The Madisonian

From the N. Y. Express.

THE GREENWOOD CEMETERY.

We rejoice to be able to say that at last New York and its suburbs have a fit place in which a human being can be interred,—a place safe from the mania of 'improvement,'—beyond the rage of streets and dwellings, and yet within view of our whole city, its noble harbor, its beautiful rivers, and the ocean itself. Greenwood Cemetery in the suburbs of Brooklyn towards the Bay, is the name of this new place so long the desire of every rational being who has been pained by many horrible spectacles it has been the misfortune of every man to witness, who, in this city, paid any attention to the interment of the dead. Greenwood Cemetery is to be the Mount Auburn,—the Pere la Chaise of New York. The beau ideal is found at last!

There is no hazard in making the prediction, though the place is but just opened, and not a body is there buried, that this is to be the great City of the Dead. But few topics of late years have more engrossed the attention of the reflecting few, than this of selecting a proper Burial ground for New York city and its suburbs. The promiscuous manner in which thousands of our relations and friends have been huddled together in vaults and pent-up church yards, where there was no sanctity of association, and often much to disgust, has betokened a recklessness of those sentiments that do honor to human nature;—and many Christians who have reflected upon the moral influence of the death-bed, the death and the burial, and the inspiration of the tomb, have come to the conclusion that this divesting the grave of the holy influences of spiritual association was creating an impression that man was but matter to be turned into the earth and forgotten. Painful, however, as such reflections have been, there has been something absolutely horrible in many well known occurrences, in which we have had the demonstration, that no man's grave is safe in the city, and that such is often the value of even the six-foot soil of the grave, that before one was decomposed, another was thrust into the place. Such things have set men thinking and Manhattan Island has been explored for a proper cemetery, we believe in vain. But fortunately at last a Terra incognita almost has been discovered in the suburbs of Brooklyn.

The Greenwood Cemetery Association fortunately once more, is not a speculating concern. The division of the grounds into lots, is not a lithographic survey for the purpose of filling the pockets of the gentlemen, who have interested themselves in this subject,—but a purely benevolent association from beginning to end. The Land is held in Trust,—and every cent of income from it, is to be spent for the decoration and improvement of the grounds. Thus what of profit arises from it, will only add to its beauty. The money devoted to purchase in fee simple the soil in which we ourselves, or our relations are to rest undisturbed, also imparts grace and elegance to the scenes around.

Now for a few words of introduction to this Greenwood Cemetery,—and when our readers are once introduced, no further words will be necessary from us.—The place is at present but just opened, and all there is to see is—Nature itself, except the roads which to the extent of nearly four miles, including all their involutions, have been cut out. There are wood and dale, hill and valley, the cultivated field and the utter wilderness,—also Mount and Lake,—in which, or on which can be seen the picturesque view of the softest, or the wildest scenery visible on Long Island; and while from Mount Washington can be seen the surges of the sea at Rockaway, the Palisades of the North River,—Brooklyn, New York, Staten Island, and the whole vast sheet of water,—you have but to pass to the 'Sylvan Water,' and there is as wild a little lake as exists in the heart of Maine. The ground rolls and swells, and now divides itself into hill and vale, so that it seems to have been fitted almost on purpose for the use to which it is destined. The roads now run charmingly through the woods; and the exchange of the streets of a crowded thoroughfare, as a mere ride, to the wildness of the little country carriage way, is as delicious a change as a transfer of a sudden from Broadway to Vermont.—What this City of the Dead will be,—when its beautiful natural capabilities are fully developed,—when tombs line its pathways, and monuments mingle with its trees—when bridges span its valleys, and gondolas are upon its lakes,—when thousands and thousands, in veneration make a pilgrimage there to honor the dead, it is beyond our power to describe. We trust, however, the noisy population of this busy Babylon will pause for an hour to look upon this last fitting home. Let him who has time to live, take time to look out his grave, —or if he will not think of himself, let him think of that sweet commingling the living may have with the dead,—in the midst of charming rural scenery,—under the shade of some welcome tree,—where no roll of carriages over the pavements—no obtrusive love of labor—no turbulent tyrannous world can turn one's thoughts from the soft repose of the tomb to the reckless current of life. The place is but about two miles from the South Ferry. Already it is the resort of the tasteful equipages of Brooklyn.