muse on the monuments, and ponder on the humbler memorials of the dead, though solemn thoughts are gathering around me. Enough, that here reposes the dust of my fellow-beings, awaiting the grave-rending blast of the archangel's trumpet.

There are those who, on comparing the different cemeteries of London, give this the preference; thinking that its elegant entrance lodge, its grand avenue of limes and sycamores—though the trees are yet small-its chaste and beautiful Protestant

chapel, its great circle, three hundred feet in diameter, of arcades and catacombs, with its mausoleums, and other attractions and advantages, constitute it the most beautiful cemetery of the metropolis, and the best adapted to the purpose for which it was designed.

*

*

*

The General Cemetery at Kensall Green, on the Harrow Road, is a mile and a half from Paddington. I have just passed through its archway entrance. The forty-six acres now lying before me, form, for the most part, a gentle slope; the south part, bounded by the canal, being lower than the north. The ground is unequally divided; and the eastern, or lesser division, of four or five acres, is not consecrated. There are two chapels, one in each division; that in the western, with its colonnades and catacombs, is on a larger scale than the other.

The lofty surrounding wall, occasionally lightened and diversified with iron railing, has an imposing effect; and the trees, shrubs, and flowers look fresh but this unconsecrated part of the cemetery, where I now am, has not, at present, many memorials of the dead. In a few years there will be a change in this respect, and the centre space, now undiversified with a single tomb, will doubtless be studded over with the sculptured records of death's achievements. One of the most striking objects now before me is an

elderberry bush in full flower, standing like the guardian of the grave over which it is planted.

Here and there a name that looks strange to an English eye arrests my attention. "Elie Raffin," from Switzerland; "Josephine Lach Szyrma," a dutiful daughter of Poland; with "Charles Raqueiller," and "Stanislaus Michael Albert Ratajski," the children of Polish refugees. Thus it is that the inhabitants of one country find a resting-place for their mouldering remains in another. Already, in this extended cemetery, the remains of mortal men from the four quarters

of the globe repose. They "slumber side by

side, and the whirlwind cannot wake them."

I have passed the line of demarcation which divides the cemetery. The birds are singing, the branches of the trees are bending to and fro, the leaves are rustling, and the breeze is gently breathing around. Hark! what a sudden and boisterous inbreak there is, amid the comparative quietude of the place! It is the impatient panting of a steam-carriage, hurrying along the adjoining railroad; and now the loud whistle, or rather, the wild war-whoop-like scream, that gives notice of its arrival, is sounding shrill in my ears. Noisy, active life-and silent, motionless death, are dividing my attention.

There is hardly a passage in Holy Scripture more frequently misunderstood and misquoted, than that in the fourth chapter of the first Epistle

of Peter, "Charity shall cover the multitude of sins." Instead of charity being set forth as the love and mercy that would willingly cover the faults of others, it is usually represented as a quality which will cover over, and atone for, the sins of its possessor. The pyramidic monument beside me is another instance of this misconception. It tells the reader that he whose dust lies beneath it was "renowned for his charity, which did not cover a multitude of sins, but only heightened many virtues." A misconception on the part of another should make us doubly circumspect ourselves, lest we should fall into yet greater errors. "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law," Psalm cxix. 18, 34.

The sun is shining; the clouds are sailing along the skies; and a profusion of trees of various kinds, with shrubs and flowers, ornamenting the sides of the cemetery, as well as the different parts where the monuments abound, by turns attract my eye. Within a few feet of the spot where I am standing, moulders the dust of one of the companions of my earlier days. I saw him committed to the tomb. He was my junior, yet here am I musing over his grave. "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am," Psalm xxxix. 4.

The living love to honour their departed friends,

« PreviousContinue »