ce;
But those who love the spot have come at length
To beautify your long-neglected homes.
How loud ye have been speaking to us all!
But the mammon and the fading pleasures
Of this busy world hath made us deaf.

* * * Forgive the past!
Henceforth flowers shall bloom upon the surface
Of your dwellings. The lilac in the spring
Shall blossom, and the sweet briar shall exhale
Its fragrant smell. E'en the drooping fuchsia
Shall not be wanting to adorn your tombs;
While the weeping willow, pointing downwards,
Speaks significantly to the living,
That a grave awaits us all."

[Illustration: FIG. 82. CHESHUNT.]

[Illustration: FIG. 83. HATFIELD.]

But in rural spots, where there is abundance of room and almost
superfluity of nature, a well-kept churchyard, with all its venerable
features, studiously protected and reverently cared for, is one of the
best inheritances of a country life. Illustrations of this may occur
to most observers, but as a case in point I may refer to Cheshunt,
on the borders of Hertfordshire. Some distance from the town-fringed
highway, the village church, ancient and picturesque, stands amidst
its many generations of people--living and dead--hard by a little
street of old-world cottages. The spot and its surroundings are
beautiful, and the churchyard alone gives proof that the locality has
been under the influence of culture from generation to generation.
In few places are there so many and such artistic specimens of
allegorical carvings on the headstones. The usual experience is to
find one or two, seldom more than a dozen, of these inventions worth
notice, and only in rare instances to light upon anything of the
kind distinctly unique; but at Cheshunt there are more than a hundred
varieties of sculptured design and workmanship, all the stones
standing at the proper angle, and all in good condition.

FIG. 82.--AT CHESHUNT.

"To Mary Lee, died July, 1779, aged 49 years."

In the illustration I selected at Cheshunt the left half of the
picture appears to denote Life and the right half Death. In the
former are the vigorous tree, the towers and fortresses, the plans and
working implements of an active existence. In the latter the withered
tree, with the usual emblems of death and eternity, emphasizes the
state beyond the grave, and in the centre are mushrooms, probably to
point the lesson of the new life out of decay.

Hatfield is another insta