98 THE GARDENER. [March 



glides smoothly from their glossy quarters ! How they snoit as they 

 leave their stalls ! How proudly they elevate (I disdain that puny 

 monosyllable, cock) their trim-cut, well-combed tails, and how genially 

 the good dealer whispers to the young gentleman, with a kindly nudge 

 and wink, " that's about all you'll let the field see of him, if you buys 

 him, and gets a start." And suppose at this juncture you also whisper 

 in the other ear, "try them, and take your choice." 



Or go with his pretty sister to some jeweller's glittering store. Let 

 him display to eyes far brighter than his diamonds, and with a tender 

 grace of manipulation which tells how costly is his ware, casket after 

 casket of lustrous gems. Then invite her to select her suite. Or take 

 her to some gay emporium — woe to the man who shall cry " shop " 

 therein, for fifty pairs of angry scissors would find swift way to his 

 heart ! — where, behind acres of plate-glass, and upon miles of counter, 

 the rich thick silk stands up in pyramids, and the delicate aristocratic 

 satin gleams like an opal. Ask the shopmen (I beg pardon, the aides-de- 

 camp, or whatever may be their modern title) to educe their newest, 

 most rechercTte robes, and beseech of Venus to choose. 



Will there not be in these cases a delicious perplexity, an ecstasy 

 of amazement, an embarrassment of riches ? Imagine to yourself this 

 happy hesitation, and you will know something of my present sweet 

 uncertainty. How am I to begin my selection of Roses ? It seems 

 as though, gazing upon an illuminated city, I was asked to point 

 out the brightest candles ; as though, where fire-flies gleamed by the 

 million, and humming-birds glowed by the thousand, I was ordered to 

 transfix with the entomological pin the brighest specimens of the one, 

 and to adjust upon the ornithological wires the most exquisite exam- 

 ples of the other. 



As to any scientific arrangement, ethnological, genealogical, or phy- 

 siological classification, I am helplessly, hopelessly incapable. I have 

 as "poor brains" for these studies as Cassio for strong drinks. The 

 very words make my head ache, and I long to break them up as one 

 breaks up, in wintry days, some big black coal with a poker. " I am 

 no botanist," as the young Oxonian pleaded to the farmer who reproved 

 him for riding over wheat ; nor do I envy, although I honour, him. I 

 do not envy him, because, strange as it may seem, he is very rarely an 

 enthusiastic gardener ; because I never remember to have seen a scien- 

 tific botanist and a successful practical florist under the same hat. 

 Wherefore I am content, when I put on my own "Christy," made for 

 me by one who loves Roses, and grows them well, to confess meekly 

 that it covers a skull void and empty of scientific treasures, but the 

 property, I trust, of a true florist. 



But how am I to begin with the Roses ? I fancy that I hear a hiss 



