200 THE GARDENER. [May 



the swell I spoke of would have considered oflfal — a Moss-Rosebud, 

 with a bit of Fern attached. Only a two})enny Rose ; but as I carried 

 it in my coat, and gazed on it, and specially when, waking next morn- 

 ing, I saw it in my water-jug — saw it as I lay in my dingy bedroom, 

 and heard the distant roar of Piccadilly instead of the thrush's song — 

 saw it, and thought of my own Roses — it seemed as though they had 

 sent to me a messenger, whom they knew I loved, to bid me "come 

 home, come home." Then I thought of our dinner-party overnight, 

 and how my neighbour thereat, a young gentleman who had nearly 

 finished a fine fortune and a strong constitution, had spoken to me of 

 a mutual friend, one of the best and cheeriest fellows alive, as " an 

 awful duffer," "moped to death," "buried alive in some dreadful 

 hole" (dreadful hole being a charming place in the country), because 

 he has no taste for stealing or being robbed at races, can't see the wit 

 of swearing, and has an insuperable partiality for his own wife. And 

 I arose, reflecting ; and though I had taken my lodgings and arranged 

 my plans for three more days in London, I went home that morning, 

 with the Rosebud in my coat. 



Ah, my brothers ! of the many blessings which our gardens bring, 

 there is none more precious than the contentment with our lot, the 

 deeper love of home, which makes us ever so loth to leave them, so 

 glad to return once more. And I would that some kindly author, who 

 loves books and gardens too, would collect for us in one book (a large 

 one) the testimony of great and good men to the power of this sweet 

 and peaceful influence — of such witnesses as Bacon and Xewton, Evelyn 

 and Cowley, Temple, Pope, Addison, and Scott. Writing two of these 

 names, I am reminded of words particularly pertinent to the incident 

 which led me to quote them, and which will be welcome, I do not 

 doubt, even to those gardeners who know them best. 



" If great delights," writes Cowley, " be joined with so much inno- 

 cence, I think it is ill-done of men not to take them here, where they 

 are so tame and ready at hand, rather than to hunt for them in courts 

 and cities, where they are so wild, and the chase so troublesome and 

 dangerous. We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature, 

 we are there among the pitiful shifts of policy ; we work here in the 

 light and open ways of the divine bounty, we grope there in the 

 dark and confused labyrinths of human malice ; our senses here are 

 feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all 

 sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their con- 

 traries. Here is harmless and cheap plenty; there guilty and expensive 

 luxury." 



And Sir William Temple, after a long experience of all the gratifi- 

 cations which honour and wealth could bring, writes thus from his 



