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.

FIG. 82.--AT CHESHUNT.

"To Mary Lee, died July, 1779, aged 49 years."

In the illustration I selected at Cheshunt the left half of the
picture appears to denote Life and the right half Death. In the
former are the vigorous tree, the towers and fortresses, the plans and
working implements of an active existence. In the latter the withered
tree, with the usual emblems of death and eternity, emphasizes the
state beyond the grave, and in the centre are mushrooms, probably to
point the lesson of the new life out of decay.


Hatfield is another instance of preservation without change, none of
the old stones having, so far as one can judge, been allowed to sink
into the earth, nor, as is too often the case, to heel over, to be
then broken up, carted away, or put to pave the church and churchyard.