tery I have 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 Kensal 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 past, 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 Ruffin," from Switzerland; "Josephine Lach Szyrma," a dutiful daughter of Poland; with "Charles Raqueiller," and "Stanislas 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 earth 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 adjoin ing 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 atten

tion.

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," Psa. cxix. 18, 34.

66

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," Psa. xxxix. 4.

The living love to honour their departed friends, by marking their death-stones with such information as they consider creditable to their memory. I have no

ter.'

ticed the following records of this kind in my walk among the tombs and catacombs :- "An eminent prin"Chief engineer to his highness Mohammed Ali Pacha." "Head Master of Reading school." "Some time principal store-keeper of the ordnance." "A respectable merchant." "A faithful and confidential servant." Inspector-general of hospitals." "A gallant and distinguished soldier." "Physician to king George IV." "Bishop of St. David's." "Author of the History of Sumatra." "Secretary of the Admiralty." These, and numberless other inscriptions appear, in which respect and affection for the dead are mingled with some degree of living vanity. Who is there among us that is quite content to be nobody and unknown?

Here is a massive granite pedestal without an inscription! What shall I write thereon?" Here lieth the dust of an heir of immortality!" or, "He went down to the grave an unrepentant sinner!" What a solemn consideration it is, that the grave can neither withhold the righteous from happiness, nor protect the wicked from unutterable woe!

From the colossal pillars of the portico of the chapel, the view of the cemetery is a sweet one, and quite in character. There is no affected sentimentality; no littleness nor gewgaws to catch the eye. No child's play of making gardens, as in many parts of " Père la Chaise." All is vast, sober, chaste, field-like, and beautifu; rather sweet than romantic; and the prospect to the south is extensive. A cemetery should soothe as well as call forth profitable reflection. Judging by my present feelings, this place is calculated o do both.

sorrow,

A fluted pillar of pure marble, having the semblanco of being suddenly broken, is meant to be symbolical of the sudden death of a young lady, aged twenty-five, who was called away from the world without a moment's warning. "Her sun went down while it was yet day." Reader! when thou hearest that a fellow mortal has been suddenly plunged into eternity, think of the mercy that has spared thee.

A painter, engaged in bronzing the iron palisades of a monument, has conceded to me, though somewhat unwillingly, that the gates of Hyde Park, near Apsleyhouse, are bronzed "pretty well." He has just given me his card, that in case I should want anything in his way, he may have the pleasure of serving me in a suerior manner.

In another part of the grounds, observing a young nan at work, coating over the sculptured letters on a marble tomb with size, before painting them black, I emarked to him, Why, that must be double trouble." 'Yes, it is, si," said he, with a black look, "but my master here the sudden appearance of his master prevented him from finishing the sentence; otherwise, he would no doubt have informed me, that his master was an unreasonable man, who cared nothing about the double trouble of his journeyman, for he never paid him for it. Oh the world! the world! With masters and servants, self-interest is as lynx-eyed in a burialground as at the Stock Exchange.

Here and there is an inscription to an only child. Oh! what love, what loneliness, what agony, does that word only represent!

The colonnade of Grecian architecture on the norta side is sure to attract the eye, and draw the feet of the