aged 68 years."


Twickenham, in the same county, but now grown into a town, has
modified its churchyard to its needs, without much change, and I
give it a sketch in recognition of a sufficient and not excessive
well-doing. Neither of these two examples call for other remark, being
of simple interpretation.

[Illustration: FIG. 85. TWICKENHAM.]

FIG. 85.--AT TWICKENHAM.

"To Elizabeth (?) Haynes, died 1741, aged
35 years."

But while we find the few to be commended, what a common experience
it is, on the other hand, to come upon a neglected churchyard; the
crippled stones bending at all angles, many of them cracked, chipped,
and otherwise disfigured, and the majority half hidden in rank weeds
and grass. In some places, owing to climatic conditions, moss or
lichen has effaced every sign of inscription or ornament from the old
stones; and there are localities which appear to be really unfortunate
in their inability to resist the destructive influence of the weather
upon their tombs, which, perhaps because they are of unsuitable
material, go to decay in, comparatively speaking, a few years. As a
rule, however, these relics of our ancestors need not and ought not to
prematurely perish and disappear from the face of the earth. Where the
graveyard is still used as a place of interment, or remains as it was
when closed against interments, the sexton or a labourer should have