CHAPTER XII.

CONCERNING ROSE-SHOWS.

WHEN that delightful young officer of her Majesty's Guards paid a guinea, no long time ago in London, to the great spiritualist, medium, or whatever the arch-humbug called himself, of the season, and when, after a lengthened communication with the spirit of his departed mother, he looked at his watch, and courteously apologised for his abrupt exodus, "but he had promised to lunch with the lady in question punctually at two o'clock," he completely demolished the baseless fabric of my little dream, how charming it would be to have an hour's table-talk with some of our old Rosarians.

I am with them, nevertheless, and without humbug, in spirit many a time, honouring their memories, and always regarding them with a thankful filial love. I like to think of them among their Roses, as I wander among my own,

mindful how much of my happiness I owe, humanly speaking, to their skill and enterprise, remembering them as we Rosarians of to-day would fain be remembered hereafter, when our children's children shall pluck their snow-white Madame Furtado,

"Pure

As sunshine glancing on a white dove's wings,"

and shall wish we were there to see. I like to think of Lee of Hammersmith complacently surveying those standard Rose-trees which he introduced from France in the year 1818, which were the first ever seen in England, and which he sold readily (it was reported at the time that the Duke of Clarence gave him a right royal order for 1000 trees) at one guinea apiece. I like to imagine the elder Rivers looking on a few years later, half pleased and half perplexed, as Rivers the younger, now grey with age, but young in heart as ever, budded his first batch of Briers, and the old foreman who had served three generations boldly protested,

"Master Tom, you'll ruin the place if you keep on planting them rubbishy brambles instead of standard apples!" I fancy the pleasant smile on Master Tom's handsome face, knowing as he did that instead of the Brier would come up the Rose, that his ugly duckling would grow into a noble

swan, and that there were other trees besides Golden Pippins which were productive of golden fruit. Then I wonder what those other heroes of the past, Wood of Maresfield, Paul of Cheshunt, and Lane of Berkhampstead, would say to their sons and grandsons, could they see the development of the work which they began―the Roses, not only grown by the acre instead of by the hundred, but in shape, and in size, and in colour, beautiful beyond their hope and dream. I picture to myself Adam Paul's delight at the "72 cut Roses, distinct," with which George has won the first prize at "the National;" and the admiration which would reproduce "Brown's Superb Blush" on his countenance, after whom that Rose was named, could he behold those matchless specimens in pots, with which Charles Turner, his successor, still maintains against all comers the ancient glories of Slough.

Of the old Rosarians, Mr Lee of Hammersmith was the first who obtained the medals of the Royal Horticultural Society for Roses exhibited at Chiswick, and at the monthly meetings in Regent Street. These Roses were shown singly upon the bright surface of japanned tin cases, in which bottles filled with water were inserted, the dimensions of the case being 30 inches by 18. In 1834, Mr

Rivers won the two gold medals for Roses shown at Chiswick, introducing a new and more effective arrangement, by placing the flowers in fresh green moss—a simple, graceful, natural combination, unanimously accepted by the exhibitors of Roses from that day to this. These prize blooms from Sawbridgeworth, the advanced-guard of a victorious army, were shown in clusters or bouquets of five, six, and seven Roses, and were the best specimens which skill and care could grow of the varieties which then reigned supreme -Brennus, George IV., Triomphe d'Angers, Triomphe de Guerin, &c. What a royal progress, what a revelation of beauty, has Queen Rosa made since then! In that same year Mr Rivers published his first, and the first, Descriptive Catalogue of Roses. It enumerates by name 478 varieties. How many of them, think you, are to be found in his list for 1869? Eleven!-eight of them Climbing Roses, two Moss, one China-but none of them available for exhibition. Will it be so with our Roses, when thirty-five years have passed? I believe, I hope so. I believe that our sons will see the Rose developing its perfections more and more to reverential skill, and I hope that the sight may bring to their hearts our love and happiness, for it cannot bring them more. The Roses of to-day exhaust all our powers

of admiration, our finite appreciation of the beautiful. The Roses of to-morrow can do no more. The Rosarian may "raise" hereafter flowers large enough to cradle cupid

"Within the petals of a Rose,

A sleeping love I spied;"

but he cannot have a higher delight surveying them than Rivers enjoyed over his George IV., one fine June morning, more than thirty years ago.

Mr Wood of Maresfield, who had learned the art of Rosegrowing in sunny France, was the next valiant knight who made his bow to the Queen of Beauty, and won high honour in her lists. Then followed Mr Adam Paul of Cheshunt, and then Mr Lane of Berkhampstead. These were the heroes of my youth, and when I joined the service, a raw recruit, in 1846, the four last named-Rivers, Wood, Paul, Lane—were its most distinguished chiefs. But our warfare in those days was mere skirmishing. We were only a contingent of Flora's army-the Rose was but an item of the general flower-show. We were never called to the front; we were placed in no van, save that which took us to the

*See his Amateur's Guide, ninth edition, p. 32. I may here express my gratitude to Mr Rivers for a copy of his first catalogue, and for the dates and facts, which I have repeated, concerning the old Rosarians.