1869.] THE ROSE. 291 



passed ? I believe, I hope so. I believe that our sons will see the 

 Rose, developing its perfections more and more to reverential skill, and 

 I hope that the sight may bring to their hearts our love and happiness, 

 for it cannot bring them more. The Roses of to-day exhaust all our 

 powers of admiration, our finite appreciation of the beautiful. The 

 Roses of to-morrow can do no more. The Rosarian may "raise" 

 hereafter flowers large enough to cradle Cupid — 



" Within the petals of a Eose 

 A sleeping love I spied; " 



but he cannot have a higher delight surveying them than Rivers 

 enjoyed over his George IV. one fine June morning, more than thirty 

 years ago.'" 



Mr Wood of Maresfield, who had learned the art of Rose-growing in 

 sunny France, was the next valiant knight who made his bow to the 

 Queen of Beauty, and won high honour in her lists. Then followed 

 Mr Adam Paul of Cheshunt, and then Mr Lane of Birkhampstead. 

 These were the heroes of my youth, and when I joined the service, a 

 raw recruit, in 1846, the four last named — Rivers, AVood, Paul, Lane 

 — were its most distinguished chiefs. But our warfare in those days 

 was mere skirmishing. We were only a contingent of Flora's army — 

 the Rose was but an item of the general flower-show. We were never 

 called to the front; we were placed in no van, save that which took us 

 to the show. And yet, then as now, whatever might be its position, 

 the Rose was the favourite flower ; then as now, the visitor, oppressed 

 by the size and by the splendour of gigantic specimen plants, would 

 turn to this sweet flower, and sigh, " There is nothing, after all, like the 

 Rose." 



Year by year my enthusiasm increased, and my Roses multiplied 

 from a dozen to a score, from a score to a hundred, from a hundred to 

 a thousand, trees. They came into my garden a very small band of 

 settlers, and speedily, after the example of other colonists, they civilised 

 all the former inhabitants from off the face of the earth. Nor were 

 they content with the absolute occupation of that portion of my grounds 

 in which they were first planted. The Climbing Roses peeped over the 

 ■wall on one side, and the tall Standards looked over the Yew hedge on 

 the other, and strongly urged upon their crowded brethren beneath 

 (as high and prosperous ones had urged before upon their poorer kins- 

 folk, pressing them too closely) an exodus to other diggings, to " fields 

 fresh and pastures nev/." So there was a congress of the great military 

 chiefs, Brennus (Hybrid China), Scipio (GalKca), Marechal Bugeaud 



* See his 'Amateur's Guide,' ninth edition, p. 32. I may here express my 

 gratitude to Mr Rivers for a copy of his first catalogue, and for the dates and 

 facts, which I have repeated, concerning the old Rosarians. 



