There are few but will join me in reprobating the practice of interring in churches, of polluting the temples of the living God with the mouldering relics of mortality, of mingling the odour of corruption with the incense of prayer: let this custom then be abolished altogether. Let each possessor of a garden or land be at liberty to have a mausoleum upon his own property. I am not aware, indeed, that this is at present prohibited by any other law than the force of prejudice, and perhaps also by the hostility of the clergy to such an innovation. I am old enough to remember the obloquy that was heaped upon the memory of a respectable tradesman of a northern town, who, agreeably to his desire, was buried in his own garden, when not one of the clergy of the establishment could be prevailed upon to officiate*. Still, I have no doubt that if but a few of our leading nobility and gentry were to adopt the practice which I have suggested, their example would aid much to overthrow that superstition, or that prejudice, which attaches such importance to interment in what is called " hallowed ground," and to give general currency to that beautiful sentiment of the first of our living poets— That's hallowed ground where, mourn'd and miss'd, Often have I in my reveries sketched the humble repository which I would fain prepare for myself and mine. It should be a rustic temple, perhaps of octagonal shape, with a vault beneath of the same dimensions. A winding path bordered with evergreens and flowering shrubs should lead to it, and it should be embowered in a plantation of the same. The overhanging roof should be supported at the angles by pillars forming a colonnade round the building, and entwined with creeping-plants-the honeysuckle, the clematis, the jessamine, and the climbing-rose. The windows might be of stained glass, and a pedestal with an inscription, or a tablet against the wall, might bear a record of each of the persons whose mortal remains were deposited in the vault immediately beneath. I leave it to the imaginations of those who are capable of entering into my feelings to fill up the outline, and to supply the more minute features of such a mausoleum, which might be constructed in a more or less expensive style, according to the circumstances of the family to which it belonged, and which the hand of taste and affection might decorate in a thousand ways: but though I should wish it to have an air of suit. able solemnity, I would nevertheless studiously banish every thing gloomy. Hither, when chafed by the vexations or assailed by the seductions of life, we might retire to calm and purify the unruly passions in solitary meditation, or in communion with the beloved dead, whose spirits have preceded us to that world "where the wicked cease from troubling and where the weary are at rest.” A few very choice books might assist in restoring to the mind that peace which so many untoward circumstances often combine to disturb. To this spot, too, as to a domestic sanctuary placed midway between earth * It would appear that my friend either did not know, or in the simplicity of his heart did not recollect, the ecclesiastical pains and penalties which a clergyman of the establishment would incur by burying in unconsecrated ground. and heaven, the members of the family could have access at all hours, as the people of Catholic countries have to their churches, to pour forth their sorrows, their gratitude, and their supplications, to the Father of Mercies and the Giver of all Good. The memory of a tender parent, of a beloved wife or husband, of a darling child, of an affectionate brother or sister, would be revived and more and more endeared to us by every visit, from which we could scarcely fail to return better and happier than we went. Busts placed upon the pedestals, or portraits suspended above them, would serve to refresh and cherish these fond feelings and remembrances, which, without other memorials of our departed kindred but those in the distant church or churchyard, that perhaps seldom meet our eye, are apt to become more and more faint, till the lapse of time at length wholly obliterates them, or leaves at best but indistinct impressions. It is obvious that on the estates of the opulent, sepulchral temples might be rendered not only ornamental to the demesne, but pleasing objects when beheld from the surrounding country, according to the site chosen for them, and the material employed in their construction. On these points we might take a lesson from the Chinese, a people on whom we look down with sovereign contempt, but in whose national character the veneration of their ancestors and the care bestowed on their family burial-places form prominent and pleasing features. The adoption of the practice which I have recommended would tend, I am confident, to strip death of many of the terrors with which the mere thought of it is too frequently accompanied, by establishing between the living and the deceased members of the same family a sort of affectionate intercourse, that must essentially conduce to the interests of virtue and morality. It is not unreasonable to expect that it would do still more: it would surely operate as some check upon the thoughtless and inconsiderate; and they whom the fear of poverty might not otherwise deter from squandering their patrimony in dissipation, would probably hesitate a little before they staked the bones of their forefathers on the fleetness of a racer or the hazard of the die. Instead of being obliged, as is now the case in some of the parishes near the metropolis, to watch the graves of kindred for weeks to prevent their spoliation by ruffian hands, and perhaps finding ourselves baffled at last, we should have the satisfaction of knowing that the loved-ones we have lost repose as securely in the family sepulchre as they did while living in their own chamber. It may be alleged that the clergy would scarcely be induced to sanction such an innovation by the performance of the usual religious ceremonies. There are persons of tender minds by whom this might be deemed a serious privation; but I cannot think that the funeral service would fall less impressively from the lips of a relative or a friend, though his voice might be tremulous with grief and his eyes dim with tears, than from those of a stranger unmoved by the virtues, the kindness, the affection, of the spirit that lately animated the body which he is consigning to the tomb. After all I must confess that there is a way of disposing of the dead, which seems for many reasons to deserve a preference to our ordinary mode of interment, with its consequent lingering and loathsome process of decomposition. A young and beautiful female is snatched from her admiring family and friends by one of those rapid diseases to which the