292 THE GARDENER. [July 



(Tea), Duke of Cambridge (Damask), Tippoo Saib (Gallica), Generals 

 Allard, Jacqueminot, Kleber, and Washington (all Hybrid Chinas), 

 Colonel Coombes, Captain Sisolet, etc. ; and their counsel, like 

 Moloch's, was for open war. They said it was expedient to readjust 

 their boundaries. They unanimously advised an immediate raid upon 

 the vegetable kingdom which adjoined their own. They discovered that 

 they had been for years grossly insulted by their neighbours (Aimee 

 Vibert was almost sure that a young Potato had winked his eye at 

 her), and the time for revenge was come. No, not revenge, but for 

 enlightenment and amelioration ; seeing that these blessings must 

 inevitably attend their intercourse with any other nation, and that, 

 consequently, an invasion, with a touch of fire and sword, was beyond 

 a doubt the most delightful thing that could happen to the barbarians 

 over the way. Geant des Batailles (Hybrid Perpetual) waved the Stand- 

 ard of Marengo (ditto), and they sallied forth at once. They routed 

 the Rhubarb, they carried the Asparagus with resistless force, they 

 cut down the Raspberries to a cane. They annexed that vegetable 

 kingdom, and they retain it still. 



Yes, everything w^as made to subserve the Rose. My good old 

 father, whose delight was in agriculture, calmly watched the robbery 

 of his farm, merely remarking, with a quaint gravity and kindly satire, 

 that, " not doubting for a moment the lucrative wisdom of applying 

 the best manure in unlimited quantities to the common hedgerow 

 Brier, he ventured, nevertheless, to express his hope that I would leave 

 a little for the Wheat." 



Simultaneously with this love of the Rose, there deepened in my 

 heart an indignant conviction that the flower of flowers did not receive 

 its due share of public honours. I noticed that the lovers of the Car- 

 nation had exhibitions of Carnations only, and that the worshippers of 

 the Tulip ignored all other idols. I saw that the Queen of Autunin 

 refused the alliance of each foreign potentate, when she led out her 

 fighting troops in crimson and gold gorgeous. The Chrysanthemum, 

 alone in her glory, made the halls of Stoke Newington gay. Even the 

 vulgar hairy Gooseberry maintained an exhibition of its own ; and I knew 

 a cottager whose kitchen was hung round with copj^er kettles, the prizes 

 which he had won with his Roaring Lions, his Londons, Thumpers, 

 and Crown-Bobs. Was the Queen of Summer, forsooth, to be degraded 

 into a lady-in-waiting 1 Was the royal supremacy to be lost ? No — like 



" Lars Porsenna of Clusium, 



When by his gods he swore, 

 That the great house of Tarquin 

 Should suffer wrong bo more " — 



I vowed that her Majesty should have her own again, and in a court 



