of the commissioners appointed to report on them ended in the passing of the Extra-mural Interment Act.

Prior to this event (foreseeing what has long since come to pass, that the local cemeteries would, in the course of a few years, be in the predicament of the city churchyards and burial-grounds), the representatives of the "London Necropolis Company," finding the waste lands of Woking Common in the market, made their gigantic purchase. The nature of the land, which rendered it valueless for agricultural purposes, was well suited for sepulchral ones-peat land, for the most part, over sand or gravel. Wherever swamps existed, the most perfect system of drainage was immediately put into requisition, and some thousands of trees were planted over the four hundred acres of the estate, at present consecrated to funereal uses. Hitherto temporary depositories for the dead had been unheard of in England. Travellers in Germany knew of their existence, and could comprehend, in the case of infectious epidemics, or of even ordinary deaths in the crowded dwellings of the poor at home, the utility and need of such depositories. The London Necropolis Company took the initiative in this matter-and upon a scale commensurate with the terminus, of which it is, as it were, the vestibule, expended some £25,000 in the erection of a building, a portion of which consists of mortuary chambers for the reception of the dead when desired, but which, we believe, are only used for this purpose when the dead happens to be sent from a distance over-night. The whole of the arrangements of this pile of building are of the most perfect description. The waiting-rooms for the mourners, and friends, and other attendants on funeral obsequies, are fitted up with great neatness and propriety, and the most perfect cleanliness, quiet, and decorum is apparent in every department of the place.

The entire scheme, however, was an innovation; and the people of England, as a people, are not in favour of innovations. They revolted violently when Government interfered to prevent the inhabitants of towns from burying their dead, in some instances, at their own doors, or under the flooring of their family pews; and, if I remember truly, bishops and clergymen joined very actively in the clamour raised with regard to burial out of the precincts of one's own parish church. Cemeteries in the centre of London had, however, been growing into favour (with Dissenters especially) for some years past; but few, if any of them, were more than five miles out of town, whereas Woking is between thirty and forty. Then, again, the application of a railroad to funeral purposes was another shock to public feeling-horse-power and ordinary roads were alone applicable. Moreover, if the London Necropolis grew into popularity, what would become of the mystery of London undertakers? This innovation was the most heartrending of all. No more trays of feathers-no more walking mutes-no hearse, no plumes, no mourning carriages. Why, the trade that comes in after death has dismissed the doctor, and adds too often to the active anguish of the widow and the fatherless, the misery of ill-afforded debt, was threatened vitally. And so these descendants of a very ancient and grave profession-these dealers in the paraphernalia of the grave-rose up with one accord, and though every one of them personal opponents before, made common cause to defame and prejudice the public against the use of the Woking Necropolis. Its heathenish name, its immense size, its distance from town, were every one of them so many reasons for vituperation; but, as the public used their own judgment on these points, reports of the most reckless absurdity, but eminently calculated to excite the purlieus of Bethnal-green and St. Giles's into open violence, were promulgated, as to what became of the dead after their disposal in the hands of the company's officials.

Having ourselves gone over every part of the capacious building in the Westminster Road, without falling upon any furnaces for cinerary purposes-which, considering our private views on the superiority of cremation to interment,

would have been a cause of personal gratulation. Having also gone, more than once, as a spectator of the proceedings at Woking Cemetery, by the company's carriages, without being in the least conscious that, on crossing the caual bridge, the still freight in certain of them was consigned to its sluggish waters, while the deceived relatives followed to the graves in the cemetery grounds empty coffins only, which were subsequently taken up, and in which the company (being undertakers when desired) did, of course, a lucrative business. Of these, and similar senseless and discreditable fables, the London Necropolis Company have, from time to time, been the subject. I only touch upon the matter to show the animus with which a grand system has been met, which promises to work a very radical change, not only in funeral fashions, but in funeral charges. The senseless pageantries which mock so bitterly the feelings of real mourners, and are such mere conventional mummeries to every one else, are wholly disposed of at Woking: the pomps and vanities of plume and stave-bearers would be wholly thrown away where no eyes but the tear-blinded ones of mourning relatives and friends are near to regard them.

Even in towns, funeral processions are not the imposing ceremonies they were wont to be, when the streets had less traffic and less of life in them-when men had leisure to stand still and moralize upon the gloomy cortege, and when, instead of driving on as fast as possible, or dodging to get out of the line of route, other equipages and vehicles fell decorously behind, and gave solemn precedence to the Grand Master of us all.

Such pageants are for clear streets and people with leisure to move slowly. In London, at least, it is painful to witness the indifference of the multitude to the monition of which these prancing black-plumed horses-and the castrum doloris which they convey-muffled in fringe and feathers, are the exponents. When interment in the Woking Cemetery is intended all this funeral show (if indulged in) ends at the bronze gate of the Necropolis Station-the coffin is deposited silently in the compartment of the funeral carriage in which it is to be conveyed; and, at a stated hour in the forenoon, other carriages-first, second, or third class, according to the description of funeral required-receive the friends of the deceased, and are borne to their destination in the most kindred spot for such solemnities that modern men have conceived of.