human frame is liable. There she lies like a sleeping angel in sculptured alabaster. Look at her again three months-nay, only one-after the grave has received her delicate form-or rather, if you knew her, if you loved her, look not at her : the contrast would be too terrible, too harrowing. Let fire be the agent employed to reduce the body to its original elements; the finer particles commingle with the pure æther, the grosser are left in the form of ashes: untainted by corruption, she is then removed from sight with all the loveliness which death suffered her to retain, and with which memory ever afterwards invests her cherished image. I need not enumerate all the inconveniences which would be obviated by this substitution. The rank churchyard would no longer disgorge its half-digested prey-the dead could not then endanger the health of the living-and each of the urns preserving beyond the reach of violation all that remained on earth of the objects of our reverence and love, deposited in our domestic sanctuary, would continually prefer the silent but not the less forcible appeal-FORGET ME NOT! FRUIT-TREES. TREES were anciently objects of veneration among the northern nations, as well as among the orientals. The ancient Germans worshipped their deities under the form of trees; their temples were groves and woods, in which were deposited their objects of devotion and their warlike trophies. Beneath the boughs of majestic trees, they erected their altars; and here also were held their judicial and festive meetings. The early Christian teachers called these meetings in the woods the devil's banquets, and, owing to the high favour in which they were held, it was found necessary to institute, in their stead, festivals in honour of the martyrs, at which, however, frequent intoxication prevailed. Even when subsequent laws strictly prohibited the worship of oaks and other trees, popular superstition would scarcely suffer a bough to be lopped off. The missionaries, therefore, destroyed the sacred groves, which might truly be regarded as the seat of the old worship of nature; for, with the common people, trees were under magical influence. This feeling of reverence for trees gradually wore away, and depredations committed in groves, woods, &c. are no longer regarded as sacrilege, but merely considered as common offences. Surely it were a task worthy of the pious pastor and philanthropist to instil into the minds of the common people the conviction that blessings grow up for them with every tree. Their value, and the benefit to be derived from their cultivation, are forcibly and pleasingly recommended by a modern German writer, Hebel, in a simple dialogue, from which we extract a passage : John. Were I at liberty to chuse between a cow and a cherry-tree or a walnut-tree, I would chuse a tree. Thomas. You are shrewd enough. You think that if you had a tree of your own, you would also have a garden or a field of your own in which the tree should grow. In the same way a house-door of one's own is not a contemptible thing, but, with a cow of your own, safe and sound on her four legs, chances would still be against you. John. You are quite right, Thomas. A tree eats neither clover nor corn; it sucks nourishing moisture from the earth as quietly as a babe sucks its mother's milk; it receives warm life from the sun, and freshness from the air, and shakes its hair in the storm. A cow might happen to die; but a tree lives and bears its blossoms, its bird'snests, and its blessings, for our children and our children's children. Trees would be the happiest of beings, if they knew how free and gay they are, how beautiful they look in spring-what a protection they afford when clothed in the full-leafed glory of summer-how men stop to admire them, and thank God for the pleasure they afford -how gratefully the weary traveller rests beneath their shade, to smoke his pipe or eat his crust of bread-in short, how they deal out benefits to all around them, and confer happiness on young and old. Even in winter, trees give us no trouble, for they do not require to be housed; no, they brave the chilling blast, and guide the traveller on his way when roads and paths are buried beneath the snow; directing him first to the right, then to the left-now a little more to the left, and over the hill. If ever you should become a great man, Thomas, I would advise you to encourage the growth of trees, and religion. In no way could your influence be better employed for the benefit of man; for, though a tree, when planted and grafted, costs little or nothing, it grows at last into a capital, which yields good interest-and piety secures the promise of happiness here and hereafter. For my own part, when I earn money enough to buy a little plot of ground, and my mother-in-law that is to be consents to my marrying her daughter, if God should grant us children, for every child I will plant a tree. Each tree shall bear the name of the child for whom it is reared, William, John, or Louisa, and it shall be the child's first and sole property. I shall watch their increase in size and beauty, and, in a few years, I shall see an urchin climbing up, and gathering the interest of his capital. If it should please God to take one of my children from me, I shall beg of the parson to come and bury it under its own tree. On the return of spring, when the trees appear as if risen from the dead, clothed in all their glory, full of hope and blossoms, and with feathered songsters perched on every spray, I will kneel down beside the grave, and whisper softly, Sweet child, thy tree blooms. Rest in peace!" The fine idea which was thus conceived by Hebel, on the Lower Rhine, had been previously realized in the remote regions of the north. At a little distance from Pawłosk, near Petersburgh, a country palace of the late Empress-mother of Russia, there is a family grove, every tree in which has been planted on the birth of one of the princes and princesses. A simple shield, hung upon each tree, denotes the name of the individual for whom it was planted. The imperial family were accustomed to make frequent excursions to this truly sacred grove, where, beneath the shade of the trees, a festival was solemnized, by hearts knit together in the bonds of affection. THE SOVEREIGN GEM. A TALE OF THE GNOMES. BY MRS. HENRY ROLLS. "I SCORN my father's low-brow'd halls, 66 Through which the murmuring streamlets glide. Though Donald of the hills has strove, From earliest youth, my heart to win; Why should I stoop to be the love 66 Of a mere laird of rock and linn? Back, foolish tears!-why will ye start? Wealth, power, and grandeur, should be mine!- "To deck with jewels rare my brow, The rich mine's swarthy dæmon stood! As ne'er for mortal eyes have shone! "On golden floors thy foot shall rest, |