A RAMBLE IN OUR CEMETERIES.
At length we are pleased to find that a committee has been formed with a view of carrying into effect the suggestion of Lord Carlisle, DR. BLAIR, in his immortal elegy on that certain receptacle of all happily thrown out at the inauguration of the Moore Statue, viz., to mortality, “The Grave,” thus writes:– erect a suitable monument to our late distinguished countryman, “Oliver Goldsmith.” Suitable let us hope it may be, or not at all!
for all but the perpetrators must look with pain on the sorry pro duction—contiguous to that proposed—assumed to be in honourable commemoration of Ireland's bard, Thomas Moore !
Doctor it as they
may, it must still remain a perpetual stigma on our artistic taste and national pride; and the only true remedy is a complete and speedy
removal, followed by the substitution of a memorial more consistent with good taste, and better in accordance with the personnel of the bard; as also the provision of a fitting pedestal for the reception of his well-known diminutive but portly form, rather than the colossal
proportions of the broad-backed and brawny figure now resting on the gaunt pedestal in College-street. We understand it has been finally resolved to take off the present prodigious and stooped head, substi
“When self-esteem or others' adulation,
Would cunningly persuade us we are something Above the common level of our kind;
“The Grave” gainsays the smooth-complexioned flattery, And with blunt truth acquaints us what we are.” And so it is; when contemplatively inclined, a stroll in our church yards and cemeteries is, perhaps, the best medium of awakening us to a sense, that while nature dies, and generation after generation passes away, the fruit of man's conception, “art,” survives him, and leaves to posterity substantial memorials of his genius and labours. In such a mood, though-acknowledging with blushing candour perhaps more influenced by love of the artistic than indulging in as pirations of a loftier spirit, our footsteps recently were bent respec tively to the cemeteries at Golden Bridge, Glasnevin, and Harold's Cross; the former situated in the parish of St. James, and adjoining
tuting one looking upwards as more consistent with presumed inspiration. Unfortunately, in most of our projects in this country, merit, modest merit, is cast in the shade, and designs the second lock on the Grand Canal; the second in a north-eastern by struggling artists, however meritorious, must yield to the protegés suburb about two miles from Dublin, and the latter in a south of influential parties; and never was a case more palpable than this westerly direction, three miles from the General Post-Office. for the distinguished sculptor who has since passed from amongst us, Autumn and winter, though each other season likewise brings its and who submitted a beautiful—and his last—model for this statue, at own contemplations in such a locality, furnish elements of a corres once simple, graceful and truthful (as all his works were), was disre ponding character; and perhaps more suggestive of the withering garded, and the execution of the memorial entrusted to another who, influences which death lavishly disseminates, equalizing man with whatever may be his talents, had not the national claims of “John the objects of his toil, dear to him while living, but destined in their IIogan,” and certainly did not, in this instance, produce a successful annual turn to strew his grave with the decayed relics of their verdant result.
Let the errors of the past, however, be avoided; and let the
proposed Goldsmith Testimonial be thrown open to a real national competition, and three or four competent artists, selected by the Board of Trinity College, be called in to adjudicate on the designs submitted, when prepared to carry out the one approved without any aftercomings. The recent negociations between the College authori ties and the Corporation, with reference to lessening the enclosed area in front, having terminated without effecting the desired end, it behoves the enlightened Board of the venerated Alma Mater to re consider, under existing circumstances, the details of an arrangement, whereby the double advantage of providing a fitting position for the memorial to him whose career was so intimately identified with the University, and the removal of present impediments to public traffic be attained; not to speak of the improvement which would conse quently ensue, architecturally speaking, to the buildings themselves. Close by, and at either side of the University boundary, we hear of new and important structures about being raised; one, a new bank for the Provincial Banking Company, on the site of the Irish Insti tution, and adjoining houses in College-street, a position peculiarly adapted for the purpose; and the other an extensive club-house, for
beauty.
Before entering upon our more immediate purpose, we sub join a few particulars relative to the origin and statistics of these establishments, and we shall not fail to notice as we progress, for the gratification of the general reader, the historic and other features of the locality in which they are situated. We may mention that the first extramural burying-ground was that of St. George's, adjoining the Royal Canal, and opened in 1829; also that there is a Jewish cemetery, occupying a quarter of an acre, at Ballybough Bridge, said to have been contemporaneous with Oliver Cromwell.
