'Where order in variety we see,

And where, though all things differ, all agree."

Were it my privilege to lay out an extensive Rose-garden, I should desire a piece of broken natural ground, surrounded on all sides but the south with sloping banks, “green and of mild declivity," on which evergreen shrubs should screen and beautify by contrast the Roses blooming beneath; and in the centre I should have, at irregular intervals, Rose-clad mounds high enough to obstruct the view even of Arba, great among the Anakims, which would enable me to surprise, to vary, and to conceal, according to the golden rule which I have before quoted. On the level from which these mounds arose would be the beds and single specimens; at the corners, my bowers and nooks. All the interior space not occupied by Roses should be turf-"nothing," writes Lord Bacon, "is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn" and this always broad enough for the easy operations of the mowing machine, and for the trailing garments (they don't trail now, but who can tell what La Mode may ordain next summer?) of those bright visitors, the only beings upon earth more beautiful than the Rose itself.

And who can be jealous? Who can grudge them the universal homage which even in the queenly presence they always claim and win? More than once, I must confess, has a remonstrance risen to my lips which I have not dared to utter. I remember sitting on a summer's eve contemplating my Roses in the soft light of the setting sun, and in the society of a sentimental friend, more than ever sentimental because a daughter of the gods, divinely fair, had just left us for the house. We sat still and pensive, until at last I broke a long silence with the involuntary exclamation, "Aren't they lovely?" "Lovely!" he replied; “I hate 'em. She called that Duc de Rohan a duck, and that Senna Tea Vaisse, or whatever his name is" (he knew it as well as I did) “a darling. I tell you what, old fellow, if either of these worthies could appear in the flesh, there is nothing in the world I should like so much as a tête-à-tête with him in a 24-foot ring. I flatter myself that I could favour him with a facer which he couldn't obtain in France. As for that General Jacqueminot, shouldn't I like to meet him in action," here he pulled his mustache fiercely, "and to roll him over on Rupert?"—his charger. I bade him light a weed, and hope; but he didn't seem to relish hoping. Towards the end of the next summer he came to see me

again, with the daughter of the gods in his brougham, and on the opposite side, in the lap of its nurse, a new “duck,” far dearer to his bride than any rosebud on earth.

The inner walks should be grass, but there must be an outer promenade of gravel, smooth and dry for the thinnest boots, when the turf is damp with rain or dew, and our Queen wears her diamonds of purest water, as when, in the days of Mary and Anna,

“The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,

And weighed down its beautiful head.”

I would have the approaches to a Rosary made purposely obscure and narrow, that the visitor may come with a sudden gladness and wonder upon the glowing scene, as the traveller by rail emerges from the dark tunnel into the brightness of day and a fair landscape; or as some dejected whist-player finds, at the extremity of wretched cards, the ace, king, and queen of trumps! I should like to conduct the visitors to my Rosarium between walls of rock-work, thickly set with those unassuming but exquisite Alpine plants, of which Mr Robinson has just given such a complete and charming history,* or through high fern-covered

banks; and, opening a door at the end of our avenue, to dazzle him into an ecstasy. He should feel as Kane the explorer felt, when after an Arctic winter he saw the sun shine once more, and "felt as though he were bathing in perfumed waters."

Although water offered itself in a fair running stream for introduction into the Rose-garden, I should hesitate timidly as to its admission. Charming as it would be to see the Roses reflected, like Narcissus, in such a mirror-to muse upon beauty, like Plato beneath the planes which grew by the waters of Ilissus-we should simultaneously strengthen the cruel power of our fiercest enemy, frost. Let us content ourselves with cisterns for soft water, with pumps, syringes, and gutta-percha tubes.

Let us now consider, collectively and individually, the various families of this our royal flower, that we may invite those members whom we may esteem most worthy to be guests at our feast of Roses.

CHAPTER VIII.

SELECTION.

TAKE a hot schoolboy into a fruiterer's shop, where the cheeks of the peach and the Quarrenden pippin are glowing like his own, where the bloom still lingers upon grape and plum, and where the "Good Christian" pear of Williams (would that all who assure us of their sanctity were as free from sourness, as fruitful, melting, and juicy!) yields to his inquiring thumb. Bid him survey the scene, a pomological Selkirk, and then proceed to fruition. Or take young Philippos, a few years older, to some great mart of horses. Introduce him to the proprietor, with his pleasant smiling face, ruddy (from early rising, doubtless), his cheek and chin close shaven (few men nowadays shave so closely), hair clipped like his horses', fox galloping over bird's-eye neckerchief, cut-away coat with gilt buttons, and drab adhesive pants. Let him hear how this generous, guileless