In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious

by W. T. Vincent

Of your dwellings. The lilac in the spring

Shall blossom, and the sweet briar shall exhale

Its fragrant smell. E'en the drooping fuchsia

Shall not be wanting to adorn your tombs;

While the weeping willow, pointing downwards,

Speaks significantly to the living,

That a grave awaits us all."

But in rural spots, where there is abundance of room and almost superfluity of nature, a well-kept churchyard, with all its venerable features, studiously protected and reverently cared for, is one of the best inheritances of a country life. Illustrations of this may occur to most observers, but as a case in point I may refer to Cheshunt, on the borders of Hertfordshire. Some distance from the town-fringed highway, the village church, ancient and picturesque, stands amidst its many generations of people—living and dead—hard by a little street of old-world cottages. The spot and its surroundings are beautiful, and the churchyard alone gives proof that the locality has been under the influence of culture from generation to generation. In few places are there so many and such artistic specimens of allegorical carvings on the headstones. The usual experience is to find one or two, seldom more than a dozen, of these inventions worth notice, and only in rare instances to light upon anything of the kind distinctly unique; but at Cheshunt there are more than a hundred varieties of sculptured design and workmanship, all the stones standing at the proper angle, and all in good condition.