The cemetery at Golden Bridge was established in 1827, in conse quence of an order issued by the late Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Magee, “that the burial service in any of the churchyards within his jurisdiction should not be read by a Roman Catholic clergyman,” and for the expenses attendant thereon the Catholic Association granted £1000. This cemetery, comprising only two Irish acres, was rapidly filled, containing 22,683 bodies, and the Committee of Management subsequently became possessors, for a like purpose, of the ground adjoining the Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, which was
opened as a cemetery in February, 1832, being only nine acres in ex
the Kildare-street Club, which will necessitate the removal of a block tent, but enlarged twice until it was extended to 40 acres. The funds
of houses in Leinster-street, at itsjunction with Kildare-street. This arising from the two cemeteries, after paying the necessary expenses, building, we understand, will be after the Pall Mall type, on a scale were devoted to the liquidation of the fines, the ground independently superior to anything yet achieved in Ireland; Messrs. Deane and being taken at 10 guineas per acre, which to a considerable extent Woodward, architects, who we doubt not will sustain the high artistic have been paid off; and the committee have given large sums for the excellence of that firm, and produce a design which may be re purpose of educating the poor—on two occasions upwards of £500
garded as an acquisition to the city. We shall at an early period take each. The original committee of management was appointed by the the opportunity of again alluding to this, as to details of arrange Catholic Association, but when a vacancy occurs new members are ment, &c. elected. The number of interments that have taken place in this After sundry alterations and deliberations, practically initiative cemetery since the commencement are– steps towards the erection of the National Gallery for Ireland have In the general ground ... 105,914 been taken, and workmen, under the direction of Messrs. Cockburn and In the poor ground ... 51,173 Son, builders, are now busily employed in Leinster Lawn. Exter nally, the structure will and must, as a consequence, correspond Total, 157,087 architecturally with the existing Museum; but, internally, the plan The poor are buried for 1s. 6d. each ! will be different; and we sincerely trust the palpable errors of the The Committee for many years gave their services gratuitously other, both as regards arrangement and ventilation, will be avoided. Enough, however, for our present purpose; we shall again revert to but are now paid half-a-guinea for each attendance, amounting in the aggregate to about £100 per annum on the Association. the subject as occasion may require. In point of locale and internal arrangement, this cemetery is beautiful, occupying an extensive level area, in a picturesque village, BUILDINGs For PUBLIC SPEARING.—Anything that tends to with the meandering Tolka running close by ; surrounded by high prevent the voice from being dissipated in the upper parts of a enclosure walls, with castellated watch-towers at the angles, and building, must be advantageous to the speaker; hence sound-boards bounded by the Botanic Gardens and the high road respectively; are placed over chairs and pulpits. But these ought not to be such most tastefully laid out in plots distinguished by letters, orna as to concentrate the sound in certain points, because it follows on mented with shrubs, and approached by spacious and carefully principle that the more we strengthen sound in these points by re gravelled pathways, with suitable fences at either side. The en flection, the more we diminish its effect in others. The parabolic trance is simple and appropriate, consisting of a graceful and lofty sound-board is the best, since the parabola has the property of re central arched gateway, surmounted by an entablature, and termi flecting all the rays of sound which emerge from its focus. The nated by the emblem of Christianity; with a curvilinear dwarf wall elliptical form of building is undoubtedly the best when we desire of chiselled stone supporting an iron railing branching therefrom, and that the sound emitted from one focus should converge to another. forming a wide area for the turning of vehicles. If the walls have
Here, in the forenoon of each day, may be seen “the well-plumed
many openings, the sound will be absorbed, and the voice will not be so effective where there are so many recesses. If there are vaults,
The nature of the walls and floor is important.
hearse come nodding on, attended by the sable tribe” who mourn fully convey age and youth alike to the last resting-place of all mankind! Happily, with increasing civilization, the revolting and semi-barbarous scenes which heretofore took place at funerals in this country have gradually become but matters of history, which, for
&c., under the floor, the space between the latter and the arches
should be filled in with sawdust or some other substance to prevent vibration.
