Rev. Mr Radclyffe, wrote of it, "successful beyond all anticipation;" and I went to bed that night as tired, as happy, and I hope as thankful as I had so much good cause to be. The Second National Rose-Show was held in the follow

ing year, June 23, 1859, at the Hanover Square Rooms, the former site not being available; and again we had the best Roses of England, a goodly company, and prosperous issues. The general effect, although the introduction of pot-Roses broke gracefully the monotonous surface of the cut flowers, was inferior to that produced in the more genial summer of 1858, and in the more ample and ornate accommodations of St James's Hall. But it was now more evident than ever, that although we had toned down our music by substituting strings and reeds for brass, no room in London was large enough for the levées of the Queen of Flowers. Next year, accordingly, after a correspondence and arrangement with the directors,

The Third National Rose-Show was held (July 12, 1860) in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.* Here was a throneroom meet for her Majesty, and 16,000 of her lieges came to do her homage. Naturally and wisely, the Crystal Palace

* The Crystal Palace Company state in their advertisements that their Roseshow was the first of the series. It was, as we have narrated, the third.

Company resolved, upon this, to have a Rose-show of their own. Long may it prosper!

The Fourth National Rose-Show was held under the auspices of the Royal Horticultural Society in their gardens at South Kensington, July 10, 1861, and there it has since flourished in all its first strength and beauty. I was very grateful to find such a genial soil and excellent supervision for a plant which was growing rather too large for me— that is, to transfer to abler hands a work which, with all its gratifications, interfered at times unduly with my other engagements. Moreover, to tell you all the truth, in the happy spring-tide of 1861 I had a correspondence which occupied all my time, upon a subject which occupied all my thought—a subject more precious, more lovely even than Roses-I was going to be married in May.

Have I created in thy breast, O amateur, a desire to win honour at Queen Rosa's tournaments? Have you an ambition to see upon your sideboard cups of silver encircled by the Rose? Listen, and I will now tell you what Roses to show, and how to show them.

CHAPTER XIII.

ROSES FOR EXHIBITION.

As he who can ride exchanges his pony for a cob, and his cob for a hunter, and, having achieved pads and brushes, where hounds are slow, fences are easy, and rivals few, longs for a gallop at racing speed over the pastures and the "Oxers" of High Leicestershire, for a run with Tailby or the Quorn-as every man with a hobby (I never met a man without one) is desirous to ride abroad, and witch the world with noble horsemanship,—so the Rosarian, enlarging his possessions and improving his skill, has yearnings, which no mother, nor sisters, nor people coming to call, can satisfy, for sympathy, for knowledge, for renown. He is tired of charging at the quintain, which he never fails to hit, in the silent courtyard of his home: he will break a lance for his ladye in the crowded lists. And who loves maiden so fair as his? What mean these braggart knights,

his neighbours, by praising their Rosas, so pale, so puny, in comparison? Their voices to his ear are harsh, irritating ; they are as disagreeable as the crowings of contiguous cocks to the ears of the game bantam; and he feels it to be his solemn duty to roll those knights in the dust.

I offer my services as his esquire, and my advice as a veteran how to invert and pulverise his foes. By foes I mean those miserable knights who presume to grow and to show Roses without a careful study of these chapters. Not thinking exactly as we do, they are of course heretical and contumacious. They must be unhorsed. Then, perhaps, lying peacefully on their backs in the sawdust, they may see the error of their ways, and come to a better mind. They may rise up, sorer and wiser men, and, meekly seeking the nearest reformatory, may gradually amend and improve, until at last they become diligent readers of this book, and respectable subjects of the Queen of Flowers. Be it mine, meanwhile, to teach the virtuous amateur how to buy a charger, and how to ride him, what Roses to show, and how to show them, first reminding him that he must have a good stable, good corn, and good equipments in readiness for his steed must be armed before he competes with those weapons which I have named before as essential to success,

and which I must once more ask leave to commend. He must have an enthusiastic love of the Rose, not the tepid attachment which drawls its faint encomium, "She's a nicish girl, and a fellow might do worse," but the true devotion, which sighs from its very soul, “I must, I will win thee, my queen, my queen!" He must have a good position, a home meet for his bride. He must have for his Roses a free circulation of air, a healthful, breezy situation, with a surrounding fence, not too high, not too near, which shall break the force of boisterous winds, temper their bitterness ere they enter the fold, and give shelter but not shade to his Roses. He must have a good garden-soil, well drained, well dug, well dunged. And having these indispensable adjuncts, he may order his Show-Roses.

Thanks, dear professor," here exclaims the enraptured pupil (I am mocking now with a savage satisfaction those dreadful scientific dialogues which vexed our little hearts in childhood); "your instructions are indeed precious - far more so than the richest jam, than ponies, than cricket, or than hide-and-seek; but may we interrupt you for a moment to ask, What is your definition of a Show-Rose?"

"Most gladly, my dear young friends," replies the kind professor (anxiously wishing his dear young friends in bed,