least expensive object in the grounds. A certain costliness in a monument erected to a public benefactor, which is very appropriate, would seem ridiculous and ostentatious in one erected by his own friends over the grave of a private citizen. This principle is too apt to be overlooked by designers. But as a cemetery is occupied chiefly by private tombs, the style of private monuments is the most important consideration.

The figures in most general use in monumental sculpture are the cross, the pedestal, the obelisk, the scroll, the urn, the broken column, the slab, the altar, and the tablet. A very common design is a pedestal with an urn placed upon it. The epitaph is usually engraved upon the sides of the pedestal, and not upon the urn. This is what we

commonly see in those family pictures which are used as memorials of the dead. A weeping-willow hangs its branches over the monument, and the figure of a woman in the attitude of grief, is leaning on the opposite side.

In Pennant's Town in Wales, there is an account of a monument, erected in a Chapel in which "the figure of Hope reclines on an urn, and is attended with her usual emblem of an anchor. A serpent, with its tail in its mouth, expressive of eternity, includes the inscription on one side of the pedestal." The objectional part of this design is the serpent, with its tail in its mouth, an emblem. which is rather ludicrous than impressive.

"The Churchyards in Switzerland (says Simond), are adorned in odd taste, with fantastic crosses on each grave, tricked out with small puppet figures of saints or angels, dangling loose in the wind, the wood curiously carved with devices, and the whole gaudily painted and gilded. Two leagues from Berne, we stopped to see a tomb of another sort the celebrated monument of Maria Langhans. The lid of the tomb is represented as breaking asunder, at the sound of the trumpet of the day of judgment; and

a young and beautiful woman, pushing away the fragments with one hand, rises out with an infant on her arm. There is a great deal of sweetness in her face, mixed with a certain expression of surprise and yet of faith. But the action is hardly simple enough for the chisel."

Every one must perceive the want of simplicity of this design, in its representation of an allegory, which is an extended emblem, or rather something emblematical of incidents and events. Over a tomb we want a simple emblem, for a device, not an allegory; a sentiment, for an epitaph, not a sermon. The figure of the mother and her child alone might be sufficiently simple; the broken tomb encumbers the device with too much detail. The idea would be suitable for a painting, but it is too complicated for sculpture. Such representations do not suit the taste of the more intelligent of the present age. The more cultivated the people, the more do they study general effects in their designs, and the less do they admire such conceits as those above described. The old world is full of them. It remains for America to set the example of a new and a better taste, instead of blindly imitating absurd designs, which ought to have become obsolete with the superstitions and fallacies of the age that invented them.

I believe it is usual among artists in Europe to make a distinction between those stones which are designed to memorialize persons of different trades and professions, and of different sexes and ages. A stone erected over the grave of a young girl should be made in a style that should suggest the character of the deceased. It might be, for example, a simple tablet, rather slender in its proportions, containing an appropriate device. A matron should be distinguished by a different stone. An obelisk is thought to be most suitable for the grave of one who was engaged in public affairs, and might be used to sig

nify that the person who lies beneath was a statesman. A clergyman might be distinguished by a tablet surmounted with a scroll or a cross. A small pedestal is very appro

priate for the grave of a young man who died under circumstances that caused his friends to erect a monument to his memory. The pedestal has an emblematic significance of the foundation of future greatness and usefulness which death has caused to be unfinished. But if one dies in the decline of life, a pillar should be added to the pedestal to signify that his days were finished.

I WENT TO GATHER FLOWERS.

WRITTEN FOR THE ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE REPRESENTING A YOUNG GIRL, WITH A BASKET OF FLOWERS AT HER SIDE, SEATED NEAR A GRAVE AND WEEPING.

I.

I WENT to gather flowers, a wreath to bind,
For my young sister's birth-day gift designed;
The birds were singing sweetly o'er my head,
And every knoll was some bright flow'ret's bed.
Lured by the scenes, I wandered far away,
And paused not till the first decline of day;
When, as I looked around to mark my pace,
I found myself within the burial-place;
But knew not thither that my steps were bent,
And stood like one on heavenly errand sent.

II.

I laid aside my flowers to muse awhile,
By sculptured rock and monumental pile.
Ere this, I had been often told of death,
The tears, the farewell, and the parting breath,

Yet knew but little of our last, long home,

Our transient life-time, or the world to come.

The tombs, the gravestones, and the frequent mounds, —
All scenes were strange within these lonely grounds;
They spoke of things I was too young to know,
Of living grief, and senseless sleep below.

III.

I had, as I was told, in infant years,
Another sister, and my earliest tears
Were poured when her young spirit fled away;
I knew not then she must forever stay;
But as I strolled to ponder and to read

The words inscribed by living hearts that bleed,
I read
my sister's name upon
the tomb,

And felt at once the nature of her doom!

Here, since that hour, hath my dear sister slept!—
And then I sank upon her grave, and wept!

IV.

And is it here departed friends are laid? —
Is this the final dwelling of the dead?—
And does, indeed, my sister slumber here, -
That dim-remembered one to all so dear?
Is this the home of those whom we deplore,—
The friends who leave us, and are seen no more?
Until these sacred objects met my eye,

Alas! I knew not what it is to die!

Yet here, indeed, my missing friends have slept!·
And with the bitter thought again I wept.

V.

My sister's death I still remembered well :
Yet why she ne'er returned I could not tell.

But here I learn the cause; for there she lies,
And sees not these fair flowers, nor hears my sighs!
I'd wreathe her grave, but plants of beauty rare,
With seeming kindness, fondly cluster there.
Then, as I wiped away my blinding tears,
Upon her tomb a sculptured verse appears, —
Addressed, perhaps, to her who now repines:
Beneath my sister's name I read these lines :

VI.

EPITAPH.

All ye that in these holy precincts tread,
And gather flowers that bloom above my head,
Pause ere you bear the living gems away,
And read the sacred lesson they convey.

Like you, these flowers with youth and beauty glow,
But perish soon, like her who lies below:

Thus all mankind are doomed alike to die,
And buried thus will for a season lie;

But, as the flowers in spring awake and bloom,
We too shall rise immortal from the tomb!

VII.

I gathered up my flowers; I roamed no more:
But learned a truth I scarcely knew before.
I learned the state of those we call the dead;
And on my sister's tomb their hopes had read;
Yet still sometimes I cannot cease to weep,
To think how drear the places where they sleep!
I dried my tears; I could no longer roam;
And to my sister bore the garland home:
But ne'er shall I forget those early hours,
When first I went abroad to gather flowers.