famous cemetery of Bonaventure. It is on the
banks of the Warsaw river, and was formerly an
old estate of the Tatnall family. The Tatnall
tomb, the first of this great army of tombs now
to be seen, was shown to me by one of the
curators. These broad avenues, ankle-deep in
sand, that now I tread, were the avenues of the
old estate ere Death had taken possession.

These avenues of huge live oaks, whose boughs
mingle overhead, have great lateral arms that
are weighed down by grey festoons of Spanish
moss. In vast hoary beards, the moss trails on
the ground. It is as if rows of primeval giants
had been turned to mournful trees, and their
beards only were left to show that they had once
been human; amid these avenues crop up the
tombstones, like so many leaves from the Book
of Man's Life, plucked out by Death.

In the Cemetery of Bonaventure, we no more
think of the New Country—of its garish novelties,
its hasty wonders, its unfinished marvels; we
feel that we are face to face in a solemn spot
with the old enemy—we are fronting the old,
dreadful, and incontrovertible fact. The same
in every country, and with every race; we are
here in the very presence-chamber of King
Death.

AGRICULTURAL  ENCAMPMENTS.

ENGLAND affords the most remarkable
examples in Europe of success in voluntary
associations, which, without the assistance of the
money, or the power, or the honorary rewards
of government, do work which, in other
countries, is considered the special department of
official power. The most successful of these
associations combine with some national object
a little amusement and a good deal of business.
We cannot get up the picturesque, enthusiastic,
artistic festivals with which our German and
Flemish neighbours celebrate historical or
biographical events. The first Shakespeare jubilee
at Stratford-on-Avon was a very artificial affair,
and the attempts to make it periodical were as
miserable failures as Covenfc Garden masquerades.
Those rustic dancing festivals, which in
France under the name of Ducasse and Rackrow,
form the delight of every village, and a
crowd of town visitors, are out of the question
in England, and even dancing feasts in Ireland
are, or were, usually based on a cattle fair, and
worked out with whisky. Our London population,
of late years, seems to be re-learning to
amuse themselves, but that is more in a clubbable,
personal manner than at regular times and
seasons. The greatest metropolitan feast is that of
a benefit society with a fancy name and fancy
costumes to match, where life assurance, a sick
and funeral funds, are the excuse for the
pleasure.

Our Derby and Doncaster St. Leger days,
and all our minor race-course gatherings, are no
exceptions to the rule that mere amusement
will not afford a solid axle for any great round
of English excitement in England. Take away
the money business of the turf, and the great
wheel that sets the faces of thousands and tens
of thousands at least once in the year towards
Epsom Downs and Doncaster town, would soon
stand still.

The Royal Agricultural Society of England
is, perhaps, in this respect, as curious an
example as any of the manners and customs of
the English people; not the least like the
Scotch, whose feudal tastes induce them to leave
their great society to the management of titled
amateurs and an imperial despotic secretary.
Although called royal by virtue of its charter,
royalty has had as little to do with the success
of the Royal Agricultural Society as the government
has to do with its management, a royal
prince paying his subscription on the same terms
as other subscribers, enters his live stock, and
loses and wins in his turn in competition with
breeders of every degree, from singing Somersetshire
to broad Yorkshire—plain farmers, who
measure every pound of oil-cake, and wealthy
squires, whose prize-winning pigs munch rosy
apples and breakfast off rum and milk. Cabinet
ministers neither enact the society's rules,
nor present medals from the national
treasury; and lord-lieutenants and chairmen of
quarter-sessions, unlike the awful and gracious
préfets and sous-préfets on the other side the
Channel, only appear in the society's public
ceremonies in their quality as landowners, or as
farmers, as hosts, or as guests.

.Frenchmen and Germans, accustomed to see
agricultural societies treated much as we treat
harbours of refuge and lighthouses, for
instance—directed by a minister of state,
supported by government funds, and presided over
at festivals and feasts by some high and mighty
much-bestarred and be-ribboned official, a
combination of a viceroy and a chief policeman—
are as much puzzled as astonished when they
come to examine the internal economy and
management of the world-famous Royal
Agricultural Society, which is founded on the
principle of letting every one concerned have his own
way as much as possible. Indeed, this society is
full of anomalies, and strikingly illustrates the
illogical character of a nation which, according
to high French philosophical authority, has
succeeded in the race of empire contrary to every
rule of political philosophy. England, like the
maid-servant fencing with her master in
Molière's comedy, hits the mark, although she
thrusts in carte when she ought to thrust in
tierce.

According to the theory of the charter which
makes it royal, the first object of the Society
is "to promote the science and practice of
agriculture," yet the most prominent members of
its council, and the majority of its presidents,
know as little of either as a man can who owns
great estates and rides fox-hunting at some time
of his life. For membership, the only qualification
is an undertaking to pay the annual subscrip
tion. With an income of some ten thousand
pounds a year, there is no museum, no library
worthy of the name, and no expenditure on
scientific investigations beyond a few hundred