finally form a fair dome of Roses-such a floral fountain as may have played in the fancy of our Laureate when he wrote

"The white Rose weeps, she is late.”

And now we have passed through the Rose-clad walls— through the Rose-wreathed colonnades and courts of the outer palace-into the anteroom of that presence-chamber where we shall see, in brilliant assemblage, the beauty and the chivalry of the Queen of Flowers.

109

CHAPTER X.

GARDEN ROSES.

JUST out of Interlachen, the tourist on his way to Lauterbrunnen was invited, when I was there, by his courier or his coachman to leave the main road, and, walking up the higher ground on the right, to survey from the garden of a small residence, used as a pension or boarding-house, one of the most lovely views in Switzerland-the two lakes of Thun and Brienz. So would I now invite the amateur to survey and to consider the Roses in two divisions. I would describe those, in the first place, which are desirable additions to the Rosarium, either as enhancing the general effect from the abundance or colour of their flowers, or as having some distinctive merit of their own, and which, not being suitable for exhibition, I would designate as Garden Roses; and I would then make a selection of the varieties which produce the most symmetrical and perfect blooms-that is to say, of show Roses.

And I advise the amateur, beginning to form a collection, to appropriate unto himself a good proportion of those Roses from the first division, which, being of a more robust growth than many of the show varieties, are more likely to satisfy and to enlarge his ambition. hardly think that I should have been a Rosarian had not the wise nurseryman who supplied the first Roses which I remember, sent strong and free-blooming sorts; and I have

I

known many a young florist discouraged, who attempted, without experience, the cultivation of plants which required an expert, or who had received from some inferior or short-sighted purveyor weakly and moribund trees. Wherefore, writing with the hope that I may in some degree promote and instruct that love of the Rose from which I have derived so much happiness, I exhort novice and nurseryman alike, as ever they hope to build a goodly edifice, to lay a deep and sure foundation. Let the one order robust varieties, and the other send vigorous plants.

Then, should the educated taste of the amateur lead him to prefer the perfection of individual Roses to the general effect of his Rosary-should he find more pleasure in a single bloom, teres atque rotunda, than in a tree luxuriantly laden with flowers, whose petals are less gracefully disposed-if, like young Norval, he has heard of battles and longs to win his spurs-then must these latter lusty, trusty, valiant pioneers make way for the vanguard of his fighting troops. Let him not disband them hastily. If, surveying the Roses of these two divisions, and having grown them all, I were asked whether I should prefer a Rose-garden laid out and planted for its general beauty —for its inclusiveness of all varieties of special interest -or a collection brought together and disposed solely for the production of prize flowers-whether I would live by Brienz or by Thun,-I hardly know what would be my answer. Let the amateur begin with a selection from both, and then let him make his choice. A choice, if he is worthy of that name, he will have to make, as increase of appetite grows with that it feeds on, and demands new ground to be broken up for its sustenance. To have both a beautiful Rose-garden and a garden of beautiful Roses, requires the кna πλоνтоν, the

Magnos Senecæ prædivitis hortos,

the ground and the gold, which few can spare. They who can-who have both the desire and the means, the

enthusiasm and the exchequer should have some such a Rosary as I have suggested in the chapter on Arrangement, together with a large budding-ground annually devoted, fresh Briers or Manetti on fresh soil, to the production of show Roses. As a rule, the amateur who becomes a keen exhibitor will eliminate the varieties which he cannot show ; and the amateur who studies tout ensemble -the completeness of the scene, diversity, abundance -will rest satisfied with his exhibition at home. He will grow, of course, the more perfect Roses, enumerated hereafter as Roses suitable for exhibition; but not requiring them in quantity, he will have ample room to combine with them those varieties which, though their individual flowers are not sufficiently symmetrical for the show, have their own special grace and beauty—the garden Roses, which I now propose to discuss.

He must not omit the blushing, fresh, fragrant Provence. It was to many of us the Rose of our childhood, and its delicious perfume passes through the outer sense into our hearts, gladdening them with bright and happy dreams, saddening them with lone and chill awakings. It brings more to us than the fairness and sweet smell of a Rose. We paused in our play to gaze on it, with the touch of a vanished hand in ours, with a father's blessing on our heads, and a mother's prayer that we might never lose our love of the pure and beautiful. Happy they who retain or regain that love: and thankful am I that, with regard to Roses, the child was father to the man. Yes, I was a Rosarian æt. meâ IV., never to be so happy again in this world as when the fingers, which are writing now, plucked from the brook-side, from the sunny bank, from the meadow and the hedgerow and the wood, the violet, the primrose, the cowslip, the orchis, and the rose. Nay, about my seventh summer I oft presided at a flowershow "-for thus we designated a few petals of this Provence Rose, or of some other flower placed behind a piece of broken glass, furtively appropriated when the glazier

was at dinner, and cutting, not seldom, our small fingers (retribution swift upon the track of crime), which we backed with newspaper turned over the front as a frame or edging, and fastened from the resources of our natural gums.

Mr

And now, can any of my readers appease indignation and satisfy curiosity by informing me who first called the Provence Rose "Old Cabbage," and why ?1 For myself, "I should as soon have thought of calling an earthquake genteel," as Dr Maitland remarked, when an old lady near to him during an oratorio declared the Hallelujah Chorus to be "very pretty." It must have been a tailor who substituted the name of his beloved esculent for a word so full-fraught with sweetness, so suggestive of the brave and the beautiful, of romance and poesy, sweet minstrelsy and trumpet-tones. The origin of the title Provence is, I am aware, somewhat obscure. Rivers thinks that it cannot have been given because the Rose was indigenous to Provence in France, or our French brethren would have proudly claimed it, instead of knowing it only by its specific name, Rose à cent feuilles; but we may have received it, nevertheless, from Provence, just as Provence, when Provincia, received it-Rosa centifolia―from her Roman masters, and may have named it accordingly; or we may have had it direct from Italy, as stated in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. Be this as it may, we have all the rhyme, and enough of the reason, to justify our preference for the more euphonious term, and I vote "Old Cabbage" to the pigs.

The Rosarian should devote a small bed of rich soil, well manured, to the cultivation of this charming flower, growing it on its own roots, and pruning closely.

The Double Yellow Provence Rose, of a rich, glowing, buttercup yellow as to complexion, and prettily cupped

1 I am, sub rosa, well aware that (as Miller writes in his Dictionary) the Cabbage Rose is so called "because its petals are closely folded over each other like cabbages."