Entrance Arch of the New Palace, St. James's Park.

St. James's park, the smallest of the London parks, is certainly the prettiest. It is bounded on the east by the parade at the back of the Horse Guards (p. 353), and at its western extremity is the new palace, recently converted into a royal residence by her present majesty. On the southern and northern sides are the Bird-cage walk and the Mall, the latter a fine avenue, planted with trees. An iron railing separates the Green park from St. James's. Hemmed in, as St. James's park is, by buildings on every side, the sheet of water, shrubbery, and trees, afford in summer very fine contrasts a delightful landscape in the heart of a city.

In 1814, St. James's, the Green park, and Hyde park were made the scene of rejoicings and illuminations-a grand jubilee being held in commemoration of various events, the close of the war, the centenary of the accession of the house of Brunswick, the anniversary of the battle of the Nile, &c. On this occasion half-a-guinea was charged for admission into the enclosed portion of St. James's park; it had all the appearance of Vauxhall on a full night. The Green park and Hyde park were thrown open to the people. The amusements consisted of a mimic sea-fight on the piece of water called the Serpentine, in Hyde park; boat-races on the canal in St. James's (the park had not then been metamorphosed by Mr. Nash), with booths. bridges, a pagoda, a fortress which was to be turned into a temple of Concord, fireworks, illuminations, a balloon ascent, &c. The pagoda was accidently burnt in the course of the night, but this would rather have heightened instead of marring the enjoyment of the people, had it not been for the deaths of two persons by the fire. In Hyde park the booths, shows, gaming-tables, printing-presses, &c., remained for upward of a week afterward, nor would the owners abandon the fair, till turned out by the magistrates and police.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

FUNERALS AND CEMETERIES.

THE modes in which funerals are conducted in different parts of the United King. dom are, to a certain extent, indicative of provincial characteristics. An English country churchyard may be rude, and its tombstones covered with epitaphs which do not display much literary taste or skill; yet there is something about an English funeral, when conducted in the old-fashioned English country manner, calculated, from the combination of simplicity and seriousness, to stir the heart. Wordsworth has described one:"From out the heart

Of that profound abyss a solemn voice,

Or several voices in one solemn sound,

Was heard, ascending: mournful, deep, and slow

The cadence, as of psalms-a funeral dirge!

We listened, looking down toward the hut.
But seeing no one: meanwhile from below

The strain continued, spiritual as before;

And now distinctly could I recognise

These words' Shall in the grave thy love be known,

In death thy faithfulness!'- God rest his soul!'

The wanderer cried, abruptly breaking silence,

He is departed, and finds peace at last!'

This scarcely spoken, and those holy strains

Not ceasing, forth appeared in view a band

Of rustic persons, from behind the hut,

Bearing a coffin in the midst, with which

They shaped their course along the sloping side
Of that small valley; singing as they moved;
A sober company and few, the men
Bareheaded, and all decently attired!"

A Scotch funeral, like the Scotch character, is quiet, decent, carefully performed, and striking, from the uniformity with which the relatives and friends attending are clothed, not in cloaks, or with sashes or bands, but in suits of black, with hatbands of crape, and strips of cambric turned up on the cuffs of the coat, technically called weepers. But to an English mind a Scotch funeral is deficient in impressiveness, arising from there being no funeral service performed over the grave. This is in some measure obviated by the solicitude which the Scotch of all classes display, in securing the presence of a clergyman among the other friends and relatives, and who offers up prayers in the apartment where the company are assembled, previous to the procession setting out for the churchyard. The Rev. C. Otway, in describing a funeral which he witnessed in the churchyard of Glasgow cathedral, says: “The funeral was as orderly as the place to which it was tending the hearse, a sort of close panelled ark, all its compartments painted with well executed scriptural representations; all the relatives and acquaintances of the deceased following on foot, with perfectly new black clothing, large white cuffs, called weepers, to their coats; in solemn line, and by twos or threes, they followed the coffin to the grave, and without any service read, or exhortation uttered, the body was consigned to its earth; and while all others in the same silent order returned from the tomb, a few of the nearest relatives remained, to cast over the coffin the white riband ornaments or cords with which they lowered it into the grave, and to see the clay closed over the tenant's tomb. During this decent rite I stood aloof, observing that none but the friends of the deceased followed in the procession; there was no rush of idle strangers toward the grave." The etiquette of Scotch funerals carefully excludes the presence of females, even that of the nearest relatives.

