you have finished it, invite others to give their opinions freely. Try to ascertain which Roses they like the least, rather than to feast your ears with their exclamations of praise. You will obtain help sometimes where you least expect it, and your attention will be called to defects which you had overlooked in a kind of parental fondness. Spectators, unprejudiced and not akin, can readily point out infirmities in the families of other folks. They do not pronounce, as you do, the red hair of your dear little Augustus a soft chestnut or a rich auburn; they have been known, on the contrary, to murmur Carrots."

Have the sticks holding the cards which tell the names of your Roses in their places before you put on the lids. If you are showing in the larger classes, it is wise to make this arrangement when you insert the flowers; otherwise, forgetting names, you may run a risk of including duplicates. Moreover, you will find the process of naming your Roses after your arrival at the show a tedious occupation of time which might be much more advantageously employed.

Have your lids on before the sun is high, and be on the show-ground as early as you can. You will thus have the advantage of selecting a good place for your boxes, not exposed to draught or to glare; of replacing from your spare

blooms those Roses which have suffered from the voyage; of setting each flower and each card in its position; of filling up the tubes with fresh water; and of making the best of your Roses generally, leisurely, and at your ease.

This done, you may put back your lids, just raising them at the front a couple of inches with wooden props; and then you may survey (as I propose to do in my final chapter) the exhibitors, the judges, and the Rose-show itself.

CHAPTER XV.

AT A ROSE-SHOW.

As the young knight in the olden time, having reached "ye place ordayned and appointed to trye ye bittermoste by stroke of battle,” became naturally curious concerning his adversaries, and, after caring for his horse and looking to his armour, went forth to inspect the Flower of Chivalry, and the lists, in which that flower would shortly form a bed of "Love-lies-bleeding"-so the exhibitor, having finally arranged his Roses, strolls through the glowing aisles of the show. Soon experience will teach him to survey calmly, and to gauge accurately, the forces of his foe; but now he but glances nervously, furtively, at the scene around him, like a new boy at some public school. The sight brings him hopes and fears. Now a hurried sidelong look shows him flowers inferior to his own, and he is elate, happy. Now an objectionably large Pierre Notting obtrudes itself

upon his vision, and his heart fails him. He steps, as it were, from the warm stove, gay with orchids, into the icehouse of chill despair. He is much too anxious and excited to form any just conclusions; and therefore, to engage his thoughts more pleasantly, I will introduce him to his coexhibitors.

Viewed abstractedly, these co-exhibitors are genial, generous, intelligent—men of refined taste and reverent feelings, with the freshness of a garden and the freedom of the country about their looks and ways. Viewed early in the morning, as the novice sees them now, they are a little dingy, without the freshness of the garden upon them, but with something very like its soil. Some have not been in bed since yesternight; not one has slept his usual sleep. Many have come from afar :—

“They have travelled to our Rose-show
From north, south, east, and west,
By rail, by roads, with precious loads
Of the flower they love the best :

From dusk to dawn, through night to morn,
They've dozed 'mid clank and din,

And woke with cramp in both their legs

And bristles on their chin."

"Pulvis et umbra sumus!" they sigh-we are all over dust

and shady. They are like Melrose Abbey-sunlight does not suit them. "The gay beams of lightsome day" are not becoming to countenances long estranged from pillow, razor, and tub. They have come to meet the Queen of Flowers, as Mephibosheth to meet King David, not having dressed his feet, or trimmed his beard, or washed his clothes from the day the king departed. And this reminds me that we, the clerical contingent, appear upon these occasions especially dishevelled and dim. Sydney Smith would undoubtedly say that we "seemed to have a good deal of glebe upon our own hands." In the thick dust upon our black coats you might write or draw distinctly ;-(I once saw traced upon the back of a thirsty florist, of course a layman-to be kept dry; this side up);—and our white ties— Qui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo "

66

are dismally limp and loose. The bearded brethren remind one of St Angus, of whom we read that, perspiring and unwashed, he worked in his barn until the scattered grain took root and grew on him.

By-and-by, when the exhibition is open to the public, we shall be as spruce as our neighbours, and as bright as soapand-water-he is no true gardener who loves not both—can make us. Meanwhile let me assure the new-comer among