[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 it in perpetual care.  The grass and weeds should be kept in constant check, and the tombs of all kinds preserved at the proper perpendicular.  If not too much to ask, the application of a little soap and water at long intervals might be recommended in particular instances; but all such details depend upon circumstances, and may be left to the individual judgment.  Provided there is the disposition, there will always be found the way and the means to make the holy ground a decent and a pleasant place.

Reverence for the dead, especially among their known descendants, will generally operate as a check upon hasty or extravagant “improvements,” and it may be expected that those responsible for the administration of local affairs will, for the most part, when they set about the beautification of their churchyard, decide to do what is necessary with no needless alterations.  This plan of preservation, as already intimated, is probably the most desirable.  But we know instances, especially in and around London, where good work has been done by judiciously thinning out the crop of tombstones, clearing away the least presentable features of the place, and making the ground prim with flower-beds and borders.  To do this much, and to introduce a few seats, will leave the graveyard still a graveyard in the old sense, and requires no authority outside the church.  It may be prudent to take a vote of the Vestry on the subject as a defence against irate parishioners, but, if nothing be done beyond a decorous renovation of the burial-ground, the matter is really one which is entirely within the functions of the parson and churchwardens.  Moreover, although it is not generally known, the expenses of such works are a legal charge against the parish, provided the churchwardens have had the previous countenance of their colleagues the overseers.  The account for