A local branch of railway leads into the terminus in the cemetery grounds, and the coffin is either deposited in a waiting room for the purpose, until a procession is formed, or placed on a hand bier, and removed to one or other of the two chapels which beautify the enclosure, and satisfy the religious scruples of Churchmen, or Dissenters. Looking from the elevation on which the first of these chapels lifts its light spire-some sixty feet above the level of the railway, though scarcely more than a molehill on the broad expanse of ground in which it stands-one cannot help feeling that, whatever monetary speculations entered the brains of the projectors and shareholders of the company-and we know such speculations to be the moving power in the creation of all shareholders and companies whateverwhen the site of the cemetery suggested itself to them, practically a very large amount of public benefit in the way of health and econonmy mingled in the scheme. While an element probably unthought of, it may be unrecognised by these gentlemen as a company to this day, but which can never be absent from the precincts of death without endangering the sympathies of the living, and rendering such precincts common place and disregarded, is here for ever present. The profound pathos of space and solitude-the silent poetry of surrounding nature-the ever-changing sky-the broad lights of unimpeded sun and moonshine the fresh winds doing handmaid offices by obelisk and altar-stone, but flattening, as it ever did in these parts, the "cippus" of the uncovered graves, and bearing from them the atomic dust that, falling in the receptive lap of the great Mother, may create, for ought we know, the relation that binds our

human hearts so sensibly to the green fields, and trees, and flowers. Nor is the purity and sequesteredness confined to the situation of the Necropolis. Except where family tombs are in question, every grave within its wide enceinte is separate and inviolable. A sacred immunity, as common here to the humblest heath-grown hillock where a pauper lies, as to the statelier tombs that glorify with marble and sculpture the mouldering relics within them. Here the beloved dead may literally "rest in peace," and be spared the desecration and defilement inseparable from interment in the over-crowded suburban cemetries, some of which, condemned ten years ago as unfit for the purposes of sepulture, are still in use. Right and left, the view from the broad walk in front of the terminus is only bounded by the horizon; while before us, as far as the line of sight, rises the wooded skirts and chalky ridges of the Surrey hills. A wide avenue with branching alleys stretches almost centrally through the grounds, and sinuous paths, beset with shrubs and flowers, winding amongst monuments and garden graves, give no intimation of the subdivisions of this field of death which is imperceptibly mapped into almost as many portions as there are religious communities amongst us.

Other communities also affecting no conservatism of dust and ashes on religions principle, but continuing, as it were, to their dead members the fraternal senti. ments that for mutual aid and social brotherhood bound them together as units of one Order, have also obtained special grants of land within these precincts; and on the ground sloping from the railway line, next to that allotted to the Swedish Lutherans, rises the broken column that marks the special gathering place of " Odd- Fellowship at Woking Cemetery."

An inscription on the pedestal tells us that this is "The Burial Ground of the Metropolitan Districts of the Independent Order of Odd- Fellows, Manchester Unity Friendly Society. Inaugurated October 14th, 1861." The emblems of the Society, beautifully cut in a block of white marble, shine out in fair relief from the rest of the monument, which is modestly and durably composed of Portland stone.

On the autumn morning, the date of which is thus recorded-a breezy morning, with thin clouds scudding before the upper currents, and veiling the sun at times, but never breaking into showers-a morning rich in all the variable beauty of light and shade, and fresh with sudden swirls and eddies of wild odour from the furze patches on the surrounding moorland-between four and five hundred of the brethren took solemn possession, on the part of themselves and their Order, of the four acres of ground assigned to them for a burial place in perpetuity.

The ceremony began with a religious service, after which a procession was formed, and the members traced the boundaries of the ground, which is very prettily laid out. Subsequently the Secretary of the Necropolis Company read aloud the deed of gift, consigning this portion of the land to the Society, and an appropriate address on the part of one of the members followed. Then, I presume, "Odd- Fellowship" scattered itself, by twos and threes, through the green alleys and heathy places (for some portion of the enclosure still remains in its original state), and read the conventional stories on the tombstones, and admired or criticised, some being artisans (it may be with artists' eyes), the short comings or beauty of the monuments-and some of them are very beautiful-or suggested to one another-for there are no more enthusiastic florists amongst us than many of these "hard-handed men who dwell in Athens here"-the sweeter beauty of the flowers in their seasons.

The great groups of rhododendrons, with evergreen leaves, that thrive upon the peaty soil with almost native luxuriance, reminding them of the cloud-like masses of colour their clustered blossoms simulate in June. Or they pointed out where the crimped flowers of the kalmias had been, and the varied tinted ones of

L

the azaleas. For all the American plants flourish here in abundance, amongst thousands of other trees and shrubs, native and foreign, which give their shade and beauty to this grandly solitary place of graves.

