1869.] THE ROSE. 245 



logues, and others include but two or three able-bodied Roses on their 

 muster-roll — it would be advisable, I think, to ignore altogether these 

 minor distinctions, and to classify as summer Roses all those which bloom 

 but once. !N"ot without a painful sigh can we older rosarians witness 

 the removal of our old landmarks — not without a loyal sorrow do we 

 say farewell to friends who have brightened our lives with so much 

 gladness 3 but we cannot long remember our losses, surrounded as we 

 are by such abundant gains, and the tears of memory must pass away 

 as quickly as the dew in summer. We ring out the old with funeral 

 bells j we ring in the new with a merry peal. Pensive upon our for- 

 mer favourites, and poring over ancient lists, we are as wanderers in 

 some fair burial-ground, half garden and half graves (would that " God's 

 acre " were always so !), reading mournfully the names of the departed. 

 Let us rejoice the rather to leave the shade of melancholy boughs for the 

 sunlit ground, which is garden all of it, and let us return to the sum- 

 mer Roses, demanding and deserving admission. 



The white and red Roses of my childhood have long left the garden 

 in which they grew. I see the former sometimes by old farmhouses 

 and in cottage plots, wildly vigorous as a gypsy's hair, and covering 

 huge bushes with its snowy flowers profusely, like a Guelder Rose, 

 recalling the suggestion of the elder Pliny, that once upon a time the 

 land we live in was named, after its white Roses, Albion — ob albas 

 rosas.* But the latter, the Damask, with its few rich velvety-crimson 

 petals, is a memory, and that is all. Nor do I ask a restoration in 

 either case ; only that they may be replaced by better Roses — the 

 White by Blanchefleur, very pretty, although the blanche is decidedly 

 a French white ; by Madame Hardy, a true white, and a well-formed 

 Rose, but, alas! "green-eyed," like "jealousy" — envious, it maybe, 

 of Madame Zoutman, who, though not of such a clear complexion, is 

 free from ocular infirmities ; or, with more reason, of Princesse Clemen- 

 tine, before described (see p. 199) as one of our best white Roses; 

 by Princesse de Lamballe, which most resembles the Alba of my boy- 

 hood, producing an abundance of Roses, distinct and pretty, but 

 undersized ; and by Triomphe de Bayeux, whose praise has been 

 sung at p. 151, su2:)ra. 



These white Roses are no candidates (though candidatoe) at our 

 severe competitive examinations ; but they are delightful members of 

 our Rose community, beautiful in themselves, and enhancing greatly 

 the beauty of others. We must not be fastidious because they are of 

 medium size in some cases and not purely white in others, remem- 



* " Albion insula sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit, vel ob rosas albas, 

 quibus abuudat." — Hist. Nat., iv. 16. 



