1869.] THE ROSE. 5 



by their dogged strange reluctance to follow the very best advice. 

 There was at Cambridge, five-and-twenty years, an insolent, foul- 

 mouthed, pugnacious sweep, who escaped for two terms the sublime 

 licking which he " annexed " finally, because no one liked to tackle the 

 soot. There were scores of undergraduates, to whom pugilism was a 

 thing of beauty and a joy for ever, who had the power and the desire to 

 punish his impudence, but they thought of the close wrestle, — they re- 

 flected on the "hug," and left him. To drop metaphor, there is no more 

 valuable manure ; but it is, from circumstances which require no ex- 

 planation, more suitable for the farm than the garden, especially as we 

 have a substitute, quite as efficacious, and far more convenient and 

 agreeable in use. 



No, not "burnt earth." I spoke as earnestly as I could of the 

 value of that application in my last chapter (p. 513), because it is 

 impossible in many cases to exaggerate its worth, but I alluded at the 

 same time to another indispensable addition which must be made to 

 the soil of a Eose-garden, and now I will tell you what it is : I will 

 tell you where I found the Philosopher's Stone in the words of that 

 fable by ^sop, which is, I believe, the first of the series, and which 

 was first taught to me in the French language, — " Un coq, grattant 

 sur un fuynier, trouvait par hazard une ^9ier?*e precieuse ; " or, as it is 

 written in our English version, " A brisk young cock, in company 

 with two or three pullets, his mistresses, raking upon a dunghill for 

 something to entertain them with, happened to scratch up a jewel." 

 The little allegory is complete : I was the brisk young cock, my 

 favourite pullet was the Eose, and in a heap of farmyard manure I 

 found the gift so precious to her. 



Yes, here is the mine of gold and silver, gold medals and silver 

 cups for the grower of prize Eoses ; and to all who love them, the 

 best diet for their health and beauty, the most strengthening tonic 

 for their weakness, and the surest medicine for disease. " Dear me ! " 

 exclaims some fastidious reader, " what a nasty brute the man is ! 

 He seems quite to revel in refuse, and to dance on his dunghill with 

 delight ! " The man owns to the soft impeachment. If the man had 

 been a Eoman Emperor he would have erected the most magnificent 

 temple in honour of Sterculus, the son of Faunus, that Eome ever 

 saw. Because Sterculus, the son of Faunus — so Pliny tells — dis- 

 covered the art and advantage of spreading dung upon the land ; and 

 he should have appeared in the edifice dedicated to him graven larger 

 than life in pure gold, riding proudly in his family chariot, the currus 

 Stereurosus (Anglice, muck-cart), with the agricultural trident in his 

 hand. As it is, I always think of him with honour when I meet the 

 vehicle in which he loved to drive — have ever a smile of extra sweet- 