Looking down from our first stand-point in front of the little church, the effect of the various mausoleums, obelisks, crosses, columns, and other sepulchral monuments gleaming white, or showing high above the shrubs that separate them, is very striking. The space is so immense, that as yet they appear scattered, and stand out separate, clearly, and solemnly. Chief amongst these various monuments, the eye falls instinctively on the beautiful memorial of W. Bent, Esq., of Walton-a gothic monument, the richly ornate roof, supported by pointed arches with trefoiled heads, resting on shafts of Derbyshire spar, while the remainder of the material is Bath stone. Carved angels keep their still watch at either side the pointed gables, which have lights pierced in them, and end in crocketted finials; whilst a pointed spire springs from the centre of the roof, and signals the observer to make a nearer acquaintance with its beauty. Many other graceful monuments adorn the ground, but though these dormitories of the dead, where men strive, in the quaint language of Sir Thomas Brown, "to go the neatest way to corruption," may attract the eye, the simpler tree-marked tombs and grassy hillocks, touch the heart more, and instinctively we join issue with Allan Cunningham, and pray that we may be laid where the wind can blow, and the daisies blossom on our grave.

THE PAINTER'S GRAVE.

WHERE shall the sunbeams play?
Where shall the moonbeams light?

For Him who bade them stay,
With hand of power and might! -
Upon the painter's grave.

Where the stormy pageant rise,
And the harmless lightnings fly?
Where the magician lies,

That fixed them in the sky!-
Above the painter's grave.

Where shall the flowrets shed
Sweet odours?-O'er His earth,

Who, from their lowly bed,

Gave them immortal birth!—
Upon the painter's grave.

Where shall the maiden meek,
Whose beauty would not die,
Go lean her pensive cheek,
Or look with gentle eye?—
Upon the painter's grave.

Where shall the aged rest,
And own one friend he found,
That thought grey hairs were blest,

And age like holy ground?

Upon the painter's grave.-ANON.

The International Exhibition of 1862.

BY EDWIN F. ROBERTS.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE was. Eighteen hundred and sixty-two is• How we grow old with the world, and the " whirligig of Time takes out its revenges!"

In 1851 the sun shone after a golden dawning morn, and initiated an Olympiad, the like of which the same glorious luminary never cast its beams upon before. In 1862 matters are altered-the world is older, and the sun is yet the same. The arts of peace were then paramount.

They are effectively so now-but there has come an embarrassment, so to speak, a sort of dead-lock in their progress, which creates a remarkable kind of contrast between this present year-the chief feature of which is the opening of the "International Exhibition,"-that we trust it will not be a waste of time if we devote a few words to the consideration of the same, and because these are not apart from the subject in question.

First, then, as to machinery and manufactures-the locomotive of 1851 was in all respects the same as that of 1862. The mill and the mine were pretty much as they are now, and no special improvements that we are aware of have been introduced into the machinery of the one, or into any additional methods for the preservation of life in the other.

"Brown Bess," as the soldier's musket is termed-if not in the ascendant, was not then extinct. The gallant grenadier was strangled by his hideous stock, as indeed he has been since that time. The "Volunteer" was in the womb of time, and the gracefullest floating fabrics that in their faultless symmetry have borne witness both to the skill and the handiwork of man, combining strength with swiftness, and dotting every sea, were thing of beauty to the eye; but are row about to pass away for ever, and to give place to the "floating turtles" and the "cupolas" of modern science.

We were at peace with every nation in the world, and our prosperity was at its zenith.

Now we have Minie rifles-long and short "Enfields;" and we discuss learnedly upon "ranges," and the sharp "ping" of the conical bullet is a thing familiar to almost every ear. The civilian has become more than half a soldier, and "Defence though not defiance," (defiance, whoever likes it so), is the new motto placed metaphorically on our national banner.

What the elder Napoleon said of us half a century ago, in regard to our being a "nation of shopkeepers," does not now hold good, or if it does, we have added the rifle to the yard-stick, and we can use both with no small amount of success, and wield both with equal dexterity.

Within the space of twelve brief years--what changes have we seen! That awful Crimean campaign with its heroic episodes its illustrations of the bravery of man-of the sanctified heroism of women,-that horrible and revolting Indian butchery and bloody retribution-those red days at Magenta and Solferino-that life and death struggle at the gates of Gaeta-all supplemented by the wild tigerish fighting in the swamps, and on the shores of American rivers, and the noble effort made through all to cultivate the virtues, to purify the morals of man-to save and keep that poor fallen sisterhood from worser consequences—the story of whose wrongs is written in words of fire, and which some day will burn the debauchee's eyes to read,-all these and more have filled up the period which seems so short, but which has been pregnant with more teeming work-with more countless consequences than can be comprehended