1869.] THE ROSE. 247 



the Sweet-Brier, with no flowers to speak of, remind many a gaudy 

 neighbour that fine feathers do not constitute a perfect bird, and that 

 men have other senses as well as that of sight to please. Not even 

 among the Roses shall we find a more delicious perfume. The Thurif er 

 wears a sombre cassock, but no sweeter incense rises heavenward. 



In one of our most beautiful midland gardens there is a circular 

 space hedged in, and filled exclusively with sweet-scented leaves 

 and flowers. There grows the Eglantine and the Honeysuckle, the 

 Gilliflower, the Clove, and Stock, Sweet Peas and Musk, Jasmine 

 and Geranium, Verbena and Heliotrope — but the Eglantine to me, 

 when I passed through " The Sweet Garden," as it is called, just after a 

 soft May shower, had the sweetest scent of them all. It is an idea 

 very gracefully imagined and happily realised, but suggested by, and 

 still suggesting, sorrowful sympathies, for the owner of that garden 

 is blind. 



The Austrian Brier is a Sweet-Brier also ; and though not so frag- 

 rant in its foliage as our own old favourite, it brings us, in the variety 

 called Persian Yellow, a satisfactory recompense — namely, flowers of 

 deepest, brightest yellow, prettily shaped, but small. This Rose is 

 almost the earliest to tell us that summer is at hand, first by unfold- 

 ing its sweet leaves, of a most vivid refreshing green, and then by 

 its golden blooms. It grows well on the brier, but is preferable, when 

 size is an object, on its own roots, from which it soon sends vigorous 

 suckers, and so forms a large bush. In pruning, the amateur will do 

 well to remember the warning — 



" Ah me ! what perils do environ 

 The man who meddles with cold iron ; " 



seeing that if he is too vivacious with his knife, he wiU inevitably de- 

 stroy all hopes of bloom. Let him remove weakly wood altogether, and 

 then only shorten by a few inches the more vigorous shoots. 



We will pass now from garden Roses, which bloom but once, to 

 those which are called Perpetual, " biferique rosaria Psesti." What a 

 change in my garden since, forty years ago, the " old Monthly " and 

 another member of the same family, but of a deep crimson complexion 

 (Fabvier, most probably), were the only Roses of continuous bloom ! 

 and now among 3000 trees not more than 30 are summer Roses. All 

 the rest Perpetuals, or rather, for I must repeat it, called Perpetuals 

 by courtesy, seeing that many of them score in their second innings, 

 and but few resume their former glory in autumn. They are, never- 

 theless, as superior for the most part in endurance as in quality to 

 the summer Roses, and they supply an abundance of the most beauti- 

 ful varieties both for the purpose now under consideration, the general 

 ornamentation of the rosary, and for public exhibition. 



