INDEX, ARRANGED WITH REFERENCE TO THE PAGES. *** In this Index, many of the articles are entered under different heads, in order to ensure their discovery by the reader. 64 Legend of Coleman Street, a 192 Modern Rome, Story of, 376 Mothers, the Two, 269 Mozart's Requiem, 408 Nephew, the, 280 Old Story of Flanders, - 169 Baltic, Letters from the, 390 180 Barber-Surgeons of Paris, 182 109 Barrow on Lombardy, 278 245 Basselin, Poems of, 85 Old Maids, 236 Old Man to his Ass, 416 Originality of Discovery, 1 On seeing some Work-horses in a Parish-Boy, Story of a, Pauper Children, 137 Park on Sunday, 264 Process of Maclou Gerard, Philosophy of Umbrellas, 340 Ovid, Poems of, Prevention, 97 Pity, Lines to, 48 Remarkable Trial, Story of, Regularity of Occasional Things, 273 Poems of Nicol, 132 Scene in Napoleon's Life, "Saint John's Gate," 329 Poems of Taylor, 142 Stepmothers, Saint Martin's le Grand, 257 Poetry of France, Specimens of Story of a Tear, Some Ideas respecting the Fair Sex, 201 the, Spirit of Old Inscriptions, Poetry of Prince, 205 Story of Flanders, State of the West Highlands and Poetry of Sappho, 407 Tale of the Tyrol, Islands, 161 Remonstrance against Cruelty, 344 The Countess Ida, Stepmothers, 361 Retrospection, Sticks, 277 Rich and Poor Children, Stray Chapters from my Journals, by Captain Basil Hall, 276, 281, 289, 301, 306 Snails, Remonstrance with, The Dignity of Usefulness, 377 Sonnet, The Dirt of London, 209 Spirit of Beauty, the, 8 The High-Pressure System, 393 Swallow, the, 256 What will Mrs Grundy say? The Leading Man of the Village, 345 The Couch by Friendship Spread, 184 The Lower Musical World, 225 The Early Blue-bird, 112 65 The Happiness of Rural Life, Tibullus, Poetry of, 177 313 To my Flute, by W. Thom, 389 The Poor Relation, 193 Wren, the, The Present and the Past, 81 Written on my Brother James's Ticklers, 382 Birthday, 272 William Penn, Town, 121 Young Poet's Musings, 248 Two Days in Leeds, 353 Letitia Eliza Landon, Visit to the Sailors' Home in Lon- Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, don, "With the Grain," 321 Wonder, MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF 51 Battersea Workhouse, Visit to, 133 Battle Scene at Talavera, 414 Belgian Railways, 67 Bethune, Life of John, 155 Betty's Marriage, Black Death, the, 252 Board and Education, Cheap, 361 Bonnycastle on the Canadas, 83 Boundary Line between England 34 Bridgeman, Laura, 26 Brittany, Jottings in, Canada, a Township of Upper, Canadian Lumberers, 107 Carleton's Tales, 163 Cemeteries, Mrs Loudon on, 303 Census, the, 279 INSTRUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 29 70 93 114 Benevolent Experiment, 280 180 398 194 410 266, 286, 391 119 56 196 367 Chatsworth, 76 Chemical Discovery, New, 229 93 108 Chinese Superstitions, 85 Circassian Scene, 335 Clare, the Poet, 125 90 92 88 -is it? A Legend of Kilchurn, A Legend of Lough Erne, A Long While Ago, Anacreon, Poems of, Anxieties and Comforts, Ascent of Pony in a Balloon, Clare, Poetry of, Content, Deaf and Dumb Boy's Thoughts on 232 Curious how Things come about Sometimes, 360 Emily Warrington, Story of, 92 Evil Communication Corrupts America, Buckingham on, 18, 223, 253 95 American Agriculturists, 250 American Indians, State of, 102 Anecdotes of Waterloo Campaign, 190100 370 Alain Chartier, Works of, 66 Clarke on Climate, 213, 226 130 Albert at Woolwich, 129 Cologne, 381, 385 202 Colonies in Britain, Relics of, 399 148 74 America, Absence of Local Attach- 411 171 376 CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE," "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c. NUMBER 466. A FEW WEEKS FROM HOME. LONDON CEMETERIES. WHEREVER one goes in England, he finds the most amusingly absurd old usages, forms, and institutions. In an old baronial castle near Canterbury, the curfew bell has been rung nightly since the reign of William the Conqueror, and the practice is kept up with the most reverential care. In a certain borough, every candidate for the honour of citizenship must dress himself in a white sheet and wade through a dirty horse-pond. In London, one has only to go into the inns of court, or the endowed schools, in order to see a sufficiency of examples of ancient and now aimless and useless practices. The yellow hue of slavery comes down to us from the middle ages on the legs of the children of King Edward's School; and because a small cap unfit for the head was the fashion of the year 1550, these young persons have had to walk bareheaded for three centuries, and will probably do so for three centuries to come. We have already adverted to the square platters of the Winchester boys, so conservative of endowment rules, but so destructive of gravy. We have been told that, at a similar collegiate school, potatoes were recognised as canonical only about twenty years ago, and not even then without great hesitation and many deep and anxious consultations. These things may be considered as results of the rigidly literal character of English law. In Scotland, where law is less exact in her behests, most such matters have been modified according to the spirit of advancing ages. We have accordingly, in our northern region, few things which bring the very form and pressure of long-past centuries before us. The past is seen only in its wrecks-ruined castles, ruined abbeys, ruined every thing. It is scarcely possible for an Englishman, reared in familiarity with so many antiquated institutions and usages, to conceive the impression which these make upon the mind of a stranger, coming, as we do, from a land where there is a greater conformity between the things which are and the things which common sense points out to be needful and proper. In my late sojourn in the south, these considerations were forcibly brought before me, when, after an excursion into Kent, I took a ramble amongst the metropolitan cemeteries. A churchyard in London is a very different thing from a churchyard in the country, where breezes blow, cowslips and daisies bloom, grass grows green, and where even the mournful graves have a pleasant summer look about them, that gives you the idea that the poor inhabitant below lies snug and comfortable, and is cheered in his solitude by the singing of the birds and the shining of the sun all day long. How different one of the London churchyards! Conceive a Sir-ChristopherWren church, in the centre of a small quadrangular opening, in the midst of hosts of dingy brick houses, which seem crushing in upon the little court, as if desirous to overrun it with buildings, and leaving only a narrow waggon way around. As for the ground, or place of tombs, ten to one it is garnished with one or two trees, which find great difficulty in growing up through the smoky atmosphere, and perhaps loll a branch over the rusty iron railing beneath. The graves, except when flagged over with flat stones, are so many rows of oblong mud heaps-masses of dark mould, saturated with the decaying elements of humanity, and revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety. In Tooley Street, there is a bloated churchyard of this description; and wending our way through the city by Aldgate, Great St Thomas the Apostle, Holborn, and Oxford Street, we see SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1841. one every here and there, equally choked, black, and So limited is the space for interment in these me- In most of the churchyards are found vaults or subterranean cells, which are employed as receptacles for the dead, and frequently these are situated beneath the floors of the churches-a practice dangerous above all for the public health, for, with every precaution, not excepting that of leaden coffins, it is well known that noxious gases escape from such depositories, and prove highly detrimental to all who are exposed to them, acting, indeed, exactly as a poison upon the living fibre. We have here a result of the superstitious spirit of the middle ages, which regarded burial within the church as favourable to the most important interests, as is the case in Italy at this day. The original motive may now be said scarcely to exist in England; but still the custom is maintained, in spite of all that reason and the most simple regard to prudence can say to the contrary. The general evil of crowded churchyards and church Even under all the difficulties arising from this PRICE THREE HALFPENCE. miles on the road to Harrow, passing on our left the station of the Great Western Railway at Paddington, and wending our way by a country road environed with green fields and hedgerows. We, in short, get out of town-no easy matter to a pedestrian in London -and the last bit of street is left behind. Having attained the summit of a broad swelling eminence, we find on the left a façade and gateway, of elegant architectural proportions, fronting the burying-ground we are in quest of, and from which, on casting our eyes back, we are presented with a most extensive prospect across the country as far as the hills of Surrey, and also of the western environs of the metropolis. We are now within this beautifully laid out Père la Chaise, as I may call it a gently sloping field with 2 southern exposure, measuring forty-six acres, and calculated to afford an almost inexhaustible amount of accommodation for interments. As yet, the ground is rather bare of trees, but this is in the course of remedy, and in a few years it will exhibit a variety of shady recesses. Several walks, laid with yellow gravel, and broad enough to allow the driving of carriages, are spread in different directions through the cemetery, permitting the visiter to observe the long rows of graves and monumental erections which line their sides and exterior boundaries. A cloister or species of arcade of Grecian architecture, which crowns the highest part of the ground on the north, affords a covering to the family vaults, in which is accommodation for 5000 bodies, and along the face of the inner wall there is room for monumental tablets of marble in different devices. In the middle of the ground, a short way from this, stands a chapel with environing porticoes, the whole built of stone, and in excellent taste. Along the broad path leading down the centre of the ground, we find the greatest number of the more elegant, and, as we should call them, sentimental cenotaphs and monuments. The most conspicuous in the series is a covered building, embellished with exterior railing, vases, and flower-borders, forming, as we learn from the inscription, what is to be the burial place of Mr Ducrow, the famed equestrian. All that portion of the ground which we have described, lying towards the right of the entrance, and forming perhaps three-fourths of the entire cemetery, has been consecrated, and is devoted exclusively to the sepulture of members of the Established Church, or at least to burials at which the church service is used. A considerably smaller portion, separated from the other by an artificial ditch and railing, and situated on the left of the gateway, has been reserved unconsecrated, for the interment of all who belong to other denominations of religionists. This portion has also its chapel, and, on perambulating the walks, I observed that the tombstones are generally commemorative of foreigners, members of the Roman Catholic body, Presbyterians, and others out of the pale of the church. On thus finding religious distinctions carried beyond, or, I may say, into the grave, and the different feelings of mankind on a point of ritual presented in so tangible a form, the mind of an individual whose country's faith overlooks all such matters, and whose feelings accordingly have never run in such channels, is impressed in a way which serves much to spoil, as far as he is concerned, the effect of what is otherwise a solemn and tastefully disposed scene. Norwood Cemetery, belonging to the South Metropolitan Cemetery Company, and situated at the distance of six miles from town, in the county of Surrey and diocese of Winchester, ranks next in point of size to that at Kensal Green. It consists of about forty acres, occupying the top and two sloping sides of a beautiful hill-properly a knoll-and is laid out with |