An Irish country funeral is a remarkable thing. If the deceased has been at all known and respected-especially if he has been a clergyman-the concourse that precedes and follows the bier both in cars and on horse and foot is immense. The stopping and solemn repetition of prayers at cross roads-the deep, slow, modulated chant known as the Irish cry or ululu-the long sweeping procession, men, women, and children, in every kind of garb-all strike the mind of the Englishman or the

Scotchman, as something wild and singular, yet imposing. But a funeral in such a city as Dublin is very different. Among the upper classes, it is too frequently a cold ceremony a string of carriages following the coffin to the grave. Among the lower classes again, it is too frequently a scene offensive to one's notions of propriety, for whiskey having been freely distributed, many of the attendants manifest that they have not less freely used it; but there has been a considerable improvement of late years in this respect.

Of a funeral in London, what can be said?-a place with so various a population, and where a man may die and his next neighbor know nothing of it, till he remarks the mutes with their muffled standards at the door. Notwithstanding the varied population, the undertakers, in whose hands is generally placed the management of London funerals, contrive to give them a uniformity of appearance. If thirty or forty pounds are to be spent on the funeral rites, the undertaker provides a large body of attendants, who perform for hire what in country places is done by friends and acquaintances from feeling or respect. A pall is borne before the hearse garnished with nodding plumes; the hearse is garnished in a similar manner, and so are the horses, which are all of a jet black. Following the hearse is the mourning-coach, and two or three other coaches close the procession. But if the funeral is to be conducted at less expense, and on foot, the undertaker provides cloaks, scarfs, and hatbands, for the relatives and friends who follow the body to the grave; and when the funeral is over, it is his understood duty to precede the chief mourners and such of their friends as accompany them from the churchyard to the house whence the deceased was carried. One of the most mournful, yet one of the most unpicturesque scenes to be seen in London, is the return of the mourners, generally the greater number females, the undertaker marching with a quiet unconcerned air at their head, and they wrapped in heavy ungraceful scarfs and hoods, each holding a handker chief to the face, either from excess of grief, or compliance with the usual habit. In 1819, the "Quarterly Review" complained that, "in the metropolis it had be come more difficult to find room for the dead than the living." The commissioners for the improvements in Westminster reported to parliament in 1814, that "St. Margaret's churchyard could not, consistently with the health of the neighborhood, be used much longer as a burying-ground, for that it was with the greatest difficulty a vacant place could at any time be found for strangers; the family graves generally would not admit of more than one interment; and many of them were then too full for the reception of any member of the family to which they belonged. There are many churchyards in which the soil has been raised several feet above the level of the adjoining street, by the continual accumulation of mortal matter; and there are others in which the ground is actually probed with a borer before a grave is opened. In these things the most barbarous savages might be shocked at our barbarity. Many tons of human bones every year are sent from London to the north, where they are crushed in mills contrived for the purpose, and used as manure!" Fifty years ago, a French writer said that the expenses of interment in London were greatly increased by the necessity of digging the graves deep, for the sake of security from the surgeons. Ames, the antiquary, from some such feeling, was deposited in the churchyard of St. George's in the East, in what is called virgin earth, at the depth of eight feet, and in a stone coffin. A fatal accident occurred in Clerkenwell a few years ago; in digging a grave to a greater depth than this, the sides fell in and bu ried the laborer. Yet there has existed a prejudice against new churchyards! No person was interred in the cemetery of St. George's, Queen square, till the ground was broken for Mr. Nelson, the well-known religious writer; his character for piety reconciled others to the spot. People like to be buried in company, and in good company. The dissenters talk with reverent affection of "the funeral honors of Bunhill fields." John Bunyan was buried there, and so numerous have been, and still are, the dying requests of his admirers to be buried as near as possible to the place of his interment, that it is not now possible to obtain a grave near him, the whole surrounding earth being entirely pre-occupied by dead bodies to a very considerable distance.

Such a state of things is now in rapid course of amelioration. The churchyards of London are not so often disturbed as they were. Kensall Green cemetery is becoming already a thronged burial-place; other cemeteries are springing up round London; and if all the projects now on foot be carried out, there will be no lack of metropolitan suburban cemeteries. A company, in 1836, obtained an act for