And none that breathe that sweetened air,
But have a gentle thought;

A gleam of something good and fair
Across the spirit brought."

Would that these inmates of alley and court, would that these weary men and women, with their pale-faced children, might breathe that sweetened air, and see that gleam more oft. All honour to the owners of park and pleasaunce who admit them therein, and to employers who give them holidays to go. Well does our great poet plead,—

“Why should not these great Sirs

Give up their parks a dozen times a-year,
To let the people breathe?"

Why should there not be great public gardens, and great public flower-shows, in or near all our towns? When the Council of the Manchester Botanical Society, advised by their clever, energetic curator, Mr Bruce Findlay, offered £1000 in prizes at their June Show, men shook empty heads, and murmured "Madness." What has been the result? The receipts last Whitsuntide exceeded Sixteen hundred pounds, and of this Eleven hundred was paid by the working classes in shillings.

It is gratifying to notice that this influence is recognised and encouraged more and more by the clergy; that, under

C

their auspices, successful shows have been held in London, at which window-plants, and plants grown in yards and on roofs, have well deserved the prizes they have won; that allotments are more numerous near our larger towns; that at some of our barracks, soldiers have the opportunity of turning their swords into pruning-hooks (metaphorically, I mean, as an actual transformation might not be agreeable to the drill-sergeants); and that societies for the improvement of cottage-gardening are multiplying throughout the land. I may mention here, that for some years I have tried, satisfactorily, to promote among the children of my parish that love of flowers which we find in them all, not only by giving prizes for their collections of wild-flowers at our annual show, but by taking them walks on Sunday evenings, and helping them to collect and arrange their posies, teaching them names, habits, and uses, and showing them the coloured likenesses and the histories which are provided in a cheap form by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and in other illustrated manuals.

But I must cease now to babble of green fields, and must come away from the wild to the garden Rose.

CHAPTER III.

OUR QUEEN OF BEAUTY.

HAVING proved, as I hope, that there is no royal road, no golden key, to an excellent Rose-garden, but that a poor man, on the contrary, who loves the flower, may walk about in March with a Rose in his coat-while Dives, who only likes, may be roseless under all his vitreous domes,—I will proceed now to instruct those who, having this love, desire instruction, in the lessons which a long and happy experience has taught to me.

And yet, before I commence my lecture, I would fain enlarge the number of disciples: I would multiply the competitors by exhibiting the prizes, and would so extol the charms of our Queen of Beauty, that all brave knights, gallantly armed, should leap upon their steeds for the lists. In more homely and modern metaphor, I would exhibit to him whom I propose to make a fisherman, his fish. I

Then, when

would take him, as it were, to the broad rivers, from which silvery salmon leap, or peep with him stealthily through brookside bushes at the dark, still, 3-lb. trout. his eyes glisten and his fingers itch for a rod, I would teach him how to throw and spin; and would say to him, as old Izaak said, "I am like to have a towardly scholar of you. I now see that with advice and practice you will make an angler in a short time. Have but a love of it, and I'll warrant you."

I will essay, therefore, while I enumerate and extol the special charms of the Rose, to convince all florists why, before I proceed to demonstrate how, they should admire and honour pre-eminently the Queen of Flowers.

First of all, because she is Queen. There is not in her realm a single Fenian, but her monarchy is the most absolute, and her throne the most ancient and the most secure of all, because founded in her people's hearts. Her supremacy has been acknowledged, like Truth itself, semper, ubique, ab omnibus-always, everywhere, by all.

1. Semper. When, in sacred history, a chief prophet of the Older Covenant foretold the grace and glory which were to be revealed by the New-when Isaiah would select, and was inspired to select, the most beautiful image by

which to tell mankind of their exodus from the Law to the Gospel, slavery to freedom, fear to love-these were the words which came to him from heaven, "The wilderness shall blossom as a Rose." In the Song of Songs the Church compares herself unto "the Rose of Sharon ;" and in the apocryphal scriptures the son of Sirach likens wisdom to a Rose-plant in Jericho, and holiness to a Rose growing by the brook of the field. And the Rose still blooms on that sacred soil, even in that garden of Gethsemane, where HE, who gives joy and life to all, was sorrowful unto death.* In our own, as in the older time, it is associated with religion, with acts and thoughts of holiness which should be fair and pure and fragrant as itself; and at the Orphanage of Beyrout, the authoress of Cradle Lands saw two hundred and fifty maidens receive their first communion with wreaths of white Roses on their heads.†

Passing from sacred to secular records, shall I take down my Greek Lexicons, Donnegan the fat and Hederic the slim, my Dictionaries, Indices, and Gradus ad Parnassum? Shall I look out godov and rosa, collect a few quotations,

* "The old man, a Franciscan monk, gave me a Rose as a memorial of the garden."-Bartlett's Jerusalem Revisited, p. 129.

+ Syria, according to some writers, took its name from Suri, a species of Rose indigenous to it.