leaves and all. It typifies more than any other flower that exuberance and redundance of glory which awaits the spirits of the blest. It would be difficult to select any one burial lot among so many beautiful ones, pre-eminently deserving our praise. Perhaps on some accounts that of W. J. PEASE, Esq., is the most attractive. It is laid out in an oval form, surrounded by a very handsome fence, and perfect in all the details of gardening and floral ornament. To its many intrinsic beauties, it joins the advantage of a situation upon the brow of a hill which slopes down to one of the most charming lakes in the cemetery, from whose placid blue depths, one cannot fail to read a lesson of resignation and peace.

We have heretofore casually alluded to the trees and shrubs in this cemetery. We do not travel far before we are utterly astonished at the immense multitude and variety of these natural monuments. We count them up-not the number (that is impossible), but the kinds, and the result does not diminish our wonder. We find large quantities of the following varieties in active and vigorous growth-the southern and English cypress, native cedar, magnolia, silver abele (bearing a small leaf with a silver under-lining), horse chesnut (famous for its large and abundant flowers), flowering almond, maple, elm, mulberry, mock mulberry, the weeping willow (most tearful and inconsolable of trees), sassafras (shedding a soft perfume), Norway spruce, arbor vitæ, or tree of life; ailanthus, or tree of heaven; locust (there is one grove of locusts six acres in extent), yellow

and white pine, rose of Sharon, white oak, pin oak, white birch (renowned for its silvery coat), smoke tree, (commonly called Aaron's beard, from its grey and drooping flower,) hawthorne and privet, wild cherry, dog-wood (bearing bright red berries in the Fall) the black birch, a strange tree whose top spreads out like the ribs of an umbrella, known as the pepperage; sumach, lilac, chesnut, "thick with milky cones." There are many chesnuts on the premises, and all in fine fruit-bearing condition. We noticed one, hundreds of years old, that still presented its annual gift of nuts. English sycamores, weeping ash, poplar, and May apple, close our leafy inventory.

Many of this long list of trees were indigenous to the soil, but most of them were either imported or purchased at great expense, and set out under the eye of a practical and skillful gardener. Some idea may be had of the money and care devoted to this department of outlay, when we state that twenty thousand trees have been introduced since the establishment of the cemetery, and seven thousand within the past spring alone.

Several churches have purchased lots in Cypress Hills for the burial of their members. There is something beautiful and affecting even to the undevout mind, in the idea of a congregation maintaining the brotherhood of its faith not merely in the prayers and the songs of the sanctuary, but in that closer bond of fellowship-the grave. It carries with it an evidence of religious sincerity which

none can dispute. Thus, the Allen-st. Methodist Episcopal church, of New York, have purchased 200 lots; the Norfolk-st. Methodist Episcopal church of New York, 200 lots; the Christian church of New York, 100 lots; the 1st Methodist Episcopal church of Williamsburgh, 200 lots; and the Reformed Dutch church of the same city own a large plot of ground. It must cheer the passage to the grave, to know that one, after death, will be laid with those with whom he has worshipped in the pew, or sung in the choir, or instructed in the Sunday school or Bible class, with the devout "pillars of the church," whom he was taught in his infancy to revere.

There is one plot of ground which, regarded from this stand-point, is full of interest to the contemplative mind. It contains the remains of from eleven thousand to fourteen thousand bodies taken from the graveyard at the corner of 1st street and 2d Avenue, New York. This graveyard was populated by interments of entire Methodist denominations of New York, for a long series of years, from five churches in its vicinity. Not long ago, they manifested an inclination to remove the remainswhich were rapidly accumulating to the detriment of the living-into some suburban cemetery. The Cypress Hill Association, thereupon, with praiseworthy generosity, donated a commodious tract of land for their benefit. The disinterment and removal were effected at the expense of the church, and the dead were transferred to their new sleeping place. As far as was feasible, the identity of

the remains was preserved and the same stones which originally marked their graves, stand above them now. The greater portion of the mouldering ashes, however, being undistinguishable, was placed together in large vaults. The sight of so many graves near each other, and a knowledge of their history, cannot fail to give rise to many profitable reflections in every reflecting mind. The five churches, with a commendable unanimity of christian spirit, design to erect a suitable monument upon the ground. It will be twenty-four feet high, of Italian marble with a granite base, and surrounded by the rose of Sharon.

many

We soon become fatigued if we attempt, at one visit, to walk over all the roads in this noble cemetery. They already extend to the distance of miles, and when completed according to the plan proposed, will amount in the aggregate to over fifty miles. We, therefore, confine our wanderings to a few of the principal avenues, and to portions only of them, such as the via Dolorosa (already described); the East Dolorosa, Thanatopsis, Westminster way, Melrose way, Woodhull way, Highland way, the Lake road, the Valley road, the Forest road, and Temperance walk. By following these we are enabled to get a good general idea of the diversity of the ground, and we see all the principal monuments and other curiosities of the cemetery. We enter a magnificent forest of native trees, upon a gently curving road, which leads us under cool and leafy bowers, each one more beautiful than the last. As

we stroll along, cracking the twigs under our feet, we startle a flight of birds. Up bounds a partridge or a quail within a rod of us, and goes whirring off to some inner and denser covert. A company of crows flutter idly from one limb to another above our head. They know-cunning creatures that they are that they are safe from the sportsman in the sanctuary of the dead. Another flutter of wings attracts our notice, and we see a flock of wood ducks rising from a lake and flying to a clump of old trees in which they build their uninvaded nests. The whole cemetery is full of birds, which, next to flowers, are the most cheering frequenters of a burial place. The robin, the blue bird, the king bird, the skylark, the snipe, the thrush and other beautiful varieties, build their nests and rear their young in perfect security within the solemn precincts of Cypress Hills. Each returning Spring brings families of these feathered visitants back to their old haunts, to cheer the mourner with their music from the skies.

Another route conducts us to the North Entrance, guarded by a rustic gate. Near stands the Keeper's Lodge, a pretty, white cottage, surrounded by many little tokens of comfort. The Association, it is plain to see, provide well for their employées. Still another road leads us to the Western Gate, which is well worth a visit. Without, in view of the road, is a low elliptical mound, neatly turfed and surrounded by typical statues. Within, rises a tower with a bell whose slow and measured toll